Reading a Film Sequence
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Preliminary
Notes
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The inventory of the
following work sheet for the most draws attention to formal concerns, to
matters grounded in the work of the text. Every text, though, is a function of at
least two contexts: the context in which it was made, the context in which it
functions.
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Every text speaks in a number
of different ways, i.e., it recycles the givens of tradition, engaging various
forms of discourse, putting them together in a way to produce an aesthetic
entity. These texts are something like a stringing together of quotations, of
reworking conventions, of adding together a number of impulses from the world
in which one lives, appropriating various elements in a way that leads to something
different, and in that sense, new.
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The work that goes into
ferreting out the different voices in a text involves, among other things, an
awareness of historical situations, the assumption and background of an artist
and his/her team, the motivation(s) behind a certain production. Beyond that,
to talk about a filmic text means that we engage in a dialogue that brings us
into the scene as a participant in an exchange: we make certain assumptions,
both methodological and theoretical ones. Even the statement "I didn't
like this film" carries with it a sizable amount of implicit assumptions.
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Any thorough analysis of a
film involves studying the following:
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the socio-historical
background to the film, economic and political factors that conditioned its
making and explain its existence
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the traditions out of
which a given film arises: the sorts of cultural quotations it partakes of, the
conventions it makes use of, the degree to which it participates in certain
specifically national patterns of expression
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the institutional
positioning of a given film: its status in the public sphere in which it is
received
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the director/author's
larger body of work, of which the film is part of a larger whole
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the "work" of
the text itself, never forgetting, though, that films issue from a larger
extra-filmic whole
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the question of a film's
reception in time and how this has pre-shaped our own expectations as well as
the film's place in history
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the relation of a text
to certain intertexts; these can be directly suggested by a film or they can be
creative associations suggested by the spectator.
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I. Narrative
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1.
Describe briefly what you see in the selected sequence.
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2.
What is the filmmaker trying to communicate in this segment?
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3.
How do the channels of information in film--visual image, print and other
graphics, speech, music, sound effects--work together to communicate the
message and produce meaning? Which channel is dominant in this segment?
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4.
Try to determine what function and significance this segment has for the film
as a whole and your understanding of it. What is the function of this sequence
within the larger narrative action: foreshadowing, climax, transition,
exposition, transition, etc.? Does the sequence encapsulate the major
oppositions at work in the film? What are the underlying issues in the sequence
(often glossed over and obscured in the overt action and in the dialogue, but
possibly alluded to in the visuals?) What is the selected sequence
"really" about? What aspect of the story does it establish, revise,
develop? How do the visuals express it?
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5.
How is the story told? (linear, with flashbacks, flashforwards, episodically?)
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 6. Can the sequence be divided into
individual segments (indicated, for instance, by shifts of location, jump in
time, intertitles, etc.)? Assuming the film's story consists of many
"wisps of narratives," all intricately intervowen with each other,
how many simultaneous narratives (substories) does the sequence contain?
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7.
Is there a recognizable source of the narration? Voice-over or off-screen
commentary? What is the narrator's perspective?
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8.
Does the film acknowledge the spectator or do events transpire as if no one
were present? Do characters look into the camera or pretend it is not there,
for instance? Does the film reflect on the fact that the audience assumes the
role of voyeurs to the screen exhibition?
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9.
Does the film reflect on its "constructedness" by breaking the
illusion of a self-sufficient "story apparently told by nobody"? Are
there intertitles, film-within-film sequences, obtrusive and self-conscious
("un-realistic") camera movements calling attention to the fact that
the film is a construct?
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10.
How does the film position the viewer vis-a-vis the on-screen events? Are we
made to favor certain characters, to respond in certain ways to certain events
(say, through music that "tells" us how to respond or distances us
from the action)? Does the film appeal to certain expectations, i.e., generic
conventions? (We expect a man dressed in black shrouded in a shadow to be
sinister, for instance.) Does the film subvert these conventions or conform to
them? What kind of conventions are they? Does the film play with certain genre
expectations (comedy, melodrama, western, science fiction, documentary, etc.)?
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11.
Does the narrative (as encapsulated in the sequence) express (indirectly)
current political views? Does the film sequence conform to, affirm, or question
dominant ideologies? Does the filmmaker (unconsciously) subvert the expression
of minority or non-conformist views by recourse to old visual clichés?
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II. Staging
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The filmmaker stages and
event to be filmed. What is put in front of the camera? How does the staging
comment on the story? How does it visualize the main conflicts of the story?
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Setting: On location or in the
studio? "Realistic" or stylized? Historical or contemporary? Symbolic
use of props? Are mirrors, crosses, windows, books, etc., accentuated? Why? How
do sets and props comment on the narrative?
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Space: Cluttered or empty? Does it
express a certain atmosphere? Is the design symmetrical or asymmetrical?
Balanced or unbalanced? Stylized or natural? Open form: frame de-emphasized,
"snapshot" quality. Closed form: frame is carefully composed and self-contained
like a painting, theatrical; the frame acts as a boundary and limit. Is space
used as an indirect comment on a character's inner state of mind? Does space
overwhelm the human beings in its midst? Does it figure as a character-like
presence?
