FilmTalk: Realism and Antirealism

Notes from “Looking at Film: An introduction to film” 2nd Edition by Richard Barsam

Having described the basic form that a film takes, we can see how it is possible for filmmakers to create their own world for us to view in the theaters. Not all filmmakers may try to produce a “real” world however. In fact much of the films we know of are a fanciful adventure into the world of someone’s own creation and we are immersed in this world on the filmmaker’s terms.

Realism in film is an interest in real and existing things, and in how things really appear. Now, it is beyond the scope of this section to discuss the extent of reality, but however we define reality as a whole we base our definition upon things such as senses, experiences, thoughts, feelings and more societal things such as history, politics, and economics. No matter how we define reality, realism in film can be judged by applying what we see in our own world and the world of others. “Realism is also a way of treating subject matter that reflects everyday life. Realistic characters are expected to do things that conform to our expectations of real people.”

Antirealism in film is an interest is the abstract and speculative and the fantasies that never become reality. Even though antirealism is concerned with less then real things, our eye for antirealism is still influenced by reality. Many of our science fiction and fantasy films may very well take us to these non-existent worlds, but we can believe and become interested in these worlds on screen because they have real, human, or earthly aspects to them.

The Matrix takes place in a world different from ours and separate from our laws of physics, but why is it that we believe that the fanciful world shown to us in The Matrix is really there? There is a film term used to explain why we associate with unreal things in a real way. The term is Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude in film means that the film accomplishes the appearance of truth and convinces us of the artist’s world. A film is verisimilar when we, the audience, can imagine that, within the scope of the film, the world and everything within it could really exist. The world of Star Wars is convincing because it has its own technology, its own history and civilization and its own unique look provided by aliens, plant life and much more. Now, if George Lucas had decided to throw in an earth animal, maybe a cow, then such a simple non-essential detail would ruin the creative look and feel of the Star Wars universe because we’ve, until that point, been believing in the non-earth world on the screen.

“Realism, no matter how lifelike it might appear, always involves mediation, and thus interpretation. In the ways it is created and the ways it is perceived, realism is a kind of illusion.”

PenTalk: Satisfying the Audience

Notes from "Screenwriting 101: The Essential Craft of Feature Film Writing" by Neill D. Hicks

There are only so many ways to tell stories, especially given the fact that storytelling has been around since the early days before even the Greeks and Romans were making names for themselves. And yet, even now in the year 2008 we find ourselves enraptured by similar stories, constantly drawn into the magic that raconteurs seem to weave with their words and structures. This "magic" of course can be learned, by anyone who is willing to find the common ground and the system lurking just beyond the colorful imagery and base grammar.

Writing stories (plays, novels, film, short stories, anything) usually follows a simple three-act principle. Anyone who's gone to Elementary School English knows what this is.

ACT I: BEGINNING

ACT II: MIDDLE

ACT III: END

Simple enough, right? Well in screenwriting we must understand more of the dynamics that each of these phases or stages holds for an audience sitting in a darkened theater. Especially considering that movies are based on emotionally involving the audience, not simply telling them some kind of thesis and follow-up information. We must engage our audience, at least emotionally, if not mentally as well. So with that in mind, we more specifically break up the film structure like this:

ACT I: ATTRACTION

ACT II: ANTICIPATION

ACT III: SATISFACTION

In ACT I, the ATTRACTION phase, we hook the audience into the action by introducing intriguing characters and some kind of perilous situation they find themselves in. Sometimes the character isn't enough to get the audience involved, but the situation they find themselves in may be the kicker that draws in that attention. It is important that the audience ask themselves "How will this character make it out of this mess?" If that's the case, than ACT I has succeeded.

In ACT II, the ANTICIPATION phase, the screenwriter must constantly provide more and more difficult challenges for the character, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and building up the suspense of whether or not the character will achieve their dramatic need or goal. If the consequences and danger of each encounter in ACT II don't top the previous one, the action will get repetitive and stale, and the audience will surely begin to lose focus, the same way that walking down the same road day after day will eventually dull the experience down to a subconscious blur. This phenomenon is (unfortunately) far too common and is known as "Second Act Sag."

In ACT III, the SATISFACTION phase, the Screenwriter allows the character to overcome internal and external conflicts and achieve their goal. This is important because it relieves all the tension built up through the events of ACT II and let's the audience leave satisfied that they have seen a complete story. The ending can be sad, happy, dramatic, upbeat, whatever, it doesn't matter, so much as the story has come to a complete and full resolution. Otherwise the audience will feel gypped like they wasted their money to see a half-finished narrative and therefore you'll have let them down, and the entire movie will be a bust. No one's going to recommend a film that had an incomplete ending (with very rare exceptions from screenwriters who are exceptional at bending/breaking rules).

