Filmmaking Topics Covered in Take Two: Film Remakes

Vocabulary

Form vs Content
Content - The subject of the artwork. Form - The means by which a subject is expressed.
We discussed the differences between these two terms and how two films/works of art can have drastically different form, despite featuring the same content.

Lighting plays an important role in the tone of your shot. We discussed ways to work with the lighting in different settings to help filmmakers control the emotions of their audience.

Narrative, or the story being told by a filmmaker. The content is selected and arranged in a way that tells a story to the audience.  A narrative requires characters, a setting, and events.

Narrator - The voice helping us tell a story. It may either be a character in the film or not.  We have seen examples of films that use a narrator to help move a story along vs those that do not.  The first film remake we compared was True Grit (1968, 2010). The 2010 version removed the first few minutes of the original and replaced it with a few sentences of narration.

Genre - Using the form or content to categorize a film. We came up with a list of genres (with examples) and discussed why it might be helpful to categorize films.

Theme - A public idea or familiar conflict used to help structure a story. The themes of a film are often the "why" when we discuss the reason for telling a particular story.

Setting - where and when the story takes place.  A change in setting can often be the most influential reason a film is remade.  A change in setting can tell a similar story to a new audience, whether in a different country, during a different time period, or refreshing actors for a new generation of audience members.

Story vs Plot
Story - the events and elements we see and hear on the screen, in addition to the implied events not shown on screen.
Plot - The chronology of cause-and-effect events that take place over the course of the narrative.

Characters - Those who play a functioning role throughout the course of the narrative. Our groups had to do a good deal of reflection about how to develop characters over the course of a short time, and had to make decisions about how to work around only having a few actors available to them.

Mise-en-Scène - everything that is taking place on screen. Also known as "staging," the mise-en-scène is the overall look and feel of a film.  Our filmmakers had to carefully consider everything going on in a scene as they thought about the feelings they wanted to illicit from their audience.

Two main components to the mise-en-scène are the onscreen vs offscreen space, and the diegetic vs nondiegetic elements. The onscreen and offscreen space focus on what the viewer sees, compared to what is happening just offscreen. Diegetic elements are those that take place within the world of the story, while nondiegetic elements are those the audience experiences, but the characters in the story do not (think music the characters are listening to vs background music only the audience hears).

Types of Shots

Establishing Shot - Also called an extreme long shot - a shot that is often used to set the location and background information.

Long Shot - A shot from far enough away to include the full human body.

Medium Shot - A shot showing part of the human body. The most typical shot to be used during a human conversation.

Close-up - A shot where part of a body (such as the face or a hand) or other object fills the frame. This is used when the filmmaker wants the audience to focus their attention on one object.

High Angle vs Low Angle - These shots are created by placing the camera at a different level than the human eye. This can create a sense of superiority/inferiority between two characters.

Dutch Angle - A shot where the camera is not level. This can create a sense of disorientation for the audience.

Aerial View (Crane Shot) - A shot taken from high above the actions of the story. Often accomplished through the use of a helicopter or crane (neither of which we had available), these shots create a sense that the observer is an omniscient viewer and can view everything.

Pan Shot - Shot created through the horizontal movement of a camera. A basic camera technique that can be used to create meaning.

Tilt Shot - Similar to a pan shot, although using vertical movement.

Dolly Shot - Mounting the camera on a moveable structure to allow physical, seamless movement of the camera.

Handheld Camera - When a person is physically holding a camera. This can create a sense of chaos due to the lack of stability in the shot.

Slow Motion - Slowing down the action of a shot to make it take place over a longer period of time then the event itself. This can help create a sense of drama.

Fast Motion - Speeding up a shot to take place over less time than the actual event. This can help show a passage of time.

Long Take - A shot that can last anywhere from one minute to ten minutes. This can create a sense of events passing in real time for a viewer.

Point-of-View Shot - A shot meant to seem like it is coming from the point-of-view of a character. This creates a sense that the audience is sharing the experience with the character.

Shot/Reverse Shot - An editing pattern, consisting of alternating shots of different characters, usually in conversation with one another. Shots are framed over the characters' shoulders and utilize the 180-degree rule to maintain continuity.

SFX/CGI - special effects, created through the use of camera techniques or effects created during postproduction (camera effect vs laboratory effect). CGI means compter-generated imagery.

Types of Cuts

Match Cut - a cut that maintains continuity between two shots.

Parallel Edit - Also known as intercutting or crosscutting - editing two or more actions taking place at the same time to create the effect of a single scene rather than two distinct actions.

Jump Cut - A sudden, potentially disorienting, instantaneous advance in the story.

Fade - A gradual fading in or fading out to suggest a break in time, place, or action.