Unlike story order, which flows in chronological order, plot order can be manipulated so that events are presented in non-chronological sequences that emphasise importance of meaning or that establish expectations in audiences
These can be shown in the form of flashbacks. Here are some examples.
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The relationship between screen duration and plot duration:
(1) Summary relationship – screen duration is shorter than plot duration
(2) Real-time relationship -screen duration corresponds directly to plot duration
(3) Stretch relationship – screen duration is longer than plot duration
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Temporal Frequency
How often we see and hear an event
Most commonly, a story event is presented only once in the plot. However, a single event may appear twice or even more in the plot.
There are three different scenes of the same crash scene in Amores Perros (2000), all from different perspectives.
When a plot repeats an event, the aim is often to provide new information
What is Narration?
Narration is a set of representational, organisational and discursive cues that deliver the story information to the audience. In other words, it is the way of distributing story information to the audience in order to achieve specific effects.
Narration involves 2 factors: the range and the depth of story information that the plot represents.
-1- Rage of story information: Unrestricted or restricted?
Narration can be omniscient (all-knowing), meaning is is extrenely knowledgable. Omniscient narration has unrestricted access to all aspects of the narrative. It provides
Restricted Narration limits the information. It provides to the audience the information known only to one character. This approach encourages the audience to identify with the character’s singular
How the method of telling the story is done; who is telling the story or it could be told through actions and various camera shots.
An objective to be accomplished?
To get a reaction from the audience, to feel something. Emotionally engagement plays a huge part.
We can consider a narrative to be a chains of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space.
Typically, a narrative begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally, a situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative. our engagement with the story’s depends on out understanding of the pattern of change and stability. cause and effect, time and space
A random string of events is hard to understand as a narrative.
Actions: “A man tosses and turns, unable to sleep. A mirror breaks. A telephone rings.”
Narrative: “A man has a fight with his boss. He tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so angry that he smashes he mirror while shaving. Then his telephone rings; his boss has called to apologize.”
What is the difference between Story and Plot?
“The plot is the what keeps the story alive, development of the plot is kept brief and specific which means better plot development equals to a more appealing story but not vi-versa. The story is about adding detailed that makes the plot more engaging for the audience. The story can also be altered through changes in the plot to create something different.”
The story consists of all the narrative events that are explicitly presented on screen, plus all the events that are implicit or that we infer to have happened but are not explicitly presented.
The plot consists of the specific actions and events that the filmmakers select and the order, in which they arrange those events so as to effectively convey the narrative to the viewer. Plot also includes those things that we see and hear on the screen that come from outside the world of the story, such as score music, titles and credits and voice over comments from a third person narrator.
The story can be presented in different ways-
From the filmmakers perspective, the story exists as a precondition for the plot, and the filmmaker must understand what story is being told before going through the difficult job of selecting events to show on screen and determining the order in which the will be presented.
For the viewers, the story is an abstraction-a construct- that we piece together as the elements of the plot unfold before us on screen, and our impressions about the story often shift and adjust throughout the movie as more of the plot is revealed.
Characters as causes most often-
In the film, characters make things happen and respond to events.
Film characters can have a visible body, or is only a voice, or is portrayed by more than one actor.
A letter to three wives, 1949 – Trailer
That Obscure Object Of Desire, 1977 – Trailer
I’m Not There, 2007 – Trailer
Cause and Effect-
Along with a body, a character has traits, attitudes, skills, habits, tastes, psychological drives.
If some characters possess several varying traits, we tends to call that character complex, or three dimensional, or well developed.
complexity of characters:
Dexter Morgan – The Dexter Franchise: (Below)
A man who is a serial killer that comes as a anti-hero at times, initially he kills only other killers or horrid people but as the series moves on he begins to make choices to protects those around him thus paying the price in later events.
Dreadful past with an organisation that then turns against him, cheating his agreement then altering his body and wiping his memory clean. This sends the characters through a truth seeking revenge path.
Not all causes and effects in narratives originate with characters. In some disaster movies, some natural occurrences, such as an earthquake or tidal wave, may precipitate a series of actions on the parts of the characters.
Jaws Trailer:
In general, the audience actively seeks to connect events by means of cause and effect. Most of films plot withhold causes and thus arouse the audiences curiosity. The plot may also present causes but withhold story effects, prompting suspense and uncertainty in the viewer.
For the notes, I give credit to Jordan Baxter, who allowed me to use his blog to take the notes from. Have a look at his blog at https://jordanbaxterblog.wordpress.com/
How well the film would potentially do in the box office “Directors collection”.
The duration of the movie “how long will the feature be and will it be worth the time”.
The production of the movie “who will do what in the aspects of creating?”.
The style of the movie “will it be digital, traditional animation or completely filmed on camera?”
How does animation fit?