NEXT PENTALK: THE ELEMENTS OF A SCREEN STORY

FilmTalk: Principles of Film Form

Notes from “Looking at Film: An introduction to film” 2nd Edition by Richard Barsam

Before one can dive into the study of the many different aspects of film (cinematography, acting, editing, sounds and so on), one must first understand the general principles that make up the form of a film.

Films Manipulate Space and Time
Some arts are concerned mainly with space, such as sculpture and architecture, while others are concerned mainly with time, such as music. However, films can combine and manipulate both space and time. Film can seamlessly transport us from one space to another (from a garden to the moon), or make space itself move by the work of the camera and focusing on different subjects, or fragment space (slow motion).

So it becomes the camera lens that determines out perception of cinematic space. “The key to understanding our connection to the camera lens lies in the differences between how the human eye and the camera eye see. The camera eye perceives what’s placed before it through a series of different pictures (shots), made with different lenses, from different camera positions and angles, using different movements, under different lighting and so on. Although the camera eye and the human eye can both see the movements, colors, textures, sizes, and locations of people, places and things, the camera eye is more selective in its view. The camera frames images, for example, and can widen and foreshorten space.”

“No matter how straightforward the mediation of the camera eye may seem, it always involves selection and manipulation of what is seen.”

Films Depend on Light

Lighting is responsible for what we see on the big screen, photograph, video or animation. “The ability to see anything depends on light.” Lighting enhances texture, depth, emotions and mood. “Lighting often conveys these things by augmenting, complicating, or even contradicting other cinematic elements within the shot (e.g., dialogue, movement, or composition). Lighting also affects the way in which we see and think about a movie’s character. It can make a character’s face appear attractive or unattractive, make the viewer like a character or be afraid of her, and reveal a character’s state of mind”

PenTalk: Drama Is Conflict

Notes from "Screenwriting 101: The Essential Craft of Feature Film Writing" by Neill D. Hicks

The age old art of telling stories isn't a new one, and humankind has been spinning stories and weaving tales of all kinds of heroes and villains and conflicts. But the history of story and conflict can be traced back before it was made into the proper art form we know it as today. Sports and contests of strength and skill were perhaps the earliest form of conflict and conquest. Two men wrestle in an arena surrounded by their peers and fellow citizens. They are cheered on and jeered. The fans are split amongst who among the two of them should rightfully triumph in the end. This isn't unlike modern day college sports, or our numerous professional leagues. But there is one difference that separates these obvious conflicts from the art and craft of writing, and especially writing for the screen.

There is no dramatic necessity for the conflict. If we root for Team A, and Team B triumphs, sure we will be upset, and perhaps rant and rave for a day or two afterwards, but our lives will otherwise go on unimpeded. Nothing has changed for us. There is no moral value at stake, nothing in it that would dramatically change our lives and very existence afterwards. But if one team is the good team because the values they represent are our own, and the other team is the bad team, because they have a set of values that are in direct conflict with ours, and viewed as wrong by our societal context, then the name of the game has changed. We will root harder for our good team to defeat the bad team, because if we lose, than the bad team has taken control of our value system and can alter to it their own. This provides us with a dramatic necessity to need to win.

Drama, however, is both conflict and encapsulated life. Real life is ordinary and boring, and most events don't have any direct impact upon any other events. Your brushing your teeth or not will not affect how well you drive your car, as that will not effect whether or not you decide to eat steak or chicken for dinner. Drama makes sense and is a condenses series of events that must directly impact one another to form a significant change in the lives of the characters involved. DRAMA IS ORDERED CONFLICT.

In movies we never have to watch the mundane, such as a character fishing through his wallet to pay the exact cab fare, unless that act directly impacts the storyline and affects the various characters involved. Otherwise it is superfluous and unnecessary. There is always parking in Hollywood pictures, because watching a driver spend twenty minutes hunting for a spot like we do in real life just wouldn't do, unless again, it directly impacts the story being presented to us (see Bonnie & Clyde, written by Robert Benton and David Newman).

By singling out the important events and condensing the time frame needed to tell a story, the screenwriter has successfully created a "premise" for the film. This premise should be a concise statement of the central conflict of the characters and plot. This creates the moral choice that must spur the protagonist into action against an antagonist, and makes the story satisfying to an audience as a dramatic narrative instead of a telling of various random happenings occuring in that particular time frame.

