The Fundamental Concept of Film Making
What happens when you watch a movie?
Sitting in a dark room watching images on a screen, the sound provided by speakers, you experience the film in a similar way to how you experience reality. But its not reality: We don’t see things in different shots. We don’t cut from one scene to another. But our mind readily accepts the ‘reality’ of the experience. We feel emotions for the characters and react to the situations we see on screen.
Key Concept:
Cinema works with the mind.
It was once thought that we understand how a film works, cutting from one shot to another, because we have ‘grown up with it.’ Starting in the 1950's people have taken films across the world and shown them to cultures who have never seen a screen of any kind before. It was thought that these people wouldn’t understand the juxtaposition of images. But they understood the films completely. They weren’t confused when the camera cut back and forth between two people or dissolved to a new time and location. They experience the film as it was intended to be experience and understood.
A movie then isn’t something we learn to understand. Its something we innately connect with. That has a major impact on how we look at film technique. Methods of displaying something on screen aren’t developed, they are discovered. A technique will either work with the mind of the audience where they understand and react to it as you would like them to or it doesn’t work.
Sitting in a dark room watching images on a screen, the sound provided by speakers, you experience the film in a similar way to how you experience reality. But its not reality: We don’t see things in different shots. We don’t cut from one scene to another. But our mind readily accepts the ‘reality’ of the experience. We feel emotions for the characters and react to the situations we see on screen.
Key Concept:
Cinema works with the mind.
It was once thought that we understand how a film works, cutting from one shot to another, because we have ‘grown up with it.’ Starting in the 1950's people have taken films across the world and shown them to cultures who have never seen a screen of any kind before. It was thought that these people wouldn’t understand the juxtaposition of images. But they understood the films completely. They weren’t confused when the camera cut back and forth between two people or dissolved to a new time and location. They experience the film as it was intended to be experience and understood.
A movie then isn’t something we learn to understand. Its something we innately connect with. That has a major impact on how we look at film technique. Methods of displaying something on screen aren’t developed, they are discovered. A technique will either work with the mind of the audience where they understand and react to it as you would like them to or it doesn’t work.
Your Job as a Film Maker:
Your job is to make your audience experience the story you are telling them. To cause them to feel what the story calls on them to feel. To understand what is to be understood and to not understand what hasn’t been revealed to them yet.
EVERYTHING you do in creating your film will affect how the audience perceives the story. Where you place the camera, for how long, with what is framed in it, how its framed, if the camera moves, how it moves, what the subject of the shot does, what you hear, even the strength and choice of color in your shot will say something to the audience. Your job is to make it say the right thing.
For Example:
You are filming an actor’s face. You can put the camera at eye level with the actor, or above eye level, or below. The camera can then be placed directly in front or to one side or the other. When you decided where the camera goes you should be able to explain why its where you put it. Why this angle is the best angle for conveying to the audience what is happening in this shot.
Video Example:
In this example: Film Teaching Example #1 the actor preforms the same actions in two different versions of the sequence. The sequences differ in what the portray though through the use of shot selection, pace, and music. What does the first version tell you about what's happening? What does the second version express to you?
The Point:
Whenever you are filming something, you should always know why you’re doing everything that you are doing when you film it. Why is the lighting the way it is, where is the camera, how is the location dressed, what are the actors saying and doing, what is it all supposed to convey? None of these things just happen. It takes time to set things up, wether good or bad and everything you do is going to express something to the audience whether its what you want to express or not. So if you’re taking the time to set up a camera, it should always be in the best possible place for the best possible shot for what you want to do. And you should always be able to explain why the camera is where it is.
This may seem abstract, putting this concept right up front. But hold on to it. It is the thread that ties everything together and will help you understand everything that follows.
Your job is to make your audience experience the story you are telling them. To cause them to feel what the story calls on them to feel. To understand what is to be understood and to not understand what hasn’t been revealed to them yet.
EVERYTHING you do in creating your film will affect how the audience perceives the story. Where you place the camera, for how long, with what is framed in it, how its framed, if the camera moves, how it moves, what the subject of the shot does, what you hear, even the strength and choice of color in your shot will say something to the audience. Your job is to make it say the right thing.
For Example:
You are filming an actor’s face. You can put the camera at eye level with the actor, or above eye level, or below. The camera can then be placed directly in front or to one side or the other. When you decided where the camera goes you should be able to explain why its where you put it. Why this angle is the best angle for conveying to the audience what is happening in this shot.
Video Example:
In this example: Film Teaching Example #1 the actor preforms the same actions in two different versions of the sequence. The sequences differ in what the portray though through the use of shot selection, pace, and music. What does the first version tell you about what's happening? What does the second version express to you?
The Point:
Whenever you are filming something, you should always know why you’re doing everything that you are doing when you film it. Why is the lighting the way it is, where is the camera, how is the location dressed, what are the actors saying and doing, what is it all supposed to convey? None of these things just happen. It takes time to set things up, wether good or bad and everything you do is going to express something to the audience whether its what you want to express or not. So if you’re taking the time to set up a camera, it should always be in the best possible place for the best possible shot for what you want to do. And you should always be able to explain why the camera is where it is.
This may seem abstract, putting this concept right up front. But hold on to it. It is the thread that ties everything together and will help you understand everything that follows.
