Do The Right Thing

Spike Lee, 1989

Review:• Montage vs. Mise-en-scene• Continuity Editing

– Shot-Reverse shot (Do The Right Thing (15:50-16:30) Mother Sister and Da Mayor)

– Eyeline match• Jump Cut—e.g. Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) • Parallel Editing/Cross-cutting (Within Our Gates [Micheaux,

1920])• Subjective shot (e.g. Lady in the Lake [1947] and Being John

Malkovich (1999)• Direct Address

• Shot: A. A stretch of film made up of a series of frames that is uninterrupted by editing. (The shot ends as soon as the editing begins.) B. A single frame of a film.

• The Long Take: A shot that continues for an unusually long period of time before the transition to the next shot.

• E.g. A Touch of Evil (Welles, 1959)

Camera Placement• Angle: – Low Angle– Straight-on Angle– High Angle– Oblique Angle—comes at a diagonal, disrupts our sense of vertical orientation.

• Height: – Crane shot—Change in framing accomplished by having the camera above the

ground and moving through the air in any direction. • Distance:

• Extreme Close up (usually focuses on some aspect of the face, not rendering the entire face)

• Close-up (typically renders the entire face, scale of the face—or other object is large)• Medium Close-up (Frames the human body from the waist up)• Medium shot• American shot (Figure is shot from the knees up). • Medium Long shot• Long shot (Human figures are visible but background dominates. • Extreme Long shot (Human figure is barely visible)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Do The Right Thing (1989)

Establishing shot

• Usually a distant framing that illustrates the spatial relations among important figures, objects and settings. It also usually provides a view of all the space in which the action is about to occur. Often comes at the beginning of a scene. Can also tell us something about the quality of this space.

Horizontal Camera Movement• Achieved in two ways, generally: – Panning—Camera mimics the action of turning one’s

head. When the angle of vision shifts horizontally, as if the camera is “looking” from left to right, but the camera itself stays stationary.

– Tracking Shot—Rather than just moving its head, the camera “walks.” Tracking shot is when the camera actually moves from left to right or backward or forward. (Do The Right Thing [35:25])

• Zoom—Gives the viewers the sense of getting closer to the subject through the camera’s lens without moving the camera.

• Deep Focus—When the camera renders figures in the foreground and background in relatively equal focus, causing the viewer to have to attend to multiple planes of action.

• Handheld shot—One created with a camera not stabilized by a tripod. (Do The Right Thing (7:40)

Two Shot: A shot with two figures in it.

Deep Focus

Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)

Deep Focus 2

Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)

Deep Focus 3

Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)

Do The Right Thing (1989)

Mise-En-Abyme

• When one space gives way to another in a seemingly infinite succession (e.g. The Gang’s All Here [Berkeley, 1943])

Lighting• Three Point Lighting—Dominant in

Classical Hollywood film. There are three sources of light in the shot: – One primary source of light, usually facing

the scene’s primary figure diagonally (Key Light);

– One from a source near the camera, but still facing the figure (fill light) and

– One from behind and above the figure (back light).

• High Key Lighting—sense of brightness and illumination created. Not very much contrast between light and dark.

• Low Key Lighting—e.g. Touch of Evil (1959) The key light is dimmed to create a high contrast between light and shadow.

• Backlighting—Comes from behind the subject being filmed. Creates a silhouette.

•

Backlighting

The Big Combo (1955)

Sound

• Sound’s three components: Noise, Music, Speech• Diegetic sound—Comes from within the narrative.• Non-Diegetic sound—Comes from outside the narrative

– Voice-over– Music on the soundtrack

• Sound Bridge—When a sound seems to carry over from one scene to another.

• Polyphony—when (conflicting) voices are juxtaposed at a dialogical angle that reveals more than any one voice alone would have revealed.