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Moving Image, Narrative

language of moving image

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Moving image conventions

A look into how films are produced, planned and created. Language of moving image is about time, space and scale. Following typical filming techniques that viewers are used to seeing.

The importance of focus:

Moving image in films has a particular importance to the use of focus, it allows the producer to make the viewer portray and understand the feelings of the scene and their characters. Showing a specific item or person that may be an important plot or situation.

Different camera angles:

  • High angle / Low angle / bulls-eye / birds eye / canted angle
  • Tracking / Panning / Craning / Tilting / Hand held / Steadicam
  • Establishing Shot / Long Shot / Medium Shot / Close-up / Big Close-Up / Extreme Close Up (students often struggle with the first and the last again issues with SCALE, SIZE & SPACE, so practice is really important)
  • Insert Shot – It focuses on a specific item or person/thing often to highlight important items or ideas to be later referenced in the movie. It shows key information that is relevant to the understanding of the movie and its context.
  • When relating this to my own film sequence, I could potentially use a low action shot that focuses on the football whilst moving rapidly, this will set the tone and mood of the moving image to be action pact and more interesting to the viewer.

The Edit:

  • Editing stitches together the camera work. The final edit of a movie or recording is the final product and is used to finalise what the producer wants the audience to focus on and understand the plot to be entertained by the movie effectively.
  • A basic rule in editing is is you don’t show everything, you use just enough information and scenes to provide suggestions and ideas to the audience to develop emotion:
  • Editing stitches together the camera work. The final edit of a movie or recording is the final product and is used to finalise what the producer wants the audience to focus on and understand the plot to be entertained by the movie effectively.
  • A basic rule in editing is is you don’t show everything, you use just enough information and scenes to provide suggestions and ideas to the audience to develop emotion:
  • Editing stitches together the camera work. The final edit of a movie or recording is the final product and is used to finalise what the producer wants the audience to focus on and understand the plot to be entertained by the movie effectively.
  • A basic rule in editing is is you don’t show everything, you use just enough information and scenes to provide suggestions and ideas to the audience to develop emotion: EMPATHY, INVOLVEMENT, RECOGNITION, CATHARSIS etc, with plots and characters for example.

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: Montage

  • A montage is a method of film sequencing to tell a very long narrative in a short amount of time, for example to understand a character more in depth it may help to provide context through their constructed past which will help understand the narrative and emotion in the scene. A classic example of this is a montage of a characters past with his wife, where perhaps she passes away and explains why the character has a distant and rude personality.
  • It was first conceptually theorised as the Kuleshov effect, in that adding one element / idea to another actually produces a third idea / element, which if constructed well can produce in the audience an idea that isn’t actually present!

Shot sequencing 2: 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

For example, during a chase like in a movie Vertigo, there is a pan to the climbing of a ladder, to then a chase from police officers with a pan out to the scenery of where they are, the rooftops of various buildings then once again a mid close up to the climbing of a steep roof top, to when one officer falls and there is a sudden zoom in to the officers face and hands, then a pan to the long drop and fall, creating the tension of the scene and creating emotion for the audience accordingly.

Shot Sequencing 2: Shot / Reverse Shot:

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.

Shot Sequencing 3: 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.

  • match on action
  • eye-line match
  • graphic match
  • sound bridge
  • 30′ rule
  • 180′ rule

Shot Sequencing 4: 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
Genre

genre 2: steve neale

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The work of Steve Neale is often referred to when discussing genre. One area he looks at, is the relationship between genre and audiences. For example, the idea of genre as an enabling mechanism to attract audiences based around predictable expectations. He argues that definitions and formations of genres are developed by media organisations (he specifically discusses the film industry), which are then reinforced through various agencies and platforms, such as the press, marketing, advertising companies, which amplify generic characteristics and thereby set-up generic expectations.

