M2: Cinema Flashcards
is a way of expressing ideas, attitudes, feelings, dreams, and fantasies to an audience through a series of images.
cinema
a term that embraces many types of films or movies: cartoons, newsreels, commercials, industrial films social documentaries, and even home movies.
cinema
Elements of Cinema
Time
Space
Sound
The most important element of cinema.
Time
is the time taken by an action as it is being filmed and as it is being projected on the screen.
Physical Time
Physical Time in the cinema can be distorted through:
slow motion, accelerated motion, reverse motion, stopped motion
happens when the camera takes pictures faster than the projector can show them on the screen.
slow motion
occurs when the camera takes pictures slower than the projector can run them on the screen.
accelerated motion
conveys an undoing of time. Commonly used in magic or comic effects.
reverse motion
a sudden stop of the action of the sequence.
stopped motion
Stopped motion is not often used. Instead of stopping the action of an otherwise moving sequence, still ______ are used.
photographs
Time expressed within a shot is fixed and cannot be changed. But time can be altered between shots. It is possible to mix past, present, and future in any order through the use of _______
flashback and flash-forward.
is our emotional impression of the duration of the action that we experience as we watch a film.
Psychological Time
_____ consists of delaying the resolution of a situation so as to arouse and maintain interest. _____ is achieved by withholding something from the audience or from one of the characters. The passage of time seems slow because of our impatience or eagerness to get to the resolution.
Suspense
refers to the time taken up by the events which are depicted in the film.
Dramatic Time
The cinema may use a story-line that covers a single day in the life of a character or the whole history of a civilization. A story that embraces a long period of time may utilize flashbacks, include a prologue or an epilogue, or exclude the inessential since it can be controlled from shot to shot. A film that depicts a brief period of time may be extended through repetition of different aspects of the events or the inclusion of scenes which to us may seem to flash across the screen when in truth it covers a few minutes.
dramatic time
on the screen is flat, and our perception of depth is just an illusion.
space
The camera lens captures the images we see on the screen. When we look at a desk, we see several of its sides and feel its volume. A picture of it reveals what the camera has photographed. Unless an attempt is made to make the three dimensionality of the desk apparent, it will look flat on the screen. The three-dimensionality and “realness” of the desk and other objects are achieved through the use of _____, shooting angle and lighting – the rudiments of the art of the film.
objects are achieved through the use of _____, shooting angle and lighting – the rudiments of the art of the film.
scale
refers to the size of objects on the screen and their relocation to the surrounding area.
Scale
Three Different Types of Shots:
long shot, medium shot, close-up
taken when the camera is positioned very far from the object and therefore there is a wide view on a small scale. Its purpose is to show the extent of the location and to show the relationship between the characters and the setting.
long shot
taken from an average distance and is the view of medium extent on a medium scale. A person’s ___ shot would be his photograph from his head to his waist.
medium shot
results from the camera which is situated to the close object that we can distinguish the smallest features of the object.
close-up
another means used to give the illusion of depth in the film. By the position of _____, a film maker can create areas of light and dark, and increase or decrease depth.
lighting
