Film Theory and Visual Language

The five formal elements of film are mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing,

narrative and sound. To break them down in the most basic sense; mise-en-scene
is what appears in a frame, cinematography is how it's shown (framing, camera
angle, lighting), editing is how different frames relate to one another, sound is
dialogue, effects and music, while narrative is the story that arises from the other
four elements.

Mise-en-scene
To begin analyzing the mise-en-scene, or shot composition/framing, one has to
consider both what's on the screen and where it is on the screen. In considering
what's on the scene, we can develop both literal and symbolic meanings. Especially
in animation, nothing is on the screen by accident. Where things are on the screen
in relationship to each other have psychological effects on the viewer that may
convey additional meaning. Consider the following picture from Marie Antionette:

The literal meaning of the baroque walls is to evoke a certain time period and social
class. This is clearly a building that belongs to a very rich person, and the lady in
the scene is probably related. As viewers, we probably knew that already, so this
literal meaning is not terribly important. The symbolic meanings are more
interesting; baroque stylings are very complex and ornate, much like french
aristocratic society itself. Marie's placement in relation to the baroque walls
suggests that she is being overwhelmed or dominated by whatever this baroque
wall represents. All this meaning can be derived by two elements (Marie, the wall)
and their relative locations in the frame.

So, a theory about what goes into a scene is difficult to articulate. The literal
meanings are specific to their respective films and can't be generalized. The
symbolic meanings are too numerous to give an adequate account of and often vary
by context anyways. Instead, we're going to go a bit more in-depth on placement,
listing out some relationships and giving examples:

1. Objects on top dominate objects on bottom.

This one is pretty obvious. In almost any shot with a judge in a courthouse,
the judge is near the top of the frame, symbolizing his power over the lower
elements on the frame. Likewise with many king on his throne scenes.

2. Bigger is more important. Another "well, duh" one! The greater a portion
of the frame something covers, the more impact it has.

3. Foreground is stronger than background. This one piggybacks a bit,

since foreground objects tend to be larger. These first three are the general
elements of power, and they may contradict each other in a single frame if
the director does not wish to establish such power dynamics in his shot.
4. Right is more positive, left is more negative.

Here's an interesting one! It's a convention that seems to apply across

cultures, so nothing to do with how we read our handwriting. Stuff on, or
moving towards, the right side evokes a more positive feeling than vice
versa. Right also implies future, while left implies past.

5. Symmetry is peaceful, asymmetry is tense.

To make it obvious, lets compare these two photos:

An important related aspect to symmetry is the rule of thirds; split the image
into thirds and the most important things should be on the lines, as in the
picture on the left. Just because symmetry is peaceful doesn't mean you
want to put things in the center; center shots often look too composed.
Asymmetry can be used to make a scene feel just a bit less comfortable, as
in the picture on the right.
6. The less space, the more claustrophobic. Especially in the direction
characters are looking! This is known as lead space. In the second picture,
the woman is almost out of space to run across the screen, it appears more
tense.
7. Lines move eyes. Our eyes will naturally follow lines along an image,
therefore something we'd want to notice should be placed where the lines
point. Here is a really obvious one, the lines on the boat pointing to the
palace:

For a more subtle example, here's a wallpaper from the anime Jigoku
Shoujo:

Notice how the biggest leaves in the foreground point directly at her? Our
eyes would be drawn to her even without the color contrast.
When analyzing mise-en-scene, we look at the placement of objects and lines, we
look at symbolism, we consider lighting and color, but we also consider things such
as what's included in the scene and what's excluded. Consider, for example, what it
would imply if when a couple talked to each other the camera always excluded the
wife from the frame? We'd see it as a selfish relationship lacking intimacy; selfish
because the husband always gets the camera to himself, and lacking intimacy
because the couple are never together in the frame.

