Cinema midterm Flashcards
Realism
attempts to maintain the illusion that the film world is unmanipulated
formalism
consciously draws attention to the aesthetic form.
Auteur
a French word used for the director who can be perceived as the major creator of his films, and who has a signature style that can be seen across a body of work.
pan
scans the scene horizontally
zoom
plunges the viewer in and out of a scene by switching from a wide-angle to a telephoto shot and vice-versa.
track shot, truck shot, or dolly shot
a shot taken from a moving vehicle. This type of shot tends to give the viewer a sense of movement.
establishing shot
an extreme long shot that serves as a spatial frame of reference for closer shots.
cinematographer
responsible for the lighting of the shot and the quality of the photography.
Tight framing
generally in close, encloses and entraps the subject
loose framing,
generally taken in longer shot leaves empty space in the frame and tends to give a sense of freedom.
Close-up
the area within the frame is roughly equivalent to a human head
Full shot
shows a figure from head to toe
Medium shot
shows a figure from knees or waist up.
Long shot
the area within the frame is roughly equivalent to the proscenium arch in a theatre.
Head-On
Akin, 2004
Citizen Kane
Welles, 1941
In The Mood for Love
Kar Wai, 2001
Goodfellas
Scorsese, 1990
Rear Window
Hitchcock, 1954
Psycho
Hitchcock, 1960
proxemic pattern
the spatial relationships of the characters as well as the apparent distance of the camera from the subject photographed.
Intimate
from skin contact to eighteen inches (close-up)
Personal
from eighteen inches to four feet (medium shot)
Social
from four feet to twelve feet (full shot)
Public
twelve feet and beyond (long shot)
bird’s-eye
view photographs a scene from directly overhead
eye-level shot
photographs a scene roughly the way an observer might actually view it and is seldom intrinsically dramatic.
low-angle
photographed from below and tends to heighten the importance of the subject photographed as well as suggest verticality.
high-angle shot
photographs a scene from slightly above and tends to reduce the importance of the subject photographed.
oblique angle
involves a lateral tilt of the camera. When the image is projected, the horizon is skewed. This tends to create tension and disorient the viewer.
genre.
A recognizable movie characterized by certain pre-established conventions.
What is the type of lens that records a large area while keeping everything in focus?
A wide angle lens.
dominant
the area of the screen that immediatey draws the viewer’s interest.
subsidiary contrast
is a subordinated element of the film image.
High key
a style of lighting that emphasizes bright and even illumination, with few conspicuous shadows, and is generally used in comedies, musicals, and light entertainment films.
Low key
lighting is a style of lighting that emphasizes diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light and is generally used for mysteries and thrillers.
High contrast
a style of lighting emphasizing harsh shafts and dramatic streaks of lights and darks that is often used in thrillers and melodramas.
Backlighting
when the lights for a shot derive from the rear of the set, thus throwing the foreground figures into semidarkness or silhouette.
mise en scène
the arrangement of visual weights and movements within a given space. In cinema, this space is defined by the frame that encloses the image.
What is the name of a shot taken from the vantage point of a character in the film (a shot that shows what the character sees)?
Point-of-view shot
Pov shot
First-person camera
Subjective camera
dissolve
the slow fading out of one shot and the gradual fading in of its successor, with a superimposition of images, usually at the midpoint.
Those images that are recorded continuously from the time the camera starts to the time it stops. This defines a:
shot
Define flashback and flash-forward
An editing technique that suggests the interruption of the present by a shot or series of shots representing the past (flashback)/future (flash-forward).
Sequence shot
A single lengthy shot, usually involving complex staging and camera movements.
Cutting to continuity
A type of editing in which the shots are arranged to preserve the fluidity of an action without showing all of it. An unobtrusive condensation of a continuous action; A system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies upon matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot.
Classical cutting
A style of editing developed by D.W. Griffith, in which a sequence of shots is determined by a scene’s dramatic and emotional emphasis rather than by physical action alone. The sequence of shots represents the breakdown of the event into its psychological as well as logical components.
Thematic montage
A type of editing propounded by the Soviet filmmaker Eisenstein, in which separate shots are linked together not by their literal continuity in reality but by symbolic association. A shot of a preening braggart might be linked to a shot of a toy peacock, for example. Most commonly used in documentaries, in which shots are connected in accordance to the filmmaker’s thesis.
Abstract cutting
A very formalistic style of editing with little connection to any recognizable subject matter.
