Villarejo, Amy (2007) - "Film Studies :The Basics"

Question 1

Film is structured like a language

Answer 1

or is it?
* composed of edits to join shots together into sequences
* rules or cinematic conventions
* new elements enter the cinematic lexicon, while others disappear or become anachronistic
* film opens to different uses or forms (different genres, tones, themes, formats)

Question 2

The comparison to language faces limits

Answer 2

1. screen duration
2. cinema’s reach is everywhere
   we risk diminishing both film study and our conception of language and its study

Question 3

(film-language limits)
(1) screen duration

Answer 3

film exists in time—you can’t pause it and analyze each part like a sentence

Question 4

(film-language limits)
(2) cinema’s reach is everywhere

Answer 4

• deeply historical and global.
• Any film can draw on the whole history of filmmaking and a wide range of cultures.
• Unlike language, which is often limited by region or rules, cinema constantly references its own past

Question 5

mise-en-scène: (fr)

Answer 5

in its initial use it meant the theatrical process of staging.

Question 6

mise-en-scène: (in film)

Answer 6

it retains (keeps) the theatrical overtones, meaning to “put into the scene” and designating all that encompassed by the frame

Question 7

mise-en-scene (auteurs study)

Answer 7

it was in mise-en-scène that the French intellectuals found the evidence for authorial signatures and individual genius (auteurs)

Question 8

mise-en-scene

Answer 8

Films don’t just copy reality exactly as it appears in the real world. Instead, they create their own version of reality through careful staging and composition (mise-en-scène) . At the same time, films connect with us because they remind us of our real-life experiences and emotions.

Question 9

six components to mise-en-scène (categories to how is a film’s world established through its visual style)

Answer 9

1. setting (set and props),
2. lighting,
3. costume,
4. hair,
5. make-up,
6. figure behavior.

Question 10

mise-en-scène categories
(1) setting

Answer 10

• Shooting on location - using settings found in the world rather than constructed in the studio – does not mean that the world of the film thus created is not constructed or is simply “realistic.”
• sound stage
• props - can serve an overt narrative function

Question 11

mise-en-scène categories
(2) Lighting

Answer 11

examples:
1. angular sets and chiaroscuro
(comes from German expressionist; chiaroscuro is bold contrasts between light and dark)

2. film noir (“dark film”)

Question 12

system of three-point lightning

Answer 12

1. key light
2. fill light
3. back light

Question 13

high-key lightning vs low-key lightning

Answer 13

high-key lighting - wherein little contrast between bright and dark obtains, soft and revealing of detail

low-key lightning - high contrast, harsh, and hard

Question 14

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Answer 14

notice any single element of mise-en-scène is also to notice an element of cinematography, since everything “put in” to a given shot is recorded by a camera.

Question 15

Cinematography elements

Answer 15

1. framing
2. camera distance
3. camera angle
4. camera’s depth of field
5. camera movement
   anything with camera

Question 16

Framing

Answer 16

1. provides information
2. limiting border (geometrically or dynamically)
3. both separetes and unites elements (geometrical or dynamical)
4. implies a pov (a narrative)
5. frame includes and excludes (all out of frame)

Question 17

EDITING

Answer 17

the techniques and logic of joining shots togheter into larger sequences.

Question 18

5 types of editing

Answer 18

1. The cut
2. The dissolve
3. The fade in/fade out
4. Wipe
5. The iris (opening/closing circle)

Question 19

Kuleshov effect

Answer 19

absence of an establishing shot → The audience will imagine the whole space by seeing just a part of it