Film Fundamentals Overview

Overview

These chapters introduce the foundations of film as an art form, exploring its technology, production process, principles of form, and narrative construction. Through examples like The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane, the text illustrates how filmmakers use creative, technological, and business decisions to shape meaning and engage audiences.

Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business

• Film is a relatively new but powerful art form, especially compared to older arts like painting, literature, dance, and theater. Despite its short history, film has become a major artistic and cultural force.
• Movies are created through the collaboration of many specialists and are deeply connected to social and economic factors, including production, distribution, and exhibition. Money, technology, and teamwork are essential at every stage.
• Film art is shaped by both form (the organization and patterning of parts into a unified whole) and style (the use of specific filmmaking techniques).
• The four main techniques in filmmaking are:
  • Mise-en-scène: The arrangement of people, places, and objects within the frame.
  • Cinematography: The use of cameras and related equipment to capture images and sound.
  • Editing: The process of assembling individual shots into sequences and scenes.
  • Sound: The blending of voices, sound effects, and music on the film’s audio track.
• Artistic and business decisions at every stage—from creative choices to financial constraints—shape what appears on screen. Economic considerations do not necessarily limit creativity; commercial films can achieve high artistic quality, and art and entertainment are not mutually exclusive.

The Filmmaking Process

• The filmmaking process typically involves four main phases:
  1. Scriptwriting & Funding: Developing the idea, writing the screenplay, and securing financial support. The producer oversees this phase, working with screenwriters, agents, and sometimes adapting existing works.
  2. Preparation (Pre-production): Planning the physical production, hiring cast and crew, scouting locations, and organizing schedules. The director and producer coordinate these activities, with specialists like production designers, art directors, set decorators, and costume designers shaping the film’s visual plan. Storyboards and previsualization (previz) may be used to plan complex scenes.
  3. Shooting (Production): Creating the film’s images and sounds. The director supervises the cast and crew, including cinematographers (directors of photography), camera operators, sound recordists, and other specialists. Scenes are often shot out of story order for efficiency, and multiple takes are recorded for each shot. Specialized roles include assistant directors, script supervisors, grips, gaffers, and production assistants.
  4. Assembly (Post-production): Editing footage, adding sound, special effects, music, and titles to create the final version. Editors work with directors to shape the film, while sound designers, visual effects teams, and color graders refine the finished product. Digital editing systems (nonlinear editing) have made this process faster and more flexible.
• Key roles include:
  • Producer: Handles financial and organizational tasks, oversees the project from development to distribution, and may be supported by executive, line, and associate producers.
  • Director: Coordinates creative aspects and is responsible for the film’s final look and sound, working closely with department heads.
  • Specialists: Casting directors, production designers, cinematographers, sound recordists, editors, and others contribute their expertise.
• Modes of production:
  • Large-scale (studio): Highly organized, with many specialized roles, extensive resources, and a clear division of labor. Studios may own equipment and facilities, and projects are managed with detailed records and schedules.
  • Independent: Smaller budgets, more creative control, and often directors or producers taking on multiple roles. Financing may come from various sources, including international partners and television companies.
  • Exploitation: Low-budget films targeting specific markets, often with crew members doubling up on tasks. These films may not enter the theatrical market but are tailored for niche audiences.
  • Small-scale/DIY: One or a few people handle most aspects of production, common in experimental and documentary filmmaking. The filmmaker may plan, shoot, edit, and finance the film themselves.
  • Collective: Production decisions are made democratically by a group, with roles often rotated. This approach is common in some documentary and community-based projects.