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Lighting: What is illuminated, what
is in the shadow? Lighting quality: hard lighting (bold shadows) or soft
(diffused illumination)? Direction: frontal lighting (flat image), sidelighting
(for dramatic effect), backlighting (only the silhouette is visible), or
underlighting (from a fireplace, for example)? "Realistic" or high
contrast/symbolic lighting? High key/low key? Special lighting effects? (e.g.
shadows, spotlight) Natural lighting or studio (Hollywood has three light
sources: key light, fill light, and backlight.) How does the lighting enhance
the expressive potential of the film?
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Acting
and Choreography: What do appearance, gestures, facial expressions, voice signify?
Professional actors or non-actors? Why? Movement of characters: moving toward/away
from camera; from left to right/from right to left; stationary? Do they
exchange gazes with other characters? Who looks at whom? Grouping of characters
before the camera; view of characters (clear or obscured [behind objects],
isolated or integrated, center or off-center, background or foreground)? How do
acting and choreography attract and guide the viewer's attention (and
manipulate his/her sympathies)? How do they create suspense, ambiguity, wrong
clues, comÂplexity, and certainties?
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Costume
and Make-Up:
"Realistic" or stylized/abstract? Social and cultural coding: what do
costumes signify (status, wealth, attitude, foreignness, etc.)?
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III. Cinematography
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The filmmaker controls not
only what is filmed but how it is filmed: how the staged, "pro-filmic"
event is photographed and framed, how long the image lasts on the screen.
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1.
Photography
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Film
Stock: What
type of photographic film is used? (Fast film stock to achieve grainy,
contrasty look) Tinting? Over/underexposed? Black and white or color? Symbolic
use of color? Subjective use of colors linked to certain characters? Colors as
leitmotif?
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Speed
of Motion:
"Normal" speed (24 frames per second for sound film; 16 for silent);
slow motion; accelerated motion; freeze frame; time-lapse (low shooting speed:
a frame a minute--see the sun set in seconds?)
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Lens: Normal, telephoto, wide
angle, distorting lens, macro, zoom?
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Focus: Depth of field; shallow
focus; deep focus (everything is in sharp focus)? Rack focus (lens refocuses)?
Soft focus? Who/what is in/out of focus?
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Special
effects:
Glass shot; superimposition; projection process? Computer-generated image?
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2.
Camera/Framing
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Angle/Level:
High angle
shot, low angle shot, eye level shot, oblique angle shot, extreme angle (bird's
eye), canted frame?
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Distance:
Extreme long shot, long shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up?
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Movement/Mobile
Framing: Panning
shot, tracking shot; from above, below, in/Âout/circular; zoom/in/out,
slow/fast; tilt shot, handheld camera, camera on vehicle? How do camera
movements function? What information do they provide about the space of the
image? Does the camera always follow the action? Does it continually offer new
perspectives on the characters and the objects? Subjective camera movement? How
does it relate to on-screen/off-screen space?
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Type
of Shot:
Establishing shot/point-of-view shot/reaction shot/insert shot/flashback
shot/shot-counter shot?
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IV. Editing
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Transition
techniques:
Gradual changes: dissolve (superimpose briefly one shot over the following;
fade in or out (lighten or darken the image); cuts (instantaneous changes from
one shot to another); abrupt shifts and disjunctions. Does editing comment on
the relationships between characters and spaces?
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Purpose
of Editing:
Continuity editing, thematic or dialectical montage, cutting on motion,
"invisible" cutting, shock cutting, cross-cutting (alternates shots
of two or more lines of actions going on in different places)?
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Rhythm
and Pace: Flowing/jerky/disjointed/more
panning shots than cuts/acceleration of cuts/fast-paced/slow-paced/unusually
long takes? Shot duration?
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V. Sound
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Music: Is its source part of the
story (="diegetic") or added on (="non-diegetic")? With
diegetic sound the source of the sound can be visible (on-screen) or unseen
(off-screen). What kind of music: popular, classical, familiar, exotic, rock?
Typical for the period depicted? Does music comment (foreshadow or contradict)
the action? Does it irritate? What is the music's purpose in the film? How does
it direct our attention within the film? How does it shape our interpretation
of the image?
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Sound
effects:
Artificial or natural sound? On- or off-screen source? Is there subjective
sound? What does it signify?
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Dialogue/Silence:
Stilted or
artificial language? Do different characters use different kinds of language;
slang; dialect, profanity, allusion to other texts, quotations? Do certain
characters speak through their silence?
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Voice-over/Narration: Who is speaking and from
where? Is voice-over part of the action or (non-diegetically) outside of it?
What does the narrator know and what is his/her relationship to the action? Is
s/he reliable, omniscient, unreliable?
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Synchronization: Is sound matched with the
image? Non-simultaneous sound? (For instance, reminiscing narrator or when
sound from the next scene begins while the images of the last one are still on
the screen. This is also called a "sound-bridge".)
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