Filmmakers - Seminole Cinema: SEHS Film



IB Film: Year 1, Week 6.3What the Audience CreatesWatch this snippet from the movie?Hugo?(2011) for an insight into the life of Georges Méliès the past few weeks, you have seen how early innovators learned to use and develop many of the different technical aspects of the new story-telling medium of film.At first, films were treated like moving photographs.Early film directors?like the Lumiere brothers considered the composition?of the frame, but otherwise were mostly concerned simply with the recording of movement.Later, narrative?was added by directors like Méliès, but the story was told like a story on a stage, with the camera?in one location as if it was a member of the audience?watching a play. The director treated?the edges of the frame like the proscenium arch?in a theater, separating the audience from the action.Over time, new techniques of shot design?and editing?moved the audience into the action, while new techniques of production design?and lighting?altered the audience's reaction to the events before them.All of this innovation happened because filmmakers were experimenting with developing camera (and later sound) technologies, and studying the effect these experiments had on the audience.Let's think about the aim of filmmaking, which?at its core, is communication.The filmmaker wants to get across their ideas in the shape of images. (This was particularly true in the early days of the 'flickers'?when sound had yet to be added to the mix.)Recording those images, shooting the film,?arranging the images?and editing the film are central to the audiences' understanding of what the director's idea is.Yasujiro OzuFor example, the famous Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, often placed his camera at a very low level, as if it was a person sitting cross-legged.?His idea was that the audience was sitting and watching events as if a guest, observing from about the same level as if they were meditating in silence or sitting on a?tatami?mat during a tea ceremony at someone's house.?Here the audience could quietly observe?the actions of characters as if they were surrounded by them, watching them silently without interfering.?Ozu was thinking about the effect camera placement would have on the reactions of the audience.?As time went on, filmmakers realized there were more and more elements that could be manipulated to affect their audience. These elements were given the overall name of film language.?Some basic elements of film language are camera angles, camera movement?and shot type, mise-en-scene, and the lighting of a scene.?These were very quickly understood to affect the audience's perception of the story.?As early as Méliès, special visual effects?were used, and by the end of the 1920's the use of sound became a major part of the filmmaker's vocabulary.?Of course, editing represented a major way the audience understood what was going on, arranging the different images in an order that made the events clear to the audience -?and sometimes in ways that deliberately withheld information from the audience for dramatic effect.Akira KurosawaDirectors have used editing and sequencing of images and story events to effect the audience's ideas about the significance of events in the story by arranging events in non-linear fashion.?Akira Kurosawa's?Rashomon?(1950) repeats the same story four different times, changing the events and their meaning each time as a different character testifies in court about what happened in a case where a bandit killed a samurai, and possibly, raped his wife.?By repeating the story from the point-of-view of different characters, Kurosawa uses editing and sequencing to explore the subjective nature of truth.Quentin TarantinoIn?Pulp Fiction?(1994), Quentin Tarantino intertwines the lives of two mob hit-men, a boxer, gangsters' wives, and a pair of diner bandits, by telling his story out of chronological sequence in a way that enhances the symbolic significance of events.?Characters who have died re-appear alive as story lines intertwine, and the audience must mentally create the timeline of events, driving them to consider the significance of the events sequencing.Christopher NolanIn?Memento?(2000),?Christopher Nolan represents the point-of-view of his main character, who has short-term memory loss, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers.?The director creates suspense by creating two storylines. One?story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.As we move through the Film Studies course, there are several?questions that will arise:What was the director's intent?Why did the director make the film?How were they trying to affect the audience?Why?At first, this might appear to be a difficult thing to do, as if you are being asked to read the director's mind. ??But just as we can determine what a poet or the author of a novel means by examining what words they have used and how they have used them, we can determine the ideas a filmmaker wants us to have by observing carefully the film language they use to affect the audience.?After all, the director is using these techniques to create specific ideas and feelings in the audience, so by observing and thinking about why the director chose these techniques, we can deconstruct the film, taking it apart so we understand what the director's intention was in the first place.?It is as simple as watching how the film is made, so we can understand what the director's intent is and how the film is meant to create ideas in the mind of the audience.?The first and most important question is always -?Why??Why was that shot chosen??Why is there a shadow over that character's face??Why does that object dominate composition in the frame??Why??Sometimes, besides careful observation, we may also want or need to do some research into what others have discovered about the film and the choices of the director, or the choices of other filmmakers like the producer, the director of photography, the screenwriter, the editor, the sound designer and sound editor, or any of the other skilled workers who have contributed their vision to the film.?Why is this important??Sometimes people claim that all knowledge about film is subjective.?Sometimes people say they can have any opinion they want. However, our understanding about what a film means is not solely based on opinion but also by observable facts.?When asked to determine a director's intent, some people will wonder 'how can I know that if I do not ask that director?'. ??As well, some directors like Stanley Kubrick were deliberately vague about their intentions, claiming that what was important was the audience reaction and not what he intended.?However, Kubrick's work can be deconstructed just like any other director's work, and his intent is often very, very clear.?Research can help you understand as well, but by watching, taking note of the technique and film language, and asking?Why?,?you can explain your beliefs about film in such a way that what you say is not just your 'opinion'. HYPERLINK "" Further ViewingThe following films use editing and sequencing to break the film into non-linear order.?At first, this might seem like it is breaking the rules of three-act structure we studied previously, but actually the films still follow the rules, and we understand what is going on specifically because we already understand story structure.?All 4 of these films are worth viewing, especially to see how structure relates to both the characters'?and the audience's point-of-view.?Review -?Rashomon?(1950) Akira Kurosawa?Review -?Pulp Fiction?(1994), Quentin Tarantino?Review -?Run Lola Run?(1998) Tom Tykwer?Review -?Memento?(2000) Christopher Nolan ................
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