Enoch Yee-lok Tam

FILM 2017:Introdction to Film and Media Arts

 Film consists of two dimensions
◦ Illusion of movement
◦ Images / imagistic components

 Cinematic illusionist: George Melies

 Cinematic realist: The Lumiere Brothers

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 Persistence of vision

 Daedalum / Zoetrope

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 Eadweard Muybridge’s Sallie Gardner at a Gallop
◦ A series of photographs consisting of a galloping horse
◦ June 15, 1878

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 Frame + Movement = illusion of movement

 Early silent cinema: 16 or 20 frames/second

 Later: 24 frames/second

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 Cinematic time And……

 Cinematic space Mise-en-scene

Lighting
 Camera movement

Characters
 Sound and music

 Structure Etc……

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 Focal length

 Short focal length

◦ <35mm

◦ Clear at the center

◦ Blur or distortion
near the frame

Cranes Are Flying (1957)

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 Middle focal length
◦ 35-50mm
◦ Horizontal line appears
as straight line

 Long focal length

◦ >100mm
Life on a String ( 邊走邊唱 , 1991)
◦ Image with no depth
◦ Dissolving the foreground and background

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 Physical time
◦ Shoot time = real time

 Psychological time
◦ Combining the past, present and future
◦ inconsistent, disrupted, unpredictable

 Different techniques on time

◦ Fast motion
◦ Slow motion
◦ Freeze frame
◦ Flashback

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 Still camera

 Horizontal or vertical movement

◦ track shot
◦ crane shot
◦ pan shot ……

 Zooming
◦ Changing the area of frame
Hard Boiled ( 辣手神探 , 1992)

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 Sound affects how we understand a scene

 Sound directs / draw our attention

 diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound

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 Unit of narrative structure: shot

 Combination of different shots  movement

 Combination of different movements  scene
 Combination of different scenes sequence

 Cause-effect relationship
 Order: chronological, non-chronological

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 The Lumiere Brothers: the realist

 George Melies: Cinematic magician

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 Documenting daily life


Baby's lunch (1895)


Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895)


Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895)


The Waterer Watered (1895)


Cordeliers' Square in Lyon (1895)


The Card Game (1896)

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 Illusion

 Designing the plot

 Using photographic and stage techniques

 The Haunted Castle (1896)

 A Trip to the Moon (1902)
 The Impossible Voyage (1904)

 Hugo (2011)

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 Dots (Norman McLaren, 1940)

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 Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968)

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 Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

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 How does the filmmaker mix different media?

 What is the relationship between the plot and

those media used?

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