Essential Revision for A Level Film Studies

Mark Dixon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367634490
• eBook ISBN: 9781000413588
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This comprehensive revision guide contains everything students need to know to succeed on their A Level Film Studies course.

Essential Revision for A Level Film Studies features engaging and accessible chapters to help learners develop a deeper understanding of the key elements of film form, including cinematography, mise en scène, performance, lighting, editing and sound. The book offers detailed explanations of the specialist study areas required for the A Level course, including auteur theory, spectatorship, genre, key critical debates, narrative and ideology, as well as overviews of key film movements like French New Wave cinema, German Expressionism and Soviet Montage. Also included are practical exercises designed to help students apply essential concepts to film set texts, sample exam responses for both Eduqas and OCR exam boards, and challenge activities designed to help students secure premium grades.

With its practical approach and comprehensive scope, Essential Revision for A Level Film Studies is the ideal resource for students and teachers.

The book also features a companion website at EssentialFilmRevision.com, which includes a wide range of supporting resources including revision flashcards and worksheets, a bank of film set text applications for exam questions for all film specifications, and classroom-ready worksheets that teachers can use alongside the book to help students master A Level Film exam content.

Part I Film forms

1 Cinematography

Table 1.1 What do you need to revise cinematography for?

Study of cinematography is core to all aspects of Film Studies. To provide effective analysis you should be able to discuss the use and impact of camera movement, shot distance, depth of field as well as the impact of composition and framing decisions (covered in Chapter 2).

Essential background: paradigmatic and syntagmatic meaning-making

Filmmakers have two central jobs when planning a film. First, they must decide upon the overriding story – to identify the characters, major plot points, subplots and so on. To complete this task, filmmakers must order scenes so that their audiences can make sense of the narratives presented. Script writers must invent dialogue, craft characters and work out where crucial plot moments must happen to maximise the emotional impact of their story.

The second, and equally vital, task for filmmakers is to think about the styling and aesthetics of the individual shots that their cinematic story will be composed from. Camera positioning must be worked out to capture actor movement, while locations and sets must be styled to reflect a specific aesthetic look. Those two central planning roles produce meaning in the following two ways:

• Syntagmatic meaning-making describes the effects produced by film stories as a result of the way narrative material is sequenced; through, for example, the choices made by script writers and editors in shaping the narrative flow of a product.
• Paradigmatic meaning-making, the second function, is less concerned with the way a story builds or changes direction, but in the way that single shots relay meaning.

The study of cinematography is largely concerned with the second form of meaning-making described above.

Cinematographic decisions, in this sense, are made from a fixed menu of shot types, wherein the technical application of a specific shot type constructs a specific connotative effect. If, for example, a shot is filmed using a low-angle tilt to depict a character, the intended effects can be decoded relatively quickly. We do not need to know the narrative events that have taken place before or after the shot to understand that the character has been deliberately framed to look powerful. Conversely, the use of a high-angle tilt would tell an audience that a character lacks authority.

Importantly, the routine use of these fixed shot types means that audiences are well acquainted with their effects and significance. The connotative meanings of tilt, canted shots or tracking camera movements, for instance, are so readily applied that audiences intuitively or subconsciously understand their significance and effect. The range of camera-oriented shot types available to filmmakers are subdivided as follows:

• The use of angle and tilt
• Depth of field
• Camera movement
• Shot distance

Figure 1.1Pulp Fiction (top): Tarantino’s trademark boot shot deploys low-angle cinematography to create character power. La La Land (middle): Damien Chazelle’s 2017 film uses a high-angle tilt to suggest Mia’s vulnerability. Boyhood (bottom): Linklater’s choice of a canted angle infers the unstable viewpoint of his central character.

Angle and tilt

Angle refers to the vertical or horizontal positioning of the camera during filming. Tilt describes the extent to which shots look downwards or upwards to the subjects being filmed (see Figure 1.1). The canted or Dutch angle shot is a horizontal variant of the tilt, initially used by director auteurs like Carol Green in her film noir classic The Third Man to encode the mental collapse of the film’s central characters. Dutch angles skew compositions to make scenes appear slanted or off-centre (see Figure 1.1).

Table 1.2 Angle and tilt revision essentials

• Low-angle tilts point up to the subject being filmed, so they appear powerful or dominant. • High-angle tilts look down upon the subject being filmed, making them appear powerless or weak. • Dutch angles suggest character instability or can connote anxiety, tension or terror. The strong diagonal compositions created by Dutch angles can also generate a dynamic or energetic tension within a shot. • Dutch angles can be used to depict dream states or hallucinations.

Depth of field

Depth of field: deep focus shooting

Deep focus photography is constructed when fore, mid and background elements are kept in focus. The use of deep focus compositions enables directors to use screen depth as a creative tool and to arrange shots so that they convey both background and foreground interest (see Figures 1.2 and 1.3).

Table 1.3 Deep focus revision essentials

• Deep focus compositions prompt viewers to think about the symbolic significance of the settings in which actors are placed. • Deep focus can be used to emphasise the space or the distance between objects/actors. • Deep focus photography can also produce strong diagonally configured compositions that inject energy into a scene. • Deep focus photography injects realism as a result of its mimicry of human vision.

Depth of field: shallow focus shooting

Conversely, shallow depth of field – the ability to control the focus of a shot so only the background or foreground is held in focus – provides filmmakers with the ability to guide and direct spectators to key aspects of the cinematic frame (see Figures 1.2 and 1.3).

Table 1.4 Shallow focus revision essentials

• Holding only foreground characters in focus directs spectator attention on the actions or dialogue of that character. • A sense of alienation, claustrophobia or separation can also be constructed when characters are depicted using shallow depth of field compositions. • Rack focusing – the shifting of focal depth during a shot – can be used to alternate audience attention from foreground to background elements, literally shifting the focal point of the frame mid focus. • Rack focusing slows down the editing tempo of sequences, omitting the need for cuts or shot changes, and, as a result, can intensify the dramatic qualities of a scene during moments of character interaction.

Figure 1.2Citizen Kane (top): Gregg Toland’s use of deep focus emphasises fore and background elements within the scene. Under the Skin (bottom): Glazer’s use of shallow focus in the shot above isolates Johansson’s alien character from the world around her.

Figure 1.3Depth of field and shot distance effects © Tom Zaino.

Camera movement

Some of the most significant evolutions in the development of film language have been prompted by the various technological and mechanical advances that have freed the camera from its fixed filming position. The separate inventions of the crane, dolly, track, handheld camera and Steadicam have contributed to the ‘how’ of filmmaking by giving cinematographers the capacity to rotate, lift or track across a scene. Understanding the effects of the following tec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Part I Film forms
• Part II Film theories
• Part III Contexts and forms
• Bibliography
• Index