U of Calgary Smartphone Movie Making Class 2017

1. Theoretical Stances of Film Studies | Categories of Genre
Style and Genre II
Mise-en-scène, Camera Angles, Proxemics
Aesthetics I - Photography

2. Theory is the handmaiden of art, not vice versa.
Louis Giannetti
What is Film Theory?
Film practice is art/beauty/glimpses of truth but …
Movies, (and theatre art and literature and dance …) can
be explored from a variety of theoretic perspectives.
A theory is an intellectual grid: some theories are
interested in the wider context; social, political,
philosophical implications; some theories explore the
essential nature and basic properties.

3. Various theoretical takes
Here are (at least) five other ways of looking at film.
1. Style and Genre (Our chosen path)
2. Auteur Theory
3. Literary Theory
4. Realist Theory
5. Marxist Theory
6. Structuralism and Semiology | Ideology and Culture

4. Various theoretical takes
Here are seven different ways of looking at
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
1. A style and genre critic might analyse the picture within a Classical Style (Fiction mode)
because of its dramatic unity. Furthermore, it might be found to be an example of the Genre
of War (anti-war), popular in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
2. An auteur critic might regard it as a typical FFC film. An industry historian might look at
the commercial content and the money it made for the studio and the investors.
3. A literary theorist interested in the relationship of movies to literature might focus on the
script, based on Joseph Conrad’s celebrated novel, Heart of Darkness.
4. A realist theorist might concern her/himself with “excavating reality” emphasizing the
moral or ethical facts and bias of the subject matter over “plot.”
5. Furthermore, a Marxist theorist might condemn the movie as a parable of greed and
capitalism.
6. A semiotic theoretician might use cultural codes to analyse the binary opposites of
traditional and modern values to analyse a deep ideological structure. It might also be
looked at as a Martin Sheen/Marlon Brando star vehicle, exploiting the stars’ iconography.

5. Styles and Modes of Cinema
And examples from the New School
REALISM CLASSICISM FORMALISM
Documentary F I C T I O N Expressionism
FUZ V1
FUZ V2
Tough Crimes
NB. These are not airtight categories and often overlap.
Styles
Modes
Tangerine
+ Rideshare
SCPA Faculty Doco
+ Searching for Sugarman
Dolly Diva
Non-Fiction Non-Fiction

6. What About Genre?
• Definition: A recognizable type of movie, characterized by
certain pre-established conventions.
• Genre was developed by French directors François
Truffault, Jean-Luc Godard and their Cahiers du cinema
associates in the mid-50s. Simultaneously with their Auteur
Theory, they also developed the theory of film genre.
• Believed that the genius of American cinema was its
repository of ready-made forms saying “The tradition of
genres in a base of operations for creative freedom.”

7. Categories:
Genre

8. Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis
15 pt. Systematic Mise-en-scène Analysis
.
1. Dominant. What is our eye attracted to?
2. Lighting Styles and Key: High-key, low-key, painterly, linear?
3. Shot and Camera Proxemics: What type of shot? How far away?
4. Shot Angles. High, low, neutral.
5. Colour values. What is dominant colour? Colour symbolism?
6. Lens/filter/stock. How do these distort or comment on
photography?
7. Subsidiary contrasts. What are the eye-stops after the dominant?
8. Density. How much visual information is packed into the image? Is
texture stark, moderate, or highly detailed?
“Photographic
considerations”
Aesthetics of Filmmaking – Old School and New School

9. Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis15 pt. Systematic Mise-en-scène Analysis
9. Composition. How is the 2-D space segmented and organized? What
is the underlying design?
10. Form. Open or closed? Does the image suggest a window that
arbitrarily isolates a fragment of the scene? Or is it self contained?
11. Framing. Tight or loose? How much room do the characters have to
move around?
12. Depth. On how many planes is the image composed? Does the
background and foreground comment on the midground?
13. Character placement. What parts of the framed space are occupied?
14. Staging positions. Which way to they look vis-à-vis the camera
15.Character proxemics. How much space between characters?
Continued …

10. Camera Shots (Proxemics)
Cinematography affects “tone” or general atmosphere of a film.
Eg long shot or establishing shot, in Lawrence of Arabia.
Requires a wide angle lens to capture objects at several focal
distances and photographed in depth. “Anamorphic” ratio.
Aesthetics of Filmmaking -- Photography

11. Long, Full, Medium Closeup Extreme
Closeup Shots.
Proxemics. In this scene of Il Bueno, il brutto, il cattivo, watch
for the transition between long shot or establishing shot to
the full shot to the medium shot to the closeup to the
extreme close up. (Start 4’22”)
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

12. Il Bueno, il brutto, il cattivo aka The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
DOP (Cinematographer):
Writing credits Luciano Vincenzoni &Sergio Leone
Genre: Action / Western / Drama (more)
Music: Ennio Morricone
Tagline: For Three Men The Civil War Wasn't Hell. It Was
Practice!
Plot Outline: Three gunmen set out to find a hidden fortune.
Who will walk away with the cash?
User Comments: The best of Eastwood's "spaghetti westerns"
Cast overview, first billed only:
Clint Eastwood .... Joe
Lee Van Cleef .... Sentenza
Elli Wallach .... Tuco
From imdb

13. Camera Angles
Aesthetics of Filmmaking
Five basic angles in cinema:
1. The bird’s eye view
2. The high angle
3. The eye-level shot
4. The low angle
5. The worm’s eye view

14. Camera Angles
Aesthetics of Filmmaking
Watch how the “status” of the characters change in
Psycho scene through use of high and low angles.

15. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
DOP (Cinematographer): John L. Russell
Writing credits Robert Bloch (novel)
Joseph Stefano (screenplay)
Genre: Horror / Thriller
Tagline: A new- and altogether different- screen excitement!!!
Plot Outline: A young female embezzeler arrives at the Bates
Motel which has terrible secrets of its own.
This shows extra goodies about the movie.
Cast: Anthony Perkins .... Norman Bates
Janet Leigh .... Marion Crane
Vera Miles .... Lila Crane
John Gavin .... Sam Loomis From imdb

16. Light and Dark
Styles of lighting:
High Key, Comedies, musicals, bright even light with few
shadows. Examples?
High Contrast, Harsh shafts of light, dramatic streaks of
blackness. Examples?
Painterly style of light eg. Girl with the Pearl Earring. Soft-
focus, sensuous, romantic.
Linear style is austere, deglamourized, razor-sharp deep focus.
This form is favoured by realists.
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

17. Colour Expressionism
Colour is a subconscious element in film. Strongly
emotional in appeal, expressive and atmospheric rather
than conspicuous or intellectual. Psychologists have
discovered that people actively attempt to interpret the
lines of a composition but accept colour passively,
permitting it to suggest moods.
Some filmmakers deliberately alternate episodes in black
and white with sequences in colour. Memento (Nolan,
2010).
Aesthetics of Filmmaking