Découpage: Investigating the Meaning of Mise-en-scene and Montage

découpage
noun

1. the art or craft of decorating objects with paper cut-outs.

mise en scène
noun

1. the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play.
   • the setting or surroundings of an event.

montage
noun

1. the technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole.
2. “montage was a useful device for overcoming the drawbacks of silent film”
   • a sequence of film made using the technique of montage.
   • plural noun: montages
   • “a montage of excerpts from the film”
   • the technique of producing a new composite whole from fragments of pictures, text, or music.
   • “the art of montage in theatre and film”

In this semester’s studio, The Scene in Cinema, our focus seems to often come back to the notion of ‘découpage’. After reading related assigned excerpts on the topic, I have managed to collect a much better understanding of the word. The French word, in its initial state, is relevant to paper craft. “Decorating objects with paper cut-outs” as the definition reads. In a cinematic sense, the word’s relevance is not strictly of paper art. Decoupage is considered to describe the construction of everything that makes up a filmed piece – not to be confused with the editing choices in post-production (Barnard, 2014). From the planning on paper, to the correct positioning of elements within the frame, to the process and changes when filming. Connecting the word to the notion of organisation; what is to be shot and what is actually shot over the entire filming process. Two very important elements help us to understand the concept of decoupage; mise-en-scene and montage.

What interests me about film terminology, is the seemingly ever-changing meanings its words have. In French the word for decoupage is just that, and in Spanish, recortar (Bunuel, 2000. pp. 131). Because the word is translated, it will change in regard to the translated definition the word comes with. Yet, in English, we do not have a word for decoupage – so we must borrow terms and build definitions for the use of it in its new environment – new country/culture.

Mise-en-scene is an overarching title which accounts for everything which is placed within the shot of a film. Montage in film is relevant to explaining the technique of gathering, selecting, editing and piecing shots of a film in a particular order to create an entire film – or a sequence of shots. Mise-en-scene applies to decoupage closely as it directly relates to the elements and composition of shots in a film. Renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist, Andre Bazin (1918-1958), stated “if depth of field interests us it is only incidentally as a technical progress of a shooting style and, essentially, as a revolution of mise-en-scéne or, more precisely, decoupage” (Totaro, 2003). This comment alone expresses that the term decoupage can adapt and adjust to incorporate new elements of mise-en-scene. The word ‘revolution’ projects this notion. Montage is considered more, an afterthought of formal nature. The editing decisions take place, but the images have already been constructed.

Decoupage seems to be a title which appears to be both vague and precise depending on what piece of writing you read on the topic. The further knowledge you gain, the more confusing it becomes. Yet, there is a point reached where you understand that the term has altered over time. Through different countries and cultures, as the word we use is French, the meaning varies as its translation cannot be perfectly pinned-down. To me, mise-en-scene and montage are both very clear notions, unlike decoupage. The reason being, is that their definitions make sense in formal English translation. The words both grant solid explanations of film elements.

I suppose that the view of what decoupage means to any filmmaker as an individual, must adhere to the basic knowledge of the word. However, may be altered to include elements of constructing film which have not yet been considered by other filmmakers. Mise-en-scene choices by directors seem to remain of importance to those who understand the term. Those who think through the representation of all that is within the frame – historically and quite generally speaking, these are the type of directors who become a well-known success. As an example, Michelangelo Antonioni is considered at that level of expertise in the field. The blog post drawing information from the week six reading about Antonioni discusses my thoughts on his detailed and focused approach to cinema.

Cited works:

Barnard, Tim. (2014). Découpage, Caboose, Montréal, pp. 3-8

Bunuel, Luis. (2000). ‘Decoupage, or cinematic segmentation’ in Bunuel, Luis & White, Garrett, An unspeakable betrayal : selected writings of Luis Bunuel, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 131-135.

Totaro, Donato. (2003). Introduction to André Bazin, Part 1: Theory of Film Style in its Historical Context. [Blog] Off Screen. Available at: http://offscreen.com/view/bazin4

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Today’s class was really useful as we had two guests, Mark and Louise, who are affiliated with the film industry in some way. As well as being lucky enough to have these guests give us feedback; we also had our tutor and the rest of our class to chime in. I was first up today and was actually a little nervous, even though I was well prepared with a page of notes and a compilation of clips I had put together.