There is a lot of cross pollination in movies nowadays such as filmography and animation “CGI” typically within Horrors, Thrillers or Sci-Fi movies.
Types of Film
Film Genres –
One popular way of grouping fiction films is by genre, such as westerns, musicals, war films, science fiction and so on.
Understanding Genre –
The word is originally french, and it simply means “kind” or “type”.
When we speak of film genres, were indicating certain types of movies. the Science fiction film, the comedy, the musical, the western – those are some genres of fictional storytelling cinema.
What film Genres do you know?
Thriller
Sci-Fi
Horror
Psychological
Comedy
Educational
Musical
In some genres the films share subjects or themes.
Lord Of The Ringshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0hJSCqqIs4
The Hobbit
The Hunger Games
Subgenres
Some genre labels are very broad, so its useful to have an idea of sub-genres to refer to distinct and fairly long lasting types within genre.
The usefulness of Genre Categories
I feel this is typically to make things easier for those who are looking for a particular movie to watch or to hone in on their interests for entertainment purposes, for example – if i was in the mood to be spooked i would in turn look into Horror movies or maybe some psychological, maybe i would be in the mood to watch something to make me laugh then i would simply look for a comedy.
Also i think its something for us, as viewers to relate to – maybe more with the likes of psychological movies and comedies, it could also be useful for us to gain a new understanding of the potential subject used within a genre (educational movies or documentaries).
Genre conventions and iconography:
Story Formulas: The way a movies story is structured-the plot.
Theme: A unifying idea that the film expresses through its narrative or imagery.
Character Types: Genre films are often populated by specific character “types”.
Setting: Where a movies action is located and how the environment is portrayed.
Presentation: Many genres feature certain elements of cinematic language that communicate tone and atmosphere.
As a visual medium, cinema can also define genres through conventional iconography. A genres iconography consists of recurring symbolic images that carry meaning from film to film.
Audiences expect the genre film to offer something familiar, but they demand something new as well. so a film can revise or even reject the conventions associated with its genre. By blending or varying or even rejecting genre conventions. filmmakers force viewers to reset their expectations and engage with the film in fresh ways.
Another example used, Bugsy Malone – not sure what to think of this, but dated and im not too fond on musicals especially gangster musicals… But hey not every movie is for everyone, right?
The Three Main Genres –
Western: Is partly based on historical reality, since in the american west there were cowboys, outlaws, settlers and tribes
Horror: Is most recognizable by the emotional effect it tires to around. The Horror film aims to shock, disgust, repel- in short, to horrify.
The Musical: Tells its story using characters that express themselves using song and/ or dance.
Documentary: an educational film that gives facts and understanding to the viewer, personally i typically watch animal documentaries that give and insight of how particular animals live within their inhabitants. Also movie companies make documentaries on how some of their movies are made.
Experimental Film –
Experiment film is willfully nonconformist. In opposition to dominant or mainstream cinema, some filmmakers set out to create film that challenge normal notions of what a movies can show and how it can show it.
“Una Breve Storia del Cinema – Il cinema delle avanguardie: http://brevestoriadelcinema.altervist…
Ballet Mécanique (1923-4) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray). It has a musical score by the American composer George Antheil. However, the film premiered in silent version on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna presented by Frederick Kiesler. It is considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_M…” – YouTube Video Description
“Associative montage.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.” – YouTube Video Description
The Animated Film –
Animated film s are distinguished from live action ones by the kinds of work done at the production stage. Any sort of film that can be shot live can be made using animation.
Types of traditional animation:
Drawn animation, cels, full animation, limited animation, directed animation, cut outs, clay animation, model or puppet animation or pixillation.
Types of Computer Animation:
CGI, 3D computer animation and 2D animation
Very interesting watch. I particularly enjoyed the hybrid methods of 2D and 3D. Quite the talent if I say so myself.
Lovely short that uses 3D and 2D elements, however, I noticed they used copyrighted music from Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (an amazing game, by the way!). Be careful with what music is used; copyright infringement isn’t acceptable.
For the notes, I give credit to Jordan Baxter, who allowed me to use his blog to take the notes from. Have a look at his blog at https://jordanbaxterblog.wordpress.com/
“Priya Mistry is a Character Designer, Illustrator and Animator who specialises in creating high quality content for Broadcast, Advertising and Web.
Currently based in London, she has worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from character design to animated TV episodes, title sequences, channel idents and illustrations for game apps, working with clients such as Google, BBC, Channel 4, Yahoo, Unilever, Sony Playstation Home, Bauer Media, Northern Ireland Tourist Board and RTE.
She currently works as professional freelancer providing services in character design and development; art direction; illustration; and animation and motion graphics.” – Priya’s Biography
These renders are quite lovely; the splash of warm and cold colours compliment one another greatly.
