Introduction to Film Studies Mise-en-scène

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) Emphasizing the horizontal expanse, widescreens were initially associated with spectacle genres – Westerns, travelogues, musicals, historical epics. David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) Widescreen can be used for intimate drama as well. Kurosawa’s Read Beard creates a deep space photography with foreground, middle ground and background images.

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) The frame is normally rectangular. Filmmakers can change its shape by attaching masks over either the camera’s lens to block the passage of light. A circular mask is called iris, frequently used in silent cinema. A binoculars scene in Jean Renoir’s Boudou Saved from Downing 16.00

Masks in various sizes and shapes

Mask reveals and hides: Buster Keaton’s Neighbors A girl for wedding but her wedding is not luxurious. Neighbors 12.00

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) In D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance the frame is boldly blocked out to leave only a vertical line or diagonal line. Screen is shaped without matting.

Michelangelo Antonioni, L’Eclipse

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) Split-screen creates different frame shapes. Two or more different images, each with its own frame size and shape appear within the larger frame. Telephone conversation in Philips Smalley’s Suspense (1913) 4.00 from Suspense

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) The moment before guided missiles are launched is made more tense by splitting the frame into several images and giving the audience a good knowledge about what is going on in various places. Robert Aldrich’s Twilight’s Last Gleaming Nuclear Weapon

Framing (On and Off-Screen Space) 6 zones of off-screen spaces The space beyond each of the four edges of the frame – left, right, top and bottom The space behind the set The space behind the camera By using these unseen space, the director can create surprise, suspense and other effects

Framing (Off- Screen Space) Many characters appear and diverse actions take place in a scene, but some stay and some actions take place in off-screen space. In the opening scene of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s City of Sadness (1989), a woman is delivering and people celebrating the end of the war off-screen off-screen, while a man is praying on screen on-screeen. childbirth

Framing (Off-screen Space) Many characters appear and diverse actions take place in Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Good Bye South, Good Bye. The camera captures a group of people on-screen and move on to another group and action leaving behind people and actions off-screen. Quarrel 24.00

Framing (Sizes and Shapes) In Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, the off-screen space behind the camera is indicated.

Framing How to compose a frame ANGLE (of framing) In what angle a frame is composed: from which angle the subject is filmed. Of a wide range of angles, three more common angles STRAIGHT-ON, HIGH and LOW ANGLES

Framing The camera is placed at the eye-level of the subject of the frame or look straight on with it - Straight-on Angle shot

Framing In this shot the camera is physically placed higher than the subject and thus looking down upon it – High Angle shot

Framing A shot is taken from below the subject and the camera is looking up it – Low Angle shot Quentin Tarantino prefers this angle. From below

Example of high and low angle shots in Tootsie Revelation scene

Framing LEVEL (of framing) – the degree to which the frame is level When the framing is level (horizontal), the horizontal edges of the frame will be parallel to the horizon of the shot and perpendicular to what is standing in the shot.

Framing Dutch Angle (canted angle) If what are horizontal and perpendicular are at diagonal angles, the frame is canted The canted framing is relatively rare. Hitchcock’s Birds

Canted (Dutch) angles in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire clip

Framing DISTANCE from the subject (camera distance) is categorized according to the scale of the human body on screen – long shot, medium shot, close-up shot etc.

Framing Extreme Long Shot – the shot taken from a slightly high angle and a slightly high position allowing the viewer to observe the small character in the setting (the graveyard) ,which dominates.

Framing Long Shot – the camera distance in which human figures are shown in full from head to feet. Both the background and human figures dominate.

Framing Medium Long Shot – The human figure is framed from the knee up. As very common in classic Hollywood film, it is also called American shot. The human figure is prominent but so is the background.

Framing Medium Shot frames the human body from the waist up

Medium Close-up Shot frames the body from the chest up Medium Close-up Shot frames the body from the chest up. Human figures dominates the frame.

Framing Close-up shot shows just the head, hands, feet, or a small object and emphasizes facial expression, the details of a gesture, or a significance of the object

Framing Extreme Close-up Shot singles out a portion of the face, isolates a detail, and magnifies the minute.

Framing Camera angle, level and distance help show film actions efficiently and emphatically. The complicated combination of high-angle, low-angle, long, medium, and close-up shots In Hitchcock’s Saboteur. Statue of Liberty

Framing Camera distance, height, level and angle often take on narrative functions. A shot framing helps emphasize the psychology of a character. David Lean’s Brief Encounter. A housewife’s suicide attempt is shown in a canted framing.

Height of Framing HEIGHT – the height on which the framing is fixed – the height on which the camera is positioned

Height of Framing To frame from a high angle entails a vantage point higher than the material in the image.

Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo Sanjuro sitting high on observation post look over fighting gangs

Low vantage point: the camera placed low near the ground showing a weapon. However, an unsuspecting character does not see it. Joel and Nathan Cohen, No Country for the Old Man

Framing Camera height, distance, angle and level can be changed within the shot – mobile framing – a unique aspect of film The change of framing is achieved by moving the camera during filming. Several kinds of camera movement Pan, Tilt, Tracking, and Crane