Objects are usually shaped by highlights and shadows in lighting. Audience usually can see the texture of the surface through highlights. If the surface is smooth, then the highlights will be gleam and sparkle. If the surface is rough, the highlights will be more diffuse. It is the same for shadows. Lights have a dramatic influence on both texture and shape of the object. For example, if we see a ball lit from front, it appears to be round. However if we see it from side, it appears to be a half-circle. ‘The proper use of light can embellish and dramatize every object. (Stenberg, J, V) Lighting shapes our sense of space in some degree. It also shapes the overall composition of shots. For example, we can see some off-screen space through the shadows. In some films, the main character is emphasized by a clearly lit and frontal figure.
Quality
There are generally four major aspects that filmmakers exploit and explore in lighting, its quality, direction, source and color. Quality refers to how intense the illumination is. The problems hard lighting may cause are clearly defined shadows, sharp edges and crisp textures. By contrast, soft lighting creates a diffused illumination. The noonday sunlight is usually hard lighting, an overcast sky is usually soft lighting, there are lots of lighting situations are between these two extremes.
Source
In making documentary films, filmmakers usually use lights that are available. However in fictional films, extra light source are needed. These extra sources help to obtain greater control of images’ look. The original lights in the set are usually not strong and varied enough to create the great image effect on big screen.
Color
We usually imagine that there are two basic lights in filmmaking, the white sunlight and the yellow lamp light. In fact, filmmakers use the as purely white a light as they can, then they put filters in front of the light sources, they can design any color of fashion as they wish.
The highpoint of classic Hollywood cinema is from 1930 to 1945. The conglomeration of Hollywood and advertising and marketing, people do not care about which movie they need to get financed but which movies they are going to sell (Godard and Kael, 1982, pp.174-5).
New Hollywood was from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. It was whole new cinema adventure linked to traditional classic Hollywood genre filmmaking with the stylistic innovations of European art cinema. No one was sure about the directions that should be taken because it is a new idea. The success of the musical film, The Sound of Music touched off the ‘youth audience’ and ‘youth’ and ‘alternative’ films in late 1960s and early 1970s, all relate to ‘anti-heroes’. It was descried as a cinema of ‘alienation, anomie, anarchy and absurdism by Sarris.
Then the ‘movie brats’ arrived, it is a film-school-educated and/or film-critical generation who began making commercial American cinema with an elan. It was considered to be the moment of symbol of critical practice of auteurism within American filmmaking, resulting in a self-consciously auteurist cinema. This moment is dubbed by Noel Carroll to be a ‘cinema of allusion’, according to classic Hollywood cinema and European art cinema. Based on Bordwell and Staiger’s claim, the new Hollywood directors are not youthful and technologically competent than their predecessors. They grafted art cinema conventions on classical traditions in a genuinely new aesthetic. ‘In keeping with the definition of a non-Hollywood Hollywood, American films are imitating the look of European art films; classical film style and codified genres swallow up art-film borrowings, taming the disruptiveness of the art cinema’ (Bordwell and Staiger. 1985, p.375). ‘Most American commercial cinema has continued the classical tradition and observing that the New Hollywood can explore ambiguous narrational possibilities but those explorations remain within classical boundaries’ (p.377)
Reference: “New Hollywood” in Pam Cook (ed) The Cinema Book. 3rd Edition. BFI. London. 2007. pp. 60-67
The scene starts with few montage shots of Lau walking further. These few shots are full of urban space elements, for instance, Lau’s reflection from the glass curtain wall, the extreme close up shots of the construction with Lau walking in the blurry and extreme bright background, the wide shot of harbor and buildings in distance, the close up shot of buildings and the bright sky… These shots are all so bright that makes people feel exposed and frightened.
After Yan handcuffs Lau, Lau laughs and ask, ‘Do all undercover cops like rooftops?’ Yan answers, ‘unlike you, I’m not afraid of light.’ The conflict outburst when Lau say to Yan, ‘Who knows that (you are a cop)?’ With music becomes strident, the framing changes from extreme close up of their heads to a wide shot contains the entire rooftop which audience can clearly see and feel the unsolvable antagonism between them.
Then followed by a medium wide shot, then Yan raises his gun and points at Lau, followed by an extreme close-up shot of Lau’s eyes. These changing framings shows Yan’s anger very well, when his anger hit the limit, he raises his gun. Then it is followed by a slowly zoom out. This shows Yan’s hesitation well and promotes story developments.