  • A production company will usually focus on a certain genre when making movies, such as Marvel exclusively making movies based around the “Super Hero” genre. But how does this not get repetitive and boring for the audience? When looking back at previous movies in this genre, they look and feel a lot different than current day superhero movies, but why? Genre’s and production companies need to adapt and change their formulas to make sure their movies retain interest and preform well. Such as in current times these superhero movies including more humour nowadays than previously, they’ve adapted the genre in order to keep making movies they know will be very successful and entertaining. These decisions to adapt the genre are usually decided as society and culture changes.

Neale also promotes the idea that genre is a process, that genres change as society and culture changes. As such, genres are historically specific and reflect / represent changing ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs of society at any particular moment in history. This may explain, why genres are often blurred across different conventions and expectations, creating sub-genres, or hybrid genres, that mix-up, shape, adapt and adopt familiar ideas and expectations, but which essentially create something new (different) which is recognisable (familiar).

Some Keywords:

  • Repertoire of elements = When an audience consume a media text defined by a generic label they have certain expectations of the text, certain features which are often described as the ‘repertoire of elements’.
  • Verisimilitude = A film has verisimilitude if it seems realistic and the story has details, subjects, and characters that seem similar or true to real life, or mime convincing aspects of life in important or fundamental ways.
  • Construction of reality = offers a unique ability to reflect and resemble historical figures and events. … This is perhaps film’s greatest attraction and seduction: by capturing images in time, it seems not simply to represent things but to make them present.
  • Hybrid genres = A movie is a hybrid genre when instead of focusing exclusively on one genre, it blends two or more recognizable genres together. For example: … Beauty and the beast is a musical as well, but it also has fantasy elements and borrows from the romance genre.

Genre

genre

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Genre: a style or category of art, music, or literature.

Genre is about being predictable yet unpredictable, it will follow general ideas and trends, this being the genre, but needing to be innovative and different as well.

Genre is important for both those who consume it (Audience) and those who make it (Institution).

(Genre creates an expected trend for the consumer which makes it significant for the creation on consumption of it)

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

. . . 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 . . .Scorsese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Exam Prep, Music Video, NEA

ghost town

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Forms of political protests:
– Attempts to change laws or legislation
– Organised political movements
– Public protests
– Petitions
– Marches

  • Direct resistance against society and government can lead to conflict and backlash so the use and expression of meaning in video and lyrical videos can be used as a more subtle form of rebellion.
  • BBC’s quotation and ideas on ghost town: “Released on 20 June 1981 against a backdrop of rising unemployment, its blend of melancholy, unease and menace took on an entirely new meaning when Britain’s streets erupted into rioting almost three weeks later – the day before Ghost Town reached number one in the charts.”

ANTONIO GRAMSCI

Prezzy wannabes, Gramsci, and you - Nevada Current

: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930s

Key Terms:
● Hegemonic: dominant, ruling-class, power-holders
● Hegemonic culture: the dominant culture
● Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
● Ideology: worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values

When writing in the 1930s Gramsci researched why so many people followed and believed in fascist Germany.

It became the idea about hegemony, where more powerful people would change peoples views and imbedded their own political views deep into their culture as the easiest way to make someone believe in such extreme views is to access their emotional and mental state and to get them to truly believe in what they are told, which is done through this hegemony. —–>

  • Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
    ideology
  • The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
    and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
  • As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
    inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Paul Gilroy + GHOST TOWN QUOTES AND NOTES

Post-colonial Melancholia: Racial representations were “fixed in a matrix between the imagery of squalor and that of sordid sexuality” Gilroy argued that this was gated the black community out by saying they are a “other” race in the majority white Britain.

Racial Otherness: Gilroy explored the idea of racial otherness being underlying in print media during the 1970s and 1980s, he mainly focused on how the idea of black males regularly was set to be a criminal one. Gilroy’s main focus and research was in his study of black representation in the UK. The study was called “There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack” where he focused on how newspapers were lurid and racist towards black people.

Quotes:

  • “It was clear that something was very, very, wrong,” the song’s writer, Jerry Dammers
  • “I saw it develop from a boom town, my family doing very well, through to the collapse of the industry and the bottom falling out of family life. Your economy is destroyed and, to me, that’s what Ghost Town is about.“
  • “No job to be found in this country,” one voice cries out. “The people getting angry,” booms another, ominously.