Technology & the Mechanics of Movies

• Film relies on the human eye’s susceptibility to illusion, using critical flicker fusion and apparent motion to create the sense of movement from a series of still frames. This is the basis for the illusion of continuous motion in cinema.
• Traditional filmmaking uses film gauges like 35mm, 16mm, Super 8mm, and 70mm, with image quality generally increasing with gauge width. The Imax system offers the highest image quality for public screenings.
• The film strip includes perforations (sprocket holes) for smooth movement through cameras and projectors, and space for a sound track (optical or magnetic, mono or stereo). The sound track may be monophonic or stereophonic, and digital sound is encoded as patterns along the film’s edge.
• Digital filmmaking records images on electronic media (tape, discs, memory cards, hard drives) using pixels. Common resolutions include 720p, 1080p, 2K, and 4K, with higher resolutions offering greater detail. Digital cameras can shoot in low light and use innovative lighting solutions, such as custom-made electroluminescent panels.
• Both film and digital cameras share similar controls and functions, but digital formats offer advantages in storage, cost, and post-production. Many filmmakers use both film and digital cameras, choosing the best tool for each scene. Digital editing systems allow for faster, more flexible assembly and manipulation of footage.
• Advances in digital technology have made production more flexible and affordable, allowing for new creative possibilities and easier editing, special effects, and sound mixing. However, some filmmakers still prefer traditional film for its unique qualities.

Film Form: Principles and Structure

• Form is the overall system of relationships among elements in a film, guiding how viewers perceive and respond to the work. It is not just a container for content; every element functions as part of the whole, and form shapes the viewer’s experience.
• Principles of film form include:
  • Function: The role or purpose of each element within the whole. Elements are motivated by their place in the system, and their presence is justified by their contribution to the film’s structure.
  • Similarity and Repetition: Use of motifs—significant repeated elements like objects, sounds, visual patterns, or character traits. Motifs create parallels and expectations, helping viewers recognize patterns and anticipate developments.
  • Difference and Variation: Contrasts and changes that create interest, prevent monotony, and highlight oppositions or gradations among elements. Variation keeps the film dynamic and engaging.
  • Development: The progression and transformation of elements throughout the film, often moving from beginning to end. Development can be traced through segmentation (scene-by-scene breakdowns) and by comparing the film’s opening and closing. Patterns of development may involve journeys, searches, investigations, or cycles of repeated action.
  • Unity and Disunity: The degree to which all parts of a film fit together cohesively. Most films strive for unity, but some intentionally leave elements unresolved or ambiguous, creating a sense of disunity or open-endedness.
• Meaning in film can be:
  • Referential: Concrete, explicit references to things or events (e.g., historical context, recognizable settings).
  • Explicit: Clearly stated themes or messages, often summarized in dialogue or narration.
  • Implicit: Deeper, suggested meanings or themes that require interpretation and are not directly stated.
  • Symptomatic: Meanings that reflect broader social, cultural, or ideological values, often revealing the film’s place within a particular historical or social context.
• Form shapes the viewer’s expectations, curiosity, suspense, and emotional response. Conventions and prior experience help viewers recognize and interpret formal cues. The interplay of expectation, delay, surprise, and fulfillment is central to the experience of film form.

Narrative Form

• Narrative is a chain of events linked by cause and effect, occurring in time and space. It is the most common form in fiction films but also appears in documentaries and experimental works.
• The distinction between story and plot:
  • Story: All events in the narrative, both those shown and those inferred by the audience. The story includes the diegetic world and its history, encompassing everything that happens, whether presented or implied.
  • Plot: The specific arrangement of events as presented in the film, including nondiegetic elements (such as music, credits, or voice-over narration). The plot determines the order, duration, and frequency of events, and may include material not part of the story world.
• Causality in narratives is usually driven by characters with goals or desires, but can also involve natural or societal forces. Characters’ traits and decisions motivate actions and reactions, creating a chain of cause and effect.
• Time in narrative can be manipulated through:
  • Order: Use of flashbacks and flash-forwards to rearrange story chronology. Plots may alternate between past and present, present alternative futures, or repeat events from different perspectives.
  • Duration: Ellipses (skipping over time), montage sequences (condensing time), and expansion (slowing down events for emphasis). The relationship between story duration, plot duration, and screen duration can be complex, with filmmakers choosing which moments to emphasize or condense.
  • Frequency: Repetition of events, sometimes from different perspectives or for emphasis. Multiple narrators or flashbacks may present the same event in new ways, deepening our understanding or creating ambiguity.
• Space is integral to narrative, with settings often inferred by the audience even if not directly shown. The plot may select certain spaces to present, while others are left to the viewer’s imagination. Screen space (the visible area within the frame) is a subset of plot space, which in turn is a subset of story space.
• Patterns of plot development often involve changes in knowledge, goal-oriented action, searches, investigations, deadlines, or cycles of repeated action. The structure may move from an initial situation through conflict to a climax and resolution, or may remain open-ended, leaving some questions unresolved.

