SLIDE 1IS246 - SPRING 2003 Lecture 04: Formalist Media Theory IS246 Multimedia Information (FILM 240, Section 4) Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Monday and Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Spring

SLIDE 2IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 3IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 4IS246 - SPRING 2003 Sign, Signified, Signifier –The linguistic sign is the unity of the signifier (a sound-image) and the signified (a concept) Linguistic Sign Concept Sound-Image

SLIDE 5IS246 - SPRING 2003 Linguistic Signs and Language The sign is arbitrary A multiplicity of signs is necessary to form any language The system of signs in language is over- complex Language exhibits a collective inertia toward innovation

SLIDE 6IS246 - SPRING 2003 Linguistic Values Values are composed of –A dissimilar thing that can be exchanged for the thing of which the value is to be determined –Similar things that can be compared with the thing of which the value is to be determined Signified Signifier Signified Signifier Signified Signifier

SLIDE 7IS246 - SPRING 2003 Differences “Everything that has been said up to this point boils down to this: in language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms.” (p. 120). “In reality the idea evokes not a form but a whole latent system that makes possible the oppositions necessary for the formation of the sign. By itself the sign would have no signification.” (p. 130).

SLIDE 8IS246 - SPRING 2003 Syntagmatic and Associative Relations

SLIDE 9IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 10IS246 - SPRING 2003 Why Study Formalist Film Theory? To provide a theoretical foundation for understanding the forms and functions of time-based media Unlike “Film Studies” per se, we use that understanding not to interpret films, but to analyze and design multimedia information systems –Video capture –Video analysis –Video retrieval –Video assembly –Video reuse –Video summarization (e.g., meeting recording) –User interfaces to audio-visual content and that use audio-visual content

SLIDE 11IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

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SLIDE 17IS246 - SPRING 2003 Expectations Suspense –Delay in fulfilling an established expectation Surprise –Result of an expectation that is revealed to be incorrect Curiosity –Construct hypotheses about prior events

SLIDE 18IS246 - SPRING 2003 Perceiving Artistic Form Form –“The overall system of relations that we can perceive among the elements in the whole film” In perceiving form, the spectator draws on –Cues within the work –Prior experiences Derived from everyday life From other artworks –Conventions and norms

SLIDE 19IS246 - SPRING 2003 Principles of Film Form Function –What is this element doing there? –How does it cue us to respond? –Motivation (justification for the presence of an element) Similarity and repetition –Motif (any significant repeated element in a film) –Parallelism (cues to compare two or more distinct elements by highlighting some similarity) Difference and variation Development –Progression moving from beginning to middle to end Unity/Disunity

SLIDE 20IS246 - SPRING 2003 Viewer’s Activity “The constant interplay between similarity and difference, repetition and variation, leads the viewer to an active developing awareness of the film’s formal system.” (p. 56)

SLIDE 21IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 22IS246 - SPRING 2003 Narrative Form Narrative –A chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space Story and Plot –Story Set of all events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly represented and those the viewer infers –Plot Everything visibly and audibly present in the film All the story events that are directly depicted

SLIDE 23IS246 - SPRING 2003 Story and Plot Story Plot Presumed and inferred events Explicitly presented events Added nondiegetic material

SLIDE 24IS246 - SPRING 2003 Teeth Brushing Example Brushing Teeth –Protagonist stands in front of bathroom mirror –Protagonist opens medicine cabinet to remove toothbrush and toothpaste tube –Protagonist squeezes out toothpaste on toothbrush –Protagonist brushes teeth –Protagonist drinks water from glass –Protagonist spits out water and toothpaste residue

SLIDE 25IS246 - SPRING 2003 Time Temporal order –Flashback –Flashforward Temporal duration –Story duration –Plot duration –Screen duration Temporal frequency –Repetition of events

SLIDE 26IS246 - SPRING 2003 Temporal Duration Story Duration –Example: Brushing teeth in story world (5 minutes) Plot Duration –Example: Brushing teeth in plot world (1 minute: 6 steps of ~10 seconds each) Screen Duration –Example: Brushing teeth (12 seconds: 3 shots of ~4 seconds each)

SLIDE 27IS246 - SPRING 2003 Space Story space Plot space Screen space and offscreen space

SLIDE 28IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 29IS246 - SPRING 2003 Narration Plot’s way of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects Moment-by-moment process that guides us in building the story out of the plot Involves range and depth of story information

SLIDE 30IS246 - SPRING 2003 Range of Story Information Spectrum of knowledge of the story world that viewers and characters have –Unrestricted (omniscient) narration –Restricted narration Creates “hierarchy of knowledge” among viewer and characters “Who knows what when?”

SLIDE 31IS246 - SPRING 2003 Depth of Story Information How “deeply” the plot plunges into a character’s psychological states Continuum between objectivity and subjectivity Subjectivity –Perceptual subjectivity (hear and see what character perceives) Point-of-view shot Sound perspective –Mental subjectivity (hear and see what character thinks) Internal voices Internal images “How deeply do I know the character’s perceptions, feelings, and thoughts?” Range and depth of knowledge are independent variables

SLIDE 32IS246 - SPRING 2003 “Classical Hollywood Cinema” Action primarily arises from individual characters as causal agents The process of achieving goals desired by one or more characters drives the narrative’s development The protagonists’ goals come into conflict with other characters’ goals (antagonists) to create conflict

SLIDE 33IS246 - SPRING 2003 “Classical Hollywood Cinema” The cause-effect chain drives narrative events Plot time tends to depend on the story’s cause- effect chain –“Dead time” is rarely shown –Appointments bring characters together at a specific time and usually place –Deadlines makes plot duration dependent on the cause-effect chain Narration tends to be “objective” and unrestricted Narrative usually has strong closure at the end (cause-effect chain ends with final effect)

SLIDE 34IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 35IS246 - SPRING 2003 Kuleshov and Isenhour Kuelshov: role of montage in cinema –Kuleshov-Pudovkin experiment and the “Kuleshov Effect” Isenhour: context and order in film editing –The meaning of a shot will vary with its context –By changing the order of shots, the meaning is changed

SLIDE 36IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formalist Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 37IS246 - SPRING 2003 Discussion Questions How can the “story/plot” distinction be leveraged in designing video summarization systems? How can the mode of “Classical Hollywood Cinema” be applied to non-fictional uses of video? What implications does the “Kuleshov Effect” have for designing metadata for multimedia and multimedia databases?

SLIDE 38IS246 - SPRING 2003 Today’s Agenda Review of Last Time –Semiotics Formal Media Theory –Film Form –Narrative Form –Narration –Introduction to Editing Discussion Action Items for Next Time

SLIDE 39IS246 - SPRING 2003 Readings for Next Time Wednesday 02/05 –Textbook David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson: Film Art: An Introduction. Pages: Priority of focus –Ch. 8 The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing –Ch. 7 The Shot: Cinematographic Properties –Ch. 6 The Shot: Mise-en-scene –Ch. 9 Sound in the Cinema