Moving Image, NEA, Notes

MOVING IMAGE NEA

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Key Terminology

  1. Linear – When a story is told in the order of what happens
  2. Chronological – Following the order in which they occurred.
  3. Sequential – Forming or following in a logical order or sequence.
  4. Circular structure – A circular structure is an object that references itself – A story ends the same way it started (A moral of the story type thing)
  5. Time based – Over a period of time.
  6. Narrative arc – Literary term for the path a story follows. It provides a backbone by providing a clear beginning, middle, and end of the story. 
  7. Freytag’s Pyramid – Devised by 19th century German playwright Gustav Freytag, Freytag’s Pyramid is a paradigm of dramatic structure outlining the seven key steps in successful storytelling: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement.
  8. Exposition – A comprehensive description or explanation to get across an idea. Exposition is a device used in television, films, poetry, literature, music, and plays.
  9. Inciting incident – The event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative
  10. Rising action – The rising action starts right after the period of exposition and ends at the climax. Beginning with the inciting incident, rising action is the bulk of the plot.
  11. Climax – The ending and leading up to the end of the narrative. The ending and finishing moral of the narrative
  12. Falling action – Falling action is what happens near the end of a story after the climax and resolution of the major conflict. Simply put, falling action is what the characters are doing after the story’s most dramatic part has happened.
  13. Resolution – The ending of the story. Occurs after the climax.
  14. Denouement –  Is an aspect of narrative that gives context and resolution to a major theme, relationship or event in a story.
  15. Beginning / middle / end – Different stages of a story.
  16. Equilibrium – One (First) of the stages in the theory of narrative structure of Todorov’s theory. It is explained about the condition that happens with a character. Is the beginning of the film, and the characters life is normal.
  17. Disruption – This is the second stage of Todorov’s theory, where a characters life is about to change / have interference.
  18. New equilibrium – The final stage of Todorov’s theory where a characters life goes back to normal. Is the ending of the film.
  19. Peripeteia – The turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. A shift of good to bad in a characters life.
  20. Anagnorisis – A moment of recognition or revelation in a story, where the characters life switches to a reversal of fortune.
  21. Catharsis – The release and relief of strong or repressed emotions and often leads to a resolution.
  22. The 3 Unities: Action, Time, Place –  Action (a play / film should have one unified plot), Time (all the action should occur within one day), Place (a play / film should be limited to a single locale / location)
  23. Flashback / flash forward – Flashback / flash forward – A interruption of a character remembering past tragic events.
  24. Foreshadowing – An indication or hint of what is to come.
  25. Ellipsis – A jump or skip in time in film
  26. Pathos – The persuasive technique that appeals to an audience through emotions and to gain an emotional effect from the film. The quality of pity and sadness.
  27. Empathy – The ability to sense other people’s emotions and to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.
  28. Diegetic / non-diegetic – Things that emanates from the story world of the film.
  29. Slow motion – When a scene is slowed down in editing so the watcher can focus on a particular moment and aspect of the movie
  30. In Media Res -Starting mid-action
  31. Metanarratives – drawing attention to the process of storytelling
  32. Unreliable narration – deliberately deceive audiences, providing plots that deliver unexpected moments – usually by revealing that a character is not who they claim to be.
  33. Frame Stories – stories told inside of stories, testing Todorov’s ideal narrative structure through the presentation of nested moments of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Synopsis and statement of intent

It’s about a poor family and the teen sons parents are struggling to get by, they have one son who wants to become a professional football player but can’t afford to pay for football training so he spends all his time playing street football and playing with his best friend, but his parents want him to get a job to help provide.

In this movie I will have the main character, the hero, being the teen who wants to become a football player. He will have a best friend at the start but then becomes the false hero, he then joins a rival team to his friend after the hero manages to get into a team through very hard work and training and being able to get free training due to his large skill and ability. The false hero will purposefully injure the hero out of spite that the hero is a greater player than him. So the hero has to go back home and start working for his family for a while. After being injured for a while we have a dispatcher (a coach) who convinces him to play again and carry on his training. To where he then gets scouted by a premier league team and this will be the anagnorisis where he earns enough money to provide for him self and his family.

