Presentation for Communications 274, Introduction to Cinema.

1. Film Form and Narrative
Olivia Malinowski
Liz Wendt
Allie Borrego

2. Chapter 2: The Significance of
Film Form

3. The Concept of Form in Film
Form as System
Form – the overall system of relations
that we can perceive among the
elements in the whole film.
Cues
We exercise and develop our ability to
pay attention, to anticipate upcoming
events, to construct a whole out of parts
and to feel an emotional response to
that whole.

4. “Form” vs. “Content”
Formal Expectations
From beginning to end, our involvement with a film
depends largely on expectations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3f9UJTmgd0
When our expectations aren't met, we may feel
disoriented. Through adjusting our expectations,
we look for more “appropriate” ways to engage
with the films form.
Conventions and Experience
Prior Experience
Conventions- the way things are usually done

5. Form and Feeling
Emotions represented in artwork
Emotional response felt by spectator
Form and Meaning
Referential Meaning – allusion to particular items of
knowledge outside the film that the viewer is expected to
recognize
Explicit Meaning – significance presented overtly, usually in
language and often near the films beginning or end
Implicit Meaning – significance left mum, for the viewer to
discover upon analysis or reflection
Symptomatic Meaning – significance that the film divulges,
often against its will, by virtue of its historical or social
context

6. Evaluation
Personal Taste vs. Evaluative Judgment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHX
y8DpF5k0
Criteria: Realistic, Moral, Coherent,
Intensity of Effect, Complexity, and
Originality

7. Principles of Film Form
Function
The role or effect of any element within the films
form
Not all elements purposely have a function
Motivation is justification
Similarity and Repetition
Basic to our understanding of any film
Use of motifs (significant repeated element) and
parallelism

8. Principles of Film Form Cont.
Difference and Variation
Development
Governs the progression of form within a film
Segmentation, or outline, is used to analyze a films
pattern of development
Unity/Disunity
Unity occurs when all relationships we perceive
are clearly woven together.
Disunity leaves the viewer unfulfilled and
incomplete

9. Chapter 3: Principles of
Narration Construction
What is Narrative?
Plot and Story
Cause and Effect
Time
Space
Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development

10. What is Narrative?
Narrative: be a chain of events linked by cause and effect and
occurring In time and space
Narrative is what we usually mean by the term story.
Narrative begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs
according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation
arises that brings the end of the narrative.
Components of a narrative: causality, space and time.

11. Plot & Story
Plot: describes everything visibly and audibly present in the film
before us
Story: the set of all the events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly
presents and those the viewers infers
Nondiegetic elements: part of the plot, elements brought in from
outside the story world. Ex: credits, music, etc.
Plot Story

12. Plot vs. Story
Plot Story
Added Explicitly Presumed
nondiegtic presented and inferred
material events events

13. Cause & Effect
The agents of cause and effect are characters, usually.
The actions and reactions of the characters contribute to the
audience engagement in the film.
However, not all causes and effects originate with characters. For
example, natural disasters or health issues.
The audience actively seeks to connect events by means of cause
and effect.
The plot can lead the audience to infer causes and effects to build
up a total story.
Detective Films: 1. Crime conceived
2. Crime planned
Story 3. Crime committed
4. Crime discovered
Plot 5. Detectives investigate
6. Detective reveals

14. Cause & Effect
By withholding causes the film maker creates mystery.
Whenever any film creates a mystery, it suppresses
certain story causes and presents only effects in the plot.
The plot may also present causes but withhold story
effects, creating suspense and uncertainty in for the
audience.
Also creates a vivid ending

15. Time
Temporal Order: the way in which events are presented.
Flashback: a portion of a story that the plot presents out of chronological
order.
Flashforward: moving from present to future then back to present.
Temporal Duration: the film could concentrate on a short relatively
cohesive time span or highlight significant stretches of time over
years.
Story Duration: how long the story spans over time.
Plot Duration: how long the plot spans over time:
Screen Duration: how long the film is.
Temporal Frequency: the amount of times a scene is presented.
Allows the audience to see the same scene in different perspectives,
aims to provide the audience with new information

