The document outlines a course on cinema appreciation aimed at students in exact sciences, emphasizing the importance of understanding cinema as an artistic form intertwined with various disciplines. It highlights the need for creative abilities and the capacity to observe and appreciate art, discussing how art can enhance human experience and understanding. The course content includes aesthetics, the structure of cinematography, and the relationship between film and society, advocating for deep engagement with the artistic process.

1. CINEMA APPRECIATION
INFORMATIVE DATA: SEMESTER: JULY-DECEMBER 2013
DEPARTMENT: LANGUAGES
CAREER: APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN ENGLISH PROGRAM
SUBJECT: CINEMA APPRECIATION
TÍTLE: Cinema Appreciation
AUTHOR: Sayarina Monard and Santiago Rivadeneira
EDITORIAL: ESPE
EDITION: First Edition, 2007
TRANSLATED AND PREPARED BY: JENNY VILLALBA
ABOUT THE SUBJECT: This course is addressed to students from different schools, almost all of which have to do with
exact sciences and which are distant from theoretical or practical studies on cinema. The challenge here presented is to
awaken interest and maybe (as time passes and with everyday practice) passion for the magical world of images. We do
not only talk about the images in motion but also all kind of images (daily ones mainly). The proposal here given is to
face the world of pictures as a demand of life: to discover that we can become better human beings through the screen,
beings who are harmonious with themselves and the world surrounding them; to learn how to be more tolerant with
ourselves and others; to find the taste of justice, the strenght of thruth, the countless shades of emotions.
Thanks to the beauty of art,we are able to reach the dream of “ living” the thousand sides of a single life in thousands of
them or viceversa, to see one another without false masks in the body of another person, with another voice, saying
things we won’ t even dare to tell our pillow, in front of an audience, and above all to see the world from a different
perspective ( literally talking), which is sometimes impossible to sense through our capability of perception on time and
space; we then acknowledge importance to details, those details that are imperceptibly linked to create a cosmos and
chaos; everything and nothing.
GENERAL OBJECTVE OF THE SUBJECT.- The textbooks here referred attemp to ilustrate readers and students about
the philosophical, esthetical ans social outlining which is crucial to understand the cinema as an artistic manifestation and
which is the result of the communion between theory, technique and practice of different activities (photography, acting,
literature, dramatic art, theatre, architecture, linguistics, sociology, among others) and the incidence of films in society
and history.
LEARNING CONTENTS
FIRST PARTIAL
UNIT 1: Esthetics and Art
1.1 Observation of Art and the art of Observation
1.2 Creative abilities
1.3 Fundamental principles of artistic work
1.4 For a theory of Film – making realization.
UNIT 2: The structure of Cinematography
2.1 Cinema specificity
2.2 Cinema, a new language
2.3 Articulation of cinema language
2.4 The script
2.4.1 Topic
2.4.2 Construction of a film character
2.4.3 The scene
SECOND PARTIAL
UNIT 3: Cinema and its images
3.1 What are the close - ups of an image useful for?
Moises.
Author: Michelangelo.
(1515)
Marble. Stature: 235cm.
Saint Pietro in Vincoli,
Rome

2. 3.2 Pictures in motion: linguistic symbols, approaches and differences
3.3 Image, reality and sense
3.4 Film components
3.5 Film – making notions
3.6 What is a movie director?
UNIT 4: Film - making completion
4.1 Literature and cinema
4.2 Film- making genres
4.3 Completion exercises
4.3.1 Changing action axis
4.3.2 The script
UNIT 1: ESTHETICS AND ART
1.1 OBSERVATION OF ART AND THE ART OF OBSERVATION
Bertolt Brecht .- It is an old and elementary opinion that a work of art, in substance, should independently act on all
women and men independently from their age, education and condition. Art - he says - goes to men and women, to all of
them, and it doesn't matter if they are old, young, manual or mental workers, cultivated or ignorant. Therefore, a work of
art can be understood and enjoyed by all human beings, since all of them have something artistic in themselves.
It is thanks to such opinion that there is often a firm dislike to what many people call work of art interpretations, towards
an art that needs all kinds of explanations and which cannot act “by itself”. “How could art act on us?” Should the Moises
by Michelangelo move us only when a professor has explained it to us?”
It is not ignored that there are people who are more gifted to enjoy art, to take advantage of it. There are a lot of artists
(and not the worst ones) who are firmly decided to make art not only for a small minority of “art beginners” but who want
to create for all “the people”. It is a democratic intention, but not democratic in all its sense. It is democratic to make from
the “small circle of experts” a “big circle of experts”.
The observation of art can lead us to an affective use of it, only if there is an art of observation. If it is true that there is an
artist in every human being and those only humans are the most gifted of all animals in the artistic sense, it is also true
that such disposition may be developed or may decline. There is a capability of work in the very basis of art. The
individual who admires art also admires a piece of work, a skillful and finished work and it is necessary to know
something about such work to admire and enjoy its result; that is to say, a work of art.
This kind of knowledge, which is not only learning but also sensitivity, is particularly useful for sculpture. It is crucial to
have a little sensitivity for working on stone, wood or bronze but also some notions on these materials’ use. It is
necessary to feel a knife carving on wood as well as a head emerges from a sphere or a face from a convex surface.
Besides, there is a special need for help at this time, which was not essential before. From a certain point of view, the
emergence of new production methods with a mechanic bases has threatened artisanry. The notion of materials’ quality
has fallen off and the elaboration process is not as good as before. Nowadays, every object is the result of the work made
by many people and every individual does not perform every task by him/herself, but controls – from time to time – only
one of the stages in the development process. Therefore, individual knowledge and individual sense of work have
vanished. During capitalism, every person fights with work, and that work threatens the individual. The process of work
and its result eliminate every possible individual element.
When one sees a shoe, there is nothing on it that suggests something on its manufacturer’s personality. Sculpting is still
an artisan’s activity. However, it is today that a sculpture is seen as if – like any other thing – it had mechanically been
made. It is only the product of that work which is appreciated (and eventually enjoyed), but not the work itself. This fact
means a lot to the art of a sculptor.
If one wants to reach the delight of art, it is never enough to comfortably consume and buy at a convenient price the fruti
of an artistic creation; it is necessary to participate in the process of creation itself and to be, at some extent, creators
ourselves; to inject some fantasy, to keep up with or contrast our own experience to the one of the artist, etc. Even those
people who only eat, work: the cut meat, take a piece to their mouths, chew. Art and its enjoyment may be more easily
taken over. That is why it is necessary to participate in an artist’s work, even in short periods of time, but in a deep way.
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3. The material, the ungrateful wood or the clay, often too flexible, cause the artist tiredness and tiredness is also caused by
the object- for example- a human head. While looking at an artist’s work, we start to observe and know his/ her ability.
The artist is an artist of observation. He/ She observes a living object, a head that has lived and lives; he/ she is a master
of “seeing”. It is felt that it is possible to learn from his/ her capability to observe. Artists teach the art of observing things.
It is really an important art for everyone.- A work of art teaches how to exactly observe, that is to say, in a wide, deep
and joyful way, and not only the object that it shapes, but also other objects. A work of art teaches how to observe in
general. If the art of observation is necessary itself to experience something from art itself, to be able to find beautiful
what is beautiful, to enjoy that work of art and look up to the artist’ s spirit, it is even more necessary to understand the
elements the artist uses for his/ her work of art.
The work make by an artist is not only the gorgeous expression of an object, but also and above all – a representation of
the object, an explanation of it. The work of art explains the reality it represents refers to and translates the experiences an
artist has undergone throughout his/ her life and teaches us to exactly see the things of our world.
This is an excerpt from a posthumous essay by Brecha, written on August 1939. It was published in 1961 in the German
magazine “Sinn und Form” (Sense and Form) at the Arts Academy from the Democrat Republic of Germany. The current
Spanish version was taken from the work by Marcelo Chiraini, Bertolt Brecht, and translation by DeJ. Lopez Pacheco.
Ed. Peninsula, Barcelona, 1969, p. 211- 215.
1.2 CREATIVE ABILITIES
BY: RAFAEL SANCHEZ
(Universidad Catolica de Chile, 1976)
Socrates’s Death. David Louis.
The Square. Endara Crown (Private collection)
This first chapter provides a general vision on the esthetic phenomenon.
ESTHETICS
“Esthetics” is a term created by the disciple of Leibniz, Alejandro Baumgarten, in the middle of the 18th century. Like his
master,Baumgarten claimed that Esthetics should have a place aside in the branch of Philosophy, since it had to do with
beauty, which ( in their opinion) is a subjective result of sensation ( aistonomai, in Greek), as opposed to Logics, which is
the science of thought.
For us, the artistic phenomenon is above all a fact and an inner process in the whole being, with all its abilities
armoniously in charge of communication. Phenomenon (from the Greek fainomai) is all that which shows up, which
expresses itself.
THE RAW MATERIAL. - The word “art” comes from “aguere”, which in Latin means to do, to carry out. Every artist
has to work, perform. Perform is the best way to translate the Latin “agere”. It is like “to take out of” by means of a
manufacture. Every artist must take something new out of a raw material. His/Her long learning process is destined to
acquire the artisan’s ability to print shape to the matter.
The materials greatly vary between an art and the others. But, it is interesting and unusual to understand that, the materials
are not the ones which differenciate arts the most. Firstly, because the matter or materials an artist use are really diverse.
Some of them are mineral substances (color powders, oils, stones, marble, steel) as well as the ones used by artists,
sculptors and architects; others are sounds, like in music, dramatic art and film- making. Others are corporal movement
like when dancing and miming. Furthermore, others are words like in poetry. Those materials and many more are shared
by different forms of art. Such raw materials are mainly secondary in the artistic creation. The real and fundamental
matter an artist uses to make his/her work, in any case, are the images of fantasy. To understand this psychological
mechanism of the artistic process is really important since it involves an approach of the teaching process. It is worth to
recall the fact that we are making an effort over a teaching method and not a metaphysical controversy.
IMAGINATIVE ABILITY. - Fantasy or imagination is a human ability which has unfortunately dismissed in the
education of human beings. For centuries it has been put aside as an incontrollable human phenomenon. Thanks to a
greedy intellectualism, only the concept definitions have been worth believing and hardly any effort has been made to
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4. analize how fruitful fantasy is and how big its influence on human behaviour is. The artist, due to his/her instinct and as a
vital need, is the human being who moves, who uses his/her intuition and who expresses him/herself through images.
That’s why there wouldn’t be any kind of poetic art only consisting of abstract ideas. There’s nothing more precise on this
matter than the definition given by Aristotle about Poetry: “Its purpose is to assign proper names to generalizations”
(poetic, IX), where this ancient psychologist points out as a poet’s job to go downwards from what is general - abstract
to what is particular- concrete, that is to say, to what has a “proper name”, to what is within an image. This term “image”
(or ghost as the Greek called it) does not only refer to what is visible, to the image perceived by the eyes, but covers all
the range of sensorial data which is collected in the imaginative memory. The things we remember are filled up with
colors, volumes, lights, shadows, odors, sounds, textures, sourness, humidity, roughness, sadness, swetness and
bitterness, and also a thousand sensitive notes to add.
Along with every idea we may conceive in our intelligence, there are images which support it. Psychology admits the fact
that it seems impossible to think without any image next to it and which supports it. This claim is even much more
trascendental from what one can imagine or those educators who continue teaching our children, teenagers and adults
abstractly and who base all their didactics on word – concepts while leaving the fertil field of imagination and affectivity
aside.
An image has the magical power to awaken emotions. It would be bizarre for a human being to pretend to awaken
affections through abstract concepts. Therefore, an image is linked to emotions and noble and innoble feelings; to the
very remote motives that make a human being decide which path to walk on. Intelligence and its abstract and universal
operations are unquestionably the biggest conquest ever made by humankind during its evolution process. The human
mind, with its analysis and synthesis power, is supreme and sovereign. However, every human being is made up of flesh
and bones and all those things which may lead him/ her out of this material condition are, at last, harmful and misguiding.
Every artist lives, feels and expresses him/ herself by means of sensorial and affective images, but keeps constantly aware
of the fact that every single thing he/she does is led by his/her ordering intelligence. All kinds of artistic form are the
result of the order and harmony created by the intelligence over the sensorial data. It is such the symbiosis of all its
abilities that it would be impossible to decide which one of them plays a more relevant or bigger part in the creative work.
It is precisely this armonious balance of the human capabilities what should be emphasized when talking about culture
and education of the people.
Every human being, even as intellectual as he/ she may pretend to be, is subjected to this cognition process of his/her
sensorial nature. The difference with an artist is only there in the degree of sensitivity and the attention the individual
pays to the inner phenomenon.
BACKGROUND AND SHAPE. - In traditional language, the term “BACKGROUND” is used to refer to the content
presented by the work of art. Thus, it has become a popular habit to split the BACKGROUND from the SHAPE due to a
long influence of the peripathetic scholastic.
The great majority of artistic productions made by humankind have been representative. In other words, the highest
percentage of creators have devoted their artesian work to represent heroic feats, epic and romantic scenes, mythological
characters, distinguished personages, human beings, animals, dead nature, vegetation and natural landscapes, mystic
moments, trivial times, life drama, etc: all of it as the BACKGROUND OF THEIR WORK.
Which of these representative attempts has deserved to remain throughout time as a work of art? The answer to this
question should clarify two aspects of the issue concerning us now. First, to be fair with representative art and second, to
admit that what is represented, the BACKGROUND is secondary if abstracted from its SHAPE.
The real value couldn’t be measured by the gold of its BACKGROUND, and not even by the gold of its SHAPE
separately. No analysis would be fair or accurate if one intends to divide what the artist didn’t. For an artist, the character
is not alive if out of his/her work. If the artist is painting a portratit of an Archiduke, this is a person who is diverse from
the “character” that will be born over the canvas.
The art has the magical power to transport us to the moment in which those characters’ lives took place. History, as
science, should narrate the facts in present tense.
Another characteristic aspect of Art is STYLIZATION. - It is understood as the need every artist experiencesto give
out the exterior content, the real model, in a deformed way. Such voluntary change of the real model obeys to two main
reasons: first, the need to freely assamble the elements, the features and data according to a esthetic SHAPE which is also
his/her own and original. Second, to emphasize the features that allow the development or expression of his/her main
idea, dismissing in this way all that which is not subjected to the work Unit.
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5. Some experts have claimed that the Cinema cannot be a real Art due to its photographic realism. No film – maker would
take such idea seriously; however, it does bring up doubts to those ones who know Cinema only through the screen. That’
s because there is some kind of truth when affirming that, while drama stylize scenography, make- up, gestures, lightning
and language, the Cinema, in most of its works, makes us feel in touch with the toughest reality.
The real statement is based on a general fact that is true for all kinds of art: the Stylization does not simultaneously occur
on all the stages. Consequently, the cinema may stylize some factors while does not do it with others. The editing stage,
as a fundamental form of cinema, with its unreal treatment of time and space and its selective process for narrative factors
is, by itself, an intentional deformation of reality which could be qualified as Artistic Stylization if its treatment has
creative category.
ABSTRACTION. - We have so far said that every artistic creation is the result of the armony and order which come
from our intelligence. From all the characteristics we could possibly list about the mechanism and nature of our
intelectual operations which are also called ideas or concepts, the one an artist is the most interested in is his/her tendency
to what is called abstraction.
