Slides from a University of Calgary Drama class, "Smartphone Movie Making."

1. Mise-en-scene I
Photography. The cinematographer, the shots, the angles,
lighting and colour symbolism (+ post production)
Week 2 University of Calgary Drama 571
Mise-en-scene I

2. Homework
Rideshare (Donovan Cook, 2011)
Shot entirely on iPhone (4) on a budget of $34K, Rideshare is
a comedy about three strangers who answer a ad to drive a car
from LA to DC.

3. Rideshare. Chart the story. Robert McKee’s Principles
•What was the Inciting Incident?
(The primary cause of what follows?)
•How does the protagonist react to this? (the Quest)
•The Progressive Complications? How are the subplots
involved?
•The Crisis? What is the crisis decision?
•The Climax? What’s the “value swing”?
•The Resolution? What’s the point of this resolution in terms of
dramatic structure?
2. What other technology is being used besides iPhone?

4. Rideshare Story Structure
Escalating Action Plotline Schematic
Protagonists’ Quest
What’s at Stake?
Find Life and Freedom
X Inciting Incident Answering the Ad
X Crisis Decision
X Slushie – Consequence?
X Hoover Dam – Border Jumping
X Four Corners and Petie
Do they break up in Dollywood?
X Lemonade’s Disclosure about USC
X Car breakdown – Darlene meets the dude
(X Climax Subplot Faux Climax)
X Climax
Abe and Darlene’s fate
Lemonade’s Big Surprise
X Escalating Actions
X Resolution
Life and Freedom
Meet the Schedule

5. Mise en SceneMise-en-scène
Mise-en-scène : How the visual materials are
photographed, staged, and framed (as a captured
moment in time).
Mise-en-scène -- originally a French theatrical term,
meaning “placing on stage.”
In movies, mise-en-scene is a blend of the visual
conventions of live theatre and converted into a two-
dimensional image of the real thing. The “visual”
text.
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

6. Systematic Mise en Scene
Analysis
15 pt. Systematic Mise en Scene 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?
Continued next screen
“Photographic
considerations”
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

7. Systematic Mise en Scene
Analysis
15 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 …

8. Camera Shots (Proxemics)
Cinematography affects “tone” or general atmosphere of a
film. Eg the drop-dead awesome beauty of the 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.
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

9. 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. (Clip From 3’30”)
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

10. 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

11. 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 oblique angle

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

13. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1988)
DOP (Cinematographer): John L. Russell
Writing credits Robert Bloch (novel)
Joseph Stefano (screenplay)
Genre: Horror / Thriller
Tagline: A new- and altogether different- screen excitement!!!
(more)
Plot Outline: A young female embezzeler arrives at the Bates
Motel which has terrible secrets of its own.
Cast: Anthony Perkins .... Norman Bates
Janet Leigh .... Marion Crane
Vera Miles .... Lila Crane
John Gavin .... Sam Loomis
From imdb

14. Light and Dark
Styles of lighting:
High Key, Comedies, musicals, bright even light with few
shadows. Example we saw?
High Contrast, Harsh shafts of light, dramatic streaks of
blackness. Example? Hitchcock staged many of his most
violent scenes in the glaring light.
Painterly style of light eg. Girl with the Pearl Earring.
Soft-focus, sensuous, romantic.
Linear style is austere, deglamourized, razor-sharp deep
focus. High-key cinematography favoured by realists.
Aesthetics of Filmmaking

15. Colour Expressionism
Colour tends to be 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 rather than objects.
Some filmmakers deliberately alternate episodes in black
and white with sequences in colour.
Example of these two points: Girl with the Pearl Earring.
(Colour saturated and muted in post production.)
Aesthetics of Filmmaking
From: Giannetti, Louis, and Jim Leach. (2005) Understanding Movies,
Third Canadian Edition). Pearson: Toronto.