Introduction to Film Studies - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Introduction to Film Studies

Mise

-en-scène Slide2

Lighting

In

under lighting

the light comes from below the subject filmed. In Tim Burton’s first

Batman

, the low angle shot is combined with

under lighting

.

It creates distorted images.

JokerSlide3

Jack Nicholson again shown in under lighting. It is frequently used in horror films.

Stanley Kubrick’s

Shining

Slide4
Slide5

Lighting

In

top lighting

the

spotlight shines down

from above. Marlene Dietrich’s face is lit from top front in Josef von Sternberg’s

Shanghai Express

(1932). A high frontal light brings out the line of her cheekbones and create shadows in her eye sockets. Hint of corruption and mysterious sexuality.

SXSlide6

Lighting

The position

of light

motivates

the lighting decisions and design.

In a scene from

La Terra

trema

,

Cora lights a

lamp

and light is directed to him from below. Slide7

Lighting

In

Colour

lighting, thin

colour

film placed in front of a light gives image a universal tint.Slide8

Lighting

In Michael Powell and

Emeric

Pressburger’s

Black Narcissus,

their cinematographer Jack Cardiff got scenes lit in bold

colours

. Intense key light comes from the screen right in blue and orange.Slide9

Lighting

The theatrical lighting in blue in the concluding sequence of

Nagisa

Oshima’s

last film,

Taboo

(1999) Slide10

Lighting

Dominant

colour

can be chosen to fit the mood of the film. Woody Allen’s

Purple Rose of Cairo

has sepia tone in order to reflect symbolically the mood of the Depression, which was the period setting for the film. Slide11

Photography: Tonality

Film stock, lighting and development determines the tonality of photography

In general, a slow film stock will produce a high-contrast look – the sharp difference between the darkest and lightest areas of the frame.

Hard lighting (Low

-

key)

lighting

creates strong

‘contrast’

In film developing process, contrast can be heightened or

lessened – high-contrast and low contrast. Slide12

Photography: Tonality

In most black-and-white films, grays, blacks and whites are balanced through high-key

(soft) lighting

, ‘normal’ film stock and standard developing.

Jean

Renoir’s

Crime of M. Lange Slide13

Photography: Tonality

In the dream sequence of Ingmar Bergman’s

Wild Strawberries

a bleached-out look (little

colour

gradation) is created through a combination of film stock, over-exposure and laboratory processing.Slide14
Slide15
Slide16

Photography: Tonality

News-reel like photography in Jean Luc Godard’s

Les

Carabiniers

‘The positive prints were simply made on a special Kodak high contrast stock … Several shots, intrinsically too gray, were duped again sometimes two or three times, always to their highest contrast.

’

In cinemaSlide17
Slide18

Photography: Tonality

Technicolor [

colour

film stock] famous for its sharply distinct, heavily saturated hues. Rich

colours

created by a specially designed camera and a printing process. Vincent

Minelli’s

Meet Me in St.

Louis

(1944

)

The Trolley SongSlide19

Photography: Tonality

Soviet film stock tended to lower contrast and give the image a murky greenish-blue cast.

The

monochromish

colour

design in Andrei

Tarkovsky’s

The Stalker

.

Actions seem to be taking place underwater

.

StalkerSlide20

Photography: Tonality

TINTING -

Already developed positive film is

im-mersed

in dye. Lighter areas pick up the

colour

while darker ones

remain

black and gray.

In Abel

Gance’s

J’accuse

!

(1919) the image was tinted in pink.

J’AccuseSlide21

Photography: Tonality

Toning

– when dye is added during the developing of the

positive

print, the darker areas of the frame are

coloured

and the brighter portions remain white or only faintly

coloured

.

Veá

Chytilová’s

Daisies

Night ClubSlide22

Photography: Tonality

Hand

colouring

–

Portions of black-and-white images are painted in

colours

, frame by frame. The ship’s flat in Sergei Eisenstein’s

Battleship Potemkin

is hand

coloured

red.Slide23

Photography: Tonality

Manipulations of tonalities

Stan

Brakhage

scratches off the emulsion in certain parts of the image for creating a graphic design.Slide24

Photography: Tonality

Tonality is the most crucially determined by exposure. Overexposure (too much light admitted through the lens) make the image too bright and underexposure (little light) make the image too dark. Carl Dryer overexposes the windows to create a religious atmosphere in

Ordet

.

Funeral

5.30Slide25

Photography: Tonality

The city of Naples in Francesco

Rosi’s

Hands on the City

is a little overexposed so that details are not clearly distinguishable. The city corrupt and hazy. Slide26

Photography: Tonality

Women in the foreground shot in well-exposure, but the sun-lit town in the background is overexposed.

Inside the house a woman is underexposed, while the countryside in the background well-exposed.Slide27

Photography: Tonality

Filter

– a slice of glass or gelatin placed in front of the lens reduces certain frequencies of light reaching the film.

Day for Night

– A filter can block out part of the light and make footage shot in daylight seem to be shot at night. Slide28

Perspective Relations

Types of camera lenses

determined by their focal

length – distance between

the

centre

of the lens to the point where light rays converge on the film.

Focal length of the lens can affect perspective relations in the things in a frame.Slide29

Perspectiv

e Relations

Short focal length (wide-angle) lens -

A lens of less than 35 mm in focal length

Distort straight lines lying near the edges of the frame.

Two towers appear to lean rightward and

leftwardSlide30

Nicholas

Roeg’s

Don’t Look NowSlide31

Perspectiv

e Relations

Anything nearer the camera appear to bulge and its shape look distorted.

In Terry Gilliam’s

Brazil

a wide-angle lens is used extensivelySlide32
Slide33

openingSlide34

Perspective Relations

The wide-angle lens exaggerate depth.

In a scene from William Wyler’s

Little Foxes

the lens makes the characters seem farther away from each other than we would expect.

ArrivalSlide35

Perspectiv

e Relations

Middle focal length (normal) lens

– A lens of medium focal length between 35 and 50 mm.

No noticeable perspectival distortion: horizontal and vertical lines are rendered straight and perpendicular

Depth does not look stretched apartSlide36

Perspectiv

e Relations

Long focal length (telephoto) lens

-

A lens of

long focal

length between

75 and 250

mm

or more.

It flatten the space between what is in the foreground and in the background

The planes seem squashed together

Chen

Kaige’s

Life on a StringSlide37

Perspective Relations

In Godfrey Reggio’s

Koyaanisqatsi

an airport is shot from a great distance by a telephoto lens. The long lens makes the

aeroplane

look as if it were landing

on a crowded motorway.

25.15Slide38

Perspective Relations

Akira Kurosawa frequently used the telephoto lens. In his

Red Beard

a mad woman walks in a doctor’s room.

It is filmed over the shoulder of the doctor and the distance between the two characters appear

close at first.

When they are shown sideways, the viewer

would know

that they are far apart.Slide39

Perspective Relations

As the telephoto lens flatten depth, a figure moving towards the camera appears to take more time to cover what seems to be a small distance.

Running-in-place

Mike Nichols’

The GraduateSlide40

Perspective Relations

Zoom lens

– a lens which can change focal length and transform perspective relations within a single shot.

The zoom lens can substitute for moving the camera forward and backward, as it can magnify and

demagnify

the subject.

The

Conversation