3. SHOT
• A single stream of images, uninterrupted by
editing.
• In contemporary cinema, with the use of
computer graphics and other devices (eg.
The Matrix), the boundaries of the shot are
increasingly being challenged.
4. Scene
• A scene is series of shots that form a complete
episode or unit of the narrative.
• A scene usually takes place in a single time and
place, often with the same characters.
• The terms “scene” and “sequence” can usually
be used interchangeably, though the latter term
can also refer to a longer segment of film that
does not obey the spatial and temporal unities
of a single scene. For example, a montage
sequence that shows in a few shots a process
that occurs over a period of time.
5. Storyboard
• Plans AV text and shows how each shot
relates to the sound track. This is similar
to a comic book adaptation of the film.
• This is used to plan shots, angles, scenes,
and dialogue.
6. Montage
• An approach to editing developed by the Soviet filmmakers of the
1920s such as Pudovkin, Vertov and Eisenstein that focuses on editing
together a large number of shots to emphasize dynamic, often
discontinuous, relationships between shots and images. There is
no intention of creating a continuous reality.
• A montage is used to compress time.
• Montage shots are linked together through a unified sound - either
a voiceover or a piece of music is used to link shots together.
7. Montage
• This sequence from October (Oktyabr, USSR, 1927) is an example of
Eisenstein's intellectual montage.
• The increasingly primitive icons from various world religions are linked
by patterns of duration, screen direction and shot scale to produce the
concept of religion as a degenerate practice used to legitimate corrupt
states.
8. The Godfather Montage
• Pudovkin’s montage influenced Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather
(1973).
• In a famous montage, shots of Michael attending his son's baptism are
intercut with the brutal killings of his rivals. Rather than stressing the temporal
simultaneity of the events (it is highly unlikely that all of the New York Mafia
heads can be caught off guard at exactly the same time!), the montage
suggests Michael's dual nature and committement to both his "families", as well
as his ability to gain acceptance into both on their own terms -- through religion
and violence.
9. SHOTS
• Long shot
• Medium (mid) shot
• Close Up
• Reverse Shot
• Subjective (P.O.V.) Shot
10. Long Shot
• Overall view from a distance of whole
scene often used as an ESTABLISHING
SHOT—to set scene.
• Person- will show whole body.
12. Medium (Mid) Shot
• Middle distance shot
• Can give background information while still
focusing on subject
• Person—usually shows waist to head.
13. Medium(mid) Shot
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été) France Eric Rohmer, 199
14. Medium shot
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été, Eric Rohmer, 1996)
15. Close Up
• Focuses on detail/expression/reaction.
• Person—shows either head or head and
shoulders.
16. CLOSE UP
Eyes Wide Shut A Summer Tale
The Color of Paradise
17. Reverse Shot
• Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a
conversation situation.
• The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy,1996). Director
Dario Argento has his protagonist Anna looking at Botticelli's The Birth of
Venus (c1485)... ...but with the use of successive shot/ reverse shots,
eyeline matches and matching framings, it soons begins to look as if Venus
herself is looking at Anna!
18. Subjective Shot (P.O.V. shot)
• A shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character's
eyes would be, showing what the character would see. The audience sees
what the character sees.
Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1986) the female
impersonator's fear of the soldier who attempts to procure him for his general is
rendered comic by the cut to POV and wide angle.
20. Pan
• Camera moves from side to side from a stationary
position.
• In a film like Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) pans
suggest that characters have no time to waste, and that
decisions must be taken fast, therefore contributing to the
sense of imminent danger and moral urgency that the
films tries to communicate.
21. 360° Pan
• This clip from The Stendhal Syndrome (La
Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento,1996),
illustrates what we could call a 360° pan.
22. Tilt
• Movement up or down from a stationary position
• In the following clip from Besieged (L'Assedio, Italy,
1998), Bernardo Bertolucci uses a tilt to establish the
social (and even racial) distance between an African
housemaid and her wealthy English employer.
23.