Abstraction means to take something out, to get rid of what is just an accesory and to keep only what is most interesting.
Then it is a good idea to ask several questions:
· What does knowledge get before it is taken out?
· What is just an accesory and what is really the object of his/her interest?
· Is “that” which is just accesory completely discarded or still remains somewhere?
The real things which are located out of us can just be well – known through the door of our senses.We see them, we
listen to them, we touch them, we taste them and also smell them; all in all, we perceive them sensorialy and in an
absolutely individual way. We touch, hear and see a determined and unique object. For example, this book which we are
reading now, which has a color, size and specific texture? There is not any other book which is identical in the world,
although it may be really similar to another of the same edition.
There is a very unusual fact taking place in our cognitive mechanism: we are not able to really know something if it has
not entered through our senses. When we talk about a circuit and try to know what it is, our imagination tries really hard
to produce an image of that electronic device. Some of us may have read about this gadget without really seeing it. Others
may have had it in their hands but gotten surprised because they had not imagined it like that.
THE ARTISTIC IDEA.- For the Master of Music named Bach, for example, the shape is not separated from the sound
itself. Such abstraction would be impossible and useless. The concept – shape, the concept - rhythm, the concept armony
or any other concept could be abstracted and become a universal idea without sensorial accessories: however, during the
creative process of a determined work, the shape of that escape by Bach ( escape in music is a composition that goes
around a specific topic) is a concept- image – particular and individual which, thanks to being a pure shape, demands a
piece of work from our intelligence with a specific name that is weird but precise: ARTISTIC IDEA.
An Artistic Idea is therefore, that intellectual piece of knowledge whose only purpose is the beautiful shape. That’s the
reason for us to keep such name uniquely for pure shapes and not the representative ones.
Our intention is to reach a conclusion over the fact that the true esthetic value is in the value of the pure shapes.
If the pure shape of cinema lies on its editing, this would mean that we wouldn’t be able to talk about Film – making art
when there is no cutting. To affirm this, we recall the ideas stated by the Russians during the years 1928 – 1943. Then for
us, it is more important to pay attention to the MOTION created by the editing than to the “Tertium quid” of the Russian
School.
We would like to conclude that the internal value of a work will never be justified either by its plot content or by the
reflection of another individual, but only by the value of its own shape. That’ s why there is a pressing need for every
disciple to manage the essential shapes of his/her craft before trusting the matter, story or outter model which he/ she may
be fascinated by.
As a result, every art may be able to convey ideas and reflect life situations but will never dismiss those shapes that
constitute its own essence. No film would deserve to be called a film – making work of art only because of its plot or
interesting background, if it wasn’t made with rhythm, phraseology, editing texture and film – making motion.
Lastly, Cinema is, in its essence, the creation of motion by means of images on the screen.
1.3 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ARTISTIC SHAPE.
By Rafael C. Sánchez
· THEME UNITY
· RHYTHM
· VARIETY
· CONTRAST
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6. · PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT
· CLIMAX
· THE TOTAL CYCLE
· TIME AND SPACE
What is unity? It is the most elemental and necessary quality of a work and, at the same time, the most difficult to
build , simply because it is not on a level or another, but demands, masters and organizes all those elements that make
the whole work.
Unity refers to the whole work, to that complete something that every piece of art has to be; it also refers to the
character, purpose and repetitive and familiar feature through which the elements in that work are organized in a plan
and contribute to the expression of a specific order which is born and progressively express.
THEME UNITY.- If we are able to examine the deepest texture of unity by using a magnifying glass, we find what is
called repetition. Let’ s suppose a documentary deals with the topic called “ Hunger in Latinamerica” and describes
the causes of the problem by showing a group of institutions where specialists on sociology explain the problem.
Before the first interview, a hungry and skinny boy rushes behind the graphic reporter. Between the first and the
second interview, another boy (in the same conditions) from a different region reaches the reporter and holds his/ her
arm. After the next pause and after the second interview to a sociologist, another boy longs his/her hand and begs for
money.
Even though the three kids are different, the idea has been repeated and thanks to the process of repetition the theme
unity has shown up: a hungry boy begs for money.
THEME RHYTHM.- If an element repeats every certain equal amount of time, rhythm is created.
Rhythm is then the continuous repetition of the same element. Rhythm may happen in very different orders.
The appearance of the child, if it is clear enough regarding the amount of time it shows up on the screen, creates a
doble rhythm: a theme- rhythm ( “ hungry kid begs”) and a time- rhythm ( every few seconds)
The Perception Of The Theme.- This perception of the viewer is a direct result of an artistic idea from the film-making
creator, who has deposited a rhythmic shape over the meaning of the image.
The perception of the time- rhythm is, on the other hand, much more sensitive.
Only a few order manifestations acquire such a sensitive shape, so perceptible to our physical experience as the time –
rhythm. From there, the use of special dances in primitive groups and its spontaneous exercise by children. Dancing is
the expression of natural joy facing the primary beauty of order.
VARIETY.- If the repetition is disordered regarding a constant reason, there won’t be rhythm, although there may
be theme unity. On the other side, if the constant reason remains identical, beyond any kind of novelty, and our artistic
perception (intellectual – sensitive) gets tired of perceiving a too repetitive element, a very well- known experience
takes place: monotony. The art of avoiding monotony, except in the cases in which the topic demands it as a co –
experience with any of the characters who suffers from it. Things stop being beautiful when they are not attractive,
when they do not awaken interest in the viewer. That’s why to be able to face the possible monotony of repetition, an
incomparable resource called VARIETY shows up.
In the example aforementioned, the idea of showing the theme (hungry boy) in three different ways has avoided two
things: first, tiredness and second, to deeply penetrate in its meaning. An analysis of the subject has then begun, by
means of variety and the appointed esthetic resources and this fact constitutes the key of all the modern systems in
didactics. Teaching with the help of audiovisual and artistic means is not only “entertaining”, but is also based on
synthesis and analysis means which make a student’ s work more profound.
Unity and variety are, therefore, two inseparable qualities in every artistic creation.
CONTRAST.- There is another useful resource to avoid monotony which is called CONTRAST.
A contrasting element would then be every other issue different from the topic or principal element. It is not a
variation of the first, but another. If this contrasting element does not only emphasize the values of the first, but at the
same time develops, it will be called Second Topic.
In our former example, the value of the begging boys is at the same time part of the development of the Main Topic
“Hunger in Latinamerica”, but, unquestionably, it becomes a second Contrasting Topic due to its unexpected visual –
plastic change through the pictures of the sociologists sitting in a modern conference room.
We could also resort to something surprising or unexpected. It may be a very useful resource in many cases; however,
an absolutely surprising element may dangerously harm unity if it comes from sources that are disconnected from the
Main Topic. Before resorting to “surprise” we have to analyze one of the most important resources art has: progressive
development.
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7. PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.- In our short example, the children do not only show up varied in their shape
and they do not only contrast with the sociologists’ image, but they develop in every plane, in every appearance, a
piece in progress: the first kid rushes behind the graphic reporter; the second reaches him/her and takes his/her arm; as
a half away plane from the first, a narrower plane for the second and a first plane over the third, it would add another
progress piece: a dramatically progressive intensity, which in plot jargon is known as climax. The progressive
development means increasing interest. Then it is necessary to wonder about a legitime question: Does the whole
artistic work have to constantly be in progress?
The answer is yes and no, depending on what we pay attention to. Regarding the work’s general interest we should
answer affirmatively. However, when regarding the different PARTS that make up a piece of work we should answer
negatively. We have already analyzed how a lengthened development requires divisions or parts. The artistic work is
in this, subjected to the natural way our mind operates and with which nature operates: through periods or cycles. Any
short popular song or children’s poem is split into periods, may they be old or new, oriental or occidental of from any
region in the globe.
THE TOTAL CYCLE.- As we had said befote, Unity refers to the whole work as well. It is exactly this complete
conception the one which should sep us aware in every artistic realization: we have to work and carefully work out the
whole unit. For this purpose, there is nothing better than to keep in mind the cyclic systems of the great masters. The
best pattern for Cinema, from this cyclic systems, comes from the Dramatic Plan which the genius from Greek theatre
like Esquilo, Sophocles and Euripides structured in their tragedies. Such pattern has intactly passed to the drama of
later centuries. The reason is not precisely because it is the best of the systems, but because it seems there can’t be any
other way of behaviour like the human one in its cognitive and emotional operations.
The Dramatic Plan has four essential parts:
1. Introduction
2. Development
3. Culmination or Climax and
4. End
Time – Space.- We have gone through the Unity and Variety principles so far, and also the Repetition, Rhythm,
Contrast, Progressive Development and Total Cycle phenomena within a temporality order, that is to say, as a TIME
manifestation. In the field of plastic arts (those ones which lack temporality development) painting,
sculpture,architecture and several minor arts such as Goldsmith craft and Ceramics and all kinds of Decorative, those
principles also have decisive importance within a spacial order, that is to say, as SPACE manifestations. However,
Time and Space are not two criteria through which we could split all kinds of art into two separated and independent
groups. First of all, because a great deal of the arts of time are also spacial (Drama, Dance, Film- Making and many
others like Miming, Puppet shows, etc). Second, because any farfetched differenciation of these two concepts, space
and time, as if they were two irreducible factors, is one of the mistakes future science and philosophy may try to erase,
as art has made it from its origins. Time, as we have known since the beginning of reasoning, is a convention that has
been given to us as something real and external,but which exists within us as a mere relationship among different
movements ( different speeds) all of them referred to the changing sunlight. In the definition of rhythm as “order in
time”, this apparent inexactitude is already hidden, since rhythm is equallly “order in space”. What is true is the fact
that for plastic artists time continues to be living in its pictures and sculptures, from the very moment they made an
effort to express motion. Nature, taking charge of the stillness of a great number of its mineral and plant landscapes,
simultaneously offers and endless range of movements and rhythm. What is interesting here is, to point out that spacial
rhytms are a result of time rhythm, that is to say: every spacial repetition is product of a regular movement. Thus, the
passing of a camel over sand has left a countless number of rhythmic footprints.
1.4 FOR A THEORY OF FILM – MAKING REALIZATION
BY: GIANFRANCO BETTETINI
“Titanic”, directed by James Cameron
a. Subjective intervention
b. Film – making narration
c. The ilusion of similarity
THE SUBJECTIVE INTERVENTION
In making a film.- In his essay “Cinema and reality” published in a collection of meaningful title, Films as Art,
Rudolf Arheim, writes that “those ones who disdainfully talk about the camera as just a simple automatic registration
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8. mechanism, should realize the fact that even in the simplest case, in the photographic reproduction of the most trivial
object, an amount of sensitivivy to its nature that surpasses the simple mechanical operation is required. In a late essay,
titled “Come si fa un fil,” (How a movie is made), the same author claims: “… unlike a sculptor and a painter’s
tools, which by themselves do not produce anything similar to the environment, when a camera starts working it
mechanically turns out to be something similar to reality…For a movie star to be able to create a work of art it is
important to conciously emphasize on the peculiarity of his/ her mean of expression; however, this should be done in
such a way that it does not destroy the character of the objects represented, but it should concentrate, reinforce and
interpret. If, in the case of cinema, there weren’t any possibility to surpass the authomatic reproduction of reality, the
communicative efficacy of the setting would be reduced to the praxis of a passive reproduction; its semiotic aspect
would be reduced to the limits of an obvious casuistry, in the middle of the road between the theory of some new
writing and the establishment of a new method of investigation. The cinema is this and much more; it has the ability to
express itself in a language of documents, but at the same time it would respond to the voice of the performer or
author, giving us the free possibility to provide visual shape to any poetic intention. Even in the cases or higher
objectivity, when more impersonal historical, environmental or sociological analysis are made through a movie, the
language of film- making depends on who uses it. If the director intends to depersonalize in the execution of its work
until it disappears behind the objective image of reality that he/ she pretends to form, whatever he/she had chosen and
the way to express it, although this were not more than some cold evidence; they are the ways through which the
director’s intention is expressed, his/her sensitivity as well as his/her cultural relationship with the human beings and
the world. In one word, his/her personality.
The film- making narration cannot hide the reporter and, before it is work devoted to a plot, which develops a specific
topic based on an inssue, it is the work of a man/woman or a leading group which expresses itself in its images.
This paradox is the fundamental esthetic principle which leads the life of cinema; the film narration is alive thanks to
the figurative contribution of an instrument that pictures nature. The sign of cinema has intimate reason to be in its
origin itself, and this fact places it among the phenomena of the reproductive and mimetic nature in general.
Its shapes acquire a relevant power of suggestion, since they adequate themselves with complete similarity to the
natural ones. Then, the individual who directs the movie consciously intervenes when he/she shapes it according to the
forms of his/ her poetic ideas, by continuously selecting.
The document which shows us a film- making movie already cut and eddited is not only the impartial description of an
event or a phenomenon, but the expression of an interpretative act of the one who has directed the film. On the present
television shooting, when a viewer perceives the image while the event takes place, the director’ s personality
intervenes impossing his/her point of view (location of the cameras), certain distance – which varies- of the objects
( selection of objectives) and, above all, the choice of pictures, the rhythmic succession determined only by his/her
sensitivity and the way how his interpreting personality approaches what he/she is describing, in syncrony with the
effective development of the fact.
A TV director can even give a personal interpretation of the reality of his working object during a direct shot,
unshaping the development and the background elements; it would be enough to insist on some small things and to
omit other basic elements, to overturn the values in question and to create a device in the false game of images.
The substancial aspect of cinema and television is represented by the fact that the semiotic constitutive elements of
their acts of communication are the images whose reality is diverse from the world it represents; they will never be
found in front of a part of the object, or the object itself, but always in front of a sign of its own, which the author’s
sensitivity knows how to operate in the best way to express what he/ she wants.
The act of enjoyment (the act of being a viewer) will face a reality- image, whose reproductive nature will generally
escape from the analysis of the viewer; the filmic universe may look like something subsisting by itself, but it will
always be a result of a time – space fiction. The movie show and the television show justify themselves precisely
because their expressive structure consists in an organization of pictures, which in spite of their relationship with
reality, are always images, ghosts of the outside world, appearances, entities, which are impalpable and of a diverse
nature from the object which they reproduce or represent.
The spectacular effectiveness (spectacular speech) of these means is in the idea of illusion that their activity creates in
the viewer’s mood: illusion of similarity and illusion of motion, both ruled by the magic art of the author.
ILLUSION OF SIMILARITY.- Everything is fictitious on the screen; the shapes that move there are the result of the
reflection of a light cone, whose rays weaken or color in a different range when passing through a film or, in the case
of television, they are the product of photonic excitement caused by the monotonous coming and going of an
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9. electronic paintbrush. The first illusion produced by cinema is the one of similarity with the physical existence it
represents, similarity that takes place in spite of all the differences existing between the real vision and the unreal
vision and in spite of the fictitious nature of the image.
“Many people – Arnheim writes – used to clearly think would judge the theory of partial illusion as vague”. Isn’t
plenitude the very essence of illusion?
