It gives an overview of Cinema. Helps you to understand the Qualities of Cinema, Characteristics, Expressive Elements etc.

1. UNDERSTANDING CINEMA
Dr. JANARDHAN JUVVIGUNTA

2. WHAT IS CINEMA
● Cinema is considered as the Seventh Art Form after cave painting, sculpture,
painting, dance, music, and theatre.
● The art of motion pictures is extremely complex
● Requiring contributions from nearly all the other arts as well as countless technical
skills (for example, in sound recording, photography, and optics).
● Emerging at the end of the 19th century (Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat-
1895)
● This new art form became one of the most popular and influential media of
the 20th century and beyond.

3. WHAT IS CINEMA?
The illusion of movement that holds the
attention and may even lower critical
resistance

4. WHAT IS CINEMA
● Series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by
means of light.
● Because of the optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision
● This gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement.
● It is a remarkably effective medium in conveying drama and especially in the
evocation of emotion.

5. ● The motion picture gives a strong sense of
being present
● The film image always appears to be in the
present tense.
● It appears to show actual people and
things
UNDERSTANDING CINEMA
BEING PRESENT

6. Audience are taken from their everyday environment into a dark auditorium.
The darkness concentrates their attention and prevents comparison of the
image on the screen with surrounding objects or people.
UNDERSTANDING CINEMA

7. QUALITIES OF CINEMA
Its derives from its power to
hold the complete attention
of the spectator
INTENSITY
01 Related to the camera’s ability
to see things in greater detail
than the eye can
INTIMACY
02
Freedom to move from place
to place or to approach or
withdraw instantaneously
UBIQUITY
03 A film image may be less
ambiguous than the language
of words
PARTICULARITY
04

8. The motion picture itself is non-human or even superhuman in its
passive reception of information
05 NEUTRALITY

9. Characteristics of the Medium
The attempt of the motion
picture to reproduce three-
dimensional reality on a
flat screen
The appeal of a luminous
picture projected by
powerful light
Realism
Luminosity
Montage is what
distinguishes motion
pictures from the
performing arts
Montage
Composition in the motion
picture is kinetic rather
than static
Movement

10. Types of Montage
● Montage may be distinguished—Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal, Overtonal/Associational
and Intellectual
● Metric Montage-October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1927).
● Rhythmic Montage-Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin
● Tonal Montage-Titanic's Last stand
● Overtonal Montage - Alfred Hitchcock‘ Psycho (1960)
● “intellectual” montage-October (Sergei Eisenstein, 1928)

11. Expressive elements of
motion pictures

12. Pictures reinforce the concept
● Jean Cocteau called the cinema “picture writing”
● The language of film, however, is not the language of
words, even though spoken dialogue has been an
integral part of motion pictures since the late 1920s
● Various codes of expression have been categorized into
those affecting cinematography, editing, sound, the
script, acting, and Production design

13. Cinematographic expression
The camera may take
the viewpoint of the
Pickpocket (1959)
The process of framing is
intended to eliminate what is
unessential in the motion
picture Seven Samurai (1954)
Shooting angle
Framing
The entire film is seen from the
camera/character’s point of
view so that the audience sees
only what the camera/character
sees Rear Window (1954)
PoV
Scale may have a marked
effect on the emotional tone
of a sceneKing Kong (1933)
Scale

14. ● The effect of camera movement depends on the
context and the pace of movement
● At a deliberate pace the camera can explore a
scene and reveal significant details
● The camera may simply turn away from a scene to
leave to the spectator’s imagination
● Camera movement is one of the key indicators of
the presence of a narrator
CAMERA MOVEMENT

15. ● The documentary
● Travelogues and ethnographic films
● Newsreels and documentaries
● Propaganda
● The experimental and animated film
● Fictional genres
● Hollywood genres
● The serial
Types of film

16. Do you have any questions?
Mail: j.janardhan@jainuniversity.ac.in