24. Tracking Shot - Tracking
• A tracking shot usually follows a character or object as it moves
along the screen. Contrary to the pan, which mimics a turning head,
a tracking shot physically accompanies the entire range of
movement. It therefore creates a closer affinity with the character or
object moving, since the spectator is not just watching him/her
moving, but moving with him/her.
• A standard tracking shot places the camera on a wheeled support
called a dolly.
• As cameras become lighter and steadier, tracking shots become
more flexible and creative: bicycles, wheelchairs, roller skates, and
many ingenious wheeled artifacts augmented the range of
movement of tracking shots.
• In the following clip from Central Station (Central do Brasil, Walter
Salles, Brazil, 1998), one uninterrupted movement is rendered with
two different tracking shots.
25. Tracking Shot
• The first is a classic tracking shot, with the camera on rails
sideways to the character that is moving, following the child as the
trains departs.
• The second uses the train as a dolly, as it moves away from the
running child.
28. Low Angle camera (upward angle)
• The camera shoots up at the subject to show an increase in size, power, or status.
• In The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda,1999) the father, who rules absolute over
his family, is often portrayed from a low angle, therefore aggrandizing his figure.
29. High Angle Camera
• The camera shoots down at the subject to increase the vulnerability, powerlessness, or
size.
• On the other hand, his blind son Mohammad and his elderly grandmother are often
shot from a high angle, emphasizing their dependence and smallness.
31. Cut
• The editing of a shot.
• In Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark ( Denmark, 2000) Selma and Bill have
a dramatic conversation in Bill's car that is framed by a cut-in and a cut-away.
32. Cut
• In this extended clip from Edward Yang's Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000), father
and daughter go out on dates at presumably the same time, and go
through the same motions, even if the father is in Japan and the
daughter in Taipei.
• To further stress the similarities, the father is actually reliving his first
date with his first girlfriend (whom he has just met again after 20
years), while his daughter is actually on her first date! Yang uses
parallel editing across space and time to suggest that history repeats
itself, generation after generation
33. Cut
• In this sequence from Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minelli, 1944) the editing sacrifices
actual physical space for dramatic space. As we can see in the first shot, there is a wall
behind the telephone.
• However, that wall magically disappears in the third shot in order to show both the
telephone and the family seated around the dining table (an important element in the film)
from an angle that would had been impossible in an actual room. Cheat cuts were also
often used to disguise the relatively short stature of leading men in relation to their
statuesque female co-stars.
34. Jump Cut
• If the cut seems inconsistent with the next shot, it is called a jump cut. More recently, jump
cuts are more commonly associated with music videos, video or alternative filmmaking, like Lars
Von Trier's Dogma films. Here is an example from Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, 2000).
• Jump cuts are a clear signifier of rupture with mainstream film storytelling. Rather
than presenting a film as a perfectly self-contained story that seamlessly unfolds in
front of us, jump cuts reveal the difficulties of telling such a story.
35. Fade In & Fade Out
The image appears or disappears gradually, often used as a division
between scenes.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41. Dissolve
• One image fades in while another fades out so that for a few
seconds, the two are superimposed.
• In this series of shots from The Stendhal Syndrome (La
Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento, 1996), a young woman
becomes so absorbed by Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus that she
actually dives into the painting's sea! (at least in her imagination,
in "real life" she faints).
42.
43. Superimposition
• Unlike a dissolve, a superimposition does not signify a
transition from one scene to another. The technique was often
used to allow the same performer to appear simultaneously as
two characters on the screen.
• In this clip from Neighbors (Buster Keaton, 1920), the resentful
father of the bride looks at the wedding ring and immediately
associates in his mind with a five and dime store. The subjective
shot gives us a clear indication of his opinion of his soon to be
son-in-law.
49. Voice-over
• Spoken words placed over the other tracks to comment
upon the narrative or to narrate.
• The voice-over is often used to give a sense of a
character's subjectivity or to narrate an event told in
flashback.
• It is overwhelmingly associated with genres such as film
noir and obsessive characters with a dark past. It is also
frequently used in memoir or biographical films.