According to psychology, an illusion may only be strong if it is complete in all its aspects; but everybody knows the the
simplest drawing a child wants to represent a face with, only having two dots and two lines, may be full of expression and
represent anger, happiness, sadness,etc. The impression is strong although the representation is far from being complete
and this happens because neither in real life we are used to perceiving details… that’ s why when those essential elements
occur, they are enough for us and we get a full impression of them as long as the more artistic the more concentrated it is.
The author of the film uses the means that technique offers to make pictures in motion and creates the most extraordinary
illusion the human activity could have ever made in the field of signs and in general of the representation by images.
If it weren’t likely for the film- making author to refer a chosen image in his/her work, according to a particular angle in
the shot, with a cut of the framing, with a particular light tonalidad, with the appropriate sound, in a summary, counting
on all those elements, he/she wouldn’t be able to participate in the making of the movie and his/her action would be
reduced to a cold exercise of useless repetition. The director faces, above all, a certain reality destined to be reduced to a
visual image with the help of a camera. This includes the selection of that part of reality that one has the intention to take,
since a human eye can pose over different objects and vast groups without any limit, while the camera target must be
reduced to an angular spaciousness which its optic device allows. Before filming, the director has to choose the portion of
reality he/she is interested in and anticipate the real limits of the picture (plane). He/she should choose with his
imaginative ability the most suitable sides from every object he/ she has in front.
In this fantastic transference of reality and its elements to the celluloid, the director must consider all the changes that
little by little all the objects will undergo during the projection; that is to say, the director should think about which optic
– geometric limitations constitute some of the most important instruments of filmic expression.
The first thing a director is devoted to, after having determined what the projection zone shall be and in which his/her
framings will become alive, is the reciprocal and relative relationship of the camera and its plastic elements, objects and
actors that will build the filmed reality. The arrangement of all these possible components of an image is particularly
delicate because it has to be always done depending on the projection in a plane and therefore, with a guiding criterion
that has nothing to do with a hypothetical tridimensional location.
An object that appears far from another, like one over a table, for example, may disappear during the film projection as
well as it may appear in a different way.
In the images that are projected, there are not the two fundamental properties which regulate the direct relationship
between the human eye and the objective reality anymore: the constancy of dimension and the constancy of shape:
“Physically talking, the image which is thrown to the eye by any object of the visual field, disminishes proportionally to
the square of the distance… that’ s why anyone sitting in a picture with his/her legs stretched in front, appears to be with
a huge pair of feet and a head which ridiculously shows small. Nevertheless, in real life we don’t get any impressions in
agreement with the images of the eye…something similar occurs with the constancy of the shape. The image of the plane
of a chair we have in our eye is like its picture: the front edge which is closer to the viewer looks much bigger than the
back edge; in the picture, a rectangular figure becomes trapezoidal.
However, regarding average people, it doesn’t occur like that in practice; the surface looks rectangular and as it is
originally drawn… this is what is called and understood as constancy of shape”
UNIT 2: THE STRUCTURE OF CINEMATOGRAPHY
Psicosis. Director Alfred Hitchcock
2.1 CINEMA SPECIFICITY
By: MARCEL MARTIN
What is cinema? Regarding this topic, opinions are really divided, as the following quotes show it and at the same
time they allow us to progressively circumscribe the problem:
· Robert Bresson: “Cinema is not a show; it’s writting. It is not the “set ” at the studio, but on the screen where
the film is. Cinema is not the picture of some thing, but the thing itself”
· Abel Gange: “Cinema is the music of light”
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10. · Jean Gremillon: “Cinema gives us, not images but ideas”
· Henri AGEL: “Cinema is something that dematerializes the world”
Bela Balazs: “Which virtualities are the ones only made on the film during the projection? What is that something that
cinema does not reproduce, but produce and thanks to which it becomes a specific way of art? We have already
defined that “something”: the change in the point of view, the close - up, the first foreground, the variable framing, the
cutting and editing. And the most important thing, the new psycological action that a film causes by means of
technical procedures already numbered: the identification.
This series of disordered quotes intends to highlight some points on which we will insist. So far, we can outline two
definitions for cinema, which may seem opposite but not contradictory.
First, cinema is a figurative art, the most figurative of all. Due to the mechanical nature of a camera, it reproduces
reality with perfect objectivity or at least, considering several conventions (black/ white, etc.), it is able to give the
impression of reality, to impose our approach to the world, to express the weight of things, to surround us with the
presence of beings, and to sum up, to offer us a universe that is only an image but which does not hinder us to enter
and to merge in it.
Some people may object to what was aforementioned by claiming that a reproduction is not art, but it is enough to
consider that I’ ve been talking about an image and that I have said that cinema gives us the impression of reality.
Furthermore, the cinema always gives the most accurate image a mysterious element which is specific to cinema and
I’ll try to define it later. Let’s claim now that cinema is also a transfigurative art provided that I can use this neologism.
The camera does not limit itself to copy, it also recreates; it does not reproduce, according to Balazs. Additionally, the
camera has not “created” cinema, but it has let it be born and it is well known that all the kinds of search, pictorial
(from the late 19th century), literary (Proust) and philosophical (Bergson) have prepared the path to this seventh art for
its new vision on things and the natural relations in the world. The camera “stylizes”, gives its style to what is real,
which is frequently not more than a mass of beings and an indescriptible interlace of causal sequences: through
planning, it chooses and lauds: the montage, densifies and gives a value. However, it especially has the power to get
into the beings, and to open them to contemplate them.
In this way, cinema is paradoxically and at the same time the “most realistic” art – no one situates us with so
penetrating insistence in front of the shapeless mass of things- and the most “irrealistic”, the most surrealistic, the most
intimate, the most subjective, the most affectionate, the most logic the most appropriate to go from what seems to be to
being, from appearance to inwardness, from what is individual to what is universal, from the image to the idea. Paul
Eluard has clearly expressed it: “Cinema has discovered a new world, available, like poetry, to all kinds of
imaginations. Even when it has attempted to imitate the ancient world, it has made ghosts. By reproducing the earth it
has shown heaven.”
Therefore, cinema is an art and in this regard, a film is a purpose itself, but it is also a mean and this leads us to the
problem of language. It definitely seems to be proved that cinema may not be considered a language per ce, that is to
say, in a mathematical sense. In fact, only the mathematical language can be considered a perfect language, that is to
say, as a system of symbolic signs arbitrarily fixed and eventually interchangeable, but at the same time perfectly
univocal and absolutely adequate to the notions they appoint.
In the movie image, the beings and things themselves appear in their complexity and evolution. However, beyond that
representative force, cinema is able to prodigiously deep into what is real, in what is apparent (thanks to its penetration
power) and instantaneous (thanks to the time it puts in everything). It may be said that cinema is situated between
painting (from which it takes its representative character) and music (from which it easily gets, thanks to montage, its
lyric character); besides, it is an art of space like painting and an art of time like music.
Although cinema is not a language in the strict sense of the word, we will continue to use this term for comfort and
because the filmic language is not trickier than and as practical as verbal language. Anyway, the cinema is a privileged
mean of expression, thanks to its exactness and accuracy and also its possibility to generalize and symbolize. At the
same time, and not only from the sociological point of view, but also psychological, it is a show and in this perspective
it seems to be the culmination of theatre freed from all its material conventions.
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11. I will try to explain the essence of the art of film, that is to say, the set of expression means which this art owns:
1. Use of an image which is scrupulously accurate to what is real and at the same time has the power to mediate
evocating what is surrealistic.
2. Reproduction of real motion, of life in action and, consequently, recreation of temporal things, very exact and
objective or inner and fictitious.
3. Recreation of the world by image composition, which densifies and values our perception of what is real, and due to
its editing, a complementary operation of planning and whose most important attribute is film- making rhythm. The
use of movements of the camera, whose purpose is to create sensitive spatial relationships or to express the individual
attention of a character.
4. Resource of depth of the field of vision, which truly situates the spectator in action and densifies the drama unity
and the environment of the world.
5. Prestige of the first close - up, which allows grasping the magic of a human face and the intimacy of things.
6. Finally, the use of “off” music which accompanies the film as a temporary structure or dramatic counterpoint and its
lyric effects.
What is that indefinite and impalpable something that the aforementioned list exposes? Some of the concepts - already
presented in the list of transcribed quotes above – may let us define more precisely the deepest characteristics of
cinema:
· The “Charm”: first points out the psychological conditions of the show, the characteristic ambiance of the cinema
room, which considerably influences on the receptivity and sensitivity of the viewer and the nature of the diegetic
universe, which owns all the characters of reality, but duplicated by their active vigour. In this complex and purified
universe, everything is eminently significant, the smallest fact has a symbolic character and everything has a
considerable resonance. On the other hand, we have analyzed the importance of rhythm as a mean of filmic
expression. The rhythm structures our perception of the diegetic universe in agreement with action, but especially the
dominant psychology the film – maker has tried to express. Finally, the priceless value of music as an element of
lyric counterpoint happily ends with the irresistible and complete attraction of the viewer by an artificial world with
an incomparable esthetical presence, though.
· The “intensity”: a film densifies and values reality by the composition of image, which groups the most diverse
objects in spatial units; by the rhythm of editing, which imposes the diegetic universe a certain kind of esthetical life;
by the angle of the shot, which originates uncommon and exciting points of view; by the first plane which shows the
living width of beings and objects; by the depth of the field of vision, which fully comprises us in the action and
makes us encrust in the world.
· The “intimacy”: thanks to the power of penetration of the camera, many beings live with us and within us; they
impose their presence to our present. Under the examining sun of the camera, its massive stand stillness becomes an
active evolution; the questioning insistence of the first plane takes the masks off and reveals the unknown wealth of
the inner self; the subjective narration opens us access to the profundity of the conscience.
These ones are, from my viewpoint, the elements that constitute the characteristic esthetical enjoyment of cinema and,
what its “lovers” demand from it. But, how many dull movies do we have to stand before finding quality work?
A good movie is, first of all, a good script, and we should understand a good script not only as a well – built action,
but also as an action that works up the true human values. If we underestimate this profound unity of every beautiful
work, we take the risk of falling into tightness and formality: even including the mastery of technique, its integrity is
indispensable for the perfect reading of the filmic language.
Hence, the seventh art is better than any other since it’s the most suitable “to show”; it may be the most prestigious
mean to be able to know something due to its nature as art of the masses: knowledge of the world and human
communication.
* Marcel Martin, The aesthetics of film – making expression, Ed. Rialp, Madrid, 1958, pp. 263 – 270
2.2 CINEMA, A NEW LANGUAGE
By: BÉLA BALÁZS
At the beginning, the art of cinema would develop new and own themes, new figures and a new
style, that is to say, a new art genre. What is then my argument to claim that back then; it was just a
photographic copy, which was technically improved from theatre?
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12. How and when did film – making become a specific and autonomous art which uses methods that are completely
different to the ones used in theatre, and that speaks a completely new language? What’s the difference between
pictured theatre and film- making art? Isn’t it the projection of living images on the screen in both cases? Which
reasons do I have to insist on the idea that, while one of them is exclusively a technical reproduction of open – air
theatre, the other is an independent category of figurative art?
One of the fundamental principles in theatre says that the viewer watches the scene with spatial continuity, that is to
say, in its whole. It constantly embraces the whole space in which the scene takes place. It is likely that just the corner
of a room appears on stage. But the viewer sees it all and, within the same and only frame, he/she completely sees
what happens in it.
According to another basic principle in theatre, the viewer always watches the scene from a determined and
unchangeable distance. If scenes used to be taken from different distances in pictured theatre, they didn’t use to be
modified in the development of just one of them.
The fact that the viewer’s “approach”, his/her visual angle, his/her perspective keeps constant is another important
principle. Pictured theatre sometimes would change the perspective from one to another scene, but during one of them
it used to remain unmovable as the distance.
These three fundamental principles in theatre are naturally related to one another and are also part of the first
principles of the form of expression and theatrical style. The fact that the theatrical scene is directly seen or it is seen
through a pictured reproduction is unimportant. It is also unimportant the fact that they are pictures which can barely
offer a stage, scenes which are only reproduced in open – air or through the photographic technique.
These principles lost significance with the arrival of film- making art, which starts where they end, and allowed the
entrance of new methods. The new principles are the following below described:
1. Variation of the distance between the viewer and the scene, during its course. It is from here that the variation of the
scene’s size derives since it develops within a frame and a “picture” composition.
2. Subdivision of the whole scene into isolated images.
3. Variation of the framing (visual angle, perspective) of isolated images during the course of the same scene.
4. The montage, that is to say, ordering of isolated shots. It is not about a succession of complete scenes - even if they
are short – as it happens with Shakespeare’s theatre, but about the framing of those small details within the same
scene. The scene as a unit is born from this succession, as the parts in a puzzle ordered in time.
The revolution of this form of visual expression, which originated from these methods, created the new basis for the
evolution of the film - making art, whose cradle was Hollywood, in the United States. We should thank genius David
Griffith for this revolution, which took place in the first years of World War I. He was not only the creator of gorgeous
work of art but also a new kind of art which started with him.
The specific peculiarity in the art of film- making is this: it does not only allow us to closely observe images which are
isolated from the whole scene and glimpse the core of a life that shows us in this way its most hidden and intimate
mysteries, but it also holds the sense of what is deep and impenetrable, unlike what happens on stage or in a picture.
This happens because that sense cannot be found drowning below the complex impression of the whole picture, which
constantly remains in our eyes.
The use of new expression means in the art of film- making did not show new and surprising topics such as storms or
volcanoes in process of eruption. On the contrary, it highlighted something hidden: the lonely tear which shines and
whose significance was unknown on stage.
A movie director does not allow us to see what pleases us in a scene. He/ She, on the other hand, forces our sight to go
from one detail to the other by following the preconceived order of his/her montage. Through a framing succession,
the director can point out some facts and does not only limit him/herself to show the movie, but also gives the film a
meaning. At this point, the personality of the creator who made the film shows fully in its importance. Two movies
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13. with the same plot but different montage would be the expression of two different personalities, and would represent
two completely different approaches to the world; they would unquestionably be two different films.
Béla Balázs, “The film”, Ed. Losange, Buenos Aires, 1957, pp.17 –19
2.3 ARTICULATION OF FILM LANGUAGE
By: ROMAN GUBERN
1. Cinema and aesthetic tradition
2. Montage, perception and memory
3. Origin of montage
Cinema was born as a necessary consequence of the successive improvements of the technique for instantaneous
photograph, which was applied to scientific investigation by the astronomer Pierre Jansen to register the movement of
the planets, by Muybridge in his studies on a horse’s gallop and the physiologist Etienne – Jules Marey in his work on
animal and human locomotion. The greatest technical finding Lumiere made, in a summary, was the application of the
principle of the photocamera ( release – obstruction – objective) to the registration device and later the projection of a
series of instantaneous successive pictures on the screen; this caused his peers a shock exactly parallel to the one the
art of photography provoked on Daguerre`s peers.
1. CINEMA AND AESTHETIC TRADITION.- From the beginning and as a child of photography, cinema bumped
into a problem which is similar to the one daguerrotipe stood in its origins: the lack of aesthetical criteria which was
partially filled by the tradition borrowed from other means of expression, especially by theatre ( due to the analogies in
exhibition rooms and the use of actors), by illusionism and literary narration, but not painting.
