FIL2000 Terms Continued

Aspect Ratio
Relationship of the frame’s width to its height

The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 (Academy standard) and 2.39:1 (anamorphic widescreen). Two common TV aspect ratios are 4:3 (1.33:1), universal for standard formats, and 16:9 (1.78:1), universal to high-definition formats.






Continuity Editing
A system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies on matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot.

Includes, but is not limited to, the axis of action, shot-reverse-shot, the eyeline match shot, and cross-cutting.



Shot-reverse-shot
Two or more shots edited together that alternate between characters, typically in a conversation situation; over-the-shoulder framings are common.



Crosscutting
Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously.



Montage
A synonym for editing; emphasizes dynamic, often discontinuous relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself.



Montage Sequence
A segment of a film that summarizes a topic or compresses a passage of time into brief symbolic or typical images; frequently, dissolves, fades, superimpositions, and wipes are used to link the images in a montage sequence.



Jump Cut
An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figure remain constant.



Superimposition
The exposure of more than one image on the same film strip or in the same shot.




Diegesis
In a narrative film, the world of the film’s story. The diegesis includes events that are presumed to have occurred and actions and spaces not shown onscreen.

Diegetic Sound
Any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presenting as originating from a source within the film’s world.





Nondiegetic Sound
Sound, such as mood music or a narrator’s commentary, represented as coming from a source outside the space of the narrative.



External Diegetic Sound
Sound represented as coming from a physical source within the story space that we assume characters in the scene also hear



Internal Diegetic Sound
Sound represented as coming from the mind of a character within the story space; although we and the character can hear it, we assume that the other characters cannot


Start at 2:48mark

On the significance of editing:
10 re-cut movie trailers
The Shining, recut

FIL2000 Film Terms

Axis of Action (the 180˚ rule)
The imaginary line that passes from side to side through the main actors, defining the spatial relations of all the elements of the scene as being to the right or left. The camera is not supposed to cross the axis at a cut and thus reverse those spatial relations.



Crane Shot
A shot with a change in framing accomplished by placing the camera above the subject and moving through the air in any direction



Establishing Shot
A shot, usually involving a distant framing, that shows the spatial relations among the important figures, objects, and setting a scene



Film Noir
Meaning “dark film,” a term applied by French critics to a type of American film, usually in the detective or thriller genres, with low-key lighting and somber mood

Film Noir exists within a national myth that secures social structure within polemics of WWI, focusing on sexuality and social anxiety. The focus of fascination is on the femme fatale. Protagonist is usually a morally ambiguous detective; not any happier at end than beginning; can’t and doesn’t control the narrative. Sharp angles, sharp lighting, shadows/silhouettes, and mirrors leave protagonist (and viewer) feeling paranoid, claustrophobic, hopeless, doomed, pretermined by the past.




Rack Focus
Shifting the area of sharp focus from one plane to another during a shot -- such as from the foreground to the background (and vice-versa). This tool shows the viewer where to look.



Camera Angle (angle of framing)
Position of the frame in relation to the subject it -- above it, looking down (a high angle); horizontal, on the same level (a straight-on angle); looking up (a low angle)

High and Low angles may be used to influence our impression of a particular character. A character filmed from a low angle will seem strong, powerful, tall, proud, etc., whereas from a high angle the subject will appear weak, insignificant, vulnerable, small, etc.

God’s Eye View is the ultimate high angle shot. The camera looks straight down onto the character, often suggesting or referring to that character’s death.



Close-Up [C.U.]
A close shot of an object or person. The aim is to focus our attention on a particular detail. Close ups of objects depict a new fact or location in the story. Close ups of a person emphasizes that character’s reactions and/or role in the story and tend to be from the neck up.

Extreme Close-Up [E.C.U.]
Focuses on one particular aspect of a character or object – like the eyes or the mouth – so that aspect takes up the entire space of the shot. These shots are meant to make us feel claustrophobic or invasive.



Mid-Shot [M.S.]
A middle-distance shot which focuses our attention on a particular subject. With a mid shot, the camera is close enough to pick up detail, though still far enough away to be able to follow the subject as he/she/it moves. The mid shot, therefore, is commonly used to show action (like in a fight scene).


Long Shot [L.S.]
A distance shot in which a setting – and not a character – is the emphasis. This is generally used to establish the place in which action will occur (hence the term “establishing shot”). Given its function, a long shot is often used at the beginning of a scene or sequence, and may be combined with a panning movement to show a wider area.

Extreme Long Shot [E.L.S.]
The character looks small in relation to the landscape. This shot is used to make the character look insignificant or to glorify the landscape (like in westerns).




Point of View (POV) Shot
Shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character’s eyes would be, showing what the character would see; usually cut in before or after a shot of the character looking



Tracking Shot
A mobile framing that travels through space forward, backward, or laterally (side to side)

Movement following an object or person, but the camera is not stationary. Typically, the camera is mounted on a moving device, such as a rail platform, a dolly, or a vehicle. (A dolly is a platform with wheels that is not attached to a track – used in a dolly shot.)



