IB Docs (2) Team
A Language for Discussing Film
The content for this post comes from my colleague Joe Jasina. He put together the definitions, the clips, the screenshots, the exemplar and more. As a Language and Literature teacher as well as a teacher of IB Film, Joe helped me out enormously when teaching film for the first time in this course. Because of that help, I reached out to Joe for this post because I believe our community of teachers would benefit from his work.
This post is similar to the page InThinking has published about photography titled "A Language for Discussing Photograpy." The aim here is to provide students a language that enables them to talk and write about film in concrete and specific terms. While you don't have to teach film as a non-literary body of work in your class, you can. And this post is meant to help you and your students in the process. Of course, film may be used by students in their Individual Oral or in their Higher Level Essay and you will find an example of an "extract" for the IO that demonstrates for students what we expect.
Do note that all of the examples for each term come from the 1997 film Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol. The following vocabulary list isn't over-the-top or complicated; instead, the list is an introductory inventory for students to work with. You also don't have to teach all of these terms and they are in addition to words we already use like setting, characterization, representation, theme, point of view and more. Remember, you aren't expected to be a film teacher so use only what you find is necessary and appropriate!
A Sample Extract for the Individual Oral
A Language for Discussing Film
Camera Shots - In film editing, a shot is the continuous footage or sequence between two edits or cuts.
Establishing/long shot
A shot that shows the subject within their surrounding environment. A wide shot tells the audience who is in the scene, where the scene is set, and when the scene takes place. Often establishes the setting or atmosphere.
Close-up (inc. extreme close-up and medium close-up)
A type of shot that tightly frames a person or object. Used to draw the audience closer and to involve them in what is happening. Also used to observe reactions and emotions.
Medium shot
A camera angle shot from a medium distance. Used to show more detail – often of interaction between characters.
Focus
A central point, as of attraction or attention. Used to highlight certain parts of a shot or create different effects.
Point-of-view shot
A shot to show what a particular character sees.
Camera Angles - marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot
High angle
A cinematic technique where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle and the point of focus often gets "swallowed up". Often makes the subject look vulnerable, isolated or powerless
Low angle
a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. Psychologically, the effect of the low-angle shot is that it makes the subject look strong and powerful.
Straight on or eye-level
When the level of your camera is placed at the same height as the eyes of the characters in your frame. An eye level camera angle does not require the viewer to see the eyes of the actor, nor does the actor need to look directly into the camera for a shot to be considered eye level. The shot is normal in relation to the subject.
Aerial shot
A shot that's taken from an elevated vantage point than what is framed in the shot. Gives a clear view of the action, often used to emphasise a spectacle.
Movement - How the camera follows the action. It shapes the viewer's perspective of space and time and controlling the delivery of narrative information.
Pan
Camera moves horizontally across/around the scene
Tilt
camera moves up or down
Track
camera moves along a track beside the action eg alongside athletes in a race
Crane
camera above the action
Hand-held
Use of the camera without a tripod – produces an immediacy and a feeling of excitement
Zoom
Zooming can either be performed towards longer focal lengths, giving a "zoom in" effect: The filmed object will then increase in apparent size, and fewer objects become visible on film. Or it is performed towards shorter focal lengths, giving a "zoom out" effect: The filmed object will shrink in apparent size, and more objects come into view.
Used to involve the audience and focus on the expression of a character
Lighting - The amount, size, color, and harshness of light in a scene
Low-key
low-key lighting has greater contrast between the dark and light areas of the image with a majority of the scene in shadow (creating contrast)
High-key lighting reduces the lighting ratio in the scene, meaning there's less contrast between the darker tones and the brighter areas (More natural lighting).
the process of adding color to black-and-white film, usually by means of soaking the film in dye and staining the film emulsion. The effect is that all of the light shining through is filtered, so that what would be white light becomes light of some color. Enhances mood or setting
Editing - to prepare (motion-picture film, video, or magnetic tape) by deleting, arranging, and splicing, by synchronizing the sound record with the film, etc.
The length of the shots and, thus, it guides the viewers in their emotional response to the scene. To create different moods eg fast cuts for action or to create suspense
A cut is where one shot is instantly replaced with another usually from a different camera angle. A simple straight cut is the continuation of one shot too another in the same place and at the same time. Used to create smooth continuity of events and ‘normality’.
A jump cut or cut away shot is when a single shot is broken with a cut that makes the subject appear to jump instantly forward in time. They are seen as a violation to typical continuity editing, which seeks to give a seamless appearance of time and space to the story. Camera moves to a significant object or close-up.
One image is slowly brought in underneath to indicate the end of an event – gives time for audience to think about what has happened.
A series of short, interrelated shots used to convey the passage of time, plot progression, or information
Sound - includes music, dialogue, sound effects, ambient noise, and/or background noise and soundtracks.
The use of music to highlight the mood/emotion/tension
Sound which is recorded with the image or added later to give the impression it is part of the natural sound of the scene
Sound whose source is not visible on the screen or implied to be present in the action of the film. For example: incidental music, voice of the narrator.
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