Yesterday, Professor Andy Kirshner described several filmmaking techniques.
Eyeline Match from "Out of Sight" by Steven Soderbergh with Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney
Kuleshov Effect
Graphic Match
Graphic Match
Jump Cutting from "Breathless" (1960, France) by Jean-Luc Goddard with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg
Describe what you saw, what does this technique do, why does the director want to use this technique.
The Eyeline Match from "Out of Sight" is an crucial element to the scene of Jennifer Lopez talking with George Clooney. This technique includes matching the eye level of Jennifer Lopez with that of George Clooney (or where the viewer supposes he is. The scene moves back and forth between a shot of George Clooney and a shot of Jennifer Lopez in which both of their lines of sight seem to be parallel. This allows the viewer to imagine that the two characters are interacting with one another and holding a conversation. Incorporated into this scene are also shots that are taken over the opposite character's shoulder, further suggesting that the two characters are looking at each other and engaging in conversation with one another.
ReplyDeleteKit Trowbridge
ReplyDeleteSteven Soderbergh uses eyeline match in "Out of Sight" to make it appear as though Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney are in conversation. At first, Jennifer Lopez is seated and George Clooney is standing. In the first shot we just see Jennifer looking upwards at George while she is talking to him. Then it cuts to a low-angle shot of just George so he appears to be standing above Jennifer, and the audience. Because of this expert placement, it seems as though when Jennifer looks up, we are seeing what she is seeing. The reverse is true as well. When George is talking he is looking down, and then it cuts to a shot where Jennifer appears lower visually, as though we are seeing what he is. In this way, it is very believable to the audience that they are in conversation because we feel as though we are engaged in a natural way too.
In "Out of Sight" it was a scene between Clooney and Lopez where they were talking. She was sitting down and he was standing up, while the conversation was being acted out and filmed. In these shots, the use of Eyeline Match made the viewer feel as though they were seeing the scene from each of the characters point of view. The camera position and angle created this eyeline match, along with the cuts from one viewpoint to the next. The director wanted to use this technique to include the viewer in this conversation, make sure it looked like the actors were actually talking to each other versus some arbitrary point in space, and create a more engaging, interesting shot and point of view.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely interesting to be lectured on different methods of shooting, especially when you have seen many movies in your life and do not always analyze the types of shots used to make the movie. different types of transitions help to convey different moods and different effects. One of these transitions is a jump cut, which was seen in Andy's example clip from the movie Breathless. After watching the clip, you realize that the frames are shot as two people sit in a car next to each other. However, to dramatize the scene, the frame is shot so that there is one person in the frame speaking at a time. This helps to emphasize that the person is talking, and make you feel like you are there in the back seat watching the movie. I also realized that both people are filmed from the same spot as if the camera was sitting in one place and just switched back and forth between drivers seat and passenger seat. I find it extremely interesting that these transitions are chosen so methodically and seamlessly, so that the viewer does not even realize that the transition was filmed that way on purpose-- it just flows.
ReplyDeleteOne of the techniques that I think will be very useful for me is the Eyeline Match. The example Andy showed us was from the film "Out of Sight" by Steven Soderbergh with Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney. In this scene they are having a conversation while sitting across a table. The camera is at eye level with both the actors while they are talking. For example, when Clooney enters the scene he is still standing up while Lopez is sitting down. While they are talking and the camera is on Clooney the camera is on an upward angle because Lopez is sitting. Once he sits down the camera angle changes to match the eye level that they are at. This techniques gives the viewer the impression that they are almost being the one spoken to or close enough to be able to meet eyes with the person speaking. The director uses this techniques because it gives the viewer a more intimate relationship with the scene.
ReplyDeleteOf the film techniques I saw in lecture, the graphic match technique really intrigued me. Essentially, the director finds two visually comparable actions or objects and puts them back to back in order to establish a connection. The significance of a graphic match is that it creates a parallel between the two completely separate ideas/objects/actions which can inform a specific concept or theme of the movie. For instance, in Psycho, Hitchcock uses a graphic match to create a relationship between a dark bath tub drain and the lifeless eye of the killer's victim. Now, there would not necessarily be any association between the two otherwise, however, we see a thematic connection with the help of the film technique.
ReplyDeleteAndy's lecture was very informative in relation to the topic of the Kuleshov Effect. It is evident that directors would desire to choose this film editing effect for a various amount of reasons. This effect displays images of an actor making the same face, but all put next to different objects and images in order for the viewer to understand the expression and the emotion the actor is trying to convey. Andy had proven this technique successful by showing the class three separate identical images of an actor all put next to three different images. By places the actor next to three different images, each pair was able to evoke a different emotion. This allowed film editors to reuse old material in a different manor. This effect really solidifies the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing.
ReplyDeleteKuleshov Effect
ReplyDeleteThe Kuleshov Effect is basically the theory that juxtaposition plays a big part in understanding film sequences. The first experiment of this showed an actor maintaining the same expression inter-cut with other images: soup, a dead person, and a woman. For each set of images, the audience was fooled into thinking that the actor was expressing hunger, sadness, and lust, respectively, when in fact the actor was only looking straight ahead, emotionless. This technique is extremely useful in film-making, because it allows a director to make vital connections between different images and contexts, giving layers of meaning to the film. It can also be used to aid the storyline, through these connections.
