Lecture 05: Formalist Media Theory

2003.02.05 - SLIDE 1IS246 - SPRING 2003

Lecture 05: Formalist Media Theory

IS246Multimedia Information

(FILM 240, Section 4)

Prof. Marc DavisUC Berkeley SIMS

Monday and Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pmSpring 2003

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is246/s03/

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Narrative Form and Narration

– Introduction to Editing

• Formalist Media Theory

– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion

• Action Items for Next Time

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Narrative Form

• Narrative– A chain of events in cause-effect relationship

occurring in time and space

• Story and Plot– Story

• Set of all events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly represented and those the viewer infers

– Plot• Everything visibly and audibly present in the film• All the story events that are directly depicted

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Teeth Brushing Example

• Brushing Teeth– Protagonist stands in front of bathroom mirror– Protagonist opens medicine cabinet to

remove toothbrush and toothpaste tube– Protagonist squeezes out toothpaste on

toothbrush– Protagonist brushes teeth– Protagonist drinks water from glass– Protagonist spits out water and toothpaste

residue

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Time

• Temporal order– Flashback– Flashforward

• Temporal duration– Story duration– Plot duration– Screen duration

• Temporal frequency– Repetition of events

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Narration

• Plot’s way of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects

• Moment-by-moment process that guides us in building the story out of the plot

• Involves range (unrestricted/restricted) and depth (perceptual and mental subjectivity) of knowledge of story information

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Kuleshov and Isenhour

• Kuelshov: role of montage in cinema– Kuleshov-Pudovkin experiment and the

“Kuleshov Effect”

• Isenhour: context and order in film editing– The meaning of a shot will vary with its

context– By changing the order of shots, the meaning

is changed

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Cinematography

• The “shot”– 1 –> n frames of images captured sequentially (or designed to

appear so)• Photographic properties of shots

– Framing of the mise-en-scene– Exposure, focus – Layers (composites)

• Cinematographic properties of shots– Frame Rate

• Apparent speed can be affected by difference in capture frame rate and playback frame rate

– Slow-motion (playback fewer frames per second than captured)– Fast-motion (playback more frames per second than captured)

– Movement of camera and and/or camera support• Lens• Tripod• Truck

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Static Framing

• Size and shape of the frame– Aspect ratio– Masks

• Framing defines onscreen and offscreen space– Offscreen space

• Space beyond each of the four edges of the frame• Space behind the set• Space behind or near the camera

• Framing controls the distance, angle, level, and height of a vantage point onto the mise-en-scene

• Angle• Level• Height• Distance

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Camera Orientation

• Angle– Straight on– High angle– Low angle

• Level– Canting (rare)

• Height– Often relative to human figure

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Camera Distance

• Extreme long shot– Human figure is barely visible

• Long Shot– Figures are more prominent than in the extreme long shot, but the background

still dominates• Medium Long Shot

– Human figure is framed from the knees up (very common shot)• Medium Shot

– Human figure is framed from the waist up (expression and gesture are more visible)

• Medium Close-Up– Frames human figure from the top of the chest up

• Close Up– Head, hands, or feet, or a small object

• Extreme Close-Up– Singles out a portion of the face (eyes or lips)

• NOTE: In judging camera distance, the relative proportion of the material framed is the basic determinant

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Mobile Framing

• Camera movements– Lens movement

• Zoom– Camera movement on static support

• Pan• Tilt

– Camera movement on moving support• Tracking/dolly/truck• Crane• Aerial (helicopter, airplane)

• Camera supports– Tripod– Steadicam– Handheld– Mounts on other objects and vehicles

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Reframing

• Reframing in relation to figure movement– Subtle adjustments of pan and tilt– Following shots

• Pan• Tracking shot• Crane shot

• Reframing independent of figure movement– Guide attention of viewer on captured subject– Reveal information– Establish next location

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Functions of Camera Movement

• Often increases information about the space of the image

• Objects become more vivid and sharp than in stationary framings

• Often reveals new objects or figures• Provides new perspectives on objects and figures adding

to our information about them and their 3-dimensionality• Camera movement appears to be a substitute for our

movement– Unlike zooming or scaling, in genuine camera movement we see

different sides of objects and backgrounds – When the camera moves, we sense our own movement through

space– Whereas when the lens zooms, a part of the space seems

magnified or demagnified

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Editing

• Editing joins shots– Shots are one or more frames recorded in continuous time and

contiguous space

• There are various joins for Shots A and B– Cut

• Shot A then Shot B

– Fade-out• Gradually darkens end of Shot A to black

– Fade-in• Gradually lightens from black to Shot A

– Dissolve• Briefly superimpose end of Shot A on beginning of Shot B

– Wipe• Shot B replaces Shot A by means of a boundary line moving across

the screen

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Dimensions of Film Editing

• Graphic relations between Shot A and Shot B

• Rhythmic relations between Shot A and Shot B

• Spatial relations between Shot A and Shot B

• Temporal relations between Shot A and Shot B

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Graphic and Rhythmic Relations

• Graphic relations– Editing together any two shots permits the

interaction, through similarity and difference, of the purely pictorial qualities of these two shots

• Rhythmic relations– Shot duration (long, short)– Shot duration patterns (acceleration,

deceleration)

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Spatial Relations

• Editing lets an omniscient range of knowledge become visible as omnipresence

• Editing permits any two points in space to be related through similarity, difference, or development

• Editing enables the construction of spaces

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Constructing Space

• Situate location of Shot B with establishing Shot A

• Construct illusion of spatial contiguity through joining of Shot A and Shot B (Kuleshov Effect)

• Create physically impossible or ambiguous spaces

• Establish two discontiguous spaces through parallel editing (i.e., crosscutting)

