Diegetic vs. Non Diegetic Audio

Diegetic sound

• Sound that comes from the diegesis• Dialogue• Music from story source• Ambient sounds

Non-Diegetic Sound

• Soundtrack Music• Voiceover• Exaggerated Sounds

Text

Something that people produce to or modify to communicate meaning

films photographs paintings news articles operas t-shirts-bumper stickers

Intentional/and Unintentional text in the movie “Crash”

What was the movie’s intention overall?

Feel Good Movie?

Some critics see portrayal of a Persian as racist

Sources

Screenplay :settings, actions, dialogue, structure

Shooting Script: used during filming, scene numbers, shots, camera placement use

Storyboard: series of drawings/photos for each shot, brief notes, a rough draft

Screenplay Samples

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/ castaway.html

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/blood_simple.html

In transforming experiences into scenes in a screenplay the following might happen:

Certain experiences may not be included

Experiences may or may not be included in the script

Events may be rearranged

Experiences may be altered

New scenes without corresponding experiences may be added

Writer’s Territory

Settings Subjects (Character’s actions and dialogue) Structure (arrangement of dialogue and events) Meanings: (What the film says about its subjects in general terms, or, more often, what it implies by showing subjects in particular situations.)

Production Personnel

Casting and Performance Cinematography and Mise en Scene Editing Music and Sound Effects

Independent vs Hollywood

Rarely are there Writer/Directors in Hollywood

A screenwriter will sell his/her script and not have very much say about the end product in Hollywood

Positive Tendencies from Script to Film

More concise less reliant on dialogue more visual

storyboard

Storyboard: series of drawings/photos for each

shot, brief notes, a rough draft Helps the director/cinematographer

visualize shots

Extremely important for animation

History Films?

Are they non-fiction or do they make fiction seem more real?

“JFK” Oliver Stone 1991

November 22, 1963 Assassination

Lee Harvey Oswald charged with murder and

then assassinated by Jack Ruby.

The Warren Commission investigated the

matter

Many people still remain unclear about the

causes of his death

JFK Documentary/ Narrative

Movie uses real documentary footage

documentary like footage dramatized chronological events Makes reference to actual events

Presents one theory

Jack Valente, NY Times 1992

Stone Blends the half true, and the totally false to manufacture the plausible

(1995) Robert A. Rosentstone in Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History writes: Despite documentary like elements this film is a Hollywood Drama (heroic main character played by Kevin Kostner--playing Jim Garrison)

Another is the desire of the director to make the viewers see believe what they see in the theater as the truth

Mainstream films utilize a specific form of film language that--a seamless one of shot, editing, and sound designed to make the screen seem no more than a window onto the unmediated reality

Hollywood Films: beginning, middle, end. Emotional response-- a moral message w/ a progressive view of history

the story is closed, completed, and ultimately simple--Alternative viewpoints are not shown

History(in film) is a story of individuals-- usually historic individuals who do unusual things for the good of others if not all human kind

historical issues are personalized, emotionalized, and dramatized for film appeals to our feelings as a way of adding to our knowledge or affecting our beliefs