Dolly Zoom
A technique for spatial/perspective distortion, the dolly apparatus moves forward or backward while the lens zooms in the opposite direction.



Monochromatic Color Design
Color design that emphasizes a narrow set of shades of a single color





Motif
An element in a film that is repeated in a significant way



Plot vs. Story

Plot – in a narrative film, all the events that are directly presented to us, including their causal relations, chronological order, duration, frequency, and spatial locations; opposed to story, which is the viewer’s imaginary construction of all the events in the narrative

Story – in a narrative film, all the events that we see and hear, plus all those that we infer or assume to have occurred, arranged in their presumed causal relations, chronological order, duration, frequency, and spatial locations; opposed to plot, which is the film’s actual representation of events in the story

Three-Point Lighting
A common arrangement using three directions of light on a scene; from behind the subjects (backlighting), from one bright source (key lighting), and from a less bright source balancing the key light (fill light)

mark hedges on america's corporate culture

I highly recommend reading the article "The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free" by Mark Hedges, regarding the destruction and replacement of American culture with mass, corporate culture ("junk culture") and the repercussions of this shift. Below are some highlights.

The most important struggle will be to wrest the organs of communication from corporations that use mass media to demonize movements of social change and empower proto-fascist movements such as the Christian right.

American culture—or cultures, for we once had distinct regional cultures—was systematically destroyed in the 20th century by corporations. These corporations used mass communication, as well as an understanding of the human subconscious, to turn consumption into an inner compulsion. Old values of thrift, regional identity that had its own iconography, aesthetic expression and history, diverse immigrant traditions, self-sufficiency, a press that was decentralized to provide citizens with a voice in their communities were all destroyed to create mass, corporate culture. New desires and habits were implanted by corporate advertisers to replace the old. Individual frustrations and discontents could be solved, corporate culture assured us, through the wonders of consumerism and cultural homogenization. American culture, or cultures, was replaced with junk culture and junk politics. And now, standing on the ash heap, we survey the ruins. The very slogans of advertising and mass culture have become the idiom of common expression, robbing us of the language to make sense of the destruction. We confuse the manufactured commodity culture with American culture.

The emergence of corporate and government public relations, which drew on the studies of mass psychology by Sigmund Freud and others after World War I, found its bible in Walter Lippmann’s book “Public Opinion,” a manual for the power elite’s shaping of popular sentiments. Lippmann argued that the key to leadership in the modern age would depend on the ability to manipulate “symbols which assemble emotions after they have been detached from their ideas.” The public mind could be mastered, he wrote, through an “intensification of feeling and a degradation of significance.”

The modern world, as Kafka predicted, has become a world where the irrational has become rational, where lies become true. And facts alone will be powerless to thwart the mendacity spun out through billions of dollars in corporate advertising, lobbying and control of traditional sources of information. We will have to descend into the world of the forgotten, to write, photograph, paint, sing, act, blog, video and film with anger and honesty that have been blunted by the parameters of traditional journalism.

“Read ‘The Gettysburg Address,’ ” [Stuart] Ewen [author of “Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture” and “PR: A Social History of Spin”] said. “Read Frederick Douglass’ autobiography or his newspaper. Read ‘The Communist Manifesto.’ Read Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man.’ All of these things are filled with an understanding that communicating ideas and producing forms of public communication that empower people, rather than disempowering people, relies on an integrated understanding of who the public is and what it might be. We have a lot to learn from the history of rhetoric. We need to think about where we are going. We need to think about what 21st century pamphleteering might be. We need to think about the ways in which the rediscovery of rhetoric—not lying, but rhetoric in its more conventional sense—can affect what we do.

conan o'brien: triumph visits bonnaroo

michael jackson

Michael Jackson, August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

epic win: buffy vs. edward, "what? are you twelve?"

From Jonathan McIntosh of Rebellious Pixels comes this brilliantly edited pop culture piece. He says of his work:

In this remixed narrative Edward Cullen from the Twilight series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways.

A-to the-men. I will never, ever forgive Twilight author Stephanie Meyer for describing her whiney, helpless, and devotionally dependent protagonist (who she mistakenly refers to as a heroine -- not the same thing) to the greatest literary heroine readers have ever known, Elizabeth Bennett. If anything, the video above just proves how progressive Joss Whedon has been with his heroines, and how Twilight has set women back centuries.

john hodgman: revenge of the nerds

Via Throwing Things: John Hodgman was the keynote speaker at the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner, where his primary topic was that of bridging the gap between nerds and jocks. Whereas the previous presidency was made up of jocks, our new presidency is comprised of nerds. Hodgman described our president -- "with a Spock-ish calm and gangly frame" -- as the man who is bringing an emphasis on science and objective reality back into our nation. He adds, "There is even talk of some states decriminalizing evolution."

At the 8:25 mark, Hodgman questions the president's "nerd credentials" through a series of slides, and at the 9:29 mark, Obama throws up the Vulcan salute without hesitation.