FilmTalk: Expectations and Patterns

Notes from “Looking at Film: An introduction to film” 2nd Edition by Richard Barsam

Before a movie even begins, we may start to form impressions quickly. As the film plays out we may experience a more complex web of expectations which may be tied to the events within the world of the film and to our sense that certain events follow others (related by cause and effect and logic).

Once a film begins some aspect will be altered by an incident or catalyst which will force certain characters to pursue certain goals. As the film progresses we immediately ask questions about the story’s outcome, questions we will be asking repeatedly and waiting to have answered over the course of the film. Sometimes our expectations can be led astray. In Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), the case of money that is stolen has nothing to do with Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh) downfall and turns out to have little purpose in the events of the story all together. The money plays no role in motivating any of the other characters except for Marion Crane. Our expectations that the stolen money would be involved in the plot resolution is never realized.

“Seemingly insignificant and abstract elements of film such as color schemes, sounds, the length of shots, and the movement of the camera often cooperate with the dramatic elements to either heighten or confuse our expectations.” One way films accomplish this is by establishing patterns. “Instinctively, we search for patterns and progressions in all art forms. The more these meet out expectations (or contradict them in interesting ways), the more likely we are to enjoy, analyze and interpret the work.” When reading a poem or watching a film we, subconsciously, know that the artist has organized the work according to structural principles. If we read a sonnet, for example, we expect that it will be a sonnet because it follows a structure and, specifically, a pattern of rhyming schemes. When watching a film we can be given a series of scenes that are all different but yet similar enough in content that we know that all these scenes are related and telling one story. An action sequence is busy with quick shots that are separate from the last, but when seen as a whole we can piece together that all the action occurs at the same time and in a certain scene. We can easily interpret this structure because patterns give us the ability to do so.

FilmTalk: Form and Content

Notes from “Looking at Film: An introduction to film” 2nd Edition by Richard Barsam

Let’s compare a surveillance tape to a film. “A surveillance tape is constant and unchanging: the tape artlessly records (a limited) reality from a fixed point of view and with chronological continuity. The meaning of the surveillance tape, to the extent that is has a meaning, is almost completely determined by what is recorded on video rather than by how it looks as we watch it.” However, in a film our understanding is continually influenced and adjusted by its deliberately crafted form. All the details that contribute to a film’s look and feel—clothing, set design, blocking, acting, camera movement, editing, musical accompaniment, and other technical elements—together constitute the film’s form and are important to our sense of the film’s meaning. The form of a film is manipulated to shape and influence how the audience views the content.

Content can be seen as the subject of an artwork and form as the means through which that subject is expressed. The content that a surveillance tape and a film may show us may be the same, but the forms in which they are show can be entirely different, as explained previously. If we were to isolate content alone from a film telling a true life story, then we would be concerned with completeness, accuracy and reliability. But by looking at content alone in a film “we risk overlooking the aspects that make movies unique as an art form and interesting as individual works of art.”

Music video concept for "Atlantic" by Keane

I value most art (music, film, literature etcetera.) for its resonant quality. When a certain film or song sticks to your bones and fibrils then it is resonating with you. When you envision images or experience emotions when listening to a song, it is resonating with you…even after the distant first time. Every time Atlantic massages its way into my ears and into my mind, I experience the same shiver of the spine and numbing of the muscles. It is resonating with me each time, and I imagine it will always.

The strength of Atlantic's resonation lies in its ability to invoke images in my mind, which may or may not have any relation to the song lyrics themselves. It is by these images that I am inspired, impelled, to record and share them textually. Atlantic lends itself to the evocation of imagery because of its dynamic change in melody, which gives the song duality. We are introduced to a dilatory tempo and a lazy, somber and gray melody that transitions smoothly and immaculately (with a sudden departure from the drum beat and electric piano) into a bright and heavenly theme with softer, upbeat vocals and an electric piano that is higher in pitch and has the affect of silver bells. Because Atlantic possesses two dynamically different parts (dark and bright), it was natural for themes of contrast to develop as image concepts: Image concepts such as heaven and hell, black and white and temporal and spiritual.

Now, allow me to take you through the image that resonates with me when Atlantic sounds. I will use the lyric lines to pace the imagery along.

• When the music begins we see nothing but a muted, fuzzy miasma of white.
• Slowly this miasma becomes smaller as we move away from it and we begin to notice that we are peering into a droplet of water.
• We move away further to where we see the surface of the droplet.
• When the first drumbeat enters we see the reflection of a human man appear on the droplet.
• We turn around slowly 180 degrees and see the man in full. We now notice more clearly that he is in his thirties. He is wearing a trim and clean suit but with no necktie and his coat is unbuttoned.

