Film Techniques

Film Techniques

Today in class we watched two clips from the movie Pulp Fiction, we watched the dancing scene between John Travolta and Uma Thurman, just before she OD's and the scene with Christopher Walken talking about pulling a watch out of his behind- if you haven't seen it, you should its a really strange but awesome classic.

Before watching the clips we did a technique exercise and being the nerd I am I wrote down all of them  simplified by like a million.

Narrative- the way the story is told.
Plot- the story line.
Mise en Scene- the way everything in the scene comes together collectively ( props,costume, setting, the set up).
High Key Lighting - glossy and bright lighting.
Key Lighting-  main source of lighting for the scene.
Pan- the movement of the camera <--->
Tilt- same as pan but up and down ^
Tracking shot - moves on wheels/rails like a train following the character.
Crane shot- shot taken from crane used as an establishing shot which sets the scene or a shot to end the film.
High angle shot - shows vulnerability in a character.
Low angle shot - shows domination in a character.
Deep focus- lens focuses in and out for extreme close up, shows focus , emotion, intensity.
Montage- collage of shots showing development or to quickly establish a scene.
Dissolve- scene transition.
Fade in/ Fade out - scene transition.
Continuity editing - editing used to make the movie flow.
Ambient Sound - chatter/ birds/ wind used to create a natural setting.
Match on action- cuts out to action in the scene e.g. open door cuts onto hand turning mid action
Sound Bridge- when the sound bridge turns over to the next scene interrupting it.

  
These are some techniques that Miss Bell posted on her blog that I thought I would save for later for studying.

Selective sound is used to emphasise key sound elements within a sequence

Ambient sound is used to create a particular atmosphere or a sense of place

Sound bridges – the use of sound to help transitions between sequences pass more fluidly

 Sound effects – are these used to create a sense of realism or to create some psychological impact.

Theme music – This is the music that introduces, develops throughout and ends the film. It often indicates the ‘personality’ and mode of address of the movie. Characters can have their own theme music – this is used to indicate their presence or ‘emotional journey’.

Musical Score – used to create atmosphere, to link shots or sequences, to help create the narrative or to offer information about characters.

Silence – film/TV are very rarely completely silent, but this effect is occasionally used to provoke a reaction from the audience.

Voiceover – This is the ‘voice’ of a character. This voice often guides or informs the external audience but can be used to push them in wrong narrative directions.

Synchronous sound – This is when a sound effect is matched with another technical event or action – this reinforces the effect.

Asynchronous sound – This is when a sound originates from outside of the diegetic reality of the film; musical soundtrack.

Contrapuntal - noise or sound effect which doesn’t match the visuals, often juxtaposed to create alternative meaning

Top 5 Most Popular Film Noir Features

Top 5 Most Popular Film Noir Features

http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=film_noir&sort=moviemeter,asc&title_type=feature

1#
M 1931Directed By Fritz Lang

2#
Double Indemnity 1944 Directed by Billy Wilder

3#
Sunset Boulevard 1950 Directed by Billy Wilder

#4
The Third Man 1949 Directed by Carol Reed

#5
The Maltese Falcon Directed by John Hudson

Pulp - A Film Noir Parody

PULP - A Film Noir parody released in 1973.

What is Film Noir?

FILM NOIR

Here is some different websites ideas about what film noir is/was/and where it originated :

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the last depression.

The term film noir, French for "black film,"^[1] first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era.^[2]Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noirs were referred to as melodramas.^[a]Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars.

Film noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be a private eye (The Big Sleep), a plainclothes policeman (The Big Heat), an aging boxer (The Set-Up), a hapless grifter (Night and the City), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime (Gun Crazy), or simply a victim of circumstance (D.O.A.). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, films now so described have been made around the world. Many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes with film noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventionsself-referentially. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only. 

 Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as  The Maltese Falcon (1941), Murder, My Sweet (1944),  Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Laura (1944). A wide range of films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir, reflecting the 'chilly' Cold War period when the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness and sense of injustice. There were rarely happy or optimistic endings in noirs.

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only.

A dark city street bathed in shadows. A seedy office with “Investigations” stenciled on the door. A winding road along the ocean cliffs. An isolated house on the outskirts of town. The scenes offilm noir are all disturbingly familiar, as are the archetypal characters: the hard-boiled detective, the dangerously alluring femme fatale, and the well-heeled villain surrounded by gun-toting thugs. But even so, it is the visual style – canted camera angles, deep-focus shots, high-contrast lighting – and ultimately subversive message that are the hallmarks of classic film noir.

Yet, in spite of its recognizable elements, this deeply complex film genre – yes, it is a genre – has been the source of much discussion since it appeared in the early 1940s, later giving rise to modern neo-noir and tech-noir and forever changing the face of American cinema. Today, movie buffs attend film noir festivals, colleges offer courses on the subject, and critics argue whether the latest film is a noir or something just a bit different. The topic is as vibrant and intriguing now as it was 70 years ago.

http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only.

Preliminary Research

Wednesday 30th January
Year 12 Common Room
Middlemore House
King's College

Today was my first day of media studies with Miss Bell, I am looking forward to this year media is my favorite subject and even though I am apprehensive about essays I think I'll push forward.
We were handed out a contract stating that we continue to comply with school rules and put in 100% along with no plagiarism. We were also handed out a piece of paper with a year overview on the standards. So far I am pretty nervous about film making as I am new and haven't done it before. Last year I spent a large portion of the year focused on writing producing editing and fiddling with a radio show for Community Radio Hamilton the show was entitled - "Radio 2000"- focusing on the year 2000. It in theory was a good idea but as I was only born 5 years prior it was difficult as I only had vague memories of the year itself. Overall I received an excellence grade which was fantastic even though it was probably the most boring radio show ever aired.

Today Miss Bell asked the class about Film Nior, the whole class was silent, myself included, so I decided to go out into the world wide web and check out some definitions along with some examples. Hopefully this will help me and be pretty cool too.

Kath.