Except from Lumiere, who contemplated the cinematography phenomenon as a scientist and not as an “artist”, the
first movie producers ( Melies, Zecca, Alice Guy) did not start their work from the most outstanding samples of photo
art ( David Octavius Hill, Mathew B. Brady, etc.) but through the use of more or less talent and imagination, adscribed
their work to modules that came from the theatrical aesthetics: still camera situated in the centered point of view of a
spectator`s plato, with the optical axis diagonal to the décor and embracing a still general close – up, among other
aspects. The history of cinema can be considered a tough fight of the new mean to eventually break the corse of
theatrical aesthetics and reach through an elaborated antinaturalistic language, a linguistic and poetic articulation with
great originality in the history of modern art.
2. MONTAGE, PERCEPTION AND MEMORY.- The articulation between close – up and close – up is the
essential phenomenon over which the theory and aesthetics of montage has laid, and it is through it that cinema has
become independent from theatre, although the idea of montage is not particular to cinema only but common to every
field of artistic creation and even technology. Regarding cinema, the segmentation of montage is a syntagmatic
operation done by means of an analysis process based on the fragmentation and choice of spaces (which have a time
dimension, too) and that at the same time, is not more than an application and extension of certain conditions of
perception and evocation of the stimuli of perception of the physical world by human beings.
Effectively, the selection of optical spaces takes place in every human being through the body move and the
movement of the neck and eye orbits - fact that introduces certain techniques of sequence – close up in the field of
montage and which were studied by Bazin - and the selection of times is an elipsis operation traditionally used in oral
narration as well as in written narration, due to reasons of expressive frugality and expounding effectiveness; this is
also based on the discontinuity and selectivity of human memory and remembrance. Under the light of these remarks,
we could conclude that the montage we are describing reproduces the conditions of selectivity of human memory and
perception, which are not continuous and favour determined significant times – spaces in detriment of other
intermediate zones which are more significantly poor.
3. MONTAGE ORIGIN / EDITION.- The elaboration of film- making montage by ancient movie makers was a
tough and surprisingly slow process. The first examples of montage were impossed by the need of producing certain
current events, whose complexity and length went beyound the possibilities of the scarce length of the film available
in the camera or the capacity of the projector. A typical example and one of the first one, is offered to us in the news
named “Visit of the tzar to Paris” by Lumiere (October, 1896) which has seven consecutive scenes.
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14. 2.4 WHAT IS … A SCRIPT …?By: Syd Field
The Paradigm Of Dramatic Structure.
a. FIRST ACT ORTHE BEGINNING
b. SECOND ACT OR CONFRONTING
c. THIRD ACT OR RESOLUTION
A script is A STORY TOLD IN IMAGES. Every script follows a basic premise: it has to do with a person or people in
a place or places, doint “something”.
A movie is a visual mean to dramatize a basic plot and as every story, it is clearly divided into beginning, middle and
end. Every script has a basic lineal structure.
a. FIRST ACT ORTHE BEGINNING
An average script has around 120 pages or lasts two hours. Every page is equivalent to a minute, although the script
may be all dialogues, all actions or both. The beginning is the first act, which is also known as outlining since
the story has to set out around 30 pages. When we watch a movie, we conciously or unconciously decide if we
“like” it or not. The next time you watch a film, take into account how long it takes you to decide whether you
like it or not. It is about 10 minutes, that is to say, 10 pages from the script. The audience must get hooked on it
immediately.
It is in those 10 pages that the maker makes the audience aware of: WHO the MAIN CHARACTER is, WHAT the
store is about and WHAT the situation is.
In the film titled “Chinatown”, we first learn that Jake Gitted ( Jack Nicholson) is a private detective who majors in
“indiscrete investigations”.Later on, there is a woman named Mrs. Mulwray ( Diane Ladd), who wants to hire Jake
Gittes to find out “ who my husband is having an affair with”. That is the main problem of the script and it provides
the dramatic pull that leads the story into a conclusion.
At the end of the first act there is a TURNING POINT WITHIN THE PLOT: the turning point is an incident, an event
that hooks on the story and makes it take a different direction.
In Chinatown, after the newspapers publish the story on Mr. Mulwray, who was taken by surprise in his “love nest”,
the genuine Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up with her lawyer and threatens to sue him.If she is the authentic
Mrs.Mulwray, who hired Jack Nicholson, indeed? and who hired false Mrs. Mulwray and why?. This fact makes the
story turn into a different direction; Nicholson, due to purely survival reasons, has to find out who has cheated him and
why?
b. SECOND ACT OR CONFRONTING
The second act is the most important one within the store. It develops around pages thirty and ninety. This part is
named confronting because the essence of any kind of drama is conflict. Once the need of the main character is
defined, and which his/her purpose is, several obstacles may be made up to hinder the satisfaction of that necessity.
That’s the way the conflict is born.
In Chinatown, a detective’s story, the second act deals with the conflict Jack Nicholson has against those black forces
which do not allow him to find out who was responsible for Mulwray’ s murder and the water scandal. The obstacles
Jack Nicholson has to overcome make the drama part of the story.
The turning point at the end of the second act generally showa up among pages 85 and 90.
In Chinatown, the turning point at the end of the second act is the moment in which Jack Nicholson finds a pair of
sunglasses in the swimming pool where Mulwray was killed and he learns that it belongs Esther to Mulwray or the
man who murderded her. This leads us into the story’s solution.
c. THIRD ACT OR RESOLUTION
The third act generally takes place among pages 90 and 120. It has to do with the story’s resolution. How does it end?
What happens to the main character? Does he/ she stay alive or die? Does he/she succeed or fail? A strong end
resolves the store and completes it making it understandable.
Every script follows a basic lineal structure.
The drama structure can be defined like this: a lineal arrangement of incidents, episodes or events which are closely
related and lead into a dramatic resolution.
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15. The way to use these structural elements determines the shape of the film.
Field, Syd. 1995. “The book of script. Fundaments for writing scripts.” Plot Editions. Madrid.
Remember that a script is like a name: a person in a place doing something. That person is the protagonist and what
he/she does is the action. When we talk about the theme from a script we are talking about the action and the
personage.
The action is what happens, the personage is the one to whom something happens. Every script uses the action and the
personage as dramatic elements. You must know what your film is about and what happens to the person that stars in
it.
Every script has a theme. “Bonnie and Clyde”, for example, is a story about the Clyde Barrow’s band, which assaulted
banks in the Middle West during the Depression and its final surrending. Action and personage. It is fundamental to
come up with a general idea in a determined dramatic premise, which becomes the starting point for the script. All
stories have a beginning, a middle point and an end which are clearly defined. In Bonnie and Clyde, the beginning
dramatizes the encounter between Bonnie and Clyde and how his band formed. In the central part of the story, they
hold several banks up and the police chase them. They are finally caught by the special forces and murdered.
2.4.1 THE TOPIC
WHAT IS THE TOPIC OF YOUR SCRIPT?
By: Syd Field
WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO FIND A TOPIC?
An idea which has been simple taken from a newspaper, from the news or an incident experienced by a friend or
relative can become the topic or theme of a film. The story in “Chinatown” came out of a scandal regarding water in
Los Angeles and it was found out in an old newspaper article. “Bonnie and Clyde” emerged from real situations
experienced by real people. You must give yourself the chance to find your topic, but you have to start looking for an
action and a character.
When you are able to express your idea concisely in terms of action and personage, when you are able to express it as
a “name”: my store is about this person, in this place, doing this “thing”, you have started to do your script.
The next step is to broaden the topic. The action must be filled with content and you have to concentrate in the
personage to stretch the plot line out andmake the details concrete. Gather material in every possible way; it will
always be useful to you.
Many people doubt about the value or need to investigate. Research is absolutely essential. Every writing process
requires some research. We should remember that the most difficult thing about writing is knowing what to write
about.
Investigating provides ideas and a better understanding of the people, the situation and the set. It allows a writer to get
some confidence since he/she masters the topic and in that way he/she can act by choosing and not because of
necessity or ignorance.
Start with your topic. Once you’ve thought about it, think about the action and the character.
We can draw the following diagram:
TOPIC
Action Personage
Physical Emotional Define the The action is
necessity the character
There are two kinds of action: the physical action and the emotional action. The physical action is to assault a bank.
The emotional action regards what happens inside the characters throughout the story. Most movies have both kinds of
actions. In “Chinatown” a delicate balance between the physical and emocional action is created. What happens to
Jack Nicholson when he uncovers the water scandal, it is related to his feelings towards Faye Dunaway. Once you
have decided the kind of action you are interested in, you can move on to the personage. First, define the necessity of
a character. What do you want? What is your need? What leads to the solution of his/her story? In “Chinatown”, the
15

16. need for Jack Nicholson is to find out who tricked him and why. We must define the necessity of a character. What
does he/she want? A character’s need will give you an objective, and a destiny, an end to your story. The action in the
story is based on the way the character reaches or not his/her purpose. Every drama is a conflict; if you know about
your personage’s need, you can creat obstacles for the satisfaction of that necessity. Your story is the story of how its
character overcomes those obstacles. The conflicts, the fight, overcoming difficulties, are the main ingredients in any
drama. There is also comedy. The author’s responsibility is to provoque enough conflicts to keep the reader or
viewer’s interest. The story has to always reach its resolution.
The dramatic need about three guys who held the Chase Manhattan Bank up is directly related to the action of
assaulting the bank. The obstacles to that need create the conflict: the many alarm systems, the armoured camera, the
locks, the security measurements that have to be overcome to be able to escape. The characters have to plan on what to
do and this implies a careful observation and investigation and also the preparation of an action plan which should be
well organized before attempting the robbery. There is no drama without conflict. There is no personage without a
need. There is no action without a character. “The action is the character”, wrote F. Scout Fitzgerald in “ The last
tycoon”. A person is what he/she does, not what he/she says. *Field, Syd. ( 1995). “ The book of script”. Plot editions
S.A. Madrid.
2.4.2 THE PERSONAGE HIS/ HER CREATION By: Syd Field
How is a character made up? What is a character? How do you decide if your character will drive a car or ride
a bycicle? How can you establish a relationship among your character, his/her action and the story
being told? The character is the basis in a script. Before starting to write you must know your character. Who
is your protagonist? Who is the store about? If the store deals with three guys who rob the Chase Maniatan
Bank, which one of the three characters is the protagonist? You must choose a person to be the protagonist.
Once the leading character is chosen you can find the ways to make a complete and deep portrait of it. First,
assign the leading role. Next, split the components of his/her life into two basic categories: interior and
exterior. The interior life is the one that develops from the moment the character is born till the moment the
movie starts. It is the process during which the character forms. Your character’s exterior life is the one that
takes place from the moment the movie starts until the end of the story. It is the process during which the
personage reveals. A movie is a visual mean. You have to find out the way to visually expose the conflicts of
your character and you can’t show what you know about. That’s why there is a distinction between knowing
your character and revealing his/her role. Start with the interior life. Is your character a man or a woman?
How old is he/she when the story starts? What epoch does he/she live in? In which city or country? Later,
where was he/she born? Was he/she an only child or did he have any brothers or sisters? What was his/her
childhood like? What was his/her relationship with his/her parents like? , etc.
When a character starts from his/her birth, you see how he/she gets a body and dimensions. Trace him/her…
Once you have determined the interior aspects of the character within his/her biography, go on to the exterior of the
store. The exterior aspect of the character takes place from the moment you start your script till the end. It is important
to study the underlying relatioships within the characters’ lives. Who are they and what do they do? Are thay happy or
unhappy about their lives? Would they like their lives to be different? Writing is the ability to ask questions and find
answers. The development of the character is a creative investigation. You ask yourself questions and get the answers.
PERSONAGE
(From his/her birth till nowadays) (From the beginning to the end of the movie)
Interior Exterior
SHAPES PERSONAGE REVEALS PERSONAGE
Character’s Define the The action
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17. biography need of the
character
HOW TO PRESENT THE CHARACTERS ON THE PAPER?
First of all, you have to separate the elements or components of his/her life. You have to create the characters in their
relationships with other people or things. All drama characters interact in three ways:
1. They face conflicts to satisfy their dramatic need. For example, they need money to buy equipment to assault
the Chase Manhattan Bank. How do they get it?
2. They interact with other characters, in a relationship that may be antagonistic, friendly or indifferent.
Remember that drama is conflict.
3. They interact with themselves. Our leading character may be forced to overcome fear in jail to successfully
make the robbery. Fear is an emotional element which is necessary to face and define to go through it.
How to make your characters real people with psychological depth?
First of all, divide the life of your character into three basic components: Professional, personal and private.
· Professional: What does your character do for a living? Where does he/she work? What does he/she do? What is
his/her relationship with workmates like? etc. When you are able to define and examine the relationships your
character keeps with people in his/her life, you are creating a personality and viewpoint. That is the starting point of
characterization.
· Personal: Is your character single, widow/er, married? If he/ she is married, to whom? If he/she is single, what is
his/her life as a bachelor like? When you wonder about your character’s life, resort to your own life. Ask yourself:
if you were in such situation, what would you do in your character’s shoes? Define your character’s private
relationships.
· Private: What does your character do when he/she is alone? Define the character’s needs.
Once the character’s need is defined, you can make up the impediments to difficult its attainment. Drama is conflict. It
must be clear to you what the need is to put up obstacles in front of it. This fact provides dramatic tension to your
story.
Diagram of the concept of a character:
PERSONAGE
Interior SHAPES THE Exterior REVEALS
PERSONAGE THE PERSONAGE
Character’s Defines the The action
biography need is the character
professional personal private
work marital alone
or social
A character’s essence is the action. A character is what he/she does. A movie is a visual mean and it is the writer’s
responsibility to choose an image or ilustration that becomes a cinematography dramatization of his/her character. The
writer can make up a dialogue scene in a small and badly conditioned hotel room, or to decide if the scene takes place
at the beach. One is a visually closed place; the other is dinamic and visually open. Remember that a script is a story
told in images and that “every image tells a story”. The images reveal some of the character’s aspects.
The DIALOGUE depends on the character. If you know your personage, the dialogue should easily flow as the story
occurs. What is a dialogue’s work? The dialogue is related to the need, the expectations and dreams of the character.
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18. What should the function of dialogues be? The dialogues should convey information or the premises of your story to
the audience. They have to make the story advance. They must reveal the character. The dialogues have to reveal the
conflicts among characters and inside every one, and also the moods and peculiarities of their personalities; the
dialogues come out of the characters.
*Field, Syd. ( 1995). “ The book of script”. Plot Editions, S.A. Madrid.
BUILDING A CHARACTER
By: Syd Field
We have seen the basis of the creation of characters through their biography and the
detailed account of their relationships.
And now what are we supposed to do with the idea of a person as he/ she comes to
us in a confused and fragmented way to make it a real person with flesh and bones?
Someone whom it is easy to identify oneself with? This is a question many poets,
philosophers, writers, artists, scientists and even the church have been concerned
about throughout history. There isn’a concrete answer; it is part of the mystery and
magic of the creative process.
The key word is “PROCESS”. There is a way to do it. First, you have to create a context for the character. Then you
have to fill that context upt with content. Context and content are abstract principles that offer you a priceless tool in
the creative process.
We will examine the process of construction of a character regarding context. The first thing to do is to define the
character’ s NEED. What does your character want to pursue along the script?
After preparing your character’s biography, find out who your character is. The biography is for you and does not have
to be included in the script. It is just a tool you have to use for creating your character.
