Textual Analysis Exercise & Levis Commercial

What do you need to think about when you look at a still photo?

• The content
• Camara angle
• Composition
• Light
• Colors
• Location
• Mood
• Why?
• What is missing?
• Cropping

What would other elements would you add to your list for a moving film sequence?

• Sound: diagetic and non diagetic, soundtrack.
• Mice-on-shot
• Camera movement
• Script
• Set design
• Mice-on-scene
• Target audience
• Editing & sequency
• Chronology
• Features determining genre
• Representation of characters & issues

Sequence of tasks for textual analysing:

Levis commercial - Michael Gondry (french film maker)

What is being seen and heard:

• Why was the film made in this way? It wants to show how old Levis are and present it as a fashion or jean tradition, this idea of traditions is created by the historical period where people where very reserved and sexual activities weren't well seen, which we see by the facial expressions and body language of the older characters.By the other hand, sound is also important because the music is a contrast of how Levis are modern, so it brings us from the past to the actual date.
• How are the items constructed? The items are constructed by the jogging quality the film has. Also the main audience determine the audience as the main characters are around 18 years old more or less, the audience if young people. Also the music is slower on the establishing shots as it is not presenting any actions happening at the moment. The main characters have a close up on their faces to emphasize them. Finally we can see there is a flashback at the house of the girl of his father's face in the store to remind the audience it is the same person.
• Other notes: 
• P.O.V shot when he is on his journey toward his grilfriend's house. It is also a sense of location due that the movement tells us he is going somewhere.
• The commercial is about facial expression
• The film is about a boy driving to a shop, going in a shop and buying condoms.Then he drives again and we see that he arives to the girlfriend's house and there is a shot of her girlfriend in the balcony, and then the father opens the door and is the same man whom he bought the condoms too. Then the girl appears and go away with the boy away.
• Rural united stats: basic things, not very old state
• Time period: cars, store, face expression of the women in the shop disproving the boy buying condoms(moral disaprovement)
• Social context: boy comes from a barn and the girl has a big house with a balcony, so she is from a higher social class
• Lots camera angles
• Money: how big is Levis company?
• Color: black & white which shows that it is old
• Techno: not related to the images shown.

Formalist vs. Realist

	Formalist-style film (expressionism/auteurism)	Realist-style film (cinema verité)
Mise-en-scene/mise-en-shot techniques associated with this style of film-making	Heavily Edited – ‘jump-cuts’ Montage Fast and/or slow motion Low/high camera angles, Transformation of 3D world onto a 2D surface Stylised/symbolic images Artificial setting Artificial lighting No attempt at verisimilitude Stylised dialogue/diagetic Lots of non-diagetic sound Sub-titles or other captions	Long takes, deep focus No special effects/montage Subjective viewpoint – uses camera  lens to reproduce way we look at world ‘Documentary’-style Natural/non-intrusive Realistic/ authentic setting Naturalistic lighting Naturalistic dialogue Lots of diagetic sound Minimal non-diagetic No reliance on external narrators or devices
Definition/aims of this style of film-making	Stylised of Auteur emphysise his own style	Life as it is reality. Real events in the impressions of real life.
Directors associated with style	Sergei Eisenstein Jean-Luc Godard	Roberto Rossellini (Italian neorealist) Jean Renoir Rodrigo Garcia
Films associated with style	October (1927) dir. Eisenstein	Nine Lives (2005)

Some definitions:

Formalist film theory is a theory that is focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing. A formalist might study how standard Hollywood "continuity editing" creates a more comforting effect, while the formalist-style of non-continuity or jump-cut editing might be more disconcerting or volatile.

Montage: is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory.

Cinematic realism refers to the verisimilitude (non-stylised representation of reality) of a film to the believability of its characters and events. Cinematic realism takes as its starting point the camera's mechanical reproduction of reality, and often ends up challenging the rules of Hollywood movie making. 

Different Film Studios

How did the studio system worked?

