Introduction to Film Studies

Mise-en-scène

Framing

• How to frame a frame

• ANGLE (of framing)

• In what angle a frame is composed: from which angle the subject is filmed.

• Of a wide range of angles, three more common angles

• STRAIGHT-ON, HIGH and LOW ANGLES

Framing

• The camera is placed at the eye-level of the subject of the frame or look straight on with it - Straight-on Angle shot

Framing

• In this shot the camera is physically placed higher than the subject and thus looking down upon it – High Angle shot

Framing

• A shot is taken from below the subject and the camera is looking up it – Low Angle shot

Framing

• LEVEL (of framing) – the degree to which the frame is level

• When the framing is level (horizontal), the horizontal edges of the frame will be parallel to the horizon of the shot and perpendicular to what is standing in the shot.

Framing

• If horizon and what is perpendicular are at diagonal angles, the frame is canted

• The canted framing is relatively rare. The framing in The Third Man is an example.

Framing

• HEIGHT – the height on which the framing is fixed – the height on which the camera is positioned

Framing

• To frame from a high angle entails a vantage point higher than the material in the image.

Framing

• Yasujiro Ozu positions his camera close to the ground to film characters and objects. This is because he wants a low angle because the angle is straight on. The matter of Ozu’s stylistic choice

Framing

• DISTANCE from the subject (camera distance) is categorized according to the scale of the human body – long shot, medium shot, close-up shot etc.

Framing

• Extreme Long Shot – the shot taken from a high angle and a high position allowing the viewer to observe the character in the setting.

Framing

• Long Shot – the camera distance in which human figures are shown in full from head to feet. The background dominates more than human figures.

Framing

• Medium Long Shot – The human figure is framed from about the knee up. As very common in classic Hollywood film, it is also called American shot. The human figure is prominent but so is the background

Framing

• Medium Shot frames the human body from the waist up, while Medium Close-up Shot frames the body from the chest up. Human figures dominates the frame.

Framing• Close-up shot

• Shows just the head, hands, feet, or a small object and emphasizes facial expression, the details of a gesture, or a significance of the object

Framing

• Extreme Close-up Shot singles out a portion of the face, isolates a detail, and magnifies the minute.

Framing

• Camera distance, height, level and angle often take on narrative functions. A shot framing helps emphasize the psychology of a character. David Lean’s Brief Encounter. A house wife’s attempt of suicide shown in a canted framing.

Framing

Camera angle, level and distance develops to show film actions efficiently. The complicated combination of high-angle, low-angle, long, medium, and close-up shots In Hitchcock’s Saboteur and Scott’s Blade Runner. Statue of Liberty

Framing

• Camera height, distance, angle and level can be changed within the shot – mobile framing – a unique aspect of film

• The change of framing is achieved by moving the camera during filming.

• Several kinds of camera movement

• Pan, Tilt, Tracking, and Crane

Framing

• The pan turns the camera on a vertical axis.

• On screen the pan gives the impression of a frame horizontally scanning space

• City of Sadness

• The tilt moves the camera on a horizontal axis or vertically Bride Wore Black

Framing

• In the tracking (dolly or trucking or traveling) shot, the camera as a whole change position

• 8 1/2

• In the crane shot, the camera moves about above the ground level, being carried by a crane.

Framing

• Example of tracking shots Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence

• Behind the Scene

Framing

• Analyse the framing, the camera angle, height, distance, movement of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde

Framing

• Analyse the mastery framing in The Tales of the Taira Kuran by Kenji Mizoguchi

• Framing in long take