Split the professional, personal and private elements in your character’s life.That is the starting point. The context.
What is the character? What does everybody have in common? We are all the same, you and I; we have the same
needs, the same wishes, the same fears and uncertainties; we want to be loved, be close to people like us, be
successful, be happy and be healthy. At heart we are all the same. There are certain things that put us together.
What makes us apart?
What separates us from the rest of the world is our point of view, the way we see the world.
A CHARACTER IS A POINT OF VIEW; it is our way to see the world. It is a context.
What is your character’s point of view? Is he/she an ecologist, humanist, racist? Does he/she
believe in destiny, astrology or fatalism?
What is your character’s viewpoint on his/her job? And about his/her marriage? Does he/she like
music? What kind? These elements are specific components that shape your character.
Everybody has a point of view; make sure your personages have individual and specific
standpoints. Create the context and the content will fill it up.
A character is also an ATTITUDE, a context, a way to act or to feel that reveals a person’s opinion. Does your
character show an attitude of superiority? Inferiority? Is he/she optimistic or pesimistic? Does he/she show enthusiasm
for life or is unhappy?
What kind of personality does your character have? A character is his/her PERSONALITY. Every personage
visually shows a personality. Is he/she happy, joyful, brilliant, creative or sociable? Serious? Shy? Reserved? Well –
mannered or rude?
The character is also a BEHAVIOR. A character’s essence is his/her action: a person is what he/she does.
The behavior is the action.
The character’s behavior shows many things. Let’s imagine a character getting off a Rolls- Royce. He/She closes the
door and crosses the street. He/She sees a dime on the sidewalk: what does he/ she doe? If he/she looks around to see
18

19. if someone is witnessing, does not see anyone and then picks the coin up, it tells us something about his/her character.
If he/she looks around, sees someone witnessing and does not pick the coin up, it also tells us something on his/her
character, through his/her behavior.
If you get to a point in which you do not know what your characters would do in a determined situation, examine your
own life and find out what you would do in such situation. Everything emerges from knowing your character.
What do you want to get from your character along the script?
What pushes him/her to reach that goal or not to do it?
What is his/her need or objective in the story?
Why is he/she there?
What does he/she want to get?
What do the viewers have to feel about your characters?
A character is also DISCOVERY. We learn something about the personage throughout the story.
IDENTIFICATION is another aspect of the character. The identification factor, the “I know someone like that” is the
best compliment you can get from the audience.
All the features of the character we have mentioned so far - the point of view, personality, attitude and behavior - are
related to one another and partially superimpose during the process of construction of the character.
* Field, Syd. (1995) “The book of script” Plot Editions, S.A. Madrid.
2.4.3 THE SCENE
By: Field, Syd
The scene is the most important individual unit in the script. It is the space in which something peculiar happens. It is
an action specific unit and the space in which the story is told.
Good movies are good scenes. When one thinks about a good film, some scenes are recalled but not the entire movie.
Think about Psicosis. Which scene do you remember? The shower, of course. And what about Star Wars? Citizen
Kane? The purpose of the scene is to make the story advance. A scene may be as long or as short as you may like it.
It may be a three- page – dialogue scene or simply one that has only one shot; a car speeding on the highway. We
will get down to the scene in two ways: we’ll examine the general concepts on the scene, that is to say, its shape and
then, we’ll study the specific concepts for a scene, how to make a scene up starting from its constitutive components.
There are two clear things within a scene: TIME AND SPACE. Where does the scene take place? In an office, in a car,
on the beach, in the mountains, on a crowded street in the city? What is the scene’s location?
Another element is time. What time does the scene take place? In the morning, in the afternoon? Late at night? Every
scene takes place in a specific place and at a specific time. The only thing you have to set out is DAY or NIGHT.
Where does the scene take place?
Indoors or outdoors. INT. (interior) and EXT. (exterior). Therefore the shape of the scene is:
INT. ROOM - NIGHT
EXT. STREET - MORNING
SPACE AND TIME
It is essential to know these two things before making and
building the scene. If we change the place or time, we
change i tinto a different scene. If your scene takes place
in a house and you go from the bedroom to the kitchen
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20. and from here to the living room, you will have three separated scenes. The scene may occur in the bedroom, between
a man and a woman. They passionately kiss each other and go to bed. When the CAMERA TAKES A PANORAMIC
VIEW of the window, through which one sees the sky at dawn and then A PANORAMIC VIEW of the couple waking
up, that is a new scene. You have changed the scene’s time. If the character is driving a car on a mountain highway at
night and you want to show him/her in different places, you must consequently change the scenes: from EXT.
MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY – NIGHT to EXT. MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY, LATER – NIGHT.
There is a reason to do it: the physical need to change the CAMERA’S position for each scene or shot in the new
location. Every scene requires a change in the position of the camera and therefore, a change of lights. That’s why
there is a large amount of shooting equipment and it is really expensive to make a movie ( approximately 10,000
dollars per minute). The changes in every scene are absolutely essential for the evolution of the script. A scene is the
space in which everything happens, in which you tell your story by means of pictures in motion. Like a script, a scene
is built with a beginning, a middle section and an end. Every scene at least reveals a piece of data on the story, which
is necessary for the audience. The information the viewers get is the nucleus or purpose of the scene. There are
generally two kinds of scenes: one in which something visually happens as in an action scene. The other is a dialogue
scene among two or more people. Most scenes combine both kinds.
Within the main part of the scene something defined happens: its characters move from point A to point B, or the store
moves from point A to B. The story always moves forwards. Even for “Flashbacks”. A “flashback” is a technique used
to increase the viewers’ understanding of the story, the personages and the situation.
HOW IS A SCENE MADE UP?.- You must make the context first and then determine the content. What happens in
the scene? What’s the purpose of the scene? Why is it there? How do you make the scene go forward? What happens?
As a writer, it is your responsibility to know why your characters are in a scene and how their actions or dialogue
develop the story. You must know what happens to each character in the scenes and besides that what happens to them
between scenes. If you don’t know it, who should?
When making up a CONTEXT, you establish the dramatic purpose and may be able to build the scene line by line and
action by action. When you create the context, you determine the content. All in all, how do you do that? Firstly, you
should look for the components or elements within the scene. Which aspect of the professional, personal or private life
of your character are you going to make known?
Let’s go back to the story of the three guys who assault the Chase Manhattan Bank. We will suppose we want to write
a scene in which our characters definitely decide to rob the bank. So far they have just been talking about it. That is the
context. Now, the content.
WHERE DOES THE SCENE TAKE PLACE? In a bank, at
home, in a bar, inside a car, while walking in the park? The most
evident place for its location should be a quiet and distant place,
maybe a rented vehicle running on the highway. That is the most
evident place for the scene. It works but we should probably use
something more visual; after all, it is a movie. The actors often
perform “against the current” in the scene, that is to say, they do not enter the scene in the most obvious way, but the
least. For example, they will represent a scene of “anger” by slightly smiling and hiding their wrathe or fury under a
polite appearance. Brando is a master in that kind of art.
In the movie, “ The express of Chicago” Colin Higgins writes a love scene between Hill Clayburgh and Gene Wilder,
and they talk about flowers. It is a beautiful scene. Whenever you write a scene down, you must look for the way to
dramatize it “against the current”. Let’s suppose we choose a crowded billiard room in the evening, as a site for the
“decision” scene in our story at the Chase Manhattan Bank. We can stick in a suspense element; while our characters
play pool and discuss on their decision to assault the bank, a police officer gets into the room and turns around. This
adds a touch of dramatic sense. Visually, we could begin with a shot of ball 8 and then move away to show our
characters leaning on the table and talking about “the job”.
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21. Once the context is established (purpose, place and time), the content naturally comes after. This method allows
controlling the story in such a way that it does not control you. As a writer you have to exercise your ability to choose
and your responsibility in the construction and presentation of the scenes. Look for conflicts and make something
difficult even tougher. Add tension. When you start writing a scene, look for its objective and then situate it in space
and time. Then find the moments or components within the scene to build it up and make it work.
Every scene, as the sequences, the acts and the script in their whole, have a beginning, a middle section and a well-defined
end. However, you just have to show the scene partially. You may decide to show just the beginning, only the
middle part or just the end. For example, in the store of the three thieves, the scene may start in the middle, when they
are playing pool. The beginning of the scene, when they arrive, take a table, practice a little and start the game does
not have to be shown. The final scene, when they leave the billiard room does not have to be shown either. Not very
often a scene is fully presented.
Most of the times the scene is just a piece of the whole. As a writer, you completely control the way to make the
scenes up to develop the story. You choose which part of the scene will appear.In the “Express from Chicago”, Collin
Higgins makes up a wonderful love scene that goes “with the current”. Gene Wilder, in the role of George and Jill
Clayburgh, as Hilly, have met in the restaurant wagon; they like each other and get drunk. They decide to spend the
night together. She provides the room and he provides the champagne. The scene opens when George goes back to his
room, glowing red by alcohol and expectation. * Field, Syd. (1995) “The book of script” Plot Editions, S.A. Madrid.
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22. UNIT 3: FILM AND ITS IMAGES
3.1 What are different close – ups of an image useful for?
By: LEV KULECHOV
We will work on a determined scene to study the use of close- ups.
The topic is the following one:
A married couple eats breakfast at the table. The husband drinks tea and
at the same time reads the newspaper. The wife is busy completing a
crossword puzzle. After finishing his tea, the husband looks at the clock
and it’s eight. His wife approaches, kisses him and leaves.
Let’s see this scene in the frame of a general close- up: your first reaction
would surely be the desire to split up some details from the whole action
to show them separatedly, since by watching the full performance of the
actors from away, it cannot be clearly tracked. And at a certain moment,
you would like to see some details more clearly so that all what is superficial at that moment does not bother us.
To prevent the whole scene from being shot in a general close- up, we will suppose we are using several cameras,
which will film the action at the same time, but at different close- ups: the first one is ready to film a general close- up,
the second to film in American close- up the husband’s attitude at the table; the third to shoot the wife in half- a close
– up, the fourth to film the crossword puzzle from the magazine in first close- up (detail), and the fifth to register in a
first- close up the clock that indicates the time: 8 . The cameras are ready. We ask the actors to get ready: attention. It
is started, the actors perform, the cameras shoot and stop: the shot is over.
HOW DO WE MAKE THE SHOTS BECOME AN ARMONIOUS IMAGE? The filmed movie is developed. We
already have five rolls of film that register what the five cameras did. We review them on the screen: we first see the
scene shot in a general close- up. Then we see the husband shot in American close- up but not till the end: in this shot,
the husband gets up and leaves. In the third shot we see the wife in half a close-up solving the puzzle and telling her
husband good-bye. In the fourth piece we see the newspaper page with the puzzle and finally in the fifth, the clock
indicates it’s eight.
Every piece is called unit or fragment of montage. If we gather and splice (edit)those pieces by previously removing
the repeated or unnecessary sections, by following the logic succession the development of the action itself tells us, we
have already made the montage of the scene. Let’s review the definition on montage made by director Vasiliev.
“Montage is a union line that links the photograms of a film, since a movie is a successive series of pieces with
different length, each one of which contains an action moment”. Every piece of film, althought being a part of the
whole, has to be logically linked to the prior piece and the next piece, considering the right development of the action
regarding time and the rest of the movie. Every one of the parts in a movie must be the product of the prior ones and
at the same time, it has to compulsorily go before the ones that follow it; that is to say, the pressence of every part of
the film, among the others, has to be justified. We will now proceed to the scene’s montage, by taking into acccount
that the montage consists in putting together several close- ups that make the scene, which are joined in agreement
with the sense of the executed scene.
WHAT DOES MONTAGE CONSIST OF?
First piece: (general close – up): the couple drinks tea in the room.
Second piece: (American close- up): the husband drinks tea and reads the paper.
Third piece: (half close – up): the wife reads the magazine.
Fourth piece: (first close- up or detail): the page with the crossword puzzle.
Fifth piece: (C1. American: continuing the second piece): the husband finishes drinking his tea.
Sixth piece: (first close- up) the clock indicates it’s eight.
Seventh piece: (C. American; end of the second piece): the husband drops the paper and gets up.
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23. Eight piece: (C1. General; end of the first piece): the husband approaches his wife and starts to say good- bye.
Ninth piece: (half a close- up: end of the third piece): the husband finishes saying good – bye to his wife.
And now, to project the staged scene (edited) on the screen, we have a logical and harmonious demonstration of the
actors’ action. We have filmed 5 parts of the action and have staged (edited) the scene with nine different pieces; for
that purpose we had separated the staged units (edition), by removing the repeated or unnecessary parts and making up
with the rest a new scene in which the parts logically and harmoniously follow one another. This succession of parts
in the montage process is also determined by the rhythm that the action in a scene demands and which the director has
to decide, in agreement with the mood, emotion and ambiance of the situation.
IS IT NECESSARY TO FILM A SCENE WITH SEVERAL CAMERAS? Of course not. Filming with many
cameras implies an unnecessary waste of film: in the example with five cameras we would have filmed five more
times than it is necessary since we keep a part of every shot and eliminate from the others the same scene to avoid
repetitions.
Just with exceptions or very difficult or costly scenes, filming is made with more than one camera, above all when the
scenes cannot be repeated. However, this is not only unusual but also difficult since it is necessary to set the cameras
in such a way that the other devices do not see “it” in the decoration (set). Is it then a better idea to film with one
camera only, interrumpting the actors’ work and carrying the devices from one place to another, according to the
required close-ups? Yes; it is evidently simpler and cheaper to work like that. Films are made that way.
It is clear, however, that making shots in different close- ups with a single camera requires from the actors a very
peculiar way to work: the actor/actress does not perform a scene continuously, but with long interruptions during full
intensity of an action. While the camera for every close - up is set, the actor/catres is forced to wait and remember the
discomfort and emotions of the interrupted action to continue them with the same mood and at the same rhythm.
Furthermore, he/ she has to be reminded every gesture or movement, piece by piece. Otherwise, for example, if the
husband holds the newspaper in his left hand during the filming of the general close- up and then in the American
close- up he holds the paper in his right hand, both pieces wouldn’t match logically and it wouldn’t be possible to
stage them (edit)
That’s why the job done by the performers on the screen is ruled by peculiar conditions of work, with characteristic
difficulties and troubles. *Kulechov, Lev. ( 1956). “ Treatise of cinematographic completion”. Editorial Futuro.
S.R.L. Buenos Aires. Pg. 32-34
3.2 IMAGES IN MOTION, LINGUISTIC SIGNS
APPROXIMATIONS AND DIFFERENCES
By: LUIS ROGELIO NOGUERAS
Any kind of theoretical reasoning regarding the peculiarities of film speech, currently
starts from an unquestionable idea: cinema is a new kind of narrative world, which,
unlike novels, constantly transforms “narration terms” into “order terms”.
What kind of new speech is cinema then? What are the interesting acting means in
which this system – unquestionably- reveals as a way to tell something and in which
language has lost its priority as a model or mediator?
There was a time when montage, framing and the first close- up were considered “specifically film”. These three
technical – expressive procedures were named the distinctive features of the cinematographic sign system, and also
considered inherent to cinema’s nature itself, like a word is to literature.
Why is cinema such a peculiar way of art? What have we seen in a film that we haven’t in a set? Which particular
efects show up for the first time and exclusively in a movie? What is that the camera does not reproduce but produces?