• Each studio produced its own films
• Actors and film makers were under contract to a certain studios
• Each studio are specialized in doing certain genre due to their sets, actors, money and directors.
• 8 studios operating

Five big studios

• created, produced, distributed and showed movies
• they owned all the movie making process and had their own theatres
• made a lot of money
• Studios:
• fox film corporation
• metro goldway meyer
• paramount
• RKO radio pictures
• Warner brothers

Little three studios:

• Limited number of movie theatres
• Produced many movies but couldn’t show many movies
• Studios:
• Universal pictures
• Columbia Pictures
• United artists

Why did the studio system end?

• US federal laws changed
• Studios did not have control to show their theatres
• Independent film makers could begin to complete

Mise- en- shot:

How scenes are shot and edited?	9 lives (Rodrigo Garcia) 2005	Jurassic Park(Spielberg) 1993
Camera position	Fixed place, from shoulder height. Real position (as if the audience were really watching it)	Many different angles
Camera movement	It follows the character and it moves as the character moves. 360 degrees movement of camera.	Fixed cameras for very short shots. They don’t need much movement as shots are very short and by cutting each shot they create and effect of movement in the camera
Shot scale	Not much depth, small as she is in a prison. Everything happens in the same place and there isn't much to see.	It is has a long scale but at the same time there are a lot of people in one small place, limited.
Length of shot	Long shots as there is no need to cut because it follows the character around.	Short shots, from around 5 seconds minimum and 20 seconds maximum.
Pace of editing	Not much editing. Almost not editing at all.	A lot of editing. Cutting different shots, sounds, lights and effects.

   Films:

- 9 lives: the effect given here is that as the scene is shot in a jail to make it more claustrophobic the shot scale is very small as there are a lot of walls. The camera films what the main character is seeing but also films her. Shots here are very long and the camera doesn’t move much.

- Jurassic Park: There are a lot of angles used as there is a lot of action in the movie and to show the different dimensions. Shots are very small so the camera doesn’t need to move. The space of the scene is not that big for the amount of people in it, so it looks as it had more movement.

What extra elements "make" the film?

The matrix:
- Camera angles + focused shots on faces (Morpheu's glasses)
- Dark, gothic costumes - but well design
- Mysterious setting, abandoned, 'putrifyingly elegance'
- Storm outside - sound - adds mystery, drama, etc.
- Body language + expressions (Morpheus = confident, Neo = confused)
- Framing of armchair and its shadow.
- Colors - filtered to give impression




Think about the sound + color:
- "Amelie" :
   Sound: 
   - Non digestic: Happy music
   - Digestic: a narrator is telling the story, describing each character with the things they like and the things they dislike too.


   Color:
   - Bright
   - Retro colors used
   - Yellowish and greenish filters
   - Colors make the illusion that are memories being told
   - Beginning of the day, yellowish colour.
   - A lot of contrast in colors


- "Traffic"
- "Schlndler's List"
- "Pulp Fiction" / "Reservoir Dogs"
- "Matrix"

Matrix Textual Analysis – The Script Writing Process

• What extra elements are there in the film?
• Non digestic sound, especially music but also sound effects.
• Facial expressions, body language, non-dialogue acting.
• Props + Sets (mice-en-scene)
• Costumes
• Camera movement
• The type of digestic sound (voice)
• Extras
• Lighting (mice-en-scene)
• Does the film’s dialogue + action derivate from the script?
• Yes for example,
• Expletives removed
• Some dialogue shortened
• There are differences in how the scene plays out. Eg backing into the corner not trying to escape when his mouth starts to join.
• Why does the final production end up diverging from the script?
• Extra elements not a script writer’s job.
• Film production is a collaboration and it is a hierarchy
• Script has to flow while reading it.
• Films sometimes cut
• Editing changes the film
• Intended audience à maybe language cut
• Some things just not work when acted
• Actors interpretation
• Technical imitations
• Budget limitations
• Directorial decisions.