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Temporal Relations

• Temporal order– Flashback– Flashforward

• Temporal duration– Temporal ellipsis– Temporal expansion

• Temporal frequency– Shot repetition

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Temporal Duration

• Temporal ellipsis– Punctuation

• Dissolve, wipe, fade

– Empty frames• Shot A (character exits frame, then empty frame)• Shot B (empty frame, then character enters frame)

– Cutaway

• Temporal expansion– Overlapping editing

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Continuity Editing

• Graphic continuity– Smoothly continuous from shot to shot– Figures are balanced and symmetrically

composed in frame– Overall lighting tonality remains constant– Action occupies central zone of the frame

• Rhythmic continuity– Dependent on camera distance of the shot

• Long shots last longer than medium shots that last longer than close-up shots

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Spatial Continuity Editing

• 180 degree rule– Ensures that relative

positions in the frame remain consistent

– Ensures consistent eyelines (i.e., gaze vectors)

– Ensures consistent screen direction (i.e., direction of character movement within the frame)

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Use of 180 Degree Rule

• Establishing shot to establish axis of action• Sequence of shot/reverse shots

– Focuses our attention on character reactions

• Eyeline match reinforces spatial continuity (Kuleshov Effect)

• Match on action reinforces spatial continuity • Following 180 degree rule allows “cheat cuts”• Continuity of action can override violations of

180 degree rule

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Temporal Continuity Editing

• Temporal order– Forwardly sequential except for occasional

use of flashbacks signaled by a dissolve or cut

• Temporal duration (seldom expanded)– Usually in a scene plot duration equals story

duration– Punctuation (dissolves, wipes, fades), empty

frames, and cutaways can elide time in shot and scene transitions

– Montage sequences can compress time

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Discussion Questions

• On Cinematography (Rachna Dhamija)– Bordwell describes the significance that mise-en-scene, framing,

shot duration, and other cinematographic effects have on narrative. What are the implications for the design of automatic video capture systems?

– Still cameras have evolved to give users more feedback on framing, lighting, etc. to improve their capture technique. What feedback could be given to end users of video capture systems to improve amateur cinematography? What could be automated (or made into a template)?

– Bordwell describes cinematic action that occurs across frame and shot boundaries. How can we represent this with metadata?

– What impact does the improvement of digital manipulation and post-capture editing techniques have on mise-en-scene and cinematography? Does it minimize their importance?

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• On Cinematography (Beto Ritchie)– The uniformity among shooting, printing, and projection rates are

more important than the choice of any particular rate of shooting or projection. Why?

– How is the use of offscreen space used effectively to surprise the viewer? How can it be used differently than a theatre's offscreen space? What are the six zones of offscreen space?

– A curious industry question: If the director and cinematographer are two different persons, which is often the case, how much power and control does the cinematographer have over the outcome and look of the film? Where the director draw the line? Cinematography covers so many important aspects of a film that there must be overlapping decisions and tasks that must be worked out between the director and cinematographer. In a film like American Beauty, which had amazing cinematographic aspects from lighting to framing, I wonder how much of it was the director Sam Mendes' work and ideas, how much of it was the cinematographer Conrad Hall's input, and how much of it was due to the collaboration of both filmmakers.

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• On Editing (Ka-Ping Yee)– How might a video editing system detect places

where eyeline match or match on action might occur?– How might such a system advise or warn an editor of

potentially beneficial or misleading effects of the match? Could it recommend safe places to cut?

– Can the principles of continuity editing be applied to improve comprehension of summarized footage?

• On Editing (Ana Ramirez)– Can the axis of action be recorded in the metadata

and what effect does this have for multimedia databases?

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• On Cinematography (Beto Ritchie)– Panchromatic film stock replaced orthochromatic in the mid-1920s. I

wonder if we are still using panchromatic color film stock or has it been replaced by a variety of new technologies?

– In the early 1920s, before the synchronization of the sound onto film and the introduction of the motorized camera, I wonder if camera men or directors were considered more valuable if they had the ability to hold a steady rate at cranking the film strip through the camera by hand and smoothly varying its rate when necessary.

– What strong cinematographic influence did Citizen Kane make in Hollywood during the 1940s?

– In most of film history, projection has lied outside of a filmmaker's control. But in the past years, what Hollywood filmmaker has tried to gain some control over how and with what tools his film is to be projected onto the screen?

– Depth of field and focus: I wanted to know what kind of focusing technique (shallow focus, deep focus, racking) is required to keep an image in focus if the camera itself is moving on a dolly? I am almost sure it is a combination of these techniques but the most used is probably deep focus.

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Today’s Agenda





– Cinematography

– Editing

• Discussion


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Readings for Next Week

• Monday 02/10– Christian Metz. Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. University of

Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991; pp. 92-146.– Umberto Eco. Articulations of the Cinematic Code. in Nichols, B. ed.,

University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976; pp. 590-607.– Roland Barthes. Action Sequences. in Strelka, J. ed., Patterns of

Literary Style. State University of Pennsylvania Press, University Park, Pennsylvania, 1971; pp. 5-14.

– Noel Burch. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1981; pp. 3-16.

• Wednesday 02/12– Sergei Eisenstein. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego, 1949; pp. 45-63 & 72-83.– David Bordwell. The Cinema of Eisenstein. Harvard University Press,

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993; pp. 111-162.– Herbert Zettl. Essentials of Applied Media Aesthetics. In: Media

Computing: Computational Media Aesthetics. Eds. Chitra Doria & Svetha Venkatesh. Boston: Kluwer, 2001; pp. 11-38.

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Lecture 05: Formalist Media Theory