Aliyah's Archives

Movies are on screen, while pays are viewed in person. While watching a play, you see every character on stage at once, smaller details are harder to see and often have to be accentuated in some way. Movies also have cuts and close-ups to transition scenes and show smaller details. Books often have similar structure, but they are longer, more fleshed out, and on page rather than on screen. Audiences also have to create their own images when reading with creativity and visualization. Paintings and photos display a short moment and the story builds around it. There is no movement or audio, and displays only one scene rather than multiple.

Implicit meaning is implied, it lies underneath the surface of the story. Explicit is more clear and is simply what the movie is about rather than the lessons and meanings underneath.

I like that this chapter discussed the Bechdel test. The criteria for this test means a movie must have two female characters who discuss anything other than a man. Once learning about this test, it’s surprising how many movies don’t pass this test. 

Patterns build expectation, structure, and security.

The tools and tech filmmakers use to convey meaning and mood, the means by which something is expressed and experienced. 

A story, a type of movie, a way of structuring a story, or a broader concept that includes and goes beyond any of these definitions

Narrative, documentary, and experimental. Narrative tells a story, arranged (usually) chronologically, with logical structure. Tends to have cause-and-effect sequences, with characters and development of those characters. It also leans toward fiction.

Documentaries are more focused on fact, research, and historical events. Still has that structure and cause-and-effect sequences, but tends to lean toward non-fiction.  

Experimental movies defy these usual expectations of a movie’s structure. There’s no “right” way to make experimental movies, and they tend to be made just to defy traditional structure end expectations. They’re unorthodox with a focus on personal imagery and style.

 Reenactments, text and graphics, archival material, narration, interviews, and b-roll.

Experimental films are not commercial, do not conform to conventional expectations of cause and effect. They are personal, exploit the possibilities of cinema, critique culture and media, and invite individual interpretation. 

Genre is a way to classify movies based on content, structure, themes, and style. It gives a base guideline or “how-to” to make a certain type of movie and what expectations we will have upon viewing a movie of a certain genre. 

Story formulas, theme, character type, setting, presentation, and stars.

It is a different form of filmmaking, and does not use real physical actors. Often drawn out by artists, with voice actors doing the dialogue.

The section: Experimental Movies Then and Now was very interesting. It displays how experimental movies reflect the society around them and flow with time. All movies do this, but I personally think experimental films are more relevant to certain time periods. They show what is unconventional or taboo. It’s not a polished narrative storytelling or an objective documentary, it shows the underbelly of history and human emotion. 

Omniscient narration knows all, and tells us only what the narrator wants us to know. It knows every character’s thoughts, perspective, emotions, and secrets. It can choose what to tell us and what to keep hidden, sometimes the audience knows even the information that none of the characters themselves know. Restricted narration tends to be from one character’s perspective, only knowing their inner workings.

A surprise is sudden and shocking, while suspense is built up over time. Suspense is more difficult to create. It requires effective build up, time (and timing). 

Round characters are complex, and flat characters are uncomplicated. I think this is incredibly important for any writer to understand and greatly impacts the quality of a movie, show, or novel.

“Staging or putting on an action or scene”. The things we see in a shot, objects, people, surroundings, lighting, movement. 

Design, lighting, composition, and movement. 

Design: process the look of the setting, objects, and actors is determined. This includes props, decor, costumes, hair, makeup, set design. Lighting: Illumination and shadow of scenes to evoke a certain emotion. Composition: the organization of objects and people. Balance on the screen, use of size and depth. Movement: Objects and characters moving in scenes (or lack of movement).

Compositional stress is purposely breaking the rule of thirds and denying balance. Very important for creating unsettling or tense feelings. 

Camera crew, and electricity and lighting. Camera crews handles the camera and shooting each scene while electricity and lighting prepares the camera and lighting for a scene.

Direction is the angle at which light is coming from. Ex. behind, in front, below above. This can dramaticize a scene, add mystery, and evoke emotion using contrast and shadows. The source of lighting is where lighting is coming from, such as a lamp or window. Different sources of lighting can create different moods.

Short-focal-length lens/wide-angle lens: stretches appearance of depth and exaggerates space. Long-focal-length lens: compresses depth and makes objects look closer. Middle-focal-length lens: the “normal” lens. Similar to our day-to-day depth perception. Zoom lens/variable-focal-length lens: changes focal lengths without having to change lenses. (also prime lenses)

Long shot, close-up, and medium shot

Framing is the process by which the cinematographer uses boundaries and dimensions to determine what we see, composition is the things that are within the framing of a shot, and how those things are composed. 

Eye-level, high angle, low angle, dutch angle, bird’s-eye view

Pan and Tilt shot, dolly shot, zoom, crane shot.

A long take lasts longer than a conventional shot. It tends to show multiple things happening in one shot, moving around a scene to portray various scenes within one. Comparatively, a long shot shows a wider part of the scene, a character’s entire body and surroundings. Short shots often feel choppy and long shots can make busy scenes feel enveloping.

Mechanical effects, created on set. Optical effects manipulating something “im-camera” or on the film itself, visual effects created using computers. Motion capture, actors use bodysuits and computers to record each visual movement.

In the movie Swiss Army Man they used multiple dummies to replicate different scenes. 

Acting was a lot more constricted and controlled, actors had a lot less autonomy than they do now. 

Movies are themselves a relationship between actors and the camera (and everyone behind the scenes), but what most people see is what the camera sees. 

Auditions, looks, and acting styles.

Acting styles. All actors have different styles and ways of doing things, and finding a cast that has similar styles and chemistry is incredibly important to effective storytelling. 

The Kuleshov effect is the idea that by juxtaposing images, movies can convey meaning not contained in any shot by itself. Or, the audience may ascribe an emotion to an actor “doing nothing” based on what happened before or after the shot.

1. Organize fragmented action and events
2. Create meaning through juxtaposition
3. Create spatial relationships between shots
4. Create temporal relationships between shots
5. Establish and control shot duration, pace, and rhythm.

An imaginary line or axis of action drawn between characters, it affects camera movement across this line and ensures scenes are shown relatively and spatially similar.

Split screen isn’t just used to show simultaneous action, but also state of mind. It can compare reality and expectation, different experiences and juxtaposition, or isolation. I particularly noticed this the other day when I introduced my boyfriend to Requiem for a Dream. He asked why there was a split screen when two characters were together. I responded with “it looks cool.” 

Art of creating the sound for a film. A sound designer is in charge of combining editing and mixing to manipulate sound in a movie. 

Diegetic sounds come from a source in the film’s world and nondiegetic sounds come from an alternate source. Nondiegetic sounds are for the audience (like music) to evoke mood rather than being from something in the movie directly.

A sound effect is created specifically for the scene or event, ambience is the sound happening around the scene naturally, and Foley sounds are recorded in sync with a scene. 

There are Foley artists who use prompts to make sound effects for a scene. 

German expressionism, French Avant-Garde, Soviet Montage, The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema, Cinema Novo and Latin American New Cinema. I enjoy the historical context surrounding all these eras, and think they are all very unique to each time period. 

Cinema Novo and Latin American New Cinema focused on taboo topics such as sex and sexual identity. 

Film stock and film projectors.

An independent system gives directors and actors more freedom of choice and creative room.. 

Preproduction is the planning and preparation of a movie. Buying the rights to a novel, pitch, or script, rewriting, budgeting, visualization, arranging and building sets. Production is the shooting of the film. Post production is editing, finishing, marketing, and distributing the film. 

Digital vs Film technology. Film is an analogue medium that creates a physical product on the film itself, while digital technology does not produce a physical film and is instead stored on a digital memory card.