BU Breathless Film Off Screen Sound and Cinematography Analysis Essay – Description
Video Essay: Sequence Analysis
For the Sequence Analysis Video Essay, you are to select a sequence of shots that create a dramatic unit within a film—you may select from The 400 Blows or Breathless.
The sequence should be between 30 seconds and two minutes in length—resist the urge to analyze a sequence longer than two minutes (that is, don’t exceed three minutes!), and for this assignment, choose a genuine sequence of shots, not just one or two shots.
Your analysis will seek to explain how the