When Yan takes Lau as his hostage and comes downstairs with another police officer, the shot is followed by a wide still image shot of sky and clouds. It is so bright and unsettle, especially with the music. Lau’s mixed feelings and their indefinable live and death is very well shown.
mise-en-scene
The mise-en-scene is great, the location is rooftop, a place full of sunlights, a place where sky meets the ground, it makes people feel like falling, it looks over exposed which is good for the scene. Everything is under expose, the truth is about to come out. The urban space is also experienced emotionally. The big glass curtain wall, the harbor in distance, the clouds and the sky are so bright. The tension and the mind game between two characters is shown very clearly.
sound track
Another great thing about this scene is the music, it’s brilliant!! It totally goes with the character’s emotion and experience. When Lau is looking for Yan, the music is slow, gentle but a bit unstable, when Lau suddenly turns his head, the music goes intense as well. When Yan points his gun at Lau’s back, the music doesn’t get out of control, instead it gets louder gently and slowly, it creates the perfect atmosphere for their conversation going to happen. when Lau says Who knows that (you are a cop)? The music hit the peak.
Three-point lighting is a method usually used in film. To get the desired lighting of the object, the photographer uses three different positioned and separate lights to illuminate the object. At the same time it also balances and controls the shadows on the object created by the direct sunlight.
Key light
Key light, just like what it is called, is the key illuminator of the entire lighting situation. It determines the whole lighting design of the shot. It should be place directly upon the object. In indoor shots, key light is usually a specialized lamp or the flash on camera. In outdoor shots, the key light is the sun. To get the light you want, you should always wait for the sun to get the right position, then start shooting.
Fill light
Fill light is usually shining from the side angle and at the lower position than key light, usually about the level of object’s face. It is softer and about half less brighter than key light. It helps balance the key light and illuminate the shadows on the person’s face. If the key light is harsh and there is not a fill light, this will result in stark contrasts.
A reflector like a piece of white card stock or a white-painted wall can be a fill light sometimes. ‘Reflecting and redirecting the key light’s rays back upon the subject from a different angle can cause a softer, subtler effect than using another lamp’ (Wikipedia).
Back light
Back light illuminate objects from back to create a thin outline and to separate the object from its background.
Reference: Wikipedia, Three-point lighting, available at <wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_lighting>, viewed online: 15 October 2015.
Auteur critic is not a rigid formula, but an art requires extraordinary intelligence, discrimination and taste. A critic who has none of these qualities may fail in perceiving what is original and important in new work and helping others to see.
‘The Outer Circle’-The Technical Competence
The technical competence is the most outer circle. This means it is the least important for a director. A good direct is being able to achieve his/her own personal expression and style. To create a new standard is very helpful and worthy for a director because the standard of technical competence are based on comparisons with work already done. Sometimes the good use of technical competence can even redeem the weakness of the material.
The unsuccessful movies of a director is always more noticeable than the good ones. The audience are most aware of the personality of the director are his worst film. After few films are done, the personality of the director is like the label of clothes, audience judges it from the personality.
‘The Inner Circle’-Interior Meaning
The inner circle is the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art. Interior meaning is extrapolated form the tension between a director’s personality and his material. The inner circle is the place that keeps secrets and is full of mystique.
‘Outside the Circle’-What is a Film Critic?
A critic is an important role to help people go deeply in the work. People can understand more about the work with the help of a critic. The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others. There is no fixed theory of judging a movie. The desire for a theory that will solve all the riddles of creativity is in itself perhaps an indication of their narrowness and confusion. Criticism is exciting just because there is no formula to apply, and that film criticism is particularly exciting just because of the multiplicity of elements in film art.
When I was at school last week sometime, I found an interesting clip displayed in loop in a small screen on the floor. It looks like a short documentary of taking seeds out of a watermelon. What makes me feel interesting is that the special way of presenting this. The director treated the watermelon as a patient obviously. Firstly the framing is quite tight, audience can only see the a very tiny bit of the watermelon, from the colour and texture, audience know it is a watermelon. What is quite creative about this is that the director put a surgical gown on the watermelon. Also there are two hands there, one is operating, the other one is passing the operation tools. They both are wearing operation gloves. In addition, there is the sound of beeping like the sound from medical equipment all the way. The way of cutting the watermelon is very well-designed, it looks exactly like they are performing an operation on an patient, the watermelon. The fruit meat is so red and it looks quite juicy as well, it makes audiences feel that it is bleeding and suffering. I just want to say, how creative it is to make this all anthropopathic, detailed and sensitive. It totally works out well!
In the Heat of the Sun is a film I recently watched and am inspired by it a lot. It is an old Chinese film shoot in 1994. It tells the story of a group of teenagers in cultural revolution in China from 1960s to 1970s. After I watched this film, few words just jump into my mind, time, diachronic, beautiful, clean, sunny, funny, bright, visual feast, exquisite… The cinematography and shots construction are the things I admire and want to learn from.
Here are the several scenes I select from the film and I will analysis their cinematography and shots constructions. I can’t download the film, so I can’t cut the scenes. I will provide the time period and the whole film at the end. (I found the film on Youtube)
12:20-14:50
In this scene, Xiaobing(the boy, leading character) makes a key by himself and opens his parents’ draw, he finds a condom there, but he doesn’t know it’s a condom, he thinks it’s a balloon or something then he blows it and plays it around.
