Transcript Elements of Drama

 Get your binder/materials ready for your materials check (I’ll check
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Silent Film
The Musical
American Comedy
War and Cinema
Film Noir: Somewhere in the Night
The Making of the West
Horror and Sci-Fi
Hollywood and the Cold War
Hollywood and the age of Television
The 1960s: The Counterculture Strikes Back
The Film School Generation
Into the Twenty-first Century
 Today – Movie Review and Silent Film Notes – review
movie review worksheet
 Thursday – Watch the silent film The Kid
 Friday – Club Day – discuss The Kid and work on
movie review worksheet
 Monday – start Musicals unit
Please Paraphrase
 5 main parts of plot:
 Exposition – introduction to setting, characters, and often a
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hint to the conflict
Rising action – introduction to and development of the
conflict
Climax – the main turning point in the story
Falling action – attempt to resolve the conflict
Conclusion – resolution of or change to the conflict
 Subplot – a secondary or auxiliary plot in a film
 Setting – time and place
 Protagonist – The leading character, hero, or heroine
of a drama or other literary work
 Antagonist – the person who is opposed to, struggles
against or competes with the leading protagonist
 The conflict between the two does not always indicate
a true “good vs. evil” theme
 Devices of fiction:
 Motif – a recurring subject, theme, idea, etc.
 Symbol – an object, person, idea, etc. used in film to stand for or
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suggest something else
Foreshadowing – to show, indicate or suggest in advance
Flashback/forward – a scene in the movie set in a time earlier
than/future to the main story
Foil – a person or thing that makes another seem better by
contrast
Opposition – antagonism or hostility
Irony – Events that seem deliberately contrary to what one
expects, which usually makes the plot particularly amusing or
dissatisfying to the viewer
 All technical aspects are utilized to suggest a location, time
period, economic situation and/or physical setting (castle,
doctors office, school, the Great Depression etc.)
 Sets – where a movie is filmed – Not all movie sets are
located in a studio; often, films are shot on location,
which can still be described as the “set” of the scene
 Costumes
 Sound
 Diegetic sound – the sound (be it music, dialogue, or
sound effects) emanates from a source in the movie
environment – can include characters talking, the sound
of traffic or of a footstep, music from a radio, and any
other sound that could logically be heard by a character
 Nondiegetic – sound that cannot logically be a part of
the movie environment –can be the music we hear while
the title is rolling or the music that appears seemingly
out of nowhere to heighten a romantic scene
 Lighting
 Low-key lighting – a lot of shadows with sharp
contrasts between light and dark – Mysteries and
suspense thrillers are also often shot in low-key light
indicating that things are hidden, or that something
unexpected can happen at any time
 High-key lighting – characterized by brightness,
openness, and light – Romantic comedies, musicals, and
important scenes in family dramas, are shot with this
lighting: characters’ motives are not hidden, nor are
there likely to be many scares or sudden surprises –
Individual lighting on a particular character can affect
how we feel about that character.
 Lighting
 Side lighting – where one side of the actor’s face is
darker than the other – can hint at a character’s secrets
or that the character is somehow torn between opposing
forces
 Front lighting – when a character is brightly lit,
without any shadows appearing anywhere – Heroes and
heroines are usually shot this way to show pureness and
honesty
 Props:
 Set props – stationary items on the stage (sofas, chairs,
tables)
 Hand props – carried by the actors to enhance their
character (swords, handbags, feather dusters)
 Make-up:
 Includes fake hair and hair styles
 Vocal expression:
 Diction (correct words/enunciation)
 Articulation (pronunciation/dialect)
 Volume
 Nonverbal expression:
 Facial expressions
 Body alignment
 Gestures and basic movement
 Close-up – see only the actor’s head from about the
neck up; can be used to emphasize important objects
and details
 Medium shot – actor seen from the waist up – good
mix of emotions and details can be caught – most
scenes filmed this way
 Long shot – see the actor’s entire body; objects in this
type of framing would appear to be seen from some
distance
 Low-angle – director positions the camera below a
subject, looking up – making the subject look larger
and more powerful than it normally would
 High-angle – director places the camera above an
object, looking down on it – making a character look
smaller than normal; emphasizes a character’s
weakness or powerlessness
 Eye-level – audience sees an object straight on – very
neutral concerning emotion and power – most shots
used in movies are eye-level because it is the normal
way that we see each other in real life
 Pan – when a stationary camera’s head moves left to
right (or right to left), staying on the horizontal axis
 Tilt – stationary camera’s head moves up and down on
the vertical axis
 Zoom – focus of a stationary camera changes within a
shot
 Dolly shot – refers to any time the camera itself
moves, either on tracks, from a helicopter, on
someone’s back, or in any other way
 Cut – quickest way to move between images – editor
joins two pieces of film (or two shots) together so that in
the finished film it looks like an instantaneous change
between shots
 Fade – the image seen on screen slowly fades to black or
white or some other color
 Dissolve – an image on screen slowly fades away while
the next image is slowly fading in
 Long takes – feels as if they unfold in real time,
allowing the director to set up the scene realistically
 Short take – typical in the quick-cutting productions
in which a single shot can last under a second – creates
a much more rapid, energetic style and pace – Action
films often use increasingly short takes to create
suspense and drama in their fight sequences or car
chases