(Term 1: Week 4)
This week we discussed about visual culture in film and animation. The following is my further finding regarding the topic.
– Mise-en-scene
– Visual Metaphor
– Aesthetics
– Color Composition
– Rhythm
Mise-en-scene
Mise-en-scene is a broad term translated from French, means “setting the stage” where it refers to everything in front of the camera, including arrangement, props set design, lighting, and actors. Mise en scene in film is the overall effect of how it all comes together for the audience. Here are some of the elements:
Production design – covers every element to a film’s “look.” This includes the sets and locations, the props, the characters’ costume and make-up, etcetera. Set design is used to create the world of the scene in the film.
Cinematography – include everything related to capturing the shot and how to compose the frame including camera angles, movement and lighting techniques.
Blocking – refers to the actors’ performances and how they arranged in the frame and interact with the environment. Creative blocking can give live and energy to a scene. Audience are mostly always paying attention to actors, so good performance, presentation, body language and behavior are the key.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
This war film sets the bar with its famous bloody opening scene on Omaha Beach. The cinematography and camerawork successfully demonstrate the horror of war during this first scene. The setup of the scene is simply faceless masses of men who have been ordered to shoot at one another until one side is destroyed. As the American soldiers landing at the beach, German machine gunners and artillery that was defending at the top of the hills kill hundreds right in front of the main character, Captain Miller. The camera makes quick cuts between Miller and the dying soldiers, giving the viewers deja vu as they watch death after death.
During these combat scenes, the film utilizes tight angles to focus on the emotions coursing through these soldiers and uses sweeping camera pans to put these soldiers into perspective. One impactful scene takes place under the water, as soldiers struggling under the waves and corpses are picked off by stray bullets traveling through the water. This scene also delivered in desaturated lighting and color, which added to the dulled effect, which brought out the great tragedy and emotions in the film. By adding desaturation to the shot made the deaths seem more explicit, dark and deeply disturbing.
Gravity (2013)
This space film opens with an extreme long take. The distance of the shot changes multiple time from long shot to medium close-up, from wide shot to close then back to wide shot, capturing the astronauts carrying their mission outside of space shuttle. The camera moves slowly and steadily, matching both the gravity of the space and the peaceful atmosphere during the first few minutes. The shot also slowly drags the audience into the story, as the movement making the audience feels like they are actually in space together with the astronauts.
As the story progress, the peaceful scene suddenly turns into chaos when high-speed debris hit the space shuttle and the astronauts. The scene continues with a mix of intense close-up shots and dramatic wide-angle shots. During this scene, the main character, Dr. Stone is unable to detach from a long probe connected to her space shuttle. As debris hits the shuttle, it begins rotating in a circle, with no gravity or friction to slow it down. Dr. Stone continues to spin as the camera remains stationary, with her closing in on and then receding from the camera, creating a sense of detachment, accentuating a sense of loss of control. This long, fluid shot along with others in the film truly encapsulate the isolation of the characters.
Visual Metaphor
Visual metaphor is a concept represented by a visual image to symbolizing something, abstract or analogy for other meaning. It is an incredible way to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and can pull a significant amount of impact even great dialogue can struggle to deliver.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001)
This film is filled with many visual metaphors. Some of the examples are Harry’s wand and scar. The wand function as a magic tool but it is also a symbolic of personal power, status, a reminder of individuality, and an embrace of the impossible.
When Harry received his individual wand and discover the power, it represents a few things much more personal for him and his story. Separated from his parents for years, what is essentially a magical stick becomes something compelling. It’s a renewed connection to his mom and dad, a reminder of their love, and a symbol of Harry’s untapped potential. Harry’s iconic scar has a similar metaphorical meaning to symbolizing his parent’s love and their sacrifice. The scar also represents a deep tie to Voldemort and is a reminder of Harry’s inner strength.
American Graffiti (1973)
The main character, Curt is preparing to move to college after graduated from high school. He visits his school the day before he moves and roaming around the school halls nostalgically. He tries to open his old locker, but it never opens because the combination has been changed.
This scene is a symbolic that represents Curt is no longer a student and he is going through changes in his life. He cannot go back to the way he was in the past, even if he tries. All he can do now is moving forward with his new life. Following this scene, Curt is walking away from this locker and smiling. This is to shows that he has accepted the past is the past and he’s instead taking steps towards his future.
