Introduction to Film Studies

Mise-en-scène

Framing

• How to compose a frame

• ANGLE (of framing)

• In what angle a frame is composed: from which angle the subject is filmed.

• Of a wide range of angles, three more common angles

• STRAIGHT-ON, HIGH and LOW ANGLES

Framing

• The camera is placed at the eye-level of the subject of the frame or look straight on with it - Straight-on Angle shot

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• In this shot the camera is physically placed higher than the subject and thus looking down upon it – High Angle shot

Example of high and low angle shots in Tootsie Revelation scene

Framing

• A shot is taken from below the subject and the camera is looking up it – Low Angle shot

• Quentin Tarantino prefers this angle. From below

Framing

• LEVEL (of framing) – the degree to which the frame is level

• When the framing is level (horizontal), the horizontal edges of the frame will be parallel to the horizon of the shot and perpendicular to what is standing in the shot.

Framing

• Dutch Angle

• If what are horizontal and perpendicular are at diagonal angles, the frame is canted

• The canted framing is relatively rare. The framing in The Third Man is an example.

Canted (Dutch) angles in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire clip

Framing

• DISTANCE from the subject (camera distance) is categorized according to the scale of the human body on screen – long shot, medium shot, close-up shot etc.

Framing

• Extreme Long Shot – the shot taken from a high angle and a high position allowing the viewer to observe the character in the setting.

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• Long Shot – the camera distance in which human figures are shown in full from head to feet. The background dominates more than human figures.

Framing

• Medium Long Shot – The human figure is framed from about the knee up. As very common in classic Hollywood film, it is also called American shot. The human figure is prominent but so is the background

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• Medium Shot frames the human body from the waist up, while Medium Close-up Shot frames the body from the chest up. Human figures dominates the frame.

Framing• Close-up shot

• Shows just the head, hands, feet, or a small object and emphasizes facial expression, the details of a gesture, or a significance of the object

Framing

• Extreme Close-up Shot singles out a portion of the face, isolates a detail, and magnifies the minute.

Framing

Camera angle, level and distance help show film actions efficiently and emphatically. The complicated combination of high-angle, low-angle, long, medium, and close-up shots In Hitchcock’s Saboteur and Scott’s Blade Runner. Statue of Liberty

Framing

• Camera distance, height, level and angle often take on narrative functions. A shot framing helps emphasize the psychology of a character. David Lean’s Brief Encounter. A housewife’s suicide attempt is shown in a canted framing.

Framing

• Camera height, distance, angle and level can be changed within the shot – mobile framing – a unique aspect of film

• The change of framing is achieved by moving the camera during filming.

• Several kinds of camera movement

• Pan, Tilt, Tracking, and Crane

Framing

• The pan turns the camera horizontally on a vertical axis horizontally scanning space Breathless

• The tilt moves the camera on a horizontal axis or vertically Bride Wore Black

Framing

• In the tracking (dolly or trucking or traveling) shot, the camera as a whole change position

• Day for Night Pan & Travelling shot Day for Night

• In the crane shot, the camera moves about above the ground level, being carried by a crane.

Framing

• Example of tracking shots Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence

• Behind the Scene Tracking shot

Framing

• Example of the combination of tracking and crane shot in Orson Welles’s A Touch of Evil Opening shot

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• The shot size can be changed without moving the camera – zoom shot

• The zoom lens with adjustable focal length permits the photographer to change the shot size

• Impression of perspectival depth changes• The Conversation

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• When zooming in, the depth of field bocome shallow and the perspective narrow, when zooming out, the depth deepens and the perspectives widens.

• Dolly zoom; or vertigo shot – zoom in and track out at the same time

• The Goodfellas Goodfellas

One more example of dolly zoom in Jaws Raft scene

Origin of dolly zoom – Vertigo effect Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo Vertigo effect

Framing

• Analyse the framing, the camera angle, height, distance, movement of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde