The document discusses various techniques used in filmmaking to tell visual stories. It begins by explaining that films use pictures and sounds, in addition to words, to convey meaning. It then covers concepts like mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing techniques, narrative structures, and semiotics - how meaning is constructed through signs and symbols in film. Overall, the document illustrates that film is a complex visual text that uses multiple artistic and technical elements purposefully arranged to immerse viewers in fictional worlds and communicate ideas.

1. FILM AS TEXT

2. “Seeing comes
before words”
John Berger, art
critic, novelist,
painter

3. A FILM TELLS A STORY THROUGH PICTURES
 A good writer chooses his words carefully.
 A good filmmaker chooses everything
carefully
 Words
 Pictures
 Sounds
 Music
 Actors

4. DIEGESIS
 The fictional story world within a film, the
sum of on-screen and off-screen space,
narrative, etc. Everything in the film but not
in its fictional world is non-diegetic (score,
credits, some voice-overs, etc.)

5. “A film is never
really good unless
the camera is an
eye in the head of a
poet”
Orson Welles, director,
writer, actor and
producer

6. IT’S NOT JUST…
 What things you say
 What things you see
 What things you hear
 But most of all, it’s how
you do it
 It’s what you don’t say
 It’s what you don’t see
 It’s what you don’t hear

7. THINGS TO WATCH FOR IN FILM
 Semiotics
 Narrative
 Images
 Editing
 Notice I didn’t include “acting”

8. SEMIOTICS
 Semiotics is the study of “signs”
 A sign is:
 A (usually visual or audible) abbreviation for a
unit of meaning
 Signs include:
 Clichés
 Metaphors
 Metonymy / synecdoche

9. SYNECDOCHES

10. SEMIOTICS (2)
 Sign as object (physical): what we see, hear,
etc. the signifier (perception)
 Sign as concept (psychological): how we
react to the sign  the signified (meaning)
 Denotation  the direct meaning of the sign
 Connotation  the indirect meaning of the
sign

11. SEMIOTICS (3)
 Appropriation
 Allusion
 Association
 Genre

12. APPROPRIATION
West Side Story is just a retelling of Romeo and
Juliet

13. ALLUSION
“round up the usual suspects” is a famous line in Casablanca

14. ASSOCIATION
The pinpoint bombing of the death star in Star Wars echoes
the bombing of the dam in “Dambusters”

15. GENRES
 Action and adventure
 Sci-Fi
 Western
 Crime, detective and
thriller, courtroom
 Horror
 Comedy
 Romance
 Rom-Com
 Western
 Road Movie
 Buddy film
 Bio-pic
 Fantasy/sword and
sorcery
 War movie
 Chick-flick
 Screwball comedy
 Costume and historical
drama
 Disaster movie
 Film noir
 Musical and dance
 Teen movie
 Fight film

16. “… any text is
constructed of a mosaic
of quotations; any text is
the absorption and
transformation of
another”
Julia Kristeva,
philosopher and literary
critic

17. ROLAND BARTHES: FIVE SYSTEMS OF MEANING
 The enigma code keeps the audience guessing and delaying
revelation until the end..
 The connotative code refers to connotation within the story that
gives additional meaning.
 The action (or proairetic) code builds tension by using actions that
indicate a deeper meaning.
 The symbolic code organizes semantic meanings into broader
and deeper sets of meaning. This is typically done by antithesis,
where pairs of meanings are created, such as good/evil, etc.
 The cultural (or referential) code: This code refers to anything that
is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be
challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for truth. Typically
this involves either science or religion, although other canons
such as magical truths may be used in fantasy stories.

18. NARRATIVE
“If you string together a set of
speeches expressive of
character, and well finished in
point and diction and thought,
you will not produce the essential
tragic effect nearly so well as with
a play which, however deficient
in these respects, yet has a plot
and artistically constructed
incidents.”
Aristotle, Poetics

19. ROLAND BARTHES ON NARRATIVE
 Narratives are written, verbal or visual
 Narratives are constructed, they don’t just
appear. They consist of events that are
selected
 All human and cultural interaction is
governed by narrative, not just fiction
 Narratives have existed as long as man
could think.