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24. Which elements make a film become a particular language? Those elements are the first close- up, framing and
montage. * Bela Balazs: Film’s aesthetics. La Habana, Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1980)
It is simple to demonstrate, however, by using examples taken from the literature prior to the invention of cinema , that
these techniques can pass from the narrative plot (a fable or topic).
Which elements are then “specific” in film- making? The answer is so obvious that it is not uncommon to dismiss it
sometimes. Cinema is, above all, a coherent succession of images in motion. It is the movement of an image (the
cinetic icon) what gives cinema its specificity and conditions its narrative “me”: this makes its narrative world to
constantly change “narration terms” into “order terms”.
In his autobiography, Chaplin says that George Wells told him in 1923: “There is note ven one bad move. The fact that
its images move is just wonderful!” (Charles Chaplin, My life’s story). Balazs says that the technique of
communication and expression that films own, has developed and become more difficult during the last years and at
an amazing speed. The films we currently watch would have been incomprehensible four or five years ago.
A man is sitting in a room, in the darkness and is sadly cogitating. A woman is next door. There is a first close – up of
the man. Suddenly , the moonlight pours on him. The man lifts his head and looks. His face expression is also
lightened with hope. Then the light vanishes on his face. What has happened? All the viewers have clearly understood:
the woman has opened the door, looked at him and later has slowly closed the door again. We now realize the way we
have learned how to see; we don’t even know how we have learned to visually associate the ideas, to visually follow
the thoughts, to optically think… In this sense, there is not doubt about the fact that the cinema has a syntesis power
which is stronger than in literature and therefore, it can put a greater amount of information in the speech structure and
even in less time.
3.3 IMAGE, REALITY AND SENSE By: Ramón Carmona
The progressive introduction of technological means in our current society – video, photocopiers, audio CDs, telefax –
has radically altered both, the ways to file and transmit information and the mechanisms to perceive and think the
world. In such context of the continuous loss of hegemony on the side of traditional reflective genres, it turns out to
be paradoxical the relative discrimination of this “new galaxy”, in the institutions which are specifically devoted to the
spreading and analysis of knowledge: schools and universities.
The curricular presence of subjects devoted to its teaching is relatively minimal, when compared to other disciplines
like literature or philosophy. However, the constant increase of the population that gets to know the world through an
estimate of 6 to 8 daily hours in front of a TV runs parallel to the decreasing rate of literate culture. Every day there is
more “watching” and less “reading”. From this perspective, the fact that the great majority of young western people
ignore the most elemental spelling rules is just another symptom of the deep change in values that has taken place
since the last quarter of the 20th century. Even the lyrics of many songs – if we accept that music (rock, pop, techno)
has greatly substituted the book as a massive consumption object – surrender to the visual aid of videoclips.
Let’s start with some evidence: more than 94% of the information that contemporary women and men in the big cities
receive, gets into the brain through or sight and hearing: more than 80% specifically by means of the visual perception
mechanism. Although the percentage is not so high in rural areas within the so- called Third World countries, it goes
even up to 50%. It is not casual then, to talk about the “civilization of images” to characterize our contemporary
communication universe.
1. THE IMAGE OF REALITY / REALITY OF THE IMAGE.- The definitions for image have been numerous
throughout times. Plato, in the sixth chapter of “The Republic”, talked about images like “shadows”, and (…) ghosts
represented in the waters and on the surface of blur, brilliant bodies”. Two are the elements from Plato’s definition
which are interesting to us now: the idea of representation, and the notion of special reflection.
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25. The same references appear when we resort to the ethimology of the words image (from the Latin imago) and icon
(from the Greek eikon. One and the other refer to a representation and reproduction on one side, and on the other
(through the concept of portrait) to similarity. It would be more useful, however, to resort to definitions which allow a
mere descriptive approach.
We can then talk about image in agreement with Abraham Moles’s view (1981) as support of visual communication in
which a fragment of the perception universe materializes and which represents the characteristic of lengthening its
existence throughout time. From this definition we can get two distinctive features which are different to the ones
previously mentioned: its material characteristic, that is to say, its quality as an idea of the image and its independence
regarding the themes or objects which are represented.
Additionally, there is a basic and important distinction between figurative images and abstract images or representative
and non- representative. The first ones are those images that have information on other objects (situations,themes, etc.)
different from its own material feature, through a subrogation operation. That is why we can assert that those images
called abstract – although concrete – are those ones that provide perception but not perception of a thing or object.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that a “mental image” can also be considered from the perspective of representation in
knowledge.
IMAGE AND SENSE.- Let’s see now how the mechanism of perception of the image works in an average viewer
from our cultural western habitat.
An image, whichever it may be, offered to the contemplation of the spectator in different ways - billboard, film, slide
… - has determined rates of iconicity which are very similar, frequently, to the real object that it tries to represent.
Hence, an image is likely to be immediately aprehended by the viewer without knowing any kind of previous code.
However, we do know that an effective commercial image is based on the efficiency of a sense operation, by means of
which the real characteristics of the object are displaced by the value that is conventionally given to it within the
sociocultural environment where such image is consumed.
We do not buy a specific brand of cigarretes, but the adventurous charisma that smoking them
prints; we do not buy a perfume thanks to its smell, but the manlish sensuality that it releases…
All these ideas talk about the plurisignificant characteristic of an image (that is to say, that it
has many possible meanings), of its complexity. An image does not only convey, as efect of
sense, representations which are more or less well- built of the objects, but it makes the
unconscious desire of a viewer to awaken. An image offers, by means of elaborated systems of composition, a weave
of multiple differential relationships which has to conveniently be read or built by the spectator, if he/she wants to rush
all his/her possibilities of sense.
We now have 4 pictures that Richard
Avendon made to honor Marilyn
Monroe after her death (1962). In every
picture there are fixed elements,
repeated elements and elements that
vary. There is an evident progression of the images on the TV screen, from the sexy
elements of the actress’s body ( breast in picture 1, lips slightly opened in 2, her ass in 3) to reaching her face ( picture
4), which personalizes the set: It is me, Marilyn.
When first reading these images, the viewer could express his/her opinión with a phrase like this: Marilyn Monroe,
sexy actress on the screen. Is that all? Let’s observe the pictures more carefully.
The angle of the camera is slightly above the TV set. That’s how we discover the connection of cables from the device
and it highlights the empty space surrounding it. The sexy image is characterized by:
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26. a) Cables that are plugged: the image is artificial. Without that connection, it would disappear from the screen.
b) Empty room: the image happens in complete solitude. There is no viewer to contemplate her.
A third element completes our reading: the image is against the light of the window, and cuts off a direct vision of it.
An artificial registration surface does not allow us to see the exterior.
3.4 FILM COMPONENTS
By: RAMÓN CARMONA
The matters of film expression are:
· Signs
· Indexes
· Icons
· Symbols
· Codes
o Technological
o Visual
o Iconography
o Photography
o Black and white / color
· Perspective
A movie consists of signs, formulas, diverse procedures which are linked according to a series of syntax rules that
imply a determined semantics. That fact allows us to understand it as a language from the semiotic point of view.
American Beauty
THE SIGNS
We define signs as the relationship established among the significant, signification and its
referent. This relation goes beyond the expressive matter and does not necessarily depend on it.
A landscape may be made through a photograph, a picture or a verbal description. The important
thing is the shape the relationship among these three elements takes.
According to Charles S. Pierce ( 1931) signs may be divided into three kinds: indexes, icons and
symbols.
The indexes account for the existente of an object which they keep a relationship with, but do
not necessarily describe the nature of the object. Thus, the smell of perfume of tobbacco in a room shows us that
someone has been in a place before we get in, although we do not know exactly who. Even though we could deduce
his/her identity, the index itself would only indicate its presence.
The icons, on the other hand, reproduce the shape of the object of which they are sign, but that does not impla its real
existente, although some of its qualities. The picture of an apple would be the icon of the appearance of an apple.
Nothing tells us, however, that that apple is not a simple construction on colored porcelain or that it exists as such fruit
in reality.
The symbols do not say anything about the existence or qualities of the object, but name it starting from an inclusion
in a system that is ruled by specific norms. A word, for example, does not refer either to a real object or its qualities,
but to the generic concept with which it is embraced inside the vocabulary of a language. The word “book” does not
appoint a specific volume, or say something about the kind of paper it is made of, its size, or color of the cover used in
its manufacturing; it only indicates that like an object in the Spanish language, it cannot be confused with a tree or
bycicle. Indexes and icons have to necessarily be rebuilt from a language to another. A movie owns the three kinds of
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27. signs we mentioned before. We could say that the images are in first place icons, the written or said words, as well as
the music would be symbols and the noises would be indexes. Anyway, the character of a film sign may include more
than one form at the same time. An image is an icon, but it may also simultaneously work as a symbol inside a
sequence of effects for syntax structure of the signification. Also, a symbol may work as index and so on.
CODES.- A code may be understood in different ways. On one hand, it may simply define a set of meanings (that is
what happens, for example, with the Morse alphabet in which each letter has its corresponding equivalence in a series
of dots and lines or simple and double sounds); on the other hand, it may indicate a set of signs (the circulation code);
finally, it may be a set of behavior rules (the Civil Code, for example, or the Grammar in a natural language).
Regarding cinema, we cannot talk about code with the same conviction we talk about the Morse code or the Civil
Code. In these cases the limits of the meaning (signification) are fixed and are more or less clear. This series of codes
may be divided into four big groups: technological, visual, voiced and syntactical.
Technological codes.- The first series of codes is the one that refers to a film as a technologic device.
A movie supposes the use of a specific physical support (photochemical or electromagnetic), reproduction means
(projector or video) and a place with determined visual and acoustic characteristics to project.
VISUAL CODES
Iconography.- The first ones do not strictly belong to cinema discourse and they are shared by other discourses like
the one of painting and photography.
Photography.- These codes are more complex and numerous.
Black and white / color.- The last codes related to the photographic character have to do with the use of black and
white and color. In the beginning of cinema, the technological difficulties to impress colors over the film made that
black and white were the norm and color a significant choice, either to add beauty to the object or as a simple value of
change added to the product.
Since the regulation of the use of color the norm has changed. It is black and white what today
indicates a significant choice (many of Woody Allen’s for example). Anyway, although the mixture
of both possibilities is not common, the simple possibility of its alternative use implies a significant
value, which can be registered in the film itself.
Voiced codes.- With the inclusion of sound, cinema definitely became an audiovisual show, like
theatre, and complementing – thanks to the resources given by the musical band – the basic
constitutive elements of reality impression. It is worth recalling, however, that cinema was never
“mute” in a strict sense, since it was always accompanied by live music and “explanations”
(subtitles) that told the story during the projection.
There are three kinds of voiced codes, in agreement with the three modalities of introduction of
sound in the film: voice, noise and music. It is precisely cinematographic music the one that gives form to itself, in
essence, as music for cinema. It is the machine to deal with the relation space/time. (Chion, 1985)
PERSPECTIVE.- The Dictionary for use of the Spanish Language (II, 717) says in its entry: “perspectiva” view of a
thing in such a way that its position and real situation as well as its parts are appreciated”. This definition guides on the
ethimology of the word ( from Latin perspicere, which means to see clearly, to look through).
The perspective is clearly situated as a method of representation which intends to efficiently
represent the depth of the real world, through the production of a bidimensional display which is
able to generate an eye image which has to be compared to the tridimensional display formed by
the theme object which is the purpose of the visual message.
27

28. It is, then quite evident the importante of historically situating the appearance of this phenomenon, the birth of this
representative election since it allows us to show that the “perspectiva artificiales” occupies a time and space which
are well- defined in the history of humankind graphic representations.
The death of Virgin Maria. Bizantine painting.
3.5 MONTAGE NOTIONS
IDEOLOGIES ON MONTAGE
·Montage is a series of codes that articulate the process of composition and gathering of all the elements to make a
film.
·Montage is an operation whose purpose is to organize the set of close- ups that make a film according to a prefixed
order. It is, therefore, an organization principle that rules the inner structure of the visual and or voiced film
elements.
· Roman Gubert: the syntagmatic operation of montage (selection and ordering of space- time fragments) reproduces
the conditions of selectivity of the human perception and memory, regarding their discontinuity and favoring certain
significant aspects in detriment of others that are not.
Montage consists of three large operations: selection, combination and sílice. These three operations intend to get,
from the entrance separated elements, a whole which is called film.
MARCEL MARTIN: Montage is the organization of close – ups from a film in determined conditions of order and
length:
- The object on which montage is exerted are the close – ups of a film; montage consists in manipulating close- ups
to build up another object: the film.
- The modalities of montage’s action are two:
1. It orders the succession of units from montage which are called close- ups.
2. It sets their length.
FUNCTIONS OF MONTAGE
1. Narrative function: the montage assures the connection of the action elements according to a relationship, which is
globally a relation of causality and/or temporality; under this perspective, it is always intended to make the drama
better perceived and correctly understood by the viewer.
2. Expressive function: That is to say, the one “which is not a mean but an objective” and “is able to express by itself –
due to the crush of two images - a feeling or an idea”.
3. Semantic functions
It embraces cases which are extremely numerous and varied. We can artificially distinguish the following ones:
- the production of the denoted sense – essentially space – temporal – which involves what the category of narrative
montage: montage is one of the greatest means of production in the film space.
- the production of connotative senses, which are diverse in nature: all the cases in which montage relates two
different elements to produce a causalita effect, a parallelism effect, comparison effect,etc.
4. Rhythmic functions
Film rhythm introduces itself as the combination of two kinds of rhythms which are completely heterogeneous:
- Temporal rhythms, which have found a place in the musical band.
- Plastic rhythms, which can result from the organization of surfaces in the picture, the distribution of light, colors,etc.
3.6 WHO IS A MOVIE DIRECTOR?
Francois Truftaut, director of “The American Night” says: a director is someone who is
continuously asked all kinds of questions:
- From whom orders come out to allow the film get its own shape.
- Organization ability.
- Stage’s details.
- Interpretation of the actors to be able to get the best results.
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29. - Control of all the stages during the filming and montage.
- To coordinate the technical and artistic professionalism of many people.
- To get a determined communicative and expressive objective.
- To know how much to choose from each of his/her co- workers.
- The director has to keep a curiously elastic mental state during the realization of the film, but has to be assertive as
well.
- A director is the summary of all the decisions that have to be taken during the process of narration of the plot.
Edward scissor
-hands
UNIT 4: FILM – MAKING COMPLETION
4.1 LITERATURE AND CINEMA
· ADAPTATION
· THE LANGUAGE OF NOVELS AND THE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA
· FROM ACTION NOVELS TO FILM- MAKING IMAGE
· CAN A MOVIE BE MADE UP AS A NOVEL?
“When any reality - produced in a space during a specific period of time- is offered to our sight, there is a show made
up anyway. Writing a movie means organizing a set of elements which will be “put into scene” anticipating
significations beforehand. Cinema, consequently, is not and wouldn’t even be a kind of writing more than a show
first” Since from its very beginning the expression of cinema was a consequence of putting into scene an action that
had to be elaborated, it was embraced by the people in theaters. It took the shape of organization and representation of
theatrical pieces in the different genres.