The film will be funded and produced by Warner Brothers. It should have a least a mid level budget due to the simple nature of the story not needing many high level filming attributes or techniques. The poster will have the main hero at the front holding the football in his hands or at his feet, with his friend next to him but slightly behind to indicate his insignificance compared to the main hero and as also a slight foreshadow of his false hero intentions.

The genre of the film will be a feel-good type idea that focuses on a classic and conventional base story line following ideas of the Tripartite narrative structure. The genre would loosely be based on the films techniques and genre of “Blinded By the Light” where he young teenager faces antagonists and hardships to make his dream come true of becoming a professional football player, making his parents proud and taking them out of poverty.

Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure):

A really good way to think about NARRATIVE STRUCTURE is to recognise that most stories can be easily broken down into a BEGINNING / MIDDLE / END. The Bulgarian structuralist theorist Tztevan Todorov presents this idea as:

  • Equilibrium
  • Disruption
  • New equilibrium

In the beginning of a movie such as Harry Potter, his equilibrium is that he lives in a foster home under the stairs and they are disrespectful and unkind to him, then begins the disruption where he finds out he is a wizard and gets sent to Hogwarts when now Voldemort wants to kill him, lastly, there’s the new equilibrium where it goes back to the characters being happy once again and the conflict is over.

A more sophisticated application of Todorov considers and recognises that stories are constructed in ways that test and subvert the three act narrative structure outlined above. A more sophisticated application of Todorov might also consider:

  • Plot and subplot(s)
  • Multiple equilibrium/ disruption sequences
  • Flexi-narratives

Sometimes there may also be an audience who expect action quickly and have a short attention and quick boredom span, so, Condensed equilibriums:

This structural approach could also be referenced to Freytag’s Pyramid:

exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement as illustrated below.

Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)

His theory is about narrative structures, as 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.

Simply, Vladimir Propp theorised that although characters may seem different, there are 8 stock character types that they follow that relates to their function in the movie and their personalities.

CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE; Here are the 8 Stock Characters:

  1. Hero
  2. Helper
  3. Princess
  4. Villain
  5. Victim
  6. Dispatcher
  7. Father
  8. False Hero
  • Often there is a villain who has done something to a victim. This means that we need a hero, who (often) accompanied by a helper is sent out (by a dispatcher) to fight the villain. 
  • The dispatcher or similar donor (such as a father figure) prepares thehero in his ‘quest‘ and gives theherosome magical object. The hero generally meets the princess as part of his quest / journey which usually provides a happy ending. During the narrative we (and the princess) may be presented by a false hero.
  • Propp says that a narrative does not necessarily have use all the characters.

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’ 

However, Propp proposed that his list of stock characters are structured into a narrative that has 31 different functions that play an important role in organising character and story into a plot. Without going into detail for each, overall they can be divided into the following sections:

