Narrative Form/ Classic Hollywood Flashcards
What are the 2 types of film form?
Narrative Elements and Stylistic Elements
Name 3 Parts of Narrative Form
Characters, Ordering of Scenes, and Themes
Name 4 Stylistic Elements
Camera movements, Sound effects, Lighting, and Transition Between Shots (Editing)
What is Film Form?
The set of relationships (or patterns) between parts of a film (that generate the viewer’s expectation)
What is Frame Narration/Nested Narration
A structure in which a frame plot surrounds an embedded tale (a story within a story)
Name 2 Narrative Elements
Story vs. Plot
Characters
What is Story (fabula)?
All of the events presented explicitly and inferred by the viewer, arranged in chronological order. This includes events that aren’t presented on the screen which viewers are left to imagine how they got from scene A to scene B.
What is Diegesis?
The world of story
What is Diegetic?
Belonging in the world of story
What is Plot (Syuzhet)?
All of the events presented explicitly to the viewer, in the order of presentation. When Lockwood is singing, his voice is diegetic, the sounds he makes are diegetic, but the orchestra music accompanying accompanying his singing is non-diegetic.
What events in a film are story, plot, or both?
Presumed and inferred events > Story
Explicitly presented events > Both
Added non-diegetic material > Plot
What is Backstory?
Events that took place before the plot; “details of a character’s past”
What is an Ellipses?
Period of time between explicitly presented diegetic events
What is Character Motivation?
The central cause behind a character’s actions
What is Characterization?
The process of conveying information about characters
What are the acts in a Four-Act Narrative Structure?
- Setup/Exposition
- Complicating Action
- Development
- Climax/Epilogue
What is a Turning Point?
A narrative moment that signals an important shift of some kind in character or situation
What do Narrative Elements do?
They have roles/functions in the narrative. Think: how would the plot differ in the absence of the narrative element?
What is Classical Hollywood Cinema?
Produced by companies located in or near Hollywood.
Between Approx. 1917-1960
Follow a set of conventions that are “classical”
What are the conventions of classic Hollywood cinema?
- Clarity (space, time, causality, character motivations, etc.)
- Unity (Tight causal chain, space and time are presented as a unified whole, Motifs - recurring elements-, hooks or dangling causes)
- Goal-Oriented Characters (causal agents) who encounter obstacles (their goals are the building blocks of the film and can be personal or professional)
- Closure (satisfying ending)
- Unobtrusive, self-effacing style
