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Film Language: An Introduction

Geetha B.
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Reading a Film

 Films are experienced first- an emotional and

intellectual engagement

 ‘Reading’ a film implies an active process of

making sense of what one is experiencing

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What all constitute a film?

 the ‘conflict’ and ‘dialogue’ of

drama
 the‘narrative’description of fiction
 the interplay between ‘light and shade’
of painting
 the movement and rhythm of music

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 And above all, its own distinct

language of image and of sound

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Film form

 Macrostructure- overall structure: at the script

level

 Microstructure: at micro level; eg. -

composition of images, sounds

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content and meaning

 Content: what is in the film

 Meaning: how meaning is created?

 Film as a self-contained text: implicit,

explicit and referential( internal evidence)
 Historical/ social context, about the
filmmaker/ place (external evidence)

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Continued..

 ‘film as film’ vs film in its social context

 ‘what is seen in the picture’- what is put
into the scene :the mise-en-scene
 Everything going on within the frame
outside of editing (and sound ?)

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Evolution of film language (Andre Bazin)

 Imagists: base their integrity in the image

 those who work with plastics*- lighting, décor, composition and
actors
 montagists: those who work with editing; meaning through the
juxtapositions of images

 Realists: base their integrity in reality; no distortion of time and

space

(* plastic arts: art forms that involve physical manipulation of a

plastic medium by moulding or modelling such as sculpture)

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Mise-en-scene

 production design: sets, props and costumes

 colour (present in both production design and

lighting)
 lighting

 actors’ performance (including casting and make-up)

and movement

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 diegetic sound (that is, sound that emanates

from the scene and is not extraneous to it)
 framing including position; depth of field;
aspect ratio; height and angle; camera
movement

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Setting

 Setting: a studio, sound stage or on

location

 Setting to establish context, set the

tone, mood

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prop

 Prop: an object in the setting that operates

actively in the ongoing action to further the
plot or story line
 Art directors design/select sets and décor in a
film

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costume
 A variant of the prop- connected to
the character’s identity
 period films eg. Cleopatra, Gladiator

 Costumes can be iconographic (eg.:

cowboy outfit with a Western, combat
uniform with a War film)

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Color

 Color as an expressive device

 Present in the setting, props, costume and

in the type of lighting used
 In a black and white film the shades of grey

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actors’ performance

 acting, appearance, gestures, expressions,

voice- tone/accent/ type of dialect, body
posture/ movement
 melodramatic or realistic

 Classical style, Method (psychologically

driven)acting, Natural style

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Color…

 cheerful and happy times

 nostalgic- sepia tone

 lack of life or sadness- dull colors

 cold or bluish lighting to suggest

alienation, technology
 yellowish tinge to convey comfort
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lighting

 intensity, direction, and quality of lighting

 brightly illuminated part of a shot may draw

attention to certain objects/ gestures
 a shadow may conceal a detail or build up
suspense

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 hard or soft lighting

 frontal, side, back, under or top lighting

 Source: natural light, light coming from the

objects within the frame (visible sources of
light) or extra light sources

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Sound

 Diegetic sound: heard from within the film’s

diegesis
 on-screen or off-screen

 Non-diegetic sound: heard outside of the

film's diegesis (such as film scores and
voice-overs
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framing

 The size and position of objects; the

arrangement of objects so that they fit within
the boundaries of the film
 Position, depth of field, aspect ratio, height
and angle

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Shot size

 Extreme close up

 Close up

 Medium close-up

 Medium

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 Medium Long

 Long shot

 Extreme Long shot

 Me

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Shot sizes

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position
 camera in relation to the frame’s content

 Extreme close-up, Close-up, Medium close-up

(head and shoulders)
 Medium (head, shoulders, waist), Medium
long ( till the ankle)
 Long shot (entire human figure), Extreme long
shot
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Depth of field

 DOF is the distance through which

elements in an image are in sharp focus
 Deep focus
 Shallow focus

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Height and angle

 Height of the camera

 eye-level, low angle, high angle

 To indicate the relation between a character

and the camera's point of view
 Or simply to create striking visual compositions

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Camera movement

 Pan (lateral movement on screen)

 to readjust frame to accommodate
character movement
 Arc is 360 degree rotation

 Tilt ( vertical movement)

 to call attention to new areas of the scene

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 Dolly / tracking
 To produce movement perspective
 Camera on the tripod physically moves
 Crane/ boom
 When a scene’s action requires larger areas to be
covered
 When the action is to be shown from a high
angle
 Creates powerful dramatic compositions

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 Steadicam
 Mechanical system that produces very steady shots from
hand-held camera
 Consists of a vest that has a stabilizing support arm which is
worn by the camera operator
 Camera person can use the camera through space in a
smooth/ fluid manner

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Aspect ratio
 the ratio of the width and height of the frame

 for the conventional format- the academy

frame it is 1.33: 1.
 wide-screen formats, aspect ratio varies from
1.85:1 to 2.55:1.
 Cinemascope frame has wider screen (upto
2.66:1)
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Film Editing

 Motivation- movement of an actor, response to a

sound (say, off-screen)
 Information- some new information to reveal, say
visual; for eg. from a long shot to a close up
 Composition- the succeeding shot connected to the
earlier one- not dramatically different unless that is
the aim

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Editing Styles

 Continuity style of editing

 Montage

 Elliptical Editing

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Continuity

 Continuity: techniques that attempt to

create a synthetic unity of space and time
from fragments
 to have a smooth flow from one shot to
another and to maintain coherence and
orientation

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Montage

 Montage means ‘to assemble’

 Soviet montage of the 1920’s: the basic

idea is that the collision between two
independent shots put one after the other
creates a new meaning

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Elliptical

 Shot transitions that omit parts of an event,

causing an ellipses in plot and story duration
 presents an action not in its entirety and
onscreen time used by the action is less than it
does in the story
 Bollywood film songs: quite a few examples

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Transitions

 Wipe, Dissolve, iris, fade in- fade out

 Organizing edits

 Point of view cut, frame cut and so on

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 Frame cutting- A character moves

out of frame right-cut to- enters
frame left

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 Shot/reverse shot- to show two people in a

conversation- first shot shows one and the
next shows the second person

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 Activity 2: Play the clipping

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 Film direction? Well, there was a director who once said

that a film director is a person who never finds the time
to think because of all the problems connected with
filmmaking. That is the closest I can come to defining the
term. Of course, one can also say that film direction is
the transformation of visions, ideas, dreams, feelings,
and hopes into pictures that can convey them to
audiences in the most efficient manner. There is a
technical definition as well: along with an awful lot of
people, technicians and performers, and a tremendous
lot of machines, one produces a product. - Bergman

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 “If you have something to bring to the table, if you have emo-
tion or passion, a picture in your head, an intellectual tension-
even if you aren't technically-minded- the strange thing is that
after having worked on the script and having worked with the
camera for days on end, suddenly, at the end of the editing
process, the story you wished to tell, the images you wanted
to evoke, the characters and feelings you endeavored to
portray- they are all there.”- Bergman

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 “And I know that when the shot finds its place, it

has a quality of holding you. The position is its
meaning”- Mani Kaul

 “Light: the greatest painter and photographer of all.

At every single moment of our lives we see different
images, different pictures.“- Kiarostami

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 The end 

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