Zoe Allen-Wickler
The Kulsehov Effect is a technique used by filmmakers to depict emotion through montage, or the contrasting of different images placed next to each other. The examples in the original experiment are a shot of a bowl of oatmeal, a shot of a man’s face, a shot of a dead baby, the same shot of the man’s face, a shot of a scantily clad woman, and the same shot of the man’s face. Each shot, when put next to the shot of the man, seems to convey a different emotion to the viewer simply because of the image that was contrasted with the man’s face. The bowl and man conveys hunger, the dead baby and man conveys sadness, and the woman and the man conveys lust. Directors use this technique to further shape the story and the audience’s reception and emotion in the story. Filmmaking is really a bunch of separate shots placed next to one another to create the illusion of a story. The Kuleshov Effect made this concept permanent.
ReplyDeleteThe Kuleshov Effect is a filmmaking term that some directors might use. It is when the director films an actor's expression and then cuts in between that with other images. This creates meaning between the actor and the image. For example, the director would film the actor being sad, and then cut in between that shot with a plate of food. This implies that the actor is looking sad because he is hungry. The director can use other images to cut in between the actor to imply different meanings. This is an easy and effective way to create meaning in a film, especially if someone would want to do a film montage.
ReplyDeleteThe establishing shot is a very important technique. It helps to organize a film or series of shots. Andy showed an example of an establishing shot where a clip of a theater on the city street is shown, then it cuts to a clip of the shows playing and then to a man reciting his lines inside the dressing room. I am not sure if anyone would know for sure it was a dressing room or if he was an actor unless the establishing scene was there. I also really liked the example David showed in class today from Inglorious Bastards. This clip started with the establishing shot of the house in the country. You can hear a man chopping wood in this scene. The next clip goes to the man who is chopping the wood. you get a sense of favor to the characters that come after the establishing shot. This shot enables a filmmaker to show the viewers how they are meant to feel about the characters. Something else I noticed about the establishing shots is that a lot of the time the shot is silent but then you vein to hear noises from the next shot that is to come. This is a way of linking or relating the two shots together so that the transition, although a cut, is still smooth.
ReplyDeleteThe art of graphic matching is a simple concept but can require several techniques in order to achieve. Graphic matching is when multiple scenes are combined to create an effect for the viewer. The scenes are somewhat similar graphically but different in meaning. In Space Odessy 2011, the director shows a scene were a caveman throws a bone into the air and then that scene sets premise graphically for the space ship in the sky. The director uses the technique in order to keep the viewer interested and change the scene without necessarily changing the "shape".
ReplyDeleteThe Kuleshov Effect used the same portrait of a man matched with different images of a bowl of soup, a dead girl, and a woman. Even though in the three times the man's facial expression didn't change at all, it created different emotions, hunger, sorrow, and lust. This piece showed that the way of putting together different scenes can get different meanings for the piece itself. And it manipulated with the audience's emotional reaction without literally expressing it out. The objects can tell its own story.
ReplyDeleteThe Kuleshov technique effect is used to portray different emotions by associating two different images and the resulting connotations. The three images juxtaposed against a single shot of a man all depict different meanings. When the shot of the man is followed by an image of food we as an audience make the connection that he is hungry. When his image is followed by a dead child we assume he is sad. Finally when his image is followed by a scantily clad woman we assume he is lustful. Even though the image of the man never changes our understandings of him do because of the images that follow. This technique was first used to save film, limiting the amount used overall by repeating shots. It is now used regularly to help our brains make the unsay connections between an image and the image that follows.
ReplyDeleteAndy talked about many different kinds of filming techniques. I found the eye line match from "Out of Sight' by Steven Soderbergh most interesting because I have actually never thought that the director needs to think about the eye lines as they are filming. In order to show that the two actors are looking at each other while they are talking, one of the actor should be looking at a certain point where it appears to the audience as the actress is looking at the person who is in front of her. As I was watching this clip and listening to Andy's description about how its difficult to deal with the eye line match in the films like this that there are a lot of conversations between the characters, I thought it would be not be very easy for us to care about all these little details and techniques as we do our own assignments. But other than that, I thought all the techniques were interesting and new which I have never heard of or learned, including the Eyeline Match.
ReplyDeleteKuleshov Effect is a film effect that was demonstrated by Lev Kulesov. Kulesov shot a long close up shot of a man without expression. Then, there was a shot of a little girl in the coffin, a shot of a soup, a woman lying on the couch. The interesting fact of Kuleshov Effect is that the long close up shot of a man without expression is repeated over and over that it seems like the man is looking at whatever the next shots is, and it creates different feeling between different images.
ReplyDeleteIn the clip we saw from the film, "Out of Sight" by Steven Soderbergh, we are able to assume where the interests of the characters are by the placement of the camera and the directions in which the characters are looking. Jennifer Lopez is seated at a table, and looks up when George Clooney walks in and talks to her. Sometimes the camera placement doesn't allow both people in the shot, but we can tell where they are and whether or not they are there because of the facial expressions they show. Positions of shots include behind George Clooney facing Jennifer Lopez, looking up at George Clooney, and closer but looking down on Jennifer Lopez.
ReplyDeleteJump Cutting from Breathless (1960, France) by Jean-Luc Goddard with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg
ReplyDeleteYesterday, we were shown a clip from this movie with a man and a boy driving around paris, talking about something, not sure what. One technique that is employed by the director's in the scene we were shown is jump cutting. This is a technique used by film makers to show a skip or jump in time. Each time a scene was cut in the movie, you could visibly tell that they were in a different neighborhood of Paris each time.
The Kuleshov Effect is when the director took the same primary shot of a man staring off-camera and paired it with many different shots such as that of a dead body, a bowl of soup, or a girl. By creating connections between these two juxtaposed images, the audience views this same man as having different emotions depending on the following shot. When he looks at the dead body, he is sad. When he looks at the soup, he is hungry. When he looks at the girl, he is lustful. In this way, the director can manipulate the audience's perception of the scene. The director used this technique because at the time there was limited footage which he could draw from in order to construct a narrative.
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