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2003.02.03 - SLIDE 1IS246 - SPRING 2003
Lecture 04: Formalist Media Theory
IS246Multimedia Information
(FILM 240, Section 4)
Prof. Marc DavisUC Berkeley SIMS
Monday and Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pmSpring 2003
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is246/s03/
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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).
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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)
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - SLIDE 23IS246 - SPRING 2003
Story and Plot
Story
Plot
Presumed and inferredevents
Explicitly presentedevents
Added nondiegeticmaterial
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - SLIDE 25IS246 - SPRING 2003
Time
• Temporal order– Flashback– Flashforward
• Temporal duration– Story duration– Plot duration– Screen duration
• Temporal frequency– Repetition of events
2003.02.03 - 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)
2003.02.03 - SLIDE 27IS246 - SPRING 2003
Space
• Story space
• Plot space
• Screen space and offscreen space
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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?”
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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)
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - 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?
2003.02.03 - 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
2003.02.03 - SLIDE 39IS246 - SPRING 2003
Readings for Next Time
• Wednesday 02/05– Textbook
• David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson: Film Art: An Introduction. Pages: 155-326
• 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