20. ‘STORY’ VS ‘PLOT’
“The king died and
then the queen died
is a story. The king
died, and then queen
died of grief is a
plot. ”
E.M. Forster

21. STORY VS PLOT
 Story: The linear
construction of both
represented and
inferred narrative
events
 Plot: the sum of story
and non-diegetic
elements, such as
camera angles, editing,
sound, titles, etc., that
gives causality to the
narrative
 Non-diegetic: anything
in the film but not in its
fictional world

22. VLADIMIR PROPP’S 8 SPHERES OF ACTION
 Villain
 Helper
 Donor (often magician)
 Female in distress
 Her father
 Dispatcher
 Hero
 False hero

23. NARRATIVE
“A whole is that which has a
beginning, a middle, and an end. A
beginning is that which does not
itself follow anything by causal
necessity, but after which something
naturally is or comes to be. An end,
on the contrary, is that which itself
naturally follows some other thing,
either by necessity, or as a rule, but
has nothing following it. A middle is
that which follows something as some
other thing follows it. A well
constructed plot, therefore, must
neither begin nor end at haphazard,
but conform to these principles.”
Aristotle, Poetics

24. TZVETAN TODOROV: HOLLYWOOD NARRATIVE
STRUCTURE
 Equilibrium is established
 Disruption to the
equilibrium
 Character(s) identify
the disruption
 Character(s) seek to
resolve the issue
 Return to equilibrium

25. THE HOLLYWOOD THREE-ACT STRUCTURE
 Act 1: 1st quarter of the
story (30 minutes)
 equilibrium
 Act 2: The next two
quarters (60 minutes)
 Disruption of
equilibrium
 Act 3: The final quarter
(30 minutes)
 Restored equlibrium

26. GÉRARD GENETTE’S NARRATIVE DISCOURSE
 Story (content)
 Events (chronology/causality
 Characters (actions/interactions)
 Settings (time and place)
 Narration (telling)
 Types (reliable/unrealiable)
 Levels (embedded narration)
 Voice (character/narrator)
 Text (presentation)
 Time (order/duration/frequency)
 Characterization (traits/attributes)
 Focalization (who sees/perceives/judges events)

27. STORY
 Events: things happen, but what is the causal
relationship between them?
 Characters: their actions and interactions.
Note: a character who does not act or
interact is part of the setting
 Setting: the time and place; it frames the
characters and events

28. NARRATION
 Extradiegetic: a voice-over by someone not
in the film
 Homodiegetic: a voice-over by someone in
the film, or a character who directly speaks to
the camera
 Intra-diegetic: when characters speak to one
another – In a film, dialogue is to further plot
or characterization, not for no reason

29. TEXT
 Characterization: the traits and attributes that
make a character ‘real’ for the audience
 Time: all elements of the narrative – how
they repeat and the order in which they occur
 Focalization: the viewpoint from which we
see things

30. THE SEVEN PRIMARY PLOTS
 Achilles – overcoming struggle
 Cinderella – transformation
 Jason – pursuit, the quest
 Faust – temptation
 Orpheus – irrevocable loss
 Romeo and Juliet – love triumphant
 Tristan and Isolde – love defeated

31. THE SHOT: PERSPECTIVE
 Distance
 Height
 Angle
 Depth of field (focus)
 Movement

32. WHOSE EYES?
 Objective or subjective? Do we see the
scene as non-participants, or are we seeing
it through the eyes or from the perspective of
one of the characters?

