Aesthetics

Aesthetics – An overall style. A film will create a certain aesthetic from the mise en scene and cinematography.

Aesthetic Terms 1 – realism

Verisimilitude – the appearance of being true or real.

In This Is England, the housing and location can be verisimilitude for the audience as it might be similar to the audiences life.

Social realism – films aims to show the effects of environment factors on the development of character.

In This Is England, the social realism conforms to the British contemporary social realism genre, with representation of real life, with its difficulties.

magic realism – portrays fantastical events in otherwise realistic tone

In Harry Potter the writers sets the characters in a fantastical world of mystery

Hyperreality – an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality

The Matrix, uses hyperrealism for example the film sucks us into the matrix or the virtual world

Iconography – the patterns of signs we associate with a particular genre.

In the Bond movies, the car chase scene is normally associated with the genre of the movie.

Intertextual Referencing – two works of art overlaps. The movie overlaps with another work of art.

In Shrek 1, Shrek is a Ogre who is assumed to be the bad guy and prince charming usually assumed to be the hero and the good guy.

Visual/sound motifs – sound motif is a recurring element that is associated with a particular character, theme, or idea.

In Jaws, when the shark is near a theme of 2 notes of music to symbolise the shark being close.

Colour Grading – the process of manipulating and enhancing colour to achieve a desire look and mood.

In Harry Potter and the order of Phoenix, the colour grading ends in a dark blue and murkier colour to reflect the ominous and bleak prospect of Voldemort’s reign.

Auteur Trademarks – a reference ( e.g. to an object, a character, or a happening) that is recurrent in the authors work.

For example Steven Spielberg’s trademark would be his use of lighting, camera angles and movement.

Pathos – referred to as an emotional appeal

Bathos – the effect of turning a serious moment in a movie, into something completely trivial and unimportant.

In War of The World, A Batho happens when the machine gives an ending far different to audience expectations.

Suspense – the audience’s excited anticipation about the plot or conflict.

Comedy – light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse and to entertain the audience.

In Pitch Perfect, the genre is a comedy movie aimed to make the audience laugh, for example one of the character being called “fat Amy” as she doesn’t want to be called fat behind her back.

Dramatic Irony – The significance of a characters words or action is clear to other audience but unknown to the character.

In Romeo and Juliet. Romeo enter the tomb thinking Juliet is dead and drinks the poison to be with Juliet in death, however wakes just after he dies.

Distancing Effect – artists never act as if there were a fourth wall besides the three surrounding them

For example, In Ferris Bueller’s day, Ferris gives direct mode of address to the camera breaking the fourth wall.

Postmodern Humour – subvert highly regarded expectation

In Scream, post modern is used when they ignore the formats it continually references by always being a step ahead or a step behind