CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Camerawork and Editing (Lecture)

Today with Louis we had two lectures instead of a lecture and a seminar to catch up with last week. The first lecture was about camerawork and the second about editing. To start the lecture we learnt the basic elements of camerawork; these are the shot and movement. The shot affects emotional and psychological relationship with the character and setting through composition and speed. Movement does the same apart from it affects the relationship through changes in visual space and action. Shots are the visual equivalent of sentence structure.

If shots are words, then Mise en Scène is the meaning and editing is the narrative structure. The basic shots were next and these are a wide shot, medium shot, close up and the extreme close up. These I already knew from a lecture with simon about coverage.

Classical framing and composition were next and with this we learnt more about rule of thirds. I had completely forgotten about this when filming but luckily I think I applied it yesterday in the Crossing The Line project.

'Never, never use a shot without dramatic reasoning' - Alfred Hitchcock

Angle and Speed:
- High angle shot - overhead shot, birds eye view, makes people look smaller

- Low angled shot - emphasises character

- Dutch/tilt angle - off set angle, disorientating, creates psychological tension

- Slow mo/fast motion (Guy Ritchie, Zack Snyder)

Expressionism is another subject we touched upon. Louis related this to National Treasure like how he told me to research about it. I learnt that angled shots are a common feature of expressionism, especially, classic German expressionist films of the 1920s-30s. Expressionism presents the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. National Treasure is classed as modern expressionism.

Why do we move the camera? This was an interesting thing to learn about because you don't really think of why, we just do it.

- To heighten action or emotion

- To convey objective or subjective viewpoints

- Refocus audience attention within the scene

- Explore or change setting/environment

Frenzy - Alfred Hitchcock (1972)

- Use of camera movement

Alienation was the next topic. I didn't know about alienation before today so this was very helpful. In Frenzy, the camera tracks two characters running into a house and upstairs, once they had gone into a room the camera went back down the stairs and outside, such as the reverse of originally tracking them. Hitchcock uses the method of the reverse crane/tracking shot as an example of an alienation effect. Alienation is the extent to which one maintains a critical distance from a cultural production.

Halloween, directed by John Carpenter (1978) was another film we spoke about. It was the first horror film using a steadicam. It used the camera movement to get the audience into action. The movement in Halloween heightened the action with a point of view shot where the audience was the killer which turned out to be a child. Towards the end of that scene Carpenter switches between a steadicam and a crane viewpoint and with this he refocuses the audiences attention within the scene.

Elements of visual style:

- Denotative (directive attention)

- Expressive

- Decorative (flourishes or stylistic patterns that are independent or semi-independent of narrative design)

- Symbolic functions (involving abstract concepts)

We did a few bits about documentaries which was useful to know as our final first year project is on this topic so it was nice to learn a little about it. The use of handheld in documentary:

- Heightens action and emotion (coveys urgency)

- Dynamics of transition

- Places character in conflict. Authenticity

The second lecture was about editing. Editing is the assembly of visual material into sequences, it constructs a narrative and manipulates time, either by condensing it or lengthening it. Louis recommended us to watch Rope and Russian Ark as they are made with long takes and include continuous narratives.

Creating visual meaning:

- Mise en scène and cinematography creates implicit meaning within shots

- Editing creates implicit meaning between shots

We then did a bit about something that is in Film Art, written by Bordwell. I have taken this book out but haven't got round to reading it just yet so it was interesting to have an insight as to what sort of information is in the book. The four key elements of editing:

- Spatial - Relationship between different spaces and the editors manipulation of them e.g. cross cutting

- Temporal - Manipulation of time within the film in relation to order duration e.g. montages, dissolves, wipes, fades

- Rhythmic - manipulation of duration of the shots: accents, beats and the tempo e.g. action and suspense scenes, jump cuts

- Graphics - the relationship between pictorial qualities of shots or scenes e.g. graphic match cut

Why is editing important?

- Creates strong visual narratives from simple script descriptions or unedited rushes.

- The most creative aspect of filmmaking

- A good editor can make bad shots work

- A bad editor can ruin/ignore good shots

- Shooting ratios have an impact on editing (film is 10:1 and documentary is 60-100:1)

Eye line match shot:

- First shot shows character looking offscreen

- Second shot shows us what he is looking at

Shot reverse shot:

- Alternatives between two shots framed from reverse angle

Match an action:

- Action begins in first shot and is completed in the second

- Maintains continuous action across edits

Ideology:

- Set of opinions, values, beliefs and assumptions that one uses to think about

- Ideology is not objective truth but perceived truth; a systems value

Eisenstein on montage:

- Eisenstein argues that montage, especially intellectual montage, is an alternative to continuity editing.

'Montage is conflict' - Eisenstein

The Kuleshov Effect:

- A mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of this sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation

- So each single shot has its own intrinsic meaning

5 principles of soviet montage:

- Metric

- Rhythmic

- Tonal

- Overtonal/Associative

- Intellectual

Modern documentary editing:

- Evidentiary or expositional editing

- Dynamic editing

The last two shows we spoke about were Horizon - How Violent Are You? and 'Excluded'.