In this scene there are lots of tight framing where the ‘balloon’ flies around all over the apartment, audience can see the whole perspective of the apartment, the wedding picture of his parents, the handiwork displayed in the apartment. All of those things appear in the framing show the style and social appearance of China at that time. I just want to say that it looks so real and stylish. also there is one shoot where Xiaobing is opening the lock on the draw, once he opened it, camera pan and tilt up immediately and become stable when the framing is planform of the all of the stuff in the draw, then followed by a over-shoulder shot of Xiaobing. This shot is so dynamic and shows the most of Xiaobing’s curiosity.
31:49-33:06
In this scene, Xiaobing makes another key and get into a girl’s apartment. But he doesn’t expect that the girl comes home suddenly, so he hides under the bed and watches the girl changing clothes. The framing is from Xiaobing’s position of view, so we can only see the girl’s half legs. But we can still see some parts of her from the mirror. I really like the direction here, even though we can only see some part of the girl, but we are curious as Xiaobing. From her body language, I think that she is a really beautiful, cute and young girl, she must love smiling and has a good personality.
46:42-50:13
In this scene, Xiaojun run into the girl he likes and he goes up and talks to her. I really like the shoot construction when the girls walks pass by Xiaobing. I have some pictures blew will show it.
The location is very well chosen, as we can see from the pictures, they are walking through a path surrounded by tall green trees. There is also a short wall on the other side. It feels like a summer afternoon with a very gentle breeze. Everything is so bright and beautiful.It’s like palpitating… They are talking on this path, they walk, stop, she walks, he chases, she stops again and call him, he goes up again… The subtle relationship between them starts building…
1:40:47-1:43:00
In this scene, there is one extreme close-up and tilt-up shot of the girl’s body, she is wearing a red tight swimming suit. Again it is from the visual position of view of Xiaojun. This shot comes out really great, it reflect the psychology of the youth in not so open-minded environment. They are curious, palpitating, wondering, happy, blundering, violent, immature, sad, uneducated, arrogant…they want to try something out, experience different stuff. But all of this is beautiful.
2:00:25-2:03:36
This is the last scene in the film which I like the most. In this scene, Xiaojun who can’t swim goes up to the highest diving tower and jumps into the swimming pool. He tries a lot. When he is climbing the stairs, camera shoot from lots of angles, those special angles makes audience feel the scare and confusion deep in Xiaojun’s heart.
What I am going to shoot for my short film just reminds me of this movie I watched before, Une femme est une femme. I remember that some one once said that this movie just doesn’t make any senses but I just like it. In the movie, there is not that much narration, but there is lots of performance. And the cinematography is awesome. It is just beautiful to look at.
Une femme est une femme is a French movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring by Jean-Claude Brialy and Anna Karina. It is the typical representation of French New Wave. This kind of filmmaking style was active during the period between 1950s and 1960s. The New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, along with their spirit of youthful iconoclasm, the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. ‘New Wave’ is an example of European Art Cinema. In the film, the most noticeable is the applying of sounds. Differ from the classical narrative movie, the sound is very jumpy. It usually goes and stops. The movie has a strong focus on the principals’ psychologies struggling. It is presented in a very realistic, relaxing and funny way.
Generally, art cinema started to appear after World War II when the Hollywood cinema was beginning to wane. Overseas market and exhibition platforms are very essential for film production. After 1954, films started to be made for a wider audience, international audience. American film made their own screen time by sponsoring foreign production. The art cinema is an important factor of economy then, so it is developed well and continues.
The classical narrative cinema refers to ‘cause-effect logic and narrative parallelism generate a narrative which projects its action through psychologically defined, goal oriented characters’. However art cinema is different from the classical narrative cinema. It is specifically against the cause-effect linkage of events. Basically, the art cinema’s narrative is driven by two principles, realism and authorial expressivity. By realism, it meant that it shows the audience the real location and problem. Also sexual is a part of reality. What’s more, the most important one is the psychologically complex characters. In classical narrative cinema, characters usually have a defined desire and goal. Meanwhile in art cinema, characters lack defined desires or goals. So characters are usually act for consistent reasons and even ask themselves about their goals. So in art cinema, characters are usually expressing and explaining their psychological states. ‘Violations of classical conception of time and space are justified as the intrusion of an unpredictable and contingent daily reality or as the subjective reality of complex characters.’
Art cinema is not exactly isolated from other cinematic practices. It has neighbors on each side. They are classical narrative cinema and modernist cinema respectively. The former one is the historically dominant mode, the latter one is all about perceptual play, no thematic ambivalence at all. ‘If Hollywood is adopting traits of the art cinema, that process must been seen as not simply copying but complex transformation. In particular, American film genre intervene to wrap art-cinema conventions in new direction’.
