Film Analysis Introduction

What does a director really do?

A director does not simply tell the story of film through the plot.

He or she uses other elements of the film making process to help the audience interpret the story of the film.

If you think about, a director is really telling the story from their point of view. In essence, they are manipulating the audience to think like they do.

Elements of Film

We will consider the following elements of film:

1. Angle

2. Focus

3. Shot

4. Montage

Note: Each of these elements have subcategories.

1. Angle

Low angle

High angle

Low angle

a shot in which the subject is filmed directly from below and the camera points up at the action or character, to make the subject appear larger than life, more formidable and menacing, or perhaps tall and regal

High Angle

a shot in which the subject is filmed from above and the camera points down on the action, often to make the subject small, weak and vulnerable

Focus -- communicates information to the audience.

Deep focus

Racking Focus

Shallow focus

Soft focus

Deep focus

Both close and distant planes are clearly visible (including the three levels of foreground, middle-ground, and extreme background objects) in the same shot.

Racking Focus Racking focus refers to the practice of changing the

focus of a lens such that an element in one plane of the image goes out of focus and an element at another plane in the image comes into focus.

This technique is an even more overt way of steering audience attention through the scene, as well as of linking two spaces or objects.

Example: The Graduate (1967) – the scene in which Elaine realizes that Benjamin is having an affair with an 'older woman' (her mother) by the focus shifting to the image of Elaine's mother (Mrs. Robinson) behind her

Shallow focus -- keeps only one plane in sharp focus. Shallow focus suggests psychological

introspection, since a character appears as

oblivious to the world around her/him.

Shots

Close-up and Extreme Close-up Shot Medium Shot Long Shot Cutaway Shot Establishing Shot Arc Shot

Close-Up and Extreme Close-Up Shot

A framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large.

In a close-up a person's head, or some other similarly sized object, would fill the frame.

Medium shot

Framing such than an object four or five feet high would fill most of the screen vertically

This is the most common shot used in films.

Long shot

a camera view of an object or character from a considerable distance so that it appears relatively small in the frame

Cutaway Shota brief shot that

momentarily interrupts a continuously-filmed action, followed by a cutback to the original shot; often filmed from the POV of the character and used to break up a sequence and provide some visual relief, or to ease the transition from one shot to the next, or to provide additional information, or to hint at an impending change

Establishing Shot

inform the audience with an overview in order to help identify and orient the locale or time for the scene and action that follows

Arc Shot

a shot in which the subject(s) is photographed by an encircling or moving camera.

Example: the dizzying camera shot during the Carrie (1976) prom scene.

Montage

This is a technique directors use in the editing room.

A Montage is: a relatively rapid succession of different shots

in a movie. the juxtaposition of such successive shots as

a cinematic technique.

Credits

http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/index.htm

http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms7. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0111495/1-2.jpg

http://classes.yale.edu/filmanalysis/htmfiles/sound.htm