Aesthetics
Aesthetic can be described as a theory about beauty, stunning, delightful and pleasant aspects of the film. It is a pleasure derived from artistic sense and attains only when the quality of the art is reached. It is not necessarily realistic but emphasis on the way the visual is portrayed and achieved, giving a visual delight to the viewers.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick’s introduces an art form is capable of communicating a message through composition. One of the distinctive features of the film is minimalism in its design and visual with and white color palette, cold tones, and symmetry of geometrical shapes. Visually stunning for its time, but also still amazing to look at today. It was made in great timeless stylistics and has long since become classic in design and fashion.
The Cell (2000)
An artistic film with a visual feast overflowing with strange, horrifying and hallucinatory visual, yet extremely beautiful. The film takes the viewers to a shocking mind trip into the dangerous and dark corridors of a serial killer’s psych. The main character, Catherine Deane, a psychologist who has been experimenting with a radical new therapy making the journey into the killer’s nightmarish fantasy world and experience what is happening in another person’s unconscious mind. The film settings and visual are very well blend together to deliver what the director wanted to achieve.
Color Composition
Proper use of color can enhance and facilitates visual storytelling. A well-designed movie color palette evokes mood and sets the tone for the film.
When choosing a particular color, these are three main components:
– Hue – the color itself
– Saturation – intensity of the color
– Brightness – The darkness or lightness of a color
Color has a direct and powerful impact on the viewer. Many viewers will have certain reactions to certain colors. For example, a strong red color has been shown to raise blood pressure, while a blue color elicits a calming effect. Choosing the right colors for the right spots can create emotions that audience may not even be aware of.
As we can see, colors can affect specific feelings. But the color only cannot do everything but must be supported with proper action within the screenplay.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Apart from the comical, beautifully crafted plot and characters, there was one aspect of this movie that stood out the most which is its color composition. The film masterful use of color become really compelling part of its storytelling experience. Each time period in the story has a unique color palette to guide the viewer through the story.
The opening scenes of the film begin in heavy, warm tones of beige, muted orange, and brown to reflect the fallen condition of the hotel.
The overall color changes when the film takes the viewers back to earlier timeline during the glory days of The Grand Budapest Hotel. The scenes are cast in bright, bold colors such as red, pink, purple, and orange.
But the bright color quickly changes when the character, M. Gustav is arrested for murder and put in prison. To reflect the seemingly hopeless situation, the film shifts to shades of grey and dull blue, dark, heavy, and muted.
La La Land (2016)
The film utilises color contrasts and colored lighting to create a dreamlike visual. The bright colors in this film are not only influences the look, but how it is used to tell the story.
At the start, yellow color is used throughout to represent the optimism that Mia begins to experience, she goes from white shirts to a blossoming yellow the night she meets Sebastian. The contrast of color comes into play with the collision of yellow and purple to subtlety conveys the bond they begin to grow. The very next day, Mia carries a bit of yellow with her on her purse, almost as if is carrying along the memory of last night with her.
As the story progress, the bright colors begin to fade away when their relationship begins to kindle down. The tone shifts to a new reality where all the representation of colors no longer exists.
Rhythm
In film, rhythm is tempo and pace that relates not only to the flow of a story but to other aspect of the film as well such as performance, camera movement, sound and also editing.
Rhythmic pattern can affect how the mood change throughout the film. It can be manipulated deliberately to fasten or to slow down the progress to properly deliver an action scene, sad or peaceful moment.
Memento (2000)
Memento is one of my favorite films that puts the viewer in the mind of the main character, Leonard which has a short-term memory loss. The film is presented in reverse chronological order so the viewer must remember what happened at the beginning of the previous scene as it is actually the continuity of the ending of the next scene. So that by the time the scene concludes we progress closer to the beginning of the story. It can be quite confusing, but the phenomenal editing and pace successfully works to make the viewer feels like the main character.
Memento is a construction of two stories which rhythm back and forth using two styles of visual to deliver different mood in the film. One is shot in color to show the “present” world in which Leonard is surrounded by the people in his life, and the other is a timeless black and white documentary-like story of an isolated Leonard anguished by lack of memory and haunted by fear and anxiety. This film is a combination of ironic, comedic and violent. Every act is vital to completing a cinematic jigsaw puzzle of who you can and cannot trust.