Maya Lecture
Today Conánn gave us a loose lecture on project management, discussing the potential risks of breaking a model or animation errors, this stresses the importance of using the correct folders within your project management.
Next, he showed us a model of a ship he created.
Being efficient within your work is very important, not a single one was wasted when creating this piece. I am astounded that Conánn considers this a “quick” model. That would take me days to make.
And he shows us more; a head model with lovely detail.
Good topology is key for a believable model, we were talked through how paying great attention to the shape and feel around the skin on the face (apparently last years models did not even look human…) on the model above it is apparent that you can see the direction and the curvature of the muscles around this characters face, a process i would imagine would take weeks only took a day or two for our tutor… INTENSE!
For any textures Conánn uses .tif and .exr for images.
What is a “.tif” and “.exr” file? –
.TIF – TIF is an image format file for high-quality graphics. TIF files are also called .TIFF, which stands for “Tagged Image Format File.” TIF fileswere created in the 1986 as a file format for scanned images in an attempt to get all companies to use one standard file format instead of multiple. – Google definition
.EXR – OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range (HDR) imagefile format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications. OpenEXR is used by ILM on all motion pictures currently in production. – Google definition
Booleans (Mesh > Booleans) let you model with polygonal objects. Three boolean operations let you combine objects to make shapes that would otherwise be difficult to model using other techniques. You can add, subtract, or intersect objects to create a new, complex shape. See Combine polygon meshes using booleans.
Boolean operations rely on the intersection, the shared volume of the two meshes, to determine the boolean result.
Union = faces of both meshes – faces of the intersection
Difference = faces of the first selected mesh – faces of the intersection + faces of the second selected mesh that were part of the intersection
The wrapper mesh automatically snaps to the surface of the target mesh.
The placement of the wrapper mesh determines the section of the target mesh that is wrapped. In the following example, the sphere is placed at world origin. The plane wraps to different parts of the sphere depending upon its original location:
The Cleanup feature lets you remove unwanted geometry from a polygon mesh (for example, zero area faces or zero length edges). You can also tessellate faces that may be valid within Maya, but not in a game console, such as concave faces, or faces with holes.
Note: Because the Cleanup feature has the ability to merge vertices and collapse zero length edges, there may be situations where theCleanup feature can output nonmanifold geometry.
This can occur when you set the Cleanup options to perform multiple cleanup operations on a mesh in a cascading way.
If this situation is likely, it is recommended you run the Cleanup feature multiple times and turn on the Non-Manifold Geometry option in theRemove Geometry section only on the last iteration.
The Connect tool lets you connect polygon components by inserting an edge between them. Vertices are connected directly to connecting edges, while edges are connected at their midpoint. Inserting edges can add detail to a simple mesh.
For the notes, I give credit to Jordan Baxter, who allowed me to use his blog to take the notes from. Have a look at his blog at https://jordanbaxterblog.wordpress.com/
Were shown three openings in lecture. State opinions on them all.
Jurassic Park
There is a strong sense of tension in this opening when the giant metal container is brought on camera, waiting to be opened. With the roars/screeches and rattling of the container, it strongly suggests that there is something inside there, and it is much larger than us. The mysterious monster goes for the real thrill when it makes its intention clear – kill the crew members guarding its pen. There is a strong sense of respect towards the creature in this opening scene. The crew does everything they can before coming to the ultimate conclusion of putting it down. This allows for the suspense and the thrill to last longer and let the audience know that this creature really is a threat and should be taken seriously.
The Godfather
The Godfather is a gang/mob themed movie. In its opening we see the Mob leader talking to the audience about his current problems. This is to portray that there will be strong emotional moments throughout the film, and that there is drama mixed in with the movie’s main genre.
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Right off the bat the watcher will know what kind of this movie could be. With vibrant colours and light music, it is indeed a comedy. However, there are relatable elements for the audience here, like the concept of people being careless with their money and ending up in debt, all because they cannot get enough of shopping for themselves.
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Film Form Structure
An artwork needs both form and content. Content as the subject and artwork (what the work is about), and form is the means by which the the subject is expressed and experienced.
In the world of movies, form is cinematic language: the tools and techniques that filmmakers use to convey meaning and mood to the viewer including lighting, mise-en-scene, cinematography, performance, editing and sound…
Form and contents are interrelated, interdependent and interactive.
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Cinematography
If we were to make films based on UFOs…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Mothership
This piece is rather unique. No dialogue was required to show what is happening with this scene. Humanity and Alien, instead of using speech, use a form of music-based Morse Code to communicate with one another.
Independence Day – Time’s Up
Here is a scene of an American city being assaulted by extraterrestrial beings. Iconic buildings are destroyed such as the Whitehouse. Conánn explained to us how the effects were made in this movie. They did not have the CGI technology back then, so instead, they built a small-scale city, rotated it and attached it to a thin wall. They then have blasts of fire shoot upward from the floor that engorge and burn the buildings.