After presenting my idea, followed by my clips and my brief comments on what I found captivating from each shot in the clips, I was given praise for my idea by all who spoke to me which was a relief. I also managed to gain a few new ideas from this discussion.

Two ideas really stuck out for me. One was to craft these wheel-object scenes by imagining they were actually part of a storyline – one either already established, or one I create as a framework. The second, looking at the culture of skating/rollerblading/cycling, the differences between them and how I may film these cultures in a way that is cohesive with each group’s vibe.

I’m really looking forward to beginning the filming process and I have a few friends in mind who will be able to help me by being skating subjects which is ideal. It’s something which they do almost everyday, so there should be enough opportunities to plan filming days.

Here’s an old video of one potential subject:

Initially, I had the idea of capturing performances and the process leading up to a performance such as dance, solo singers, bands, street entertainers etc. and experimenting with interesting ways of capturing the movements they create in doing so. However, after discussing with Robin I realised it could easily end up leading too much in to music video production, which may result in something much less intelligent or appropriate to our studio.

My second idea is one that I feel really excited about. One which will be quite a challenging yet satisfying endeavour for myself and will aid in the progression to improve my camera skills. I’ll be looking at a kind of performance which doesn’t involve direct music, therefore – much more unlikely that it will end up seeming naive. I’ll be focusing on the coverage of skating, rollerblading and cycling. Showing the way the body can adapt to working with wheels as mode of transport rather than on foot as nature intended.

Asides dabbling over my lifetime, I’ve not had all that much to do with skating itself, although I am very interested in it as a skill. I decided this may be an opportunity to explore interesting ways of documenting the skill, movement, balance and coordination it takes to use the array of wheeled objects. Documenting skating particularly, will take me quite far out of my comfort zone.

Another thought I had was looking into how point of view (POV) shots are used. I may decide to focus solely on this with a range of topics, or I may just incorporate it into my skating idea to give more variety in the scenes I create. I’m happy about this choice as I think it will be really exciting and adventurous, so I feel like I will end up just incorporating POV into the concept theme

NOTES ON CLIPS IN EXAMPLE MONTAGE FOR PRESENTATION

PARANOID PARK

Experimental, uneasy, often off centre, distorted, seems home-video-esque, one very long take

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Clean shots, quick cuts – builds drama of the chase, use of shot cuts at the end very impressive and has been skilfully edited to appear as though the jumps happened smoothly and gives different perspectives to keep it interesting for viewers

LORDS OF DOGTOWN

Establishing shot of the size of the pool, the camera bobs around almost as if it’s emulating water, the size of the bowl is accentuated when the guys are all touching the walls and all you can see around them is primarily the blue of the bowl, the shots up at the guys who are outside of the pool also accentuate this, more personal – close up shots are used when they are actually doing the tricks and even closer are the ones emphasising the failures – showing the risk in the hobby

AIRBORNE

Swaying shots which follow the side-to-side motion of rollerblading

GOLD

Use of the roller skaters disappearing as they travel away from the camera holds a mysterious and distancing aspect which may be interesting to explore, the shot trailing off away from the women also gives a different kind of distancing effect

THE QUIET SEASON

Simple establishing and relatively easy to achieve shots which remain aesthetically pleasing

BMX BANDITS

Establishes that the actors are preparing for something active and maybe dangerous, gives glimpses of what is to come, the shots under the bikes and along the pedals are interesting and definitely aid in getting viewers to feel like their part of the action

In class we were asked to think of an idea which we would like to focus on in terms of exploring coverage of a scene. We will be choosing a topic and sticking to it for the next five weeks of our studio – so making the right choice will be important! Robin has told us not to worry too much for now about whether our ideas are totally right for us, because even after we present our ideas to the class next week – we are still able to adjust or change them entirely. Right now it’s more a matter of brain storming!

I’ve emailed Robin about my idea of covering performance. Dance. Bands. Solo singers. Street performers. I’m interested in exploring more experimental ways of filming and capturing their movement in their performances. Documenting the processes in the lead-up and the actual performance.

