This document discusses key aspects of media language in film including quotes from famous directors about the art of filmmaking. It also defines important cinematic techniques like mise-en-scene, mise-en-shot, editing styles of continuity and montage, and the uses of diegetic and non-diegetic sound in films.

1. Media Language

2. Quotes
• ‘Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render
the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity.
I’d say that film is the sculpting of time.’ – Andrei Tarkovsky.
• ‘The art of film can only really exist through a highly organized
betrayal of reality.’- Francois Truffaut.
• ‘My distinguishing talent is the ability to put people under the
microscope, perhaps to go one or two layers farther down
than some other directors.’ -David Lean

3. • ‘I’m just a storyteller and the cinema happens to be my
medium. I like it because it re-creates life in
movements, enlarges it and enhances it. It is far closer to
the miraculous creation of life than a painting. Its not just
an art form; its actually a new form of life, with its own
rhythms, perspectives and transparencies. It’s my way of
telling a story’ –Federico Fellini
• ‘You make films to give people something, to transport
them somewhere else. The realm of superstitions, fortunetelling, dreams, presentiments, all this is the inner life of a
human being and all this is the hardest thing to film.’ –
Krzystof Kieslowski

4. • Mise-En-Scene: This include set, costume, lighting and
location.
• Mise- En-shot: This include camera shot, camera
movement, shot scale, depth of focus, the pace of editing.
• Primary Action- the movement of character/objects within
the frame.
• Secondary action- the movement of the camera in relation
to those objects

5. Editing
• Continuity- continuous action shown in sequence.
• Montage- a series of seemingly unrelated shots that
the audience must work to connect.
• Hollywood movies used ‘continuity editing’, a style
also known as transparency. Action flows smoothly
and audience just follow the dialogue.
• Art house films use framed editing, where the
audience are continually reminded that they are
viewing an artificially created text.

6. Sound
• It is a vital part of the information used for decoding film –
whether it comes in the form of a lush string soundtrack or
footsteps echoing o/s down a corridor.
• It may be diegetic coming from inside the narrative world of
the film eg characters’ voice.
• It may be non-diegetic coming from another source eg a
voice over or soundtrack.
• It can be synchronous where it matched the actions seen on
the images.
• It can also be asynchronous that is from unseen
sources, sound effects and music.