Film Form Flashcards
Form
The thing that holds the content
Content
Things that are governed by the film’s formal context
Formal expectation
Viewers expect the film to follow a certain form - ABC, ABAB etc
Emotions represented
The emotions the onscreen actor portrays
Emotional response
The response the audience has to the represented emotions
What are the four main types of meaning?
- Referential meaning
- Explicit meaning
- Implicit meaning
- Symptomatic meaning
Referential meaning
When the film refers to things or places already significant irl
Explicit meaning
Function within the film’s overall form and are controlled by context
Implicit meaning
The individual interpretations of a scene or film
Symptomatic meaning
Understanding a film’s explicit or implicit meanings as bearing traces of a particular set of social values. The revered values are known as social ideology.
What are the four different criteria used to judge films?
- Realistic criteria
- Moral criteria
- Complexity criteria
- Originality criteria
Realistic criteria
Are the events realistic?
Moral criteria
Are there bad morals in the film, does the film itself support bad morals (glorifying drugs etc)?
Complexity criteria
Is the film too simple or too complicated?
Originality criteria
How different or similar is the film to other films - is it repetitive or out of the box. (being original does not mean that it is good)
Principle of progression
When the filmmaker places similar and different elements within a pattern of change
Segmentation
A written outline of the film that breaks it into its major and minor parts
Unity
When all the relationships within a film are clear and economically interwoven
Conventions
Common aspects of the world - a tradition, dominant style, popular form etc
Motif
Any significant repeated element that contributes to the overall form