33. THE VISUAL DEVICES
 Camera angles
 On-screen and off-screen space
 Shot distances
 Composition/in the frame (mise en scène)
 Lighting
 Camera movement (panning, tilting, moving)
 Zoom and reverse zoom
 Duration
 Time

34. ANGLES: STRAIGHT ON
 Shot frontally

35. LOW ANGLE
 the camera is below the subject, looking up. Can
suggest power

36. HIGH ANGLE
 the camera is above the subject, looking
down.

37. CANTED (TILTED)
 the camera is above the subject, looking
down.

38. SHOT DURATION AND TIME
 Typical today: shot length 4-6 seconds
(before 1960 8-11 seconds)
 A “long take” can be much longer (60
seconds)
 Fast motion: camera films at less than 24
FPS and is shown at that speed
 Slow motion: camera films at more than 24
FPS and is shown at that speed
 Simulated slow motion

39. CAMERA MOVEMENT
 Pan(orama): the camera pans left or right, like turning
its head horizontally
 Tilt: the camera tilts up and down vertically
 Tracking (dolly or trucking): the camera is moves on a
track
 Steadicam: mounted on a camera operator such that
it moves smoothly
 Hand-held: camera operator moves it, creates a
shaky effect
 Zoom (simulated movement)
 Reverse zoom (simulated movement)

40. ON-SCREEN AND OFF-SCREEN SPACE
 Left of the frame
 Right of the frame
 Top of the frame
 Bottom of the frame
 Back of the frame
 Front of the frame (the
fourth wall)
 It is spoken about in
dialogue
 A character or object
leaves the frame
 A character or object
(re-) enters the frame
 A character looks at
something outside the
frame
 Sound outside the
frame

41. XLS: EXTREME LONG SHOT
 Massive backgrounds and tiny people

42. LS: LONG SHOT
 humans are fully visible, but still lots of
background

43. MLS: MEDIUM LONG SHOT
 Humans, from the knees up

44. MCU: MEDIUM CLOSE-UP
 People are framed from the waist up

45. CU: CLOSE-UP
 Focuses on face, hands, feet, small objects

46. XCU: EXTREME CLOSE-UP
 Isolates small details, like the eyes, lips, etc.

47. COMPOSITION
 Divide the screen into three: the middle has
the most power

48. LIGHTING
 Key light: the brightest,
highlights details by
creating shadow
 Fill light: opposite the
key, is softer and less
bright, lessens the
effect of shadow
 Back light: behind the
subject, creates depth
giving the subject a
halo
Key
light
Fill
light
Back light

49. HIGH KEY VS LOW KEY LIGHTING
“HIGH KEY” (HIGH CONTRAST) USES HARSH LIGHT,
DARK SHADOWS AROUND THE IMPORTANT DETAILS
(NOTE NO SHADOWS ON THE FACE)
“LOW KEY” IS VERY DARK, MANY
SHADOWS, TO HIGHLIGHT THE LIGHT PARTS

50. EDITING
 Continuity editing
 Discontinuity editing
 Montage

51. CONTINUITY EDITING: THE RULES
 Tell the story. Take out anything that gets in
the way; minimize repetition
 Construct and preserve coherence of space
 Maintain continuity of time
 Create and sustain graphic and rhythmic
relations
 Hide the means of construction from the
viewer

52. TECHNIQUES
 180º rule: if in one shot, a character walks left to right and leaves
the frame on the right, in the next shot, he enters from the left.
 Match-on-action: if in one shot the character opens the door and
walks through, the next shot shows him walking without repeating
the door opening
 Eyeline matches: If the character looks down at someone off-
screen, and in the next shot, we see the person looking back,
then he must look up at a matching angle
 30º rule: If a new shot/scene sequence is begun, it must be
greater than 30º or it will disturb continuity
 Shot-reverse-shot editing: when cutting from one character to
another, they stay always on the same side of the screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLkUHZ1qips

53. TRANSITIONS
 Techniques to create ellipses (jumps in time
or space)
 Dissolve: a smooth transition
 Fade (to black or another color)
 Wipe
 Irises
 Freeze-frame

54. “The secret to film is
that it’s an illusion”
George Lucas