  1. PREPARATION
  2. COMPLICATION
  3. TRANSFERENCE
  4. STRUGGLE
  5. RETURN
  6. RECOGNITION
Uncategorized

Blinded by the light

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  • Blinded by the Light is an example of low-medium budget film making.
  • New Line Cinema is an American film production studio which was founded in 1967 as well as being the distributor of Blinded By The Light film. New Line Cinema is associated with ‘indie’ films and is a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. This altogether being part of the global conglomerate of WarnerMedia.
  • This low budget production cost around $15 million and was co-funded by New Line Cinema, as well as other production companies such as Levantine Films, Bend it Films and Ingenious Media.
  • Directed by same person who made Bend it like Beckham: Gurinder Ghadha, WHY HAS SHE REPEATED THE SAME STORY AS HER PREVIOUS MOVIE? – “Media is a risky business” so the use of the repetitive strategies in the culture industries is appropriate. Bend it like Beckham was made on April 11th 2002, so she had waited till January the 27th of 2019, 17 years later to make another movie with the same premise and base story line as each other and says it’s “what she knows”, so the use of this repetitive strategy and using the same story from her previous movie which was very successful was used to minimise risk, appeal to nostalgia and generate the most profit.
  •  Its distributor New Line Cinema is associated with ‘indie’ films although it is a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Pictures, part of the global conglomerate, WarnerMedia.
  • Bruce Springsteen’s music is featured in getting the film financed and in the marketing of the film. The use of this artist is to appeal to nostalgic elements in a manipulative manner in media to get more people interested in the movie.
  • Diversity and innovation is needed for bigger companies such as Warner Bros, so they use smaller company for new ideas to then, in this case, be co-funded by New Line Cinema which is an American production studio owned by Warner Brothers Pictures Group. So, although the movie is produced by companies including Levantine Films, Bend it Films and Ingenious Media, Warner Bros still helped fund it in order to own the film.
  • So then this independent movie to then be put onto exhibitors such as Netflix, Apple TV or Amazon Prime which is in contact and in business with Warner Bros, who are one of the main conglomerates and part of the big main parent companies, a company that was the first to be in film and founded 99 years ago.
  • In the distribution, exhibition or consumer stage, this movie like many others used popular social medias: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, all owned by another conglomerate, Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg. ^^ How many followers does their accounts have??

The Importance of Film Festivals

The following link discusses the use of a film festival to secure a distribution deal.

The Importance of recognisable Generic Conventions (and the use of familiar music)

Blinded by the Light has been described as a feelgood jukebox musical film using the music of Bruce Springsteen.
This link offers ideas about the importance of genre and this link about the use of recognisable music in the marketing of the film,
It was directed by Gurinder Chada, a British director known for Bend it Like Beckham

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key words in “The culture industries”

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Cultural industries This is an economic field concerned with producing, reproducing, storing, and distributing cultural goods and services on industrial and commercial terms. This is the companies included in the field of culture industries such as Netflix or Warner Brothers which is usually in favour of popularity.
———————————————————
Links to gate keeping as these large business decide what media is consumed through the large parent companies. This follows on the borderline of the idea of monopolies as these massive parent companies own the most of all cultural industries but allow few smaller more irrelevant companies to be involved to not be against government regulations.
ProductionThe action of making or manufacturing from components or raw materials, or the process of being so manufactured.
(The making and creation of media)
Media producers may be responsible for a range of tasks, like animation and narration, editing and arranging videos or developing program material.
DistributionThe methods by which media products are delivered to audiences, including the marketing campaign.
– This is one of the main sections of the culture industry.
Exhibition / ConsumptionA public display of works of art or items of interest, held in an art gallery or museum or at a trade fair. This includes companies such as Netflix or Cineworld where they exhibit the production for consumption, the sort of middle man between the promotion then the consumption of the production.
Media concentrationThe ownership of mass media by fewer individuals.
ConglomeratesA group that owns multiple companies which stand out different media specialised in written or audio-visual content.
Globalisation (in terms of media ownership)The worldwide integration of media through the cross-cultural exchange of ideas.
Cultural imperialismThe practice of promoting the culture values or language of one nation in another.
Vertical IntegrationWhere media companies expand by acquiring different businesses in the same chain of production and distribution.
Horizontal IntegrationA way in which media companies expand by acquiring media companies that work in similar sectors.
MergersWhere 2 or more business combine together to make one.
MonopoliesConcentrated control of major mass communications within a society. When a group owns everything in a specific line of business, such as owning the rights to wine, meaning you are the only one that can sell it. This is illegal in most places in the world.
GatekeepersThe process through which information is filtered for dissemination.
RegulationThe process by which a range of specific, tools are applied to media systems and institutions to achieve established policy goals such as pluralism, diversity, competition, and freedom.
DeregulationThe process of removing or loosening government restrictions on the ownership of media outlets.
Free marketOne where voluntary exchange and the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system.
Commodification  The transformation of the relationship, which is trafficked into things that are free of the commercial nature of the relationship.
Convergence  The merging of previously distinct media to create an entire new form of communication expression.
Diversity  A variety or assort of media.
Innovation  The changing in several aspects of the media landscape. The invention of new vales in the marketing sector.