The instrumental melody is still progressing, but the vocal lyrics have yet to enter.

• We turn back 180 degrees but instead of looking down at the water droplet we look forward and see a downtrodden city parted by a street.
• The man begins to walk into the city down the center of the street
• This city (perhaps Chicago-esque) is void of life. The images are in gray scale. It is a ghost town. Structures are chipped and rusty. The sky is gray and black. There is no sunlight. Everything is lit by some artificial source: the memory of sunlight.

Now the vocals come in… "I hope all my days will be lit by your face"

• The man continues his way down the street with no purpose or destination. He seems to be a lonely observer.
• We look to the left sidewalk and see the moving shadow of a male figure with a briefcase. Though we see a shadow, the actual person is absent.

"I hope all the years will hold tight our promises"

• We then see the moving shadow of a homeless person huddling over the shadow of a fire.

"I don't want to be old and sleep alone"

• We see a moving shadow of a person propelling himself down the sidewalk in a wheelchair.

"An empty house is not a home"

• We then scale the building behind the handicapped person and come to an open window. The ragged and decrepit curtains flanking the window hang lifelessly. We cannot see anything inside the window.

"I don't want to be old and feel afraid"

• Our attention is drawn back down to the street where we see five moving shadows of children playing stick ball in the street.

"I don't want to be old and sleep alone"

• Next to the shadows of children we see a real physical car (Broken down and conquered by rust) but we take further notice of a moving shadow of someone with a cap exiting the vehicle, passing through the rusted physical car door, but maneuvering a shadow car door.

"An empty house is not a home"

• We turn our attention to the right side of the street and see the moving shadows of a mother, father and daughter holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk.
• We then see three moving shadows of three adolescents on skateboards passing by.

"I don't want to be old and feel afraid"

• Now the man stops in the middle of the street and looks up at the sky. It is still gray and black. But we peer even deeper into the sky and see a faint glow of something behind the dark sky.

The melody begins to change

• The man, still looking up, closes his eyes and begins to grow in size. He grows to be the size of the buildings along the street. He grows more to where his foot is the size of the rusty car. He grows even more as his head now touches the low sky and his feet are crashing through the brittle buildings beneath him. He continues to grow to where he is standing on the earth. He grows larger still and his size begins to dwarf the sun and then the Milky Way itself.

Now we are being introduced to a new and different song… "And if I need anything at all"

• He is still looking up with his eyes closed. His hands are at his side. The man grows so large that he even dwarfs entire galaxy spirals and novas. And then, suddenly, his face touches a portion of space where it ripples like water and his face begins to submerse followed by his head.

"I need a place that's hidden in the deep"

• We are immediately transported to a place where we see the man's head emerge through thick, white, puffy clouds. When his face emerges, his eyes open. The rest of his body emerges but his clothes are gone, he is naked.

"Where lonely angels sing in your sleep"

• His hands emerge as well but they are holding onto other bare hands. The man fully emerges from the clouds, floating from them. In his hands he is holding the hands of other people, all naked like himself. In his right hand he is holding the hand of his teenage (16 year-old) self and his teenage self is holding his baby self in his right hand. In the man's left hand he is holding his 60 year-old self and his 60 year-old self is in turn holding his 90 year-old self.

"Though all the world is broken"

• The five versions of the man all notice each other and smile at one another. They float and bounce off of other layers of clouds.

"I need a place where I can make my bed"

• The five versions of the man continue to journey through this fanciful and bright realm and come across a group of people in the distance. The people are clothed. All these strangers are smiling and some are waving at the five versions of the man. The people are: a man with a briefcase, a homeless man, an elderly man in a wheelchair, five children with sticks and play balls, a policeman with a cap, a mother a father and a daughter and three older children with skateboards in hand.

"A lover's lap where I can lay my head"

• The collective group of clothed strangers are of different races. They all place their hands below their chins as if preparing to blow a kiss. Their cheeks puff out as they blow silently.
• We see the face of the man alone and we see his hair being moved by a breeze and he closes his eyes in enjoyment and sensation.

"Because now the room is spinning"

• Still close to his face, we see the man open his eyes. His eyes are glossy with moisture. He closes his eyes again and a tear forms at the edges of both his eyes. A single tear falls down his right cheek and we move in closer to the single tear. Still on his cheek, the tear is reflecting small sparkles of light.

"The day is beginning"

• We close in to the surface of the teardrop and we see more perfectly that the sparkles of reflected light are actually galaxy spirals and novas.
• We then travel deep and fast through the tear, which is actually a realm of a universe. Stars are streaking past us as we speed forward. Abruptly, we come to the planet Earth suspended in space.