Film Form & Style

Film Form & Style

1. Narrative Elements

   • Narrative System
     • Cause & Effect
       • Motivation
         • Clear
         • Murky
     • Time
       • Temporal Order Temporal Duration Temporal Frequency
     • Space
   • Construction
     • Story vs Plot
     • Diegetic vs Non-diegetic
   • Development
     • Beginning
       • Climax
         • Resolution
         • Tension
   • Narration
     • Restricted Omniscient
   • Agents of Story

2. Stylistic Elements

   • Misc-en-scene
     • Setting
       • Built Set
       • Digital Set
       • Existing Locale
         • Realistic, but usually too complex or complicated.
     • Costume & Make up
       • a. Characterisation b. Exaggeration in actor's slightest expression changes.
       • Special Effects
       • Horror Make-Up
     • Lighting
       • High Key
         • a. Less shadows & highlights b. Low contrast
       • Low Key
         • a. Strong contrast b. Sharper, darker shadows
       • Source
         • 3 Point Lighting
         • Key Fill Back
         • Changing/ Constant
       • Direction
         • Front Back Side Top Under
       • Colour
         • Filters
       • Intensity
         • Hard
         • Soft
         • Shadows & Highlights
     • Staging
       • Acting
         • Sound
           • Effects Voices
         • Visual Elements
           • Appearance Gesture Facial-expression
         • Individual
         • Styllised
         • Emotions
       • Motion Capture
         • Whole Body
       • Performance Capture
         • Concentrates on face
     • Screen Space
       • On-screen
       • Off-screen
   • Cinematography
     • Speed of Motion
       • Today, slow-motion footage functions to suggest the action takes place in dream/fantasy. Or used to convey power in martial arts/superhero films. A sudden acceleration might increase impact of an explosion.
       • Slow-mo Acceleration Freeze-frame
         • Time lapse
         • Stretch Frame
       • Frame Rate
         • More frames per second results in slower motion. 
         • 24 fpq
     • Perspective
       • Lens
         • Focal Length
           • The distance from the centre of the lens to the point where light rays converge to a point of focus on the film.
           • Short/Wide-angled (35mm) Middle/Medium (50mm) Long/Telephoto (100mm)
             • Short focal length exaggerates depth, figures in foreground seem bigger and those in distance seem further away. When figure moves towards or away from camera, this lens make them seem to cover ground more rapidly
             • Medium lens seeks to avoid noticeable perspective distortion. Horizontal and vertical lines are rendered as straight and perpendicular. Parallel lines recede to distant vanishing points.
             • Longer lenses flatten the space along the camera axis. Cues for depth and volume are reduced. Planes "squashed" together. 
             • Decision about lens length can make a character or object blend into the setting or stand out in sharp relief. Long-focal-length lens can create solid masses of space as in an abstract painting. Expressive effect, surprise & suspense.
         • Zoom
           • Most filmmakers don't try to zoom because of the rapid warping or flattening of the image. However, the zoom has sometimes been used to substitute for moving the camera forward or backward.
         • Depth of Field & Focus
           • Deep Space
             • Deep space is a term for the way the filmmaker has staged the action on several different planes, regardless of whether all these planes are in focus
           • Selective Focus
             • Focus on only one plane and letting the other planes blur. Viewers tend to pay attention to what is most clearly visible.
           • Deep Focus
             • In Hollywood during the 1940s, partly because of the influence of Citizen Kane, filmmakers began using lenses of shorter focal length, along with more sensitive film stock and higher light levels, to yield a greater depth of field.
             • Deep focus, combined with deep-space staging, became a major stylistic option in the 1940s and 1950s.
             • During the 1970s and 1980s, younger directors like Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma revived deep-focus cinematography.
           • Racking Focus
             • Commonly used to switch our attention between foreground and background, making one plane blurred and another sharp.
       • Special Effects
         • Superimposition
           • Images are laid over one another, creating multiple perspectives within the frame
         • Rear-projection Front-projection
           • When people are shown inside moving vehicles, the scenery whizzes by in rear projection. To modern eyes, rear projection seldom creates very convincing depth cues.
           • Front projection, used angled mirrors to summon up more realistic-looking backgrounds.
         • Matte Work
           • A matte is a portion of the setting photographed on a strip of film, usually with a part of the frame empty.
           • Through laboratory printing, the matte is joined with another strip of film containing the actors.
           • To prevent the actors from "disappearing", filmmakers use a travelling matte.
     • Tone
       • Exposure
         • Overexposure
       • Contrast
       • Hue
         • a. Techni-colour b. Black & White
       • Filters
         • Grading
       • Tint
     • Long Take
       • Uninterrupted image
       • Organised narrative
       • POV
       • Character Developement
     • Framing
       • Aspect Ratio
       • Wide-screen
         • The wide formats challenge ambitious directors to design more screen-filling compositions. Those can't be as compact as the deep-focus compositions, but they can achieve pictorial force.
         • Anamorphic
           • A special lens squeezes the image horizontally.
         • Masking
           • A moving circular mask that opens to reveal or closes to conceal a scene is called an iris.
       • Multiple frames
       • Camera position
         • Angle Level Height Distance
         • POV
       • Camera Movement
         • Pan Tilt Tracking Dolly Crane
   • Editing
     • The relation of one shot to another, joining them to tell a story. It is a transition
     • Cuts
       • Straight-cut Fade-out Fade-in Dissolve Wipe
     • Dimentions
       • Graphic
         • Consistency Contrast
         • Mismatch
       • Rhythmic
         • Action Body-movement Position
       • Spatial
         • Established shot
         • Kuleshov effect
           • any series of shots in the absence of an establishing shot promts audience to infer a spatial whole
         • Cross Cut
           • One line of action cutting to another line of action. What links them might be the cause & effect relationship or temporal duration.
       • Temporal
         • Compression Expansion Montages
       • Continuity
         • 180 degrees rule

3. Meaning

   • Explicit
     • Motivation
   • Referential
     • Summary
   • Implicit
     • Interpretation
   • Symtomatic
     • Drawn to a larger context

4. Sound