An Introduction to Filmmaking Techniques for my course HIST H225: History through Film

1. What’s in a Film?

2. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography
2. Mise en Scène
3. Sound
4. Story
5. Editing

3. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography: at its simplest, cinematography refers
to the technical elements of filmmaking — from film
stock to lenses to lighting to framing to camera
movement.

4. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography
2. Mise en Scène: this refers to the visual elements in the
frame of the film, from sets to costumes to lighting

5. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography
2. Mise en Scène
3. Sound: this includes the aural elements of the film, from
dialogue to music to sound effects

6. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography
2. Mise en Scène
3. Sound
4. Story: this refers to the development of themes,
characters, arc, plot, symbolism, and tone. While much
of this is done in the scriptwriting process, as important
are the aural and visual elements in developing a story.

7. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Cinematography
2. Mise en Scène
3. Sound
4. Story
5. Editing: the techniques for piecing together the film into
a coherent whole. Transitions, framing, timing, and
more may be planned before shooting ever commences
through the process of storyboarding, but the editing
process is a creative activity that links all the elements
of the film together.

8. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Let’s pull these elements together and
compare and contrast two films — each which
play with history in different ways.

9. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
First, here are three clips from Stanley
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

10. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
In this first clip, which begins the section of the film
titled “The Dawn of Man,” a group of early hominids
discover a strange object in their territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0

11. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Soon thereafter, one of these hominids makes
a profound discovery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2iiPpcwfCA

12. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
In this third clip, the hominids encounter another
group and apply their new knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtbOmpTnyOc

13. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. Without using any words, what does
Stanley Kubrick suggest about human
nature and the process of evolution?
2. How did the fade from prehistory to the
future suggest a narrative?

14. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Let’s compare Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968) to Baz Luhrmann’s
Romeo + Juliet (1996)

15. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)
opening 8m 30s of film

16. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
1. How is Baz Luhrmann playing with and
reinventing a historical text? How does this
change its meaning?
2. How does the editing in Romeo + Juliet
differ from that of Kubrick? How does this
change the tone of the film?

17. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Compare and contrast Kubrick’s and
Luhrmann’s approaches to cinematography.

18. What’s in a Film? —> Main Elements
Compare and contrast Kubrick’s and
Luhrmann’s approaches to cinematography.
How do their choices act as historical
interpretations?
• Cinematography
• Mise en Scène
• Sound
• Story
• Editing

19. Break

20. Some Basic Concepts for
Understanding Filmmaking
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts

21. Lenses
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses

22. http://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/knowhow/knowhow12.html
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Focal Length

23. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Aperture
Aperture is the size of the hole that allows light onto the film
when recording.
• not only does aperture size affect how much light reaches
the film, but also the quality of the image (a smaller
aperture allows for greater depth of field while the larger
aperture creates an increasingly shallow field)
• the size of the aperture is measure by the f-stop
• used with shutter speed, which controls how long light
can go through the aperture, cinematographers can
create a range of effects

24. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Depth of Field

25. An example of deep focus from Orson Welles’s Citizen Cane (1941)
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Depth of Field

26. An example of shallow focus from Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion (1937)
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Depth of Field

27. Lighting in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmSDnPvslnA&t=213
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Lenses —> Depth of Field
To shoot the candlelight scenes in Barry
Lyndon (1975), Stanley Kubrick did not use
artificial lighting. Instead he used a modified
Mitchell BNC that took advantage of Leitz
lenses created for NASA to photograph the
moon. These lenses has F-stops of O.75
and 0.95. Mike Carrol. Stanley Kubrick, Part
3: Cameras & Lenses.” (20 April 2013).
http://nakedfilmmaking.com/2013/04/20/stan
ley-kubrick-part-3-cameras-lenses/

28. Framing
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing

29. Stephen Spielberg. Saving Private Ryan
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Establishing Shot

30. Stephen Spielberg. Saving Private Ryan
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Medium Shot

31. Stephen Spielberg. Saving Private Ryan
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Close Up

32. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Angle
top angle
bird’s eye view
high angle
neutral angle /
eye level
low angle
worm’s eye view

33. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Angle
What kind of angles are these?
Quentin Tarantino. Inglorious Basterds (2009)

34. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Angle
What kind of angles are these?
Carl Theodor Dreyer. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

35. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Movement

36. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Movement
Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P5nPMXtz6w
What kind of movement is happening here?

37. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Framing —> Movement
The steadicam tracking shot from Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007)
https://vimeo.com/91846884

38. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Story
1. narrative: this includes both the seemingly straightforward presentation of the plot as
well the details that the film implies by way of symbolism, genre, music, editing, etc.
2. genre/subgenre: a taxonomic category that allows us to group films by form, style, or
subject
3. themes: central or dominant ideas that permeate the work (e.g. hope, alienation, or
ambition)
4. character: this includes both the actions of individuals in films as well their sensibilities
— often defined as round/flat; dynamic/static
5. narrative arc: the structure of the film which hinges on key moments that change the
direction of the film (e.g. Gustav Freytag’s five-part dramatic arc: exposition, rising
action, climax, falling action, and dénouement
6. plot: cause and effect sequence of events or development of character
7. symbolism: use of symbols to represent events or ideas
8. tone: the attitude that the film conveys (e.g. somber, playful, or ironic)

39. What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Composition
Steven Benedict. 2013. The Passions and Techniques
of Steven Spielberg. https://vimeo.com/47105733

40. Fernando Meirelles. City of God (2002)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd68fZq_af4
What’s in a Film? —> Concepts —> Scene Analysis
ve learned, let’s analyze this scene from Fernando Meirelles’s Cit

41. What’s in a Film? —> Short Online Introductions to Film Analysis
• Yale Film Studies. 2002. “Film Analysis Web Site 2.0”.
http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/.
• Antonios Papantoniou. 2014. “Brian de Palma Shot by Shot
[Untouchables]”
https://vimeo.com/69746940
• dky29. “A Guide to Basic Cinematography / Filmmaking.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQnKGXHbgMA
• Ian Freer and Olly Gibbs. 2013. “30 Camera Shots Every Film Fan
Should Know.” Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/features/film-
studies-101-camera-shots-styles/p1