As time passed, the flexibility of techniques and visual expression means, the joint of words and the development of
show time (which eventually went from 60 to 90 minutes and then 120 and more) allowed cinema to get away from
the theatrical structures and also to generate its own length way which was closer to a novel’s.
29
Edward scissor
-hands
Shakespeare in love

30. The first film which dealt with characters in eternal transformation – a change that was a consequence of the social
influences, the environment and whose análisis was not possible for more than the consecution of an homogeneous
duration – was the unforgettable “Greed” by Eric Von Stroheim, which was shot in 1924, according to Frank Norris’s
novel. The original version which lasted eight hours and had to have two parts was never edited. That version is still
kept but many of its scenes were cut off against its author’s will and reduced to 4 hours, and it demands countless
explanation subtitles that necessarily substitute the missing scenes.
The important turning point which this movie marks in the history of cinema, forces us to say something about it. Mc
Teague, an illiterate and emotional youngster, works in a gold mine and miserably lives with his mother. One day, he
leaves the place to learn a real job along with a dentist. He goes to San Francisco, thrives, wins $5,000 in the lottery
and gets married with Trina Sieppe, the daughter of German emigrants. Marcus Schoulder, Triana`s former friend, is
jealous about it. Mc Teague does not have a professional dentistry degree and after being sued by Marcus, he is unable
to legally do his work. Trina, who is not exactly a frugal person, becomes a stingy woman. One day, in a state of
nervous excitement, Mc Teague hits and kills Trina and runs away with her hidden savings. Marcus chases him. They
meet each other in the desert under a burning sun; Marcus handcuffs Mc Teague, but the keys get lost during the fight.
Mc Teague kills Marcus but does not have the keys to free himself and remains tied to his enemy. He drags his corpse
along kilometers and ends up dying of exhaustion.
This is the story of a couple that gets apart, of beings that rot under the influence of misery and insane passion; Triana
´s greed for gold, is a passion that little by little empties her from all kind of humane substance. The drama goes
beyond a simple naturalism; “Greed” was the first movie with an authentic length: it had a temporal width. Stroheim´s
realistic will expresses itself from the beginning because the movie was shot in the places of action itself. The
characters and their passions are not pathological peculiarities, but average beings that may be found in the social
frame that shapes them and which is the profound cause of their problems. There is a picture of the misery affecting
proletariats and the small bourgeoisie in the big cities (San Francisco) in the late 19th century during the whole film.
The realism depicted in the movie is a subjective realism that sometimes becomes a cruel behavior caricature: Triana´s
economic concerns become a monstruous obsession; she is about to die of hunger and cold and ends up naked lying on
the golden coins that has scattered over her lover. The desire, violence and passion break appearances and prejudice
along the whole movie. The social bans that cannot contain the violence of a prisoner in the contradictions of this
society, are constantly accompanied by scandal, murders, blasphemy, dreams, passion and death.
We could say that before “Greed”, the psychological cinematography was in rudimentary state because psychology
supposes an evolution in time. Here, the beings (characters) reject, bother, provoke, sue, run away, isolate and kill one
another when they are face to face again. Each one drowns in solitude, misery, obsession or hatred. Time is perceptible
in the destruction it involves. The same happens with the details since they witness even the smallest change: the
objects play an essential role and there are no two close- ups in which the individuals or things are similar. There is
nothing in common between the young woman from the beginning and the evil woman at the end, because she has
grown old, gotten ugly, nervous and holds threatening gestures; between the good McTeague of the mine and the
suffocated, alcoholic and full of vomit old man. The remarks on the atmospheric conditions are not less noticeable.
Stroheim, the movie director, makes perceptible every single thing, even the times of the day, seasons and months.
Stroheim got to substitute theatrical cinema ( in the dramatical sense of the word) by the art of telling, by the realism
of length, changing all the running principles. There are mistakes in the movie, though, but it anticipates 20 years
regarding the exposition and development of a novelistic content. At the beginning, voiced cinema (1930) went back
to comedy and verbalism and often theatrical performances as well. By the 40´s it had overcome those limitations and
gone back to the path for searching the structures of narration and novel.
The apparent similarity between the movie and the novel, regarding its corresponding course ( temporal development,
narration of a series of facts which were more or less chronological,etc), made movie makers take literary work to the
screens, like the similarity of dramatic structures has made producers take theatrical plays into “cinema”. However, to
conceive a movie “as a novel” is one thing, but adapt a literary piece of work is another. It is so different that the result
is almost always opposite to what was expected.
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31. a. ADAPTATION
Theatrical or novelistic, the adaptation in his origin was not more than a guarantee of value that was supposed to be
given to a movie, taking advantage of how notorious adapted plays were. The aspiration of cinema to “work of art”
was only admitted when it devoted itself to introducing art in its movies. Although it was gradated by this traced copy,
the original play kept its virtual power and gave its seal to the movie it inspired; it also gave to it the aesthetical
testimony it needed, but underlined in that way the inferiority of the cinema which needed it.
At the beginning of times and due to its short length, the adaptations put into images (most of them mediocre from any
point of view: direction, performance, decoration) some famous episodes. In most movies from the 20’s, we can
realize that the adaptation of a novel almost always consisted in its reduction to the dimensions of a short novel, that is
to say its plot first, precisely depriving it from its novelistic width and its temporality.
This being so, some condensed events that were chained or were dramatically determined like a theatrical piece, were
prepared. Consequently, from a rich and plentiful piece, a mediocre piece was taken and from that piece an even more
mediocre movie.
Either theatrical or novelistic, the adaptation started from the absurd principle that claims that meaningful values exist
independently from the expression that offers them to our sight or understanding. Within a system of signs itself (from
the same language) this may be true. However, when we go from a system to another, the values change.
For example, it is practically imposible to express in words what Leonardo Da Vinci says through shapes and colors in
“The Virgin of Rocks”. Evidently, this picture may be described, may be “told”, what is presented to our eyes may be
said, too; it may be analyzed from the perspective of esthetics or metaphysics, but it will never mean the same, it will
never create identical meanings or we could get through a verbal expression its “content”.
As a consequence of this mediation (shape), of a way to descipher and structure the world, this “content” exists only in
agreement with the “shape” that has created it and which gives a sense to it. This shape is the specific data of the
painting, of a determined painting. Any other mean of expression that describes or tells the same gives that same thing
a different sense, a different significance.
To adapt a play implies to pretend the equivalence of meaning in spite of the differences in the signification. In the
adaptations of literary plays to cinematography, not only the signs and symbols used in one and the other case have a
different degree of power to express or mean, but also they do not act on our conscience in the same way. Their
perception is not the same ( novel – reading / cinema – vision) and, therefore, their mental perception is not either.
Consequently, if we want to change the means of literary expresión into means of cinematographic expression is
absurd. The adapter is usually facing the following dilema: On one side, it may be faithful to the writing: follow step
by step the novelist’s work, the linking of circumstances as they have been referred, but due to the visual expression of
those events, it is forced to mean something really different from what the author of the novel wanted. On the other
side, it may faithful to the spirit, that is to say, it makes an effort to express similar ideas but through different paths.
Therefore, the novelistic continuity is broken, the data is transformed, the circumstances, the characters and it turns out
to be, also in this case, an evident betrayal to the author of the novel.
Consequently the only convenient solutions are the following ones:
To follow the story step by step by putting it into images and above all, avoiding to mean anything unusual to the play.
To make an effort to translate but not significations since all of them are expressed through words, without the things
they meant. At that point the film stops being a creation to become a representation, an illustration.
31

32. Or not to be concerned about the autor, think completely about the topic of the play to develop it in a different way and
with a different sense. Then the result would be a personal play for the author and it will inspire but won’t have the
right to prevail.
Alter all this analysis, we can claim that a movie maker can get inspired in a piece or novel, but once he/she has
entirely transformed the original play, it is honest not to take advantage of its notoriety. He/She has to be in charge of
his/her responsibilities.
b. THE LANGUAGE OF NOVELS AND THE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA
Shape and Content.- A novel is able to make people live something more than abstractions: the performers who are
firmly stated in time and space, the characters that it puts on stage, their customs, their drama, cannot be separated
from the context that determines them; otherwise, they would loose their authenticity, value and sense.
All the theme (Goethe used to say) tells the author the ideal way which corresponds to it. “A determined content
cannot find its perfect expression unless it is also in a shape which is equally determined, that is to say, in a kind of art
which is appropriate to such content and shape”.
Clearly, the same content is susceptible of different significations. The significations we pretend to give are the ones
that order the shape, precisely because they depend on it. It may be a content of a hundred different shapes, but each
shape will provide a different sense to it. Bela Balasz used tos ay (Der Geitst des Films) that the adapter should use
the existent play only as raw material, by considering it from the specific angle of its own artistic shape, as if a play
were just crude reality for him/her; he/she does not have to worry about the shape reality already has.
It can be easily understood that if it is true when we are talking about a total recreation, of a movie that is very
different from the play that inspires it, it is untenable when we’re talking about an adaptation. We cannot consider a
work of art – theatrical play or novel – “a crude reality” precisely because it is not; it is actually a desciphered,
mediated reality. It is impossible not to worry about the shape, because it is exactly the shape of a play what provides
power and sense simultaneously. Outside this shape there is nothing but an intention, that is to say, a plot that allows
that intention express itself. To reduce a work of art to its plot is exactly to deny it as art, since at this level it is just
virtuality, a determined number of possibilities among which the author has to choose.
To modify the shapes of colors in a picture is to destroy it or to create a new one; to write a poem by using other words
is to spoil it or write a new poem.
c. FROM THE ACTION NOVEL TO THE FILM- MADE IMAGE.- The move from an action novel to a
cinematographic image does not cause much trouble since it uses words to evoque and vanish in the image it gives
birth to. It provides the reader with a content of accurate shape, as if it were our direct sight.
However, even when we change that descriptive literatura into film images, we cannot avoid a contradiction that
affects the very nature of both kinds of expression. What is described in the novel eventually forms. Things
progressively appear through phrases. In cinema, those images are immediately given, so that the rhythm is different
and so is the development. What is a result in literature – result that is also a goal – is just a starting point in movies.
This is what Godard makes us understand when he says:
“…when we write, the most annoying thing is that we never know if we have to say “when I left it was raining” or “
It was raining when I left”. In cimena, this is a very simple thing to do: both things are shown at the same time.
Pretending to “visualize” a novel’s images, the images that reading provokes in our spirit is absurd. The mental image
depends on the reader and is situated on the conceptual plane while the movie image is an objective data. In cinema,
what corresponds to the mental image is the idea that came up from a relationship of images, and in some way the
image itself. An image in a movie does not allow us to imagine the reality offered to our eyes, but it requires us to
imagine starting from it, to discover relationships and significations. In cinema, an object is not transparent to a
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33. concept, but it refers to it. The concept is not trapped but just through the width of what is real, that is to say, through a
specific representation of that reality, an individual reality which is considered under a specific aspect and presented in
a context that provides sense.
Equally, there is not formal similarity – but structural – between verbal language and cinema language and there is not
similarity between the conceptual image and the image which is projected on the screen. There isn’t an identity
between what is real “given in an image” and the reality that constitutes that image.
d. CAN A MOVIE BE MADE UP AS A NOVEL?.- Before analyzing till what point a movie may be made up as a
novel, it would be convenient to underline various irreducible differences:
While space is conceptual in a literary piece of work, the length is intensely perceived in it, since the novelistic
texture, the linking of circumstances, the evolution of the characters depend on it and constitute it at the same time.
Time also plays (or may play) a crucial role in cinema, but it is always about the length of something, of an objective
reality which is geographically situated. This spatial reality is therefore proposed before the duration it is subjected to.
The time of a novel is built up with words. In cinema we are able to build with facts. A novel gives birth to a world
while a film presents us a world that organizes according to a determined continuity. A novel is a narration that is
organized as a world; a film is a world organized as a narration.
Space and time make from cinema a continuum which is analogous to the real space and time ( analogous but not
similar), a whole which is irreducible to any unilateral conscience ( may it be spatial or temporal) Its perception is the
one of an uncontrollable flux, a changing world and at the same time a world that is endlessly present. In this global
course, the past is abolished because of being what is not now (although it may be current in our immediate memory),
the future is what does not happen yet. In cinema, as in real life, there isn’t anything else than the present, a present
that eternally happens. * Mitry, Jean. “ Aesthetics and cinema psychology”; Book 2 The Shapes. Siglo XXI Editores
S.A; Madrid, 1986. Pg 342- 452.
4.2 CINEMA GENRES
By: Manuel Márquez
Comedy, action, drama, suspense… the question of genre is almost as consubstantial to cinema as the
celluloid it is built on, and it is difficult to talk about movies without keep in mind an element which is
as basic as its adscription to a determined genre: it is one more of the manifestations with an intention
to clasify and label as an article related to professional careers said not long ago.
It was not always like that. In the beginning (by paraphrasing from the bible), it was nothing. Movies
were only filmings which were conceptually close to what we nowadays know as a video cassete than
any other image product. That lasted just a short time, anyway, because movie makers had to begin
searching with the objective of entertaining an audience which was avid of that new show; fiction
arguments, concrete stories to be told, and they started to propose its classification according to certain standards and
conventions: cinematographic genres were born then.
Logically, their first “tables” were truly elemental and they just counted on the two “biggest” genres, based on a
criterion of intention and mood accents: drama and comedy, sadness and tears versus happiness and smiles. This basic
division is still current (with all the variations one may want to consider) and under it a wide volume of worldwide
cinematographic production is gathered.
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34. These “tables” were eventually “ growing up” and getting richer with even more and more genres, broadening and
diversifying the defining criteria, which were not only intentional anymore but moved in every possible direction and
field. From the classics of long term as the “western”, the “musical” or “thriller” to others which were more limited (at
least in their origins, and due to the economic and technical limitation rather than author’s intention) like the
“historical”, “fantasy” or the”biography”.
They have been growing up and growing up every time a little more until today when the number of genres,
subgenres, schools and trends (the last ones shouldn’t be confused with those ones, but it is sometimes difficult to tell
them apart) has really become inextricable. It would be extremely complicated, not to say impossible, to make an
exhaustive list on which the experts make a general consense.When does a set of stylistical or thematic conventions
becomes, thanks to its differenced character, the rank of gender? When can we separate a determined line, within a
specific genre, from its “matrix”, to proclaim it an autonomous genre? These are evidently questions whose answer is
difficult to find and to which there are not perfect formulas to guarantee accuracy.
The appointment of a movie to a concrete genre is not simple either and it becomes more and more complex every
time, since there is an uncontrollable tendency to pastiche (it is almost impossible to find “pure” movies: even though
there may be a plot or main action line, under which it is likely to label, the subplots, or parallel plots, they usually go
along other paths), especially in cinema which is more commercial (although not in it exclusively): there is not a war
story without a love “tale” or a fantasy story without a dramatic counterpoint… and in this way we could continue
listing suppositions, till it is endless.
Anyway, the genre is always an identifying element of great importance and a fundamental criterion regarding the
choice of movies we watch. There is an explicit warning about this: the more you enjoy, the better because all of them
are cinema.
4.3 COMPLETION EXERCISES
4.3.1 CHANGING ACTION AXIS
By: LEV KULECHOV
Once an action is put into a
scene, the camera has to find the
viewpoint that Montage Norms
establish so that it reaches the
spectator with all its clarity and
dramatic vigor.
