Film Styles

Slides for a Video Production class at Montana Tech.

1. Montana Tech
Video Production
Lori Shyba
www.lorishyba.com
E-mail:
[email protected]

2. The Montana Tech Catalog capsule summary
of this course says:
“Introduces the principles and practices of
digital video production … scriptwriting,
videography, editing, and delivery.“
What is this course about?

3. Styles and Types (Modes) of Films
REALISM CLASSICISM FORMALISM
Documentary F I C T I O N Experimental
Manufactured Landscapes Boogie Doodle
Bowling for Columbine Planet of the Apes Fellini’s 8 1/2
NB. These are not airtight categories and often overlap.
styles
Types
(modes)

4. What are Characteristics of Formalism?
•Formalist directors are concerned with expressing their
own unabashedly subjective experience of reality —
stylistically flamboyant.
• “Expressionists” because of concern with spiritual and
psychological truths, conveyed by distorting the surface
of the material world.
•Formalist cinema excels in dealing with ideas —
political religious, philosophical.
•Emphasis on technique and expression moves
formalism toward the “avant garde” or total abstraction.

5. What About the Classical”Style?
•Called “Classical” because of its Aristotelian narrative style
that is derived from live theatre and is by far the most
popular story organization.
•Classical cinema avoids the extremes of realism and
formalism in favour of a style of presentation that has a
surface believability.
•Often handsomely mounted, story oriented, high premium
placed on the the entertainment value of the story which
conforms to popular genre.
•Characters often played by “stars” and roles are often
tailored to their personal charms. Audience is encouraged to
identify with their goals/values.

6. What are Characteristics of Realism?
•Realist filmmakers attempt to reproduce the surface of reality with a
minimum of distortion.
•We rarely notice the “style” in a realistic movie — concerned with
what is being shown rather than how it is being manipulated.
•Realists try to preserve the illusion that their film worlds are
objective mirrors of the actual world.
•The camera is used as a “recording mechanism” to reproduce the
surface of tangible objects with as little commentary as possible.
•It is a style that excels in making us feel the humanity of others as
beauty of film is sacrificed to capture the authentic texture of reality.
•Tends toward documentary.

7. What About Genre?
•Developed by French directors François Truffault, Jean-Luc
Godard and their Cahiers du cinema associates in the mid-50s.
Simultaneously with Auteur Theory, they also developed the
theory of film genre.
•Believed that the genius of American cinema was its repository
of ready-made forms saying “The tradition of genres in a base of
operations for creative freedom.”
•Definition: A recognizable type of movie, characterized by
certain pre-established conventions. Common genres are
Westerns, Drama (Romance, War, Action etc.), Thrillers, Sci-Fi,
Comedy, etc. A ready-made narrative form.

8. What About Genre?
Definition: A recognizable type of movie, characterized by certain
pre-established conventions. Common genres are Westerns, Drama
(Romance, War, Action etc.), Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Comedy, etc. A
ready-made narrative form.
Genre was developed by French directors François Truffault, Jean-
Luc Godard and their Cahiers du cinema associates in the mid-50s.
Simultaneously with their Auteur Theory, they also developed the
theory of film genre.
Believed that the genius of American cinema was its repository of
ready-made forms saying “The tradition of genres in a base of
operations for creative freedom.”

9. THE DIRECTOR
THE Director is
2.Responsible for creative decisions and oversees the work
of the creative team.
3.The dominent figure in Preproduction, Production, and
Postproduction phases.
4.An “auteur” when he or she contributes a considerable
personal vision to the film. eg Atom Egoyan.
Job Descriptions

10. THE PRODUCER
The producer is the lynchpin between the administrative
and the artistic teams. She or he finds ideas for movies and
sets up the financier (studio). Producers makes sure things
are on time and on budget — project management in short.
They liaise between the set and the studio. The producer
may handle the press, the promotions, and may contribute
to final creative and casting decisions (usually because of
money).
Job Descriptions

11. THE SCREENWRITER
Film scripts differ from plays because they are only
blueprints of the finished product unlike a theatrical
“play” that one can read with pleasure. Therefore, film
scripts are rarely autonomous literary products.
This speaks to the “theory of organic form” and the
observation that films communicate through visual
elements of interdependent form and content moving
through time and space but we still need a good
STORY. For better or worse, the STORY comes
primarily from the pen of the screenwriter.
Job Descriptions — Film Structure

12. FIGURATIVE TECHNIQUES
Explores the use of artistic devices that suggest abstract
ideas through comparison. (All are “symbolic”)
Motifs can be a technique, an object, or anything that is
repeated but does not call attention to itself. Eg?
Symbols can be things that imply additional meaning to the
sensitive observer. Eg.? In 8 1/2?
Metaphor is comparison that is not literally true. Eg? 8 1/2?
Cinematic metaphors can be created through montage and editing.
Other figurative techniques are allegory, allusions (analogy)
and homage.

13. POINT OF VIEW -- NARRATION
First-person narrative is where the cinematic equivalent to
the “voice” of a literary narrative is the “eye” or lens of
the camera. Eg?
Omniscient point of view is where the lens is the all-
knowing observer that supplies evaluations of the scene.
Eg?
Voice-over narration is common and when there is a
narrator that literally talks over the action. Eg?
Camera as buddy is uncommon but is when the camera is
treated like an active listener in the story. Eg?
Another WAY TO express ORIGINAL INSIGHTS.

14. NARRATIVE
Aristotelian Poetics distinguished between two types of
fictional narratives - mimesis (showing) and diegesis
(telling). Cinema combines both.
Narratology is the study of of how stories work — the study
of different narrative structures, storytelling strategies,
types of stories (genres) and their symbolic implications.
We will be looking at Realistic Narrative, Formalistic
Narrative, and Classical Narrative.

15. DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE
Realists prefer loose, discursive plots and we are not
presented with a clear-cut conflict as in classical
narratives.
The pretence that a realistic narrative is unmanipulated is
an aesthetic deception.
Often we cannot guess the principle of narrative coherence
until the end of the movie.
Scenes are arranged in apparently random order and
everyday events are presented matter-of-factly with no
“heightening” for dramatic effect.

16. FORMALIST NARRATIVES
Formalists revel in their artificiality. The design of
the plot is not concealed but heightened.
It’s virtually impossible to ignore the personality of
the auteur director in the film.
Often interrupted by lyrical interludes like musical
numbers or dreamscapes.
Often uses multiple lines of narrative and juxtaposes
snippets of lives, dreams, memories, and
abstract formulations.

17. CLASSICAL NARRATIVES
Derived from live theatre (Aristotelian Poetics and
the “well-made-play”) the classical narrative
model is based on a conflict between a
protagonist, who initiates the action, and an
antagonist who resists it.
Most films in this form begin with an implied
dramatic question -- we want to know if the
protagonist will get what they want in the face
of opposition.
The scenes that follow escalate in an Aristotelian
cause and effect with each scene linking to the
next.

18. CLASSICAL NARRATIVES CONT.
Classical paradigm emphasizes dramatic unity,
plausible motivation, and coherence.
Classical structures often feature double plot lines
and characters who are goal oriented.
Classical plot structures are linear and often take the
form of a journey, a chase, or a search.