Blog Post 3/23/20: Film, Space, and Image.

Reading Summary

This article explores the idea of how movies and television shows are filmed and the decisions made by filmmakers on how the audience views each shot. The article starts by describing what a shot is which is an excerpt of a film or something recorded by camera operations. The director ultimately chooses what shots are used in specific scenes throughout the development of a film. There are many different types of shots used in films like close-up shots, medium shots, two-shots, high and low-angle shots, objective and subjective shots, horizontal and swish pans, and finally zoom and freeze frames. When directors combine these shots it is called a sequence, and a sequence contains many types of scenes like linear, elliptical linear, associative, and montage. The way these scenes are put together is by using cuts like straight, contrast, parallel, jump, form, match, final, and rough cuts. Transitions also combine scenes together with fade-ins and outs, dissolves, wipes, and irising-ins and outs. Ultimately, all these types of decisions are made by directors to make their films creative and enjoyable to audiences around the world.

Outside Example

The article reminded me of the popular Netflix movie, Marriage Story, and how filmmakers focused on creating scenes about divorce in the eyes of the two individuals but also through the eyes of the audience watching the film. The show portrays a couple named Charlie and Nicole who are caught up in the middle of a bad divorce. The movie first shows the side of Nicole and the struggles she faces with expecting herself in her job and her happiness with living a life she wishes could be better. The movie then transitions into showing the side of Charlie and how he is struggling just as much as Nicole. Audiences then get a look at how the two interact with one another and the emotional and mental pain that the couple has endured throughout the movie.

Reading Connection

Audiences view both Nicole and Charlie’s side of the story which is what the filmmakers originally wanted as the purposefully showed Nicole’s story first before Charlie’s to make us sympathize with the mother side but also the father’s side which can sometimes be overlooked in reality. Filmmakers used these specific shots and transitions to dive deeper into the private, separate lives of this couple. Filmmakers also stated that the audience plays the part of the friends in the movie as they take sides but those opinions seem to change as they transition into more shots about the other individual. There were a ton of decisions that directors had to make about this movie by giving audiences different shots, frames, scenes, transitions, etc. necessary to make it the genius work that it is.