I’ve yet to find some inspiration on performance documentation which pushes several boundaries, but I do like the Black Swan dance clip as a starting point:

I think I’m drawn to the jolty actions which heighten a kind of stress from a form of dance which is generally elegant and soothing.

Here’s a video of a music video I got to be a part of when I was younger, I’m really inspired by the way this is filmed as it cuts between two different scenarios. I got to see how it was all filmed and found it captivating at the time, watching the technical side of it. Sort of gives me ideas of how I may film something in its vain as well…

Clearly, it’s a music video but I feel like it does tell a story which is left to the interpretation of its viewers.

“It can happen that a particular scene thought out at a desk doesn’t work when you drop it into that particular environment and it is necessary to transform it, modify it.” – Michelangelo Antonioni

This reading on Michelangelo Antonioni was really interesting, because I haven’t really seen many of his films and I wasn’t really aware of how much of an influence he had been in the craft of direction in film. It’s clear that he had a very important role in the way directing developed to execute creative visions.

Upon discussion and understanding of découpage, a plan of action in creating a film through segmentation, Antonioni had altered the relevance of this definition of the word. The quote above points out that he had an understanding that découpage of a film must, in segments, be initially constructed and reconstructed to work appropriately to the specific environment it it played-out within.

One of his actors, with very little acting experience, Mark Frechette, while shooting Zabriske Point (1970), noted that “working with a guy with his reputation and with what he knows about cinema” he “wanted to learn something. But he wasn’t teaching.” pp. 168 This frustrated Frechette. Antonioni’s approach to filmmaking was much more of a particular personal vision. He did not feel that the actors needed to understand why he made the creative choices he did because only he himself was aware of what the piece looked like as a whole – after all, it was his ideas that must be presented, under the title of ‘director.’ Frechette’s annoyance of the matter is totally understandable. Yet, these controlling traits of Antonioni have, more often than not, amounted to an end product of excellence – for he would not be so well-known and applauded, if his personal approach had been of a different nature.

Another mention from actor, Vanessa Redgrave, on the topic of shooting Blow-Up (1993), showed example where the actor and director saw eye-to-eye. “He was the first director who I’d worked with to whom it was a matter of absolute importance the shape one made as one sat, where the chair was, where anything was, and the movement or space between, above, below or transecting, that either a living object – a woman – or an inanimate object made.” pp. 176. Redgrave seemed to understand that he aimed to hold focus on what he was creating rather than having to cloud the vision by explaining himself. He drew meaning into everything he placed, positioned and moved within the frame. The shots in their entirety, were seen as a whole – “no one else could see but him.” pp.176.

It seems to me that there is a very obvious notion of potential personality clashes between a director and an actor which can hinder the quality in executing the director’s vision. This may be a reason many directors, such as Wes Anderson, often use the same cast members. They all understand one another and know who wants what.

Cited readings:
Forgacs, David, 2011, ‘Face, body, voice, movement: Antonioni and Actors [Excerpt]’ in Rhodes, John David (ed.) & Rascaroli, Laura (ed.), Antonioni : Centenary essays, Palgrave Macmillan, New York/Basingstoke, pp. 167-181.

Cited films:
Antonioni, Michelangelo. Blow-Up (1993)
Antonioni, Michelangelo. Zabriske Point (1970)

Today’s class was split into two different tasks. The first was Robin explaining to us that we were to gather a rough idea of what we may like to film over the next five weeks of our studio. The second, beginning the editing process of the footage which was shot yesterday.

At first, upon initial explanation, I was really confused about what sort of ideas we were meant to conjure up for our film focus. Robin explained well, but I was still trying to get my head around it. Luckily for me, Robin followed with some really great presentation examples of the kind of ideas we might like to explore. He used film clips to back up his topic choices which really helped to paint a picture and get ideas flowing for me. Two that stood out were example one; ‘Ellipsis’, and example two; which focused on the coverage of ‘running’. Ellipsis looked at putting shots together to appear as though there are missing sequences to question what kind of story can be created from that. It looked at deliberately leaving sections out to create this effect as well as deciding on leaving them out in the editing process to create the effect. The running piece detailed different approaches to following and covering running and how to make it interesting and/or captivating.