That is why M. Einsenstein in
1934, discriminated the mise – en – scene as a typically dramatic operation from the set in a picture (o mise- en-cadre),
which is specific cinematographic operation.
The action axis is extremely rigid in relation to the camera. In relation to the performers it is really ductile so we could
claim that they create it themselves as they move and change the situation.
Let’s imagine a technical script that shows the following scenes of 10 shots:
Shot 1
C. general
An old woman (O) handles the spinning machine. A door opens behind her and a young woman gets in (Y).
Shot 2
Middle C.
The young woman gets closer and invites the old woman to go out because her mother has come to visit them.
Shot 3
Over – shoulder of the old woman who is reluctant to leave; she continues with her spinning machine.
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35. Dolly back that lets us see the young woman turning around the elder and sits next to her.
Shot 4
Almost large close – up.
The mother (M) shows up at the door. The two women are sitting in the back.
Shot 5
First close- up
The doubtful mother, she is stopped.
Shot 6
First close- up
The elder woman quits working and stays motionless; she does not turn.
Shot 7
The mother walks forwards and leaves the picture.
Shot 8.
Middle close- up
Looking a their backs: the young womand goes from the chair to the front of the elder woman and kneels next to the
spinning machine.
Shot 9
First close- up
The mother sits down, looks at her daughter for a long time and then the old woman. (sights out of the screen)
Shot 10
Three – shot closed. (Middle close – up of the three of them) The old woman, for a while motionless, looks up,
looks at her daughter in – law and greets with a bow.
Carefully analyze every shot described in the script and its putting into scene.
Observe the changes in the Action Axis which are provoked by the movement and looks of the characters.
In shot 1, the young woman (Y) is on the left of the picture.
In shot 2, the young woman is on the right. Her face is seen through the weel of
the spinning machine.
In shot 3, the young woman goes from right to left and there is an action axis
between the mother (left) and the old woman (right) that is permanent until shot
10.
In shot 6, we are not able to see the young woman but we feel her to the right of
the picture.
In shot 8, the young woman goes to the left of her mother, and this new axis:
young woman left – mother right allows us to make the right jumpfrom shot 9,
based on the look of the mother to her daughter. At the end of shot 9, the
mother looks at the right (the old woman) and this creates an axis that justifies
the jump on shot 10.
Based on this example, we should point out that: when a character moves, the
Action Axis moves along with him/her. Therefore, every shot which is put into a scene and every
piece of work for edition should consider the location of the characters at the end of every shot.
That final position is the one that should fit the initial position in the next shot.
*Kulechov, Lev. (1956). "Treatise of cinematography realization". Editorial Futuro. S. R. L..
Buenos Aires.
4.3.2 THE SCRIPT : FIVE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
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36. 1. WHAT IS A SCRIPT? A script is a text in the form of a book, which is useful as a starting document for the
filming of a movie or for the recording of a television program. In it, the topic to develop is described with the largest
number of possible details, including dialogues, texts and notes for the musical band. It is usually in the hands of
actors, directors and technicians that consult it during the preparation stages and then in the shooting, voicing and
montage.
However, all this is not enough for a general appreciation, which starts to complicate when one faces the concrete task
of writing it. We can answer the questions by saying: a script is the description, most possibly detailed, of the work
that is going to be done. It can be good, bad or regular, but is not the work itself.
2. WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
1. A first reason, which is strictly practical is the fact that the author, both if he/she is a script writer or the
director itself, or the two of them – needs to outline and then develop the narrative line, the comments or
dialogues and every other descriptive element in a written way, since it is the simplest, most precise and
economical way to do it.
2. Another reason lays in the complexities and the expenses of any shooting, which demands a detailed previous
text that allows to plan and execute the suggested work with the fewest number of difficulties.
We can add that the realization of a movie generally requires the pressence of a creative and technical team, which is
sometimes numerous and which needs to have in its hands a common document available to each one of them to fullfil
their functions before, during and after the shooting.
The script will be useful:
a. To the director, to articulate his/ her scene when it has to do with the making of a plot.
b. To the performers, to analyze the personages’ character that each one has to act out and know the dialogues.
c. To the production manager, to make up a plan of coherent work.
d. To the photography director, to imagine the cromatic climates and to establish the technical means that will be
necessary to elaborate them.
e. To the artistic director to choose the environments or construct the required decoration.
f. To the taylor or seamstress and the clothes designer to saw or adapt the necessary outfits.
g. To the sound manager, to define the character of the musical band and its equiping.
h. To the editor for leading the ordering of shots as they are made and processed.
i. To the administrator to organize the flux of expenses.
The broader the knowledge the scriptwriter has on the making process, the firmer the field on which he/she steps and
the fewer the inconvenients that his/her writing could generate.
3. HOW IS IT WRITTEN DOWN? The growing complexity of shootings and the increasing costs in movies,
imposed the need of a previous plan which is much more detailed, in such a way that the production department is able
to accurately evaluate the budget and funding of the movie quite before the filming of the first shot.
There is a growing necessity of a detailed script containing the description of all the things that have to be considered
in the making of the film: decoration to put up, performers and “stunts” to be hired, dialogues to be pronounced, music
to be composed and played, elements of camera and sound that are required, assistants and auxiliary staff,
transportation means and even insurances to avoid risks.
A script should then be a precise text which does not fit changes or improvisations. This diversity of methods in the
writing of a script reflects the oscillation that the alternative weight of the industry demands on one side, and the
creative necessities on the other, impose to every one of the structures in the cinematographic production.
1.The industry demands consider the necessity of planning to totally avoid the later variations or make them minimal.
2.The creative necessities require, on the other side, a great freedom to decide at the moment the imagined scene is
executed. Although we may talk about the average audience at the cinema, the treatment of the script is also
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37. conditioned if it intends to reach the majority, since the topic and its development must be such that they can be
understood and enjoyed by the simplest spectator without leaving the most cultivated one. This is one of the reasons
which hinder the creative innovation of language: the novelty, the personal approaches, the contributions that alter the
established conventions are not always accepted or understood and when the positive answer of the audience, of any
audience is necessary to justify the expenses and the effort made by the production, the risks of a change are assumed
by just a few.
4. WHAT ARE ITS LIMITATIONS? Where does the work of a scriptwriter end and the work of the director starts?
What degree of authority does the writer have thanks to being an author to determine, for example, the movement of a
camera and the close – up of a scene? In fact, the limitations are solved case by case according to the agreements – or
disagreements – between both parts. In this point, a clear knowledge of the mechanisms for film – making by the
scriptwriter, will allow him/her visualize with a better understanding the achievements of his/her work.
The relationship scriptwriter – director has been analyzed and discussed at all times and all tones. An example is here
given to illustrate this situation:
It is on an American TV scriptwriter named Paddy Chayetsky, some of whose work was taken to the screen with
peculiar repercusion.
“It is necessary that the writer do everything possible to get along with the director. This relationship is always
difficult, frequently hard and sometimes impossible. If the writer cannot get along with the director, I sincerely advice
him/her not to write for that program. It is impossible to produce a good show that satisfies the writer unless he is in
good terms with the director at work. I personally depend a lot on my director. I do not write literature but drama and
it depends on how it is represented; the only one man that is able to do a good representation is the director”.
5. CAN ITS TECHNIQUE BE LEARNED?
The basic problem lays on how to apply those techniques for the result to be really good. There are no recipes for that
but personal talent and hardwork. However, both aspects feed each other reciprocally and it won’t ever be possible to
know about how talented someone is until he/she has worked hard enough.
This principle is clear, and the bottom line is to define how to work and what kind of exercises it is worth making.
Perhaps, one of the biggest difficulties of learning lay on the extreme variety of genres a script has to be useful to.
What is truly important is to encourage determined attitude towards working:
· The observation of both, reality and prior work, without considering “old” the most ancient. Good movies, even
the most primitive ones, always teach the one who knows how to see.
· To level the stages for written exercising, going from what is simple to what is complex. An early project which is
too ambitious may fail and end up in frustration.
· To take into account the fact that there is a narrative ordering (whether we like it or not), an internal structure that
one must know how to handle.
· To be humble enough to admit mistakes, but not to accept any kind of critique without enough reflection.
· To work on our own life experience as the most genuine source of original creativity whose peculiarities will
make it interesting for others.
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38. Variedad.- Si la repetición es desordenada con respecto a una razón constante, no habrá ritmo, aunque
puede haber tema unidad. En el otro lado, si la razón constante sigue siendo idéntica, más allá de cualquier
tipo de novedad, y nuestra percepción artística (intelectual – sensible) se cansa de percibir un elemento
repetitivo, una experiencia muy conocida lleva a cabo: monotonía. El arte de evitar la monotonía, excepto en
los casos en que el tema lo exige como un co – experiencia con alguno de los personajes que lo padecía.
Cosas deja de ser bella cuando no son atractivas, cuando ellos no despiertan interés en el espectador. Por eso
poder enfrentar la posible monotonía de la repetición, un recurso incomparable llamado variedad muestra
arriba
En el ejemplo anterior, la idea de mostrar el tema (niño hambriento) de tres maneras diferentes ha evitado
dos cosas: primero, cansancio y segundo, para penetrar profundamente en su significado. Luego ha
comenzado un análisis del tema, por medio de la variedad y los designado recursos estéticos y este hecho
constituye la clave de todos los sistemas modernos en la didáctica. Enseñanza con la ayuda de medios
audiovisuales y artísticos es no sólo "entretenida", pero también se basa en la síntesis y análisis de medios
que hacen que un estudiante ' s trabajo más profundo.
Unidad y variedad son, por lo tanto, dos cualidades inseparables en cada creación artística.
Contraste.- Es otro recurso útil para evitar la monotonía que se llama contraste.
Un elemento de contraste sería cada otro tema distinto el tema o elemento principal. No es una variación de
la primera, sino otro. Si este elemento contrastante no sólo destacar los valores de la primera, pero al mismo
tiempo se desarrolla, se llamará segundo tema.
En nuestro ejemplo anterior, el valor de los chicos pidiendo es en el mismo momento parte del desarrollo del
tema principal "Hambre en América Latina", pero, sin lugar a dudas, se convierte en un segundo tema de
contraste debido a su inesperada visual – cambio de plástico a través de las imágenes de los sociólogos
sentado en una sala de conferencias.
Nosotros también podríamos recurrir a algo sorprendente o inesperado. Puede ser un recurso muy útil en
muchos casos; Sin embargo, un elemento absolutamente sorprendente peligrosamente puede dañar la unidad
si proviene de fuentes que están desconectadas del tema principal. Antes de recurrir a la "sorpresa" tenemos
que analizar uno de los más importantes recursos arte tiene: desarrollo progresivo.
Desarrollo progresivo.- En nuestro ejemplo corto, los niños no sólo se muestran variados en su forma y no
sólo contrastan con la imagen de los sociólogos, pero se desarrollan en cada plano, en cada aparición, una
obra en progreso: el primer niño corre detrás del reportero gráfico, la segunda le alcanza y toma su brazo;
como un medio plano lejos de la primera, un avión más estrecho para el segundo y un primer plano sobre el
tercero, agregaría otro pedazo de progreso: una intensidad progresiva dramáticamente, que en la trama de la
jerga se conoce como clímax. El desarrollo progresivo significa creciente interés. A continuación, es
necesario preguntarse sobre una pregunta legítimo: el trabajo conjunto artístico tiene que estar
constantemente en marcha? La respuesta no es sí y, dependiendo de lo que prestamos atención a. En relación
con el interés general de la obra que debemos responder afirmativamente. Sin embargo, cuando en relación
con las diferentes partes que componen una obra debemos respondemos negativamente.
Ya hemos analizado cómo requiere un desarrollo alargado divisiones o partes. El trabajo artístico es en este,
sometida a la forma natural nuestra mente opera y con el que funciona la naturaleza: a través de períodos o
ciclos. Cualquier canción popular corto o un poema infantil se divide en períodos, que sean antiguos o
nuevos, orientales o occidental de cualquier región del mundo.
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39. El ciclo TOTAL.- Como habíamos dicho antes, la unidad se refiere a toda la obra. Es exactamente este
concepto completo que debe sep concienciarnos en cada realización artística: tenemos que trabajar y trabajar
cuidadosamente la unidad entera. Para ello, no hay nada mejor que tener en cuenta los sistemas cíclicos de
los grandes maestros. El mejor patrón para el cine, desde este sistema cíclico, proviene del Plan dramático
que el genio del teatro griego como Esquilo, Sófocles y Eurípides estructurado en sus tragedias. Tal patrón
intactly pasó al drama de los siglos más tarde. La razón no es precisamente porque es el mejor de los
sistemas, sino porque parece que no puede haber otra forma de comportamiento como el humano de sus
operaciones cognitivas y emocionales.
El dramático Plan tiene cuatro partes esenciales:
1. Introducción
2. Desarrollo
3. Culminación o clímax y
4. Final
Tiempo – espacio. Hemos ido a través de los principios de unidad y variedad tan lejos y también la
repetición, ritmo, contraste, desarrollo progresivo y Total del ciclo fenómenos dentro de un orden de
temporalidad, es decir, como una manifestación del tiempo. En el campo de las artes plásticas (aquellos que
carecen de desarrollo temporalidad) pintura, escultura, arquitectura y artes menores varias tales como arte de
orfebrería y cerámica y todo tipo de decoración, esos principios también tienen una importancia decisiva
dentro de un orden espacial, es decir, como manifestaciones del espacio. Sin embargo, el tiempo y el espacio
son no dos criterios a través del cual podemos compartir todo tipo de arte en dos grupos separados e
independientes. En primer lugar, porque una gran parte de las artes del tiempo son también espacial (Drama,
danza, cine - hacer y muchos otros como Miming, títeres, etc.). En segundo lugar, porque cualquier
diferenciación inverosímil de estos dos conceptos, el espacio y el tiempo, como si fueran dos factores
irreductibles, es uno de los errores futuros ciencia y filosofía pueden intentar borrar, como arte ha hecho
desde sus orígenes. Tiempo, como lo hemos conocido desde el principio del razonamiento, es una
Convención que se ha dado a nosotros como algo real y externo, sino que existe dentro de nosotros como
una mera relación entre diferentes movimientos (diferentes velocidades), todos ellos referidos a la cambiante
luz del sol.
En la definición de ritmo como "orden en el tiempo", ya está oculto esta inexactitud aparente, puesto que el
ritmo es equallly "el orden en el espacio". Lo cierto es el hecho de que para artistas plásticos tiempo continúa
viviendo en sus cuadros y esculturas, desde el mismo momento hicieron un esfuerzo para expresar
movimiento.
Naturaleza, a cargo de la quietud de un gran número de sus minerales y planta de paisajes, simultáneamente
ofertas e infinidad de movimientos y el ritmo. Lo que es interesante aquí es señalar que ritmos espaciales son
un resultado del ritmo del tiempo, es decir: cada repetición espacial es producto de un movimiento regular.
Por lo tanto, el paso de un camello sobre arena ha dejado un número incontable de huellas rítmicas.
1 de taza de lecha
5 de chia
Endulzante y cucharada
1 de leche
1 taza de almendra remojas
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40. 2/1/5 de agua licuar canela, endulzante
Queso de almendar
1 taza depulpa
1 oregano
Limón sal y marina
04259
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