film analysis
Instructions for Sequence Analysis
A. State the "message(s)" of the scene or sequence, i.e., what is the filmmaker trying to communicate?
B. Justify your statement in A by explaining how the five main channels of information in film--visual image, print and other graphics, speech, music, noise (sound effects)--work together to communicate it. Note that not all films make use of all five channels (e.g., print and graphics were common in the era of the silent film) and, further, that the intermittent suppression of one channel (e.g., silence) can also communicate information. Of the five channels, the visual image is (in most films) the most important. It is certainly the most complex channel of information and thus deserves closest attention. The visual image consists of roughly four main categories of elements: mise-en-scene, photography, movement, montage. These features of the visual image are the result of numerous devices or techniques employed by the filmmaker and are capable of communicating information by virtue of some code.
Codes are systems of rules or conventions that enable us to interpret signs, objects, events, behavior, etc.:
X counts as Y in context C
(X means/suggests/connotes/implies Y by virtue of code C)
Examples:
1) The symbol "U" means "AND" in the language of symbolic logic.
2) English is the code by reference to which the symbol "AND" means conjunction.
3) Fashion is the code by virtue of which long hair and blue jeans may connote "hippie."
4) It is by virtue of the rules of baseball that certain activities on a grass field count as "scoring a home run."
5) Extreme high angle shots tend to connote a subject's inferiority, vulnerability, helplessness, or entrapment in film.
A great variety of codes combine to form the medium in which film expresses meaning. There are culturally derived codes--those that exist outside the film and that filmmakers simply reproduce (the way people dress, for example). There are
A. State the "message(s)" of the scene or sequence, i.e., what is the filmmaker trying to communicate?
B. Justify your statement in A by explaining how the five main channels of information in film--visual image, print and other graphics, speech, music, noise (sound effects)--work together to communicate it. Note that not all films make use of all five channels (e.g., print and graphics were common in the era of the silent film) and, further, that the intermittent suppression of one channel (e.g., silence) can also communicate information. Of the five channels, the visual image is (in most films) the most important. It is certainly the most complex channel of information and thus deserves closest attention. The visual image consists of roughly four main categories of elements: mise-en-scene, photography, movement, montage. These features of the visual image are the result of numerous devices or techniques employed by the filmmaker and are capable of communicating information by virtue of some code.
Codes are systems of rules or conventions that enable us to interpret signs, objects, events, behavior, etc.:
X counts as Y in context C
(X means/suggests/connotes/implies Y by virtue of code C)
Examples:
1) The symbol "U" means "AND" in the language of symbolic logic.
2) English is the code by reference to which the symbol "AND" means conjunction.
3) Fashion is the code by virtue of which long hair and blue jeans may connote "hippie."
4) It is by virtue of the rules of baseball that certain activities on a grass field count as "scoring a home run."
5) Extreme high angle shots tend to connote a subject's inferiority, vulnerability, helplessness, or entrapment in film.
A great variety of codes combine to form the medium in which film expresses meaning. There are culturally derived codes--those that exist outside the film and that filmmakers simply reproduce (the way people dress, for example). There are