The language of moving image suggests that there is a grammar or convention or set of rules. It deals with the aesthetic concepts of shape and size.

One of the most important camera tools in a movie is focus and depth of field. The focus is used to direct the audience’s eyes and prioritise the elements in a shot to present certain information.

Editing:

process of putting together/ stitching different shits and pieces

But the key question is WHEN TO EDIT ie when is it best to move from one shot to another? The answer is usually found in the following list:

1. EDIT ON ACTION
2. EDIT ON A MATCHING SHAPE, COLOUR, THEME
3. EDIT ON A LOOK, A GLANCE, EYELINE
4. EDIT ON A SOUND BRIDGE
5. EDIT ON A CHANGE OF SHOT SIZE
6. EDIT ON A CHANGE OF SHOT CAMERA POSITION (+30′)

Shot Sequencing 1: Parallel Editing

The use of sequential editing (editing one clip to another) allows for a number of key concepts to be produced:

parallel editing: two events editing together – so that they may be happening at the same time, or not?

flashback / flash-forward – allowing time to shift

Shot Sequencing 3: Invisible Editing / Continuity Editing

Continuity editing can be seen as the opposite of montage editing as the main aim is to create a sense of realism or ‘believability’ known as verisimilitude and has it’s own structure of rules where shots are edited together at particular times or on particular shots, as previously highlighted above.

Shot sequencing 4: Shot progression

Conventional shot progression – to create VERISIMILITUDE (ie realism, believability) usually involves the following shots (although not always in the same order).

establishing shot / ES, moving to

wide shot / WS,

to medium shot / MS,

to close up / CU,

to big close up / BCU;

and then back out again

Shot Sequencing 5: Shot / Reverse Shot

The Shot / Reverse Shot a really good starting point for students to both think about and produce moving image products. The basic sequence runs from a wide angle master shot that is at a 90′ angle to (usually) two characters. This sets up the visual space and allows the film-maker to to then shoot separate close-ups, that if connected through an eye-line match are able to give the impression that they are opposite each other talking. The shots are usually over the shoulder.

The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.

Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200

 In that media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE and UNEXPECTED. 

. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and
clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures . . .Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Key words:

predictable expectations –

einforced –

amplify –

 repertoire of elements –

 corpus –

verisimilitude –

construction of reality –

 historically specific –

sub-genres –

hybrid genres,

• a form of cultural resistance
• attempts to change law and legislation will no happen over night
• Antonio Gramsci: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930’s
• Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
• Hegemonic: dominant, ruling-class, power-holders
• the Birmingham school was first to notice the different subcultures of teenagers such as : teddy-boys, mods, skinheads and punks.
• Margaret Thatcher : firm immigration control for the future is essential if we are to achieve good community relations’
• firm immigration control for the future is essential if we are to achieve good community relations’
• ‘ too much fighting on the dancefloor’ reflects how there was a lot of violence at the 2 tone concerts.
• internal tensions in the band is reflected in the eerie sounding music.
• the empty streets represents how everyone was working and how it was no longer a busy city.

peripteia – a change in fortune

anagnoresis – a moment of revolation

Gustav Freytag –

most movies are Linear meaning that there is a beginning, middle and end. Chronological, meaning that they go in order of events.

Todorov:

storys have a beginign middle and end and arfe linear

Equilibrium the story constructs a

, then disruption then new equilibrium.

the way / ways in which the disruption looks to find new equilibrium

Vladimir Propp

s his work (based around an analysis of fairy tales) suggests that stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories. That is not to say that all characters are the same, but rather to suggest that all stories draw on familiar characters performing similar functions to provide familiar narrative structures.

1. Hero –
2. Helper – helps the hero with his or her quest
3. Princess – the rewards of the hero’s quest and usually the reason they have a quest
4. Villain – fights or pursues the hero and must be defeated if the hero s to accomplish their quest
5. Victim – the victim ( usually end up up dying)
6. Dispatcher – send the hero on his or her quest
7. Father
8. False Hero – plays mainly a villainous role usurping the true hero’s position in the cores of the story.

spheres of action: As Turner makes clear ‘these are not separate characters, since one character can occupy a number of roles or ‘spheres of action’ as Propp calls them and one role may be played by a number of different characters’