One final point to make about mise-en-scene is that the definition isn't quite as cut
and dry as it seems. If mise-en-scene is everything in a frame, and the camera
determines what's in the frame, then technically cinematography could be
considered mise-en-scene too. So could acting, for that matter! Mise-en-scene is a
concept that can basically be expanded to "everything but cuts", and this binary
actually led to historical debates between film theorists advocating for cutting and
those advocating for mise-en-scene. Those who favored mise-en-scene believed
that since we experience time and space continuously, a superior form of cinema
would recreate our experience of reality rather than resort to cheap cuts that take
us out of the experience. This line of thinking extends to this day, where many
critics praise long takes as if they were inherently superior to edited takes!
Cinematography
Just like mise-en-scene, the definition of cinematography seems to depend on
whos talking about it. The best definition is probably "the stuff that a
cinematographer does", although that itself varies by film (a cinematographer is the
director of photography, in charge of camerawork.) We're presenting a simplified
version here to contrast against our simplified definition of mise-en-scene, but in
reality the two overlap considerably. For the sake of this article, cinematography is
camera angle, camera movement, lighting, focus, and aspect ratio.

Camera Angle

Camera angles are divided into five vertical types. A bird's eye angle is an unnatural
shot used to detach the audience from the characters and give them a god-like
view of the situation (making this referred to as an "objective" angle). A high angle
is similar, but a bit less extreme, and has the effect of representing dominance.
Comparatively, a low shot places the viewer lower than the subject, reversing the
dominance relationship. A mid shot is neutral in connotations of dominance, and
can also be used to immerse the viewer by putting him at the same height as the
characters (referred to as a "subjective" angle). Opposite the bird's eye angle is the
worms eye angle, which is also an unnatural shot, and can either take the
dominance of a low shot to the extreme (literally implying the viewer is on the floor
looking up) or else just function as a novelty shot.

Above, from left to right: birds eye, high angle, low angle, mid angle, and worms eye
Those five camera angles are the categories you get from pointing the camera
upwards or downwards. Another way to move the camera is by rotating it, leading
us to another category; the canted shot, also known as the dutch angle. This angle
is disorienting because we tend to view the world as level even when we tilt our
heads. Actually viewing something as crooked only happens when we are dizzy or
sick, so when we see it in film we feel a distinct sense of unease.

Of course, we also have horizontal angles to consider! The front angle puts us face
to face with the subject, effecting us psychologically the same way it does in reality.
It can appear honest, and it can also appear confrontational. A side angle, on the
other hand, removes the confrontation while keeping the subjective angle, possibly
making the viewer feel like a voyeur. A rear angle can either feel even more
voyeuristic, or else can feel objective.

Above, from left to right: dutch angle, front angle, side angle, and rear angle.
Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is the ratio of length to width of the image itself. For example,
traditional television has an aspect ratio of 4:3 (or 1.33:1), meaning that it is 33%
wider than it is tall. However, most cinematic film shot recently has an aspect ratio
of 1.85:1 or 2.39:1, both of which are significantly wider. The history of film has
had several different aspect ratios, which were often dictated by the technological
and commercial constraints of their time. Nowadays, however, aspect ratio is more
an artistic choice than anything else!

As a general rule of thumb, film looks more epic with wider aspect ratios. So
extra-wide ratios are appropriate for films like Star Wars, not so much for a
standard comedy. 4:3 was the original aspect ratio for film, and shooting film in this
gives a nostalgic feeling, similar to the effect of using sepia or Black and White.
However, 4:3 is a lot more claustrophobic than the typical cinema formats, which
perhaps evolved towards wide-screen to match our own vision (our field of vision is
wider than it is taller).

Camera Movement

In traditional film, the way the camera moves is dictated in large part by technical
limitations. Thus certain shots were more common just because they were cheaper,
and more elaborate shots were impressive due to their rarity. Animation is
technically free of this constraint, and you'll see a lot more of these high-priced
shots, although this is also the case with modern film thanks to advances in 3D and
higher budgets.

Zoom - Zooming literally magnifies or shrinks the image, and it doesn't really
match with any real life movements. It's used to add interest to an otherwise
static scene or to draw our attention to something specific. Heavy use of
zooming is a trademark of amateur productions and is generally frowned
upon by more experienced cinematographers.

Dolly - A dolly shot is like a zoom, except it's achieved by moving the camera
towards the subject. The difference is that when we actually move forwards,
near objects grow faster than far objects, so a mere zoom doesn't feel like
actual movement to us. Here is a youtube video with both a dolly shot and a
zoom of the same subject to demonstrate the difference. Animation can
achieve a dolly effect with the multiplane camera, where the cel layers are
physically separated and the camera moves towards and away from them.
 Pan - Panning is turning the camera around. Similar effect to turning your
head left or right.

