Introduction to Film Studies
Mise-en-scène
Photography:
Tonality
• TINTING - Already developed positive film is
immersed in dye. Lighter areas pick up the colour
while darker ones remain black and gray. In Abel
Gance’s J’accuse! (1919) the image was tinted in
pink. J’Accuse
Photography:
Tonality
• TONING – when dye is added during the
developing of the positive print, the darker areas of
the frame are coloured and the brighter portions
remain white or only faintly coloured.
• Veá Chytilová’s Daisies Night Club
Photography:
Tonality
• Hand colouring – Portions of black-and-white
images are painted in colours, frame by frame.
The ship’s flat in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship
Potemkin is hand coloured red. Red flag
Each frame painstakingly hand coloured in George
Méliès A Trip to the Moon colour version
Photography:
Tonality
• Manipulations of tonalities
• Stan Brakhage scratches off the emulsion in
certain parts of the image for creating a graphic
design. Chinese series
Photography:
Tonality
• Tonality is the most crucially determined by
exposure. Overexposure (too much light admitted
through the lens) make the image too bright and
underexposure (little light) make the image too
dark. Carl Dreyer overexposes the windows to
create a religious atmosphere in Ordet. Funeral
Photography:
Tonality
• The area in the strong sunshine is slightly overexposed, while the areas in shadows are shot in
right exposure. Francesco Rosi’s Salvatore
Giuliano.
Photography: Tonality
• Women in the foreground shot in right-exposure,
but the sun-lit town in the background is
overexposed.
• Inside the house a woman is underexposed, while
the countryside in the background well-exposed.
Photography: Tonality
• Filter – a slice of glass or gelatin placed in front
of the lens reduces certain frequencies of light
reaching the film. Day for Night – A filter can
block out part of the light and make footage shot
in daylight seem to be shot at night.
George Stevens, Shane
Perspective Relations: Lens
• Types of camera lenses determined by their focal length
– distance between the centre of the lens to the point
where light rays converge on the film.
• 30-80 mm – normal lens; under 35mm – wide-angle
lens; over 85 mm – telephoto lens
Perspective Relations:
Lens
• WIDE ANGLE LENS – a lens with short focal length
with a wide angle of view. It exaggerates apparent depth
of space and distorts straight lines lying near the edges of
the frame.
Perspective Relations: Lens
• With wide angle lens a
wide area of space is
captured.
• With telephoto lens an
angle of view is very
narrow
• With normal lens an
angle of view is narrower
than with wide angle lens
but wider than with
telephoto
Perspective Relations: Lens
• With wide angle lens, our impression of the depth
of space is exaggerated. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths
of Glory
Perspective Relations
• Short focal length (wideangle) lens - A lens of less
than 35 mm in focal length
• Distort straight lines lying
near the edges of the frame.
• Two towers appear to lean
rightward and leftward
Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now
Perspective
Relations
• Anything nearer the camera appear to bulge and
its shape look distorted.
• In Terry Gilliam’s Brazil a wide-angle lens is
used extensively
opening
Perspective
Relations
• The wide-angle lens exaggerate depth. In a scene
from William Wyler’s Little Foxes the lens
makes the characters seem farther away from
each other than we would expect. Arrival
Perspective
Relations
• Middle focal length (normal) lens – A lens of
medium focal length between 35 and 50 mm.
• No noticeable perspectival distortion: horizontal and
vertical lines are rendered straight and perpendicular
• Depth does not look stretched apart or squeezed
Perspective Relations: Lens
• TELEPHOTO LENS – a lens of long focal length
with a narrow angle of view. It condenses space,
flattens depth, and bring distant things close.
Perspective
Relations: Lens
• Long focal length (telephoto) lens - A lens of long
focal length between 80 and 250 mm or more.
• It condenses space and flatten the space between
what is in the foreground and in the background
• The planes seem squashed together
• Chen Kaige’s Life on a String
Perspective Relations: Lens
• In Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi an airport is shot
from a great distance by a telephoto lens. The long
lens makes the aeroplane look as if it were landing
on a crowded motorway. 25.15 koyaanisqatsi
Perspective Relations: Lens
• Akira Kurosawa frequently used the telephoto
lens. In his Red Beard a mad woman walks in a
doctor’s room. It is filmed over the shoulder of
the doctor and the distance between the two
characters appear close at first. When they are
shown sideways, the viewer would know that
they are far apart.
Perspective Relations: Lens
• As the telephoto lens flatten depth, a figure
moving towards the camera appears to take more
time to cover what seems to be a small distance.
• Running-in-place
• Mike Nichols’ The Graduate run for elaine
Perspective Relations: Lens
• Zoom lens – a lens which can change focal length
and transform perspective relations within a single
shot.
• The zoom lens can substitute for moving the
camera forward and backward, as it can magnify
and de-magnify the subject. The Conversation
Describe that in Kurosawa Akira’s Kagemusha what
lenses are used and what effects do they create.
Describe that in Stanley Kubrick’s Shining what
lenses are used and what effects they create. Come play
with us
The Lens: Depth
of Field and Focus
Depth of focus = the range
before the lens within which
objects can be
photographed
in sharp focus. A lens with a depth of field of 10ft
(3m) to infinity renders any object in that range
clearly, but anything outside it (e.g. in 4ft) goes out
of focus.
Lens: Depth of
Field and Focus
• A wide-angle lens has a relatively greater depth of
field than does a telephoto lens. A scene from
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane – an example of ‘pan’
focus. All the people in this frame are in sharp
focus.
Depth of Field
and Focus
• Only one plane is in focus and the other planes
are blurred – shallow focus. David Fincher’s
Social Network (2010) A young man’s head in
focus, another man in front slightly out of focus,
and everybody beyond the central figure
completely out of focus. A scene
Depth of Field
and Focus
• Objects nearer to the camera are thrown out of
focus, so that the viewer’s attentions is drawn to
the sharper middle ground.
• A popular visual style in the 1940s.
• More recent example, Godfather (1972)
Lens: Depth of Field and Focus
• Selective focus can be used for a more abstract
compositional effect. Leo Carax’s Boy Meets Girl
(1984) I am what I am
Depth of Field
and Focus
• Faster film stock, wider-angle lens, more intense
lighting yield a greater depth of field. Deep focus
photography, in which everything is in focus. In
Citizen Kane Greg Toland achieved memorable
deep focus photography.
Lens: Depth of Field and Focus
• Deep focus photography a popular stylistic choice
in the 1940s and 50s. Samuel Fuller, Underworld
USA (1961) The Girl Backed down
Lens: Depth of
Field and Focus
• Perspective relations can be adjusted by using
rack (racking) focus or pulling focus. One object
is in focus in one plane and you rack focus so that
another thing in another place, which was out of
focus, come in focus. Wes Anderson’s Rushmore
Swimming pool
Describe the ways in which scenes are focused in Paul
Thomas Anderson’s The Master and what effects it
creates? The cause
Describe the ways in which scenes are focused in
Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third
Kind and what kind of effects it creates. Last encounter
Where in the scene is the rack focus found and for
what effect is it used? Da vinci code