Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Alignment 

the different ways that the filmmaker can align us or manipulate our emotional responses

Alignment is the process of identification with something or someone. The way spectators are encouraged through macro and micro features to relate to characters emotions as well as adopt their points of view. The emotional impact of a film frequently depends on spectator alignment with central characters


Micro alignment                                                                      Macro alignment

Costume, hair and make up;  Mia Wallace outfit.                  Narrative: we may get the perspective                                                                                                       from a back story of the protagonist
 alignment with Mia due to similarities between the
 spectator and the character
                                       
Sound; the music that is played over head may                    
  attract a certain audience

MIRCO:
Cinematography; a CU positions the spectator closer to the character. Alternatively, a wide shot or MLS will put distance between the character and the spectator
Sound; certain sounds/music are used to highlight and guide our responses
Themes/Content; depending on the subject matter of the film we can be easily manipulated if the issues portrayed resonate within us on a personal level; death of a loved one / cultural or social issues

Most films will attempt to align the spectator with a specific character or group of characters
A filmmaker can align us with a character emotionally or culturally we are more willing to adopt a preferred reading of a film take on the meaning intended by the producer
If we are aligned our emotions can be easily manipulated and we are more likely to experience an AUDIENCE response rather an individual SPECTATOR response

Most films and filmmakers will encourage an audience response - a shared emotional response that is initially intense but quickly fade. A filmmaker can do this by...

  • use existing genre convention 
  • the under dog story 
  • sympathetic characters and situations 
  • place characters in realistic scenario the more common the scenario the better 
  • a mix of mood through music, light, etc and realistic emotions 
  • play on audience fears and phobias 
  • builds expectation and eventually meet that expectation (a happy ending ) 
Allegiance pertains to the moral evaluation of the characters by the spectator. Is another form of identification with a character based on a wide range of external factors such as attitudes towards:
  • class
  • race
  • nation
  • age
  • ethnicity 
  • gender 
,

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Central and A Central

Immersion
Construct

Central imagining/construct:

-creates feeling
-this is translated to the spectator from the director - a textual response
-uses mirco elements to incite the feeling
-feeling the characters pain

127 Hours
Diajectic sound what the character can hear
Non-diajectic sound is for the audience only-the characters cannot hear this
Editing for example, cross cutting
MES
Cinematography

A Central Imagining:

-the difference is we feel less, but can imagine more
-not a physical response but emotional
-extra-textual; reliant on the spectators experiences
-every individual will imagine the situation differently

American History X

Examples of Central Imagining:





The nail ripping scene in Black Swan






A Central Imagining:






Spectatorship: the audience being involved in the film; aligning ourself with the characters

Joseph Anderson: "Making sense of film, is significantly the same as making sense of the world." -  you as a spectator are in the real world, therefore you have a different reaction or interpretation as the other.

Stuart Hall - perception theory; the way the text is received, rather than the text itself. When the text is encoded, certain ideologies are are in dominance -> you then receive the text -> The audience then decodes the message in multiple ways and this is dependant on the cultural background of the person.
Reception theory: response of 3 ways based on their reading of a film:

Preferred reading: taking an intended reading of the film identifying and agreeing with ALL of the messages encoded into the text.

Negotiated reading: the viewer identifies with most of the meanings encoded into the text but does not agree with or take full meaning.

Oppositional reading: the viewer does not identify the meanings encoded into the text and their own personal ideologies or experiences form an alternate meaning within the text


Film is based on desire. It is based on three different types of film:
1. An intellectually demanding film
2. A provocative film (controversial)
3. Throwaway/spectacular/fun

Throwaway/spectacular:
-Hollywood
-Not intellectual
-Stereotypes



Preferred reading: Teen movie, rom-com, comedy
Negotiable reading: slight reading of racism and homophobia
Oppositional reading: Feminist point of view; women only speaking/have an interest around a man - Bechdul test.