Truck - Same as a dolly, but sideways. The effect is similar to looking out a
car window. Also known as a tracking shot.

Tilt - Tilting is turning the camera up or down. Similar effect to looking up

and down.

Pedestal - A camera can be placed on a pedestal that moves up or down. It's

like a tilt, but without the effect of "looking up" at whatever's being filmed.
You pedestal up to look at a taller character from eye level, for example.

Crane/Jib - A crane shot is the more expensive version of a pedestal

movement. Like its name implies, you literally lift the camera up with a
crane! Here's a famous one from High Noon.

Handheld Unstabilized (Shakeycam) - More than a specific movement, this is

a combination of movements that occur when you shoot by holding a camera
in your hands rather than on a tripod. It's supposed to make scenes more
visceral and "raw" feeling, or also to imply that you're viewing a home-video.

Handheld Stabilized (Steadicam) - Escaping from the constraints of a tripod

is essential to freeing up more camera movements in crowded situations.
However, to avoid the shakeycam effects, lots of directors will use gyroscopic
stabilizers and the like to keep the classic smoothness of traditional camera
shots. The overall effect is that the camera can move the way a real person
moves, making a shot feel more intimate. Here's a great example from
Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas.

Rack Focus - Kinda like the zoom, this is one where only the lens, not the
camera, moves. In rack focus, the focal length is changed so that one subject
goes out of focus as another comes into focus. It's essentially a transition
effect, but one that doesn't involve any cutting.

Unorthodox Movements - Aside from the basics already mentioned, there are
many other possible camera movements. Some of them are straightforward
combinations, like Alfred Hitchcock's famous dolly zoom, while others are
more complex, such as shooting from a helicopter (basically a more
advanced steadicam). Such unorthodox movements are becoming more and
more common in hollywood.
Focus

The area in front of a camera that appears sharp is called the Depth of Field. A
shallow depth of field is one where parts of the shot are not in focus, whereas a
deep depth of field puts the whole scene in focus.

Getting a good deep focus is difficult, not because of the technical challenges with
cameras and lighting, but because there is a lot more to get right in a deep focus
shot. With shallow focus, what's in the background doesn't matter so much because
it's blurred anyways. With deep focus, everything on the set is visible. Hence the
greater importance of mise-en-scene in deep focus cinematography. In classic
cinema, deep focus was the ideal that most prestigious directors strived for. Orson
Welles' Citizen Kane is the innovator and standard-bearer for this style; here's a clip
showing the expert use of deep focus in that movie.

Shallow focus is the newer trend in cinema, with the blurry planes being used for
artistic effect. One example is the earlier-mentioned racking focus technique,
putting a different character in focus to draw our attention to him. Another example
is putting a romantic couple in shallow focus; it makes their relationship feel more
intimate by keeping everything else out of their visual world.
It's important to note that in anime, the natural state is "deep focus". Everything is
drawn, after all, so blurry backgrounds don't make much sense. The difficulties of
deep focus are alleviated, however, by the greater ease of controlling
mise-en-scene (nothing unintentional will be in the frame). The use of shallow focus
is much more of a novelty in anime than in film for this reason, but it's getting
more and more common as digital techniques are integrated into anime.

Lighting

3 point lighting is the most basic and common setup. As the name implies, there
are three sources of light; the key light, the fill light, and the back light.
The key light shines directly at the subject, while the fill light cuts down harsh
shadows and the back light separates the subject from the background. The picture
beneath shows how it looks in reality, complete with the trademark "halo" effect the
back light often has.

High-key and low-key lighting refer to the ratio of fill light to key light. The names
are a bit misleading, since high key lighting has more fill light pretty much
eliminating shadows, while low key light has less fill light making shadows much
more pronounced.
Besides the classic three points of lighting, other sources are occasionally used.
Background lighting simply lights up the background (not to be confused with back
lighting; the back light illuminates the subject from behind, not the background
itself). Adding a background light to the three points gives us the classic 4 point
lighting setup.