Narration, Perspective, and Patterns

• Narration is the process by which the plot presents story information, controlling what the audience knows and when. It shapes curiosity, suspense, and surprise by managing the flow of information and the hierarchy of knowledge among characters and viewers.
• Range of narration:
  • Restricted: Limited to what one or a few characters know (e.g., detective stories, subjective mysteries). The audience learns information as the character does, creating curiosity and surprise.
  • Unrestricted (omniscient): The audience knows more than any single character, often used to build suspense or provide a broader perspective. The narration may shift between restricted and unrestricted, depending on the needs of the story.
  • Most films use a mix of restricted and unrestricted narration, shifting the hierarchy of knowledge among characters and viewers to create different effects.
• Depth of narration:
  • Objective: Focuses on external behavior and observable actions, presenting events without access to characters’ inner thoughts. The audience sees what characters do, but not necessarily what they think or feel.
  • Subjective: Gives access to a character’s perceptions, thoughts, or emotions (e.g., point-of-view shots, internal monologue, dreams, or hallucinations). Perceptual subjectivity shows what a character sees or hears; mental subjectivity reveals inner experiences.
• Narration may use a narrator—either a character within the story or an external, non-character voice—to guide the audience’s understanding. Multiple narrators can provide different perspectives and create a puzzle-like structure, as in Citizen Kane.
• Classical Hollywood cinema typically features:
  • Goal-driven characters and clear causality, with psychological motivations at the center of the narrative.
  • A strong cause-and-effect chain, with time and space subordinated to narrative needs. Appointments, deadlines, and montage sequences help structure the plot.
  • Patterns of development that move from an initial situation through conflict to a resolution, often with a high degree of closure and few loose ends.
  • Use of both restricted and unrestricted narration, but tending toward objectivity and omniscience, with occasional moments of subjectivity for emotional impact.
  • Closure is typical, but some films (like Citizen Kane) leave certain questions open or ambiguous, inviting interpretation and discussion.
• Alternative narrative forms may be more ambiguous, open-ended, or experimental, sometimes leaving questions unresolved, using unconventional structures, or focusing on collective rather than individual protagonists.

Key Terms & Definitions

• Mise-en-scène: The arrangement of people, places, and objects in a scene.
• Cinematography: The use of cameras and related equipment to capture images and sound.
• Editing: The process of connecting individual shots into sequences.
• Sound: The combination of voices, effects, and music on a film’s audio track.
• Form: The system of relationships that creates unity in a film.
• Motif: A significant repeated element, such as an image, sound, or idea.
• Narration: The way story information is presented in the plot, shaping what the audience knows and when.
• Diegesis: The world of the film’s story, including all events, spaces, and characters.
• Nondiegetic: Elements not part of the story world, such as background music or credits.
• Flashback/flash-forward: Scenes depicting events from the past or future, often used to rearrange story order.
• Unity: The extent to which all parts of a film fit together cohesively, with every element serving a function in the whole.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Watch and analyze key films mentioned (The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane) with attention to form, narrative structure, and stylistic choices. Observe how motifs, development, and narration shape your experience as a viewer.
• Practice creating segmentations (scene-by-scene breakdowns) for assigned films to better understand narrative development and the progression of plot and story. Use these segmentations to identify patterns of development, motifs, and structural choices.
• Complete any assigned readings or screenings related to narrative structure, film production, or the principles of film form. Pay attention to how different films use conventions, motifs, and patterns of development, and how these choices affect meaning and viewer engagement.
• Reflect on how different modes of production (studio, independent, DIY, collective) and technological choices (film vs. digital, editing methods) influence the artistic and narrative qualities of films. Consider how economic, social, and technological factors shape creative decisions.
• Consider how meaning is constructed in film—through referential, explicit, implicit, and symptomatic meanings—and how your own expectations, experiences, and knowledge of conventions shape your interpretation of a film’s form and narrative. Explore how films use ambiguity, open endings, and multiple perspectives to invite interpretation and discussion.