Chapter 7 Flashcards
Narrative
A story with a particular plot and point of view told by a narrator or conveyed by a narrational point of view.
Screenwriter
A writer of a film’s screenplay. The screenwriter may begin with an original treatment and develop the plot structure and dialogue over the span of several versions.
Screenplay
The text from which a movie is made, including dialogue and information about action, settings, shots, and transitions; developed from a treatment; also known as a script.
Story
The raw material of a narrative
Character
An individual who motivates the events and performs the actions of the story
Plot
The narrative ordering of the events of the story as they appear in the actual work, selected and arranged according to particular temporal, spatial, generic, casual, or other patterns.
Classical Film Narrative
A style of narrative filmmaking centred on one or more central characters who propel the plot with a cause-and-effect logic. Normally plots are developed with linear chronologies directed at definite goals, and the film employs an omniscient or a restricted third-person narration that suggests some degree of verisimilitude
Character Coherence
The consistency and coherence of a character
Character Depth
The pattern of psychological and social features that distinguish characters as rounded and complex in a way that approximates realistic human personalities
Protagonist
A character identified as the positive force in a film
Antagonist
A character who opposes the protagonist as a negative force in a film
Minor Character
A character who surrounds, contrasts with, and supports a film’s protagonists and antagonists and who usually is associated with specific character groups.
Archetype
A spiritual, psychological, or cultural model expressing certain virtues, values, or timeless realities.
Stereotype
A character type that simplifies and standardizes perceptions that one group holds about another, often less numerous, powerful, or privileged group.
Character Development
The patterns through which characters in a film move from one mental, physical, or social state to another.
Diegesis
The world of the film’s story (its characters, places, and events), including what is shown and what is implied to have taken place
Nondiegetic Insert
An insert that depicts an action, an object, or a title originating outside the space and time of the narrative world.
Credits
A list of all the personnel involved in film production, including cast, crew, and executives.
Linear Chronology
The arrangement of plot events and actions that follow one another in time.
Flashback
A sequence that follows an image set in the present with an image set in the past
Flashforward
A sequence that connects an image set in the present with one or more future images.
Deadline Structure
A narrative structured around a central event or action that must be accomplished by a certain time
Narrative Duration
The length of time used to present an event or action in a plot
Narrative Frequency
The number of times a plot element is repeated throughout a narrative
Symbolic Space
A space transformed through spiritual or other abstract means related to the narrative
Narration
The telling of a story or description of a situation; the emotional, physical, or intellectual perspective through which the characters, events, and action of the plot are conveyed. In film, narration is most explicit when provided as asynchronous verbal commentary on the action or images, but it can also designate the storytelling function of the camera, the editing, and verbal and other soundtracks.
Narrator
A character or other person whose voice and perspective describes the action of the film, either in voiceover or through a particular point of view.
First-Person Narration
Narration that is identified with a single individual, usually a character in the film.
Narrative Frame
A context or person positioned outside the principal narrative of a film, such as bracketing scenes in which a character in the story’s present begins to relate events of the past and later concludes their tale.
Third-Person Narration
A narration that assumes an objective and detached stance toward the plot and characters by describing events from outside the story
Omniscient Narration
Narration that presents all elements of the plot, exceeding the perspective of any one character
Restricted Narration
A narration in which our knowledge is limited to that of a particular character
Reflexive Narration
A mode of narration that calls attention to the narrative point of view of the story in order to complicate or subvert its own narrative authority as an objective perspective on the world
Unreliable Narration
A type of narration that raises questions about the truth of the story being told
Multiple Narrations
Several different narrative perspectives for a single story or for different stories in a movie that loosely fit together
Anthology Film
Films comprised of segments by different directors
Classical Hollywood Narrative
The dominant form of classical film narrative associated with the Hollywood studio system from the end of the 1910s to the end of the 1950s.
Postclassical Narrative
The form and content of films after the decline of the Hollywood studio system around 1960, including formerly taboo subject matter and narratives and formal techniques influenced by European cinema.
Alternative Film Narrative
Film narratives that deviate from or challenge the linearity of classical film narrative, often undermining the centrality of the main character, the continuity of the plot, or the verisimilitude of the narration.
Documentary
A nonfiction film that presents real objects, people, and events
Actuality
Nonfiction films introduced in the 1890s depicting real people and events through continuous footage. Ex. Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory
Scenic
Early nonfiction films that offered exotic or remarkable images of nature and foreign lands
Topical
Early films that captured or sometimes re-created historical or newsworthy events
Optical Sound Recording
The process that converts sound waves into electrical impulses that enables a soundtrack to be recorded alongside the image for simultaneous projection
Propaganda Film
Political documentaries that visibly support and intend to sway viewers toward a particular social or political issue or group
Cinema Verite
French term meaning “cinema truth”; a style of documentary filmmaking in 50s/60s that used unobtrusive, lightweight cameras and sound equipment to capture real-life situations
Direct Cinema
Documentary style from the USA in 60s that aims to observe an unfolding situation as unobtrusively as possible
Activist Video
A confrontational political documentary that uses low-cost video equipment
Shooting Ratio
The relationship between the overall amount or length of film shot and the amount used in the finished project
Nonfiction Film
Films presenting factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional or invented re-creation
Non-Narrative Film
Films organized in a variety of ways besides storytelling
Social Documentary
Documentaries that examine issues, peoples, and cultures in a social context
Historical Documentary
A type of documentary that concentrates largely on recovering and representing events or figures in history
Ethnographic Film
Films that record the practices, rituals, and people of a culture
Personal Documentary
Resemble autobiographies or diaries
Reenactment
A recreation of presumably real events within the context of a documentary
Mockumentary
A film that uses a documentary style and structure to present and stage fictional (sometimes ludicrous) subjects
Animation
The use of cinema technology to give the illusion of movement to individual drawings, paintings, figures, or CGI
Experimental Media
Media that makes expressive use of media affordances
Avant-garde Films
Aesthetically challenging, noncommercial films that experiment with film forms
Video Art
Artists use of the medium of video in installations and gallery exhibitions, beginning in the late 1960s.
New Media
Technologies that include the internet, digital technologies, video game consoles, cell phones, and wireless devices and the software applications and imaginative creations they support.
Modernity
A term designating the period of history stretching from the end of the medieval era to the present, as well as the period’s attitude of confidence in progress and science centred on the human capacity to shape history
Absolute Film
A film movement that focused on abstraction in motion in Germany in the 1920s.
Live-action Movie
A film that used photographic images
Anime
Japanese animation, first launched following WWII
Underground Film
Non mainstream film, associated particularly with the experimental film culture of the 60s/70s in New York and San Francisco