Under lighting gives that campfire horror stories effect, while top lighting is a bit
more versatile, either leaving ominous shadows over the eyes, giving that holy
rapture vibe, or just making the set feel more sunny (hint: the actual sun is a great
source for top lighting!)
Editing
When we look back at the history of film, the concept of editing was a lot more
revolutionary than mise-en-scene or any of the aspects of cinematography. The
idea that action could be followed between shots was not well-established, except
perhaps to a limited degree in theater. In the first decade of film, most moving
pictures were literally just that, a single picture that moved, usually less than a
minute or so in length. With the advent of camera motion, films were allowed a bit
more flexibility to extend their story-telling abilities, but it wasn't until editing was
invented that film was truly let out of its cage. Robert W. Paul's Come Along, Do!,
from 1888, was the first film to transfer motion between two separate shots, and
from this idea lots of other filmmakers began experimenting with the possibilities.

In early film, two different theories of editing were formed in relative isolation to
each other, both of which make up film editing today. In America, the dominant
idea was continuity editing, which established logical relationships between shots
to make the action feel continuous. An example is the 180 degree rule, which states
that the angle between any two successive shots shouldn't exceed 180 degrees, or
else the shot will appear reversed and disorient the audience.

Another rule of continuity editing is that the camera should never shift less than 30
degrees, because the effect is disorienting to the viewer. Violating this rule results
in what is knows as a "jump cut". There are many other rules and concepts
associated with continuity editing, but to stick more to the conceptual side of
things, we're going to move on to the other theory of editing.
In Soviet Russia, somewhat isolated from the influence of their contemporaries in
America, filmmakers developed the far more interesting montage theory. If the
goal of continuity editing was to immerse the viewer, then the goal of montage
editing was to communicate with the viewer. Instead of editing being subservient to
the narrative, editing became the narrative.

In the 1910s and 1920s, Lev Kuleshov formed the basis for this style from a series
of experiments. He took film footage from the previous Tsarist regime and cut four
unrelated shots together to make three different films. The first shot in all three
films is the same; famous Tsarist idol Ivan Mosjoukine looking expressionlessly at
the camera. The camera then cuts to one of three shots, either a plate of soup, a
girl in a coffin, or a woman on a sofa. When he asked an audience about Ivan's
performance in whichever film he showed them, they praised his acting depicting
hunger, grief, or desire. Not only was their interpretation of the scene's meaning
determined by the editing, but even their opinion of the actor's performance was
determined by the editing!

Although Lev Kuleshov laid the theoretical groundwork for montage theory, Sergei
Eisenstein was the driving force behind developing the ideas into a new language of
film. If you'd like to dive right in, perhaps the best way is to watch his famous
Odessa steps massacre from Battleship Potemkin. This was a propaganda film for
the USSR, very deliberately constructed to provoke hatred towards the Tsarist
troops, and indeed it would be hard to take the soldiers' side after watching the
scene.

Eisenstein described 5 types of montage. In metric montage, the length of shots

manipulates the audience's reactions. For example, a short shot reduces the
amount of time the audience has to absorb it, so cutting shorter shots can increase
the tension of a scene. Additionally, the audience will follow a film easier if there is
a definite pattern of length to the shots (kind of like "meter" in music, hence the
name). In rhythmic montage, the action inside the frame is also considered, with
the cutting being subservient to the actual action rather than a meter. In tonal
montage, cutting is determined by tonal needs rather than action needs, and in
particular we're talking about editing based on light, shadow, music, etc.
Overtonal montage is simply a combination of the three types into a single scene.
That's basically what we have in the Odessa steps massacre.

Finally, Eisenstein's fifth and favorite type of montage was intellectual montage.
In this type of editing, the two shots are combined based on a conceptual
connection between the two. So, if a shot of striking workers being attacked is
intercut with a shot of a cow being slaughtered, the suggestion is that the workers
are being treated like cattle. If a shot of a politician is intercut with a shot of a
peacock preening itself, then the suggestion is that the politician is shallow and
focused on outward appearances.

Sound
So, what is sound in film, on a theoretical level? Well, film theorists tend to break
sound down into two categories: Diegetic and Non-Diegetic. In film, diegesis is the
world within the film narrative. Anything outside the narrative is non-diegetic, such
as credits scenes, inserts and end cards (for anime), voice-overs, and background
music. Diegetic sounds, then, are mostly voices, any other actual recorded sounds
from the take, and sound effects.

As far as background music goes, we're basically dealing with all of music theory,
which is beyond the scope of this page. As far as voices go, that's acting in general,
which is also too large a topic for this page. All that's left, then, is to discuss a bit
about how sound effects are created and used in film.