16. Space
Normally the place of the story action is also that of the
plot, but sometimes the plot leads us to infer other locales
as part of the story.
A character can describe a location where an event
happened but it is never shown on screen.
Story Space: the locations of the story
Plot Space: the locations portrayed in the plot
Screen Space: where the film is displayed

17. Openings
The opening provides a basis for what is to come and initiates us
into the narrative.
In Media Res: the opening is a series of actions that has already
started.
Exposition: the portion of the plot that lays out important story
events and character traits
Setup: the first quarter or so of a film’s plot

18. Patterns of Development
Change in knowledge: most common general pattern, the character
learns something new which causes a turning point in the plot
Goal-oriented plot: character takes step to achieve a desired object
or state.
A framing situation in the present may initiate a series of flashacks
showing how events led up to the present
The plot can create a deadline for the action. Ex: Back to The
Future
Plot can create patters of repeated action via cycles of events.

19. Closings
The pattern development in the middle portion may delay and
expected outcome.
The pattern of development can also create a surprise ending.
Climax: the end of a film, the high point of the development.
The movie can end the chain of cause and effect or it could have a
deliberately anticlimactic ending.
In such films the ending remains open.

20. Narration: The Flow of Story
Information
Carefully divulging story information at various points can
arouse a viewers interest immensely
Withhold information for the sake of curiosity or surprise
Can be extremely important because it allows the director
to manipulate the viewer emotions and feelings
Narration: the plot’s way of of distributing story information
in order to achieve specific effects

21. Narration
Narration: the plot’s way of of distributing story
information in order to achieve specific effects
The moment-by-moment process that guides us
in building the story out of the plot
Most important factors: range & depth of the story
and information that the plot presents

22. Range of Story Information:
Can start with very broad range of knowledge
Unrestricted narration-we know more, we see and
hear more, than any of the characters can-
narration is never completely unrestricted
VS.
Restricted narration-we don’t see or hear
anything that the narration can’t see or hear
Important to mystery films
A completely restricted narration is not
common
Creates a greater curiosity and surprise for
the viewer

23. Want to analyze the range of
information?
Ask whoknows what
when!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgn9FJcmwUY

24. Depth of Story Information:
A plot might confine us wholly to information
about what characters say and do: their
external behavior. here the narration is
relatively objective
Plot also could give access to what characters
see and hear
Range and Depth of Knowledge are
independent variables

25. Important Terms:
POINT OF VIEW SHOT- taken from a
characters optical standpoint
SOUND PERSPECTIVE-we hear sounds as
the character would
PERCEPTUAL SUBJECTIVITY-visual or
auditory point of view
MENTAL SUBJECTIVITY-greater depth if the
plot plunges into the character’s mind-voice
revealing the characters thoughts, or the
characters inner images representing
memory, fantasy, dreams, hallucinations

26. More on POV
Point of view is ambiguous-it can refer to range of
knowledge or to depth
Why manipulate the depth of knowledge? It can
increase our sympathy for a character and can
cue stable expectations about what the
characters will say or do
Objectivity can be an effective way of withholding
information

27. The Narrator
Narration is the process by which the plot
presents story information to the spectator. The
process may shift from restricted and unrestricted
ranges of knowledge and varying degrees of
objectivity and subjectivity
May or may not have an actual narrator-source of
the narrating voice could be uncertain to play on
character/non-character distinction

28. The Classical Hollywood
Cinema
In “Classical Hollywood cinema”
psychological causes tend to motivate most
other narrative events
Strong tendency to be objective
Strong degree of closure
The plot will omit significant durations in
order to show only events of casual
importance
Lengthy stable and influential

29. Hollywood Cinema (cont)
Action springs from individual characters
as casual agents
Cause and effect imply change
Appointment motivates
Deadline makes plot duration dependent
on the cause-effect chain