Mars Attacks! – Attack of the White House
Tim Burton is a one of a kind with his work and style when it comes to film. This style is rather different from the creepy, corpse-like style he uses, this movie has a purposely old-fashioned animation style. The aliens completely CGI, and are animated to move just like humans.
The Neighbours – Marty explains Aliens
Clip from the funny tv show “The Neighbors”. Family father Marty tries to explain how “Death comes” to the aliens. His son (Max Charles) doesn’t like that at all. -Video Description
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Form and Expectations
Film grabs a hold of us because it creates expectations.
Example: American Beauty opening
This is a rather sinister scenario. It discovers just how far will someone go just to win the affections of another. This opening starts of showing the daily routine of a man, a routine which he seems to hate (perhaps he has a mental condition, like depression?) He seems to have lost something in his life, and he needs to embark on a journey to reclaim what was lost.
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Sometimes, the formal development didn’t really satisfy our expectations immediately. It is suspense, which involves a delay in fulfilling an established expectation. As the term implies, suspense leaves something suspended – not only the next element in a pattern but also our urge for completion.
Example: Jurassic Park – T-rex eats Goat and Escapes Pen
“This video shows what the absence of certain shots does to the suspense of the scene.
Version 1 – Re edited Scene
Version 2 – Original
I do not on any of the content in this clip.
The clip and film is owned by Universal Pictures.” -Video Description
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Parallel Editing
How suspense can cheat expectations.
Good Example: Silence of the Lambs – False Agent Raid
Expectations may also be cheated, as when we expect one outcome but get another. In general, surprise is a result of an expectation that is revealed to be incorrect.
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Form and Feeling
Emotion plays a large role in our experience of form. Emotions represented in the artwork & emotional response felt by the spectator.
Example: Charlie Chaplin – Lion’s Cage
Emotions represented within the film play particular roles in the film’s overall form.
Example: A Walk in Nature POSITIVE EMOTIONS
“As a part of my study in film I intended on moulding an emotional response through sight and sound.
I created TWO EXACTLY THE SAME VIDEOS with the same footage and same runtime, yet each one is different in lighting and music, evoking two completely different responses.
Motifs throughout both films represent polar opposites (e.g. the rope in the POSITIVE video represents childlike pleasure, a swing; in the NEGATIVE it is symbolic of depression and suicide)
To watch the other video check out my channel or follow the link below, hope you appreciate them!”- Video Description
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Meanings
Referential Meaning – refers directly to things that happen in the plot and possibly to some aspects of the story that are merely implied by the plot
Explicit Meaning – right on the surface of things—it is the result of what we have been explicitly shown and told onscreen.
Implicit Meaning – more abstract than the first two meanings. It is about something general. This meaning isn’t stated directly. It is the interpretation.
Symptomatic Meaning – another abstract meaning, and also general. It is ultimately ideological, and can be applied equally well to many other
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Fundamentals of Film Form
Three fundamental principles of film form:
1 – Light
Light is responsible for the image we see on the screen, whether photographed (shot) on film, created with a computer or drawn on pieces of celluloid.
Lighting is responsible for significant effects in each shot or scene. It enhances the texture, depth, emotions and mood.
2 – Movement
Movement separates cinema from all other two-dimensional pictorial art forms.
The movement we can see in the movie screen is an illusion, made possible by two interacting optical and perceptual phenomena: persistence of vision and the phi phenomenon.
Persistence of vision is the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it. Phi phenomenon is the illusion of movement, the optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images, when viewed in rapid succession, as continuous motion.
“Can movement tell a story? Sure, if you’re as gifted as Akira Kurosawa. More than any other filmmaker, he had an innate understanding of movement and how to capture it onscreen. Join me today in studying the master, possibly the greatest composer of motion in film history.“- Video Description
3 – Space & Time
Film manipulates space and time equally well, and thus is a spatial and temporal art form.
Film can move from one space to another or make space move, or fragment time. In many different ways, film can record real time in its chronological passing, as well as subjective versions of time passing – slow motion.
“Shaji N Karun talks about Space, Time & how cinema has influenced human mind in a short time.
Shaji Neelakantan Karun is a National Award-winning Indian film director and cinematographer. His debut film Piravi (1988) won the Camera d’Or – Mention d’honneur at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. He was the Premiere Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, the first academy for film and TV in India and was also the Executive Chairman of International Film Festival of Kerala from 1998 to 2001. He is best known for his award winning films Piravi (1989), Vanaprastham (1999) and Kutty Srank (2009). He was the recipient of Padma Shri award in 2011.” – Video Description
Squigley Does Animation 