In a film, a set might look real, but that doesn't mean it will sound anything like it
looks. There also might be many undesired sounds from the shooting. As a
consequence, the most effective way to deal with sound is to record it separately, in
what's known as a Foley studio. In one of these studios, Foley artists will record
sound along with the visuals provided to them.

One huge area of Foley is feet. A Foley studio will typically have many different
types of shoes and many different floors, known as "Foley pits". This is such a huge
part of the Foley studio's workload that Foley artists are often called "walkers". But
Foley artists also work on lots of subtle sounds, such as swishing fabric, keys going
into locks, as well as less subtle sounds like everything you hear in a fight scene.
Some examples of what a Foley artist might do are snap sticks of celery to imitate
breaking bones, using coconut halves to imitate horse hooves, flapping gloves to
imitate bird wings, and using a staple gun to make gun shots.

Outside of Foley, lots of stock sound effects are also often used. It might be
impractical to, for example, imitate a vehicular explosion in a studio, so a stock
effect might be used instead. A sound FX editor will have a large library of samples
to draw from and can edit them to fit the film. Foley and FX overlap a lot; which
one is more used depends on the tastes of the director.
Auteur Theory
Around the late 1950's, a group of filmmakers in France started the movement
known as French New Wave, pushing forward a radical new style of film that was
more individualistic and played loose with the conventions of cinema. A consistent
motive of these new radicals was the idea that a director was, and should embrace
his role as, an "author writing with a camera. This idea was known as "la politique
des Auteurs", or the policy/program of the authors. This concept has been imported
into English as "auteur theory", which ultimately simplifies down to celebrating the
director as the main creator of a film.

Up to here, we have described techniques used to communicate with an audience.

Through the basics of mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound and editing, we have
an alphabet and a grammar of film. The one person in a unique position to control
all of these is the director, and it's that very power the French wanted to harness.
In hollywood, the dominant ideology was "invisible camera", which to New Wave
critics was kind of like saying that authors of books should suppress their
personality.

If we can accept the idea of a director as an author, then whole new realms of
criticism open up. The film itself becomes art just as much, if not more, than the
script. We can look at the techniques not just for their effectiveness at entertaining
the audience, but for how they communicate the director's message or feelings.
This idea also frees us up to look at a film in terms of the director's larger body of
work, just as looking at an artist's portfolio is more meaningful than looking at a
single painting.

In film criticism, there is considerable backlash to auteur theory. Filming is a

collaborative project, so many feel like it is wrong to ascribe such a status to the
director. An actor or even a cinematographer can make a movie his own just as well
as a director, so why should the director be the only one treated as an author? And
what about the actual screenwriters, why are they not the real auteurs?

In view of these limitations, there are a few different ways to interpret auteur
theory to make it more true. One way is to, as the original French critics did,
express the theory as a preference for directors to become auteurs, rather than as
a statement that directors are auteurs. Another way is to to limit it; only some
directors are auteurs. Another way is to simply agree that film is more collaborative
than the result of a singular vision, while still celebrating the director as an author
that inevitably leaves his own personal stamp on the film.
Limits of Formalism and Auteur Theory
Auteur theory provides a framework for celebrating the role of the director as an
artist. One issue with this might be overstating the role of a director, which we've
already addressed. Another possible issue, however, cuts a lot deeper; what if we
are overstating the role of an artist?

So far, we've looked at the elements of film and their effect on us. That's formalism,
and is a limited viewpoint that admires film as craftsmanship. Auteur theory helps
us escape those limitations by considering the artist, and not just the work itself.
But aren't we still limiting our viewpoint by not including ourselves and the rest of
society in our analysis?

Around this point, as we try to expand the scope of our analysis, we'll find that the
analytical tools we need have already been developed in other disciplines. Just as
we're looking at moving beyond auteur theory, literary theory has moved beyond
authors. Starting with Barthes influential essay "Death of the Author", the idea of
the Author as the ultimate source and meaning of a literary work has fallen out of
academic fashion. Texts were no longer something to decipher, but rather
something to disentangle. Contemporary film theory thus began to overlap
significantly with contemporary literary theory, which itself overlaps with social
theory and postmodernism.