Reference: ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’ in Catherine Fowler (ed) The European Cinema Reader. Routledge. London & New York. 2002. pp. 94-102
1. You can show both side of the characters talking and cut between them when they are changing lines. In this way audience can see and hear at the same time, it’s a easy way to understand what is going on
2. You can just show one person’s face for the entire time, and keep the other one off-screen. But we can hear the voice of the other one. In this way, audience will be interested in what the other character’s interests, motives, is he/she alone, what is she doing?…
3. You also just show one person’s face and voice broken by pauses. In this way, audience will keep lots of attention on the character’s expression and behaviors, and wondering what the other character said according to the character’s behavior.
sound shapes our understanding of images
Sound is the background of our visual world. ‘Chris Marker demonstrates the power of sound to alter our understanding what’s onscreen in his film, Letter from Siberia’. He shows the same image with different soundtrack, it turns out there is a big difference of what it brings to audience. ‘The audience will construct the same images differently, depending on the voice-over commentary.
sound direct our attention
When we hear something, we will think immediately about what happened there. In filmmaking, if the sound appears, then it cuts to next shot, we can see the answer, sometimes it is not what exactly we thought it is. Then we will think again. ‘Horror and mystery scenes often use a sound of an unseen source to engage audience’s interest, but all types of scenes can take advantage of that possibility. In addition, sound gives a new value to silence. A quiet passage in a film can create almost unbearable tension, forcing the viewer to concentrate on the screen.
reference: Bordwell,D & Thompson,K, FILM ART AN INTRODUCTION, Sound in cinema, pp.266-270.
In documentary films the person, place and events shown to audience are real. They exist or have existed. For example, in Forbidden Lies, Broinowski, the director insisted to go to find the hospital where Norma’s friend, Dalia, (As Norma claimed) who is killed by her family in an honor killing in Jordan. All documentaries do is to present factual information about the world. There are lots of ways of presenting in documentary, for instance, filmmakers can just simply record events that actually occur during the process, events that spontaneously occur, using visual aids like charts, maps, etc. For instance, in Forbidden Lies, when Norma sits on a chair, reading her book, based on a ‘real story’, Broinowski records the entire process-the process of filming Norma. Audience can see the filming sets, cameras, tracking dollies and hear Broinowski saying ‘action!’ Sometimes animation and comic can be used as well. Comic is used to show what happened in the court 11 years ago in The Thin Blue Line. What’s more, stage. Stage here is an important and common way of representation in documentary. Same location, the person doing the same thing, all the director will do is to ask the person wait for few seconds then he/she can frame it up. This does not mean there is something different here, the only difference is when the person does the thing regularly there is not a camera placed there and happens to shoot the entire process. However there is another kind of form of staging that involving actors. For example, in The True Blue Line directed by Errol Morris played back perfectly the murder scene in 1976 Dallas, Taxes. This documentary includes plenty strong evidences and logical conjectures like ‘mixes interviews and archival material with episodes performed by actors’. ‘The jittery reenactments of television true-crime shows are shot with smooth camera work, dramatic lighting, and vibrant color. The result is a film that not only seeks to identify the real killer but also raises questions about how fact and fiction may intermingle’ (Bordwell & Thompson 2013, p.353). From the examples above, it is proved that staging events will not make a film fictional or fake, it is just the fictional way to show the truth to audience, in fact staging sometimes intensify the documentary value of the film, and enhances the film’s reliability in some degree.
Documentary can be expressed in many different ways, there can be some fictional elements, there is no fixed rules of that is how a documentary is made. There are some conventions, but this does not conflict with the finding new ways and more progressive, dauntless way of finding the truth. Truth is there, it doesn’t come to people actively and it doesn’t say anything about itself. It all depends on what people discover, how people think about it and do people believe in it. Documentary is all about the truth, however sometimes the way of presenting the truth is hard to find. The truth is always hidden, so the way of presenting the truth has to be smart enough, at the same time objective enough because the truth never changes and it never is guaranteed by anything.
Reference: Bordwell, D & Thompson, K 2013, Film Art: An Introduction, 10th edn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, pp. 350-353 & pp.433-438.
Une femme est une femme is a French movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring by Jean-Claude Brialy and Anna Karina. It is the typical representation of French New Wave. This kind of filmmaking style was active during the period between 1950s and 1960s. The New Wave filmmakers were linke
d by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, along with their spirit of youthful iconoclasm, the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. ‘New Wave’ is an example of European Art Cinema. In the film, the most noticeable is the applying of sounds. Differ from the classical narrative movie, the sound is very jumpy. It usually goes and stops. The movie has a strong focus on the principals’ psychologies struggling. It is presented in a very realistic, relaxing and funny way.