I have a vague plan of maybe looking into the way different performances are captured. This could be quite interesting. Looking at the processes and lead up to performance and the actual performance itself.

Our second task of the day was editing the shots captured yesterday, into a cohesive scene. I didn’t have enough time to finish mine unfortunately (and ended up leaving directly after class ended because I felt so sick).

Whilst editing Rob’s scene, I realised there was a major issue of crossing the line. His scene consisted of an investigator (Serena) and a suspect (myself) sitting at either end of a really long table. Shots of both of our faces were taken from over the shoulder of the other. However, Serena’s was captured from one side of the table, and mine from the other. This made the beginning of the scene jolty and very difficult to read. I thought about mirroring the shot but there were too many things in the background which may have looked peculiar if flipped.

Here is an altered excerpt from my friends’ web series called BURBS which I used. The series was shot in suburbs in my hometown, Wellington, New Zealand. I actually was lucky enough to be back home at the time they filmed this episode, so I was able to witness a small-scale production process first-hand. I also got to be an extra, which was hilarious.

The whole series is definitely worth a watch, very impressed with their efforts!

Our filming timeframe was really rushed unfortunately as we ended up having about 5 people in our group and we each only had half an hour to film everything – some went over, some went under. I had Rob play Hamish and Serena playing Alice, they were both really easy to work with which was ideal and helped speed the process along.

I made a shot list to work with and ended up changing things around whilst filming – but it more or less stuck to the basic outline of what I had initially planned. There were a couple of less important shots toward the end which I ended up leaving out as I was afraid that I would go over time and cut down other members’ allocated time.

Tomorrow we will be discussing assessment 3 and then editing in the suites – hopefully we will have time to complete the edit of one of our scenes! Looking forward to having a play with the footage we have collected. As we have to edit someone else’s work from our group, I think I may edit Rob’s as I want to see how the shots look together as he got closer and closer to his subject (myself) when separate lines were said – his aim was to build tension in the dialogue by doing so, so I’m interested to see whether this will shine through or not.

The choice of shots and of camera angles and movements is called découpage. The order and the length of shots correspond to the task we call editing.

– Henri Agel, Le Cinéma (1954)

In this week’s reading, this quote really stood out for me. It helped me to further get my head around what découpage is. Basically, there are several definitions of the term, particularly because it seems to translate differently in every language – this muddies a solid definition and unfortunately leaves us with several variations of what it really means. After delving into Timothy Barnard’s exploration of the term among several different people, it is apparent to me that having knowledge of these altering viewpoints makes découpage seem like a very broad term. It hoods the entirety of what makes up a film. The pre-planned direction of every element involved with the production process. The artistic choices in imagining the film as a sequence of shots which are individual motion-stricken canvases.

Barnard, T. (2014), Découpage. Caboose, Montréal. pp. 3-8

Today our class split into our groups for filming the scene from the script provided by our tutor. Ours was quite a peculiar one to try and understand…

Assigned position of the director, I decided on the blocking for the scene which was to be filmed on the stairwell and in the hall of the edit suites at RMIT. The blocking I decided on seemed to work alright whilst filming. However, myself and another class member had a few disagreements about certain aspects which was frustrating – probably for both of us.

During the process I was concerned about ‘crossing the line.’ I tried to film everything from one side of an imagined line – but I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, or whether I actually managed to achieve staying on one side of the line appropriately.

Because there were many reflective surfaces in the area where we were filming (all the doors) our crew members were seen in the reflections of them whilst filming which was almost impossible to avoid – we did try our best to stay out of them as much as possible though. This is obviously something we would have been able to avoid better if we had another option of where to film.

Although I was not filming today – I struggle to appropriately focus the camera (I feel my eyes aren’t very good at gauging whether something is focused or not). I’m hoping to pick up tips along the way in this studio of how to better my camera-working skills.

I really wish that we had the chance to edit the pieces we’ve worked on, just to see whether they have flow or any potential. I think next week we may have the chance to actually edit something as we were told to bring a script/idea to class with us which we could film in a 30 minute period in our next class – we then will have someone else to edit our shots. I’m looking forward to this task, it won’t be perfect (in only a 30 minute time frame to film, it’s very difficult) but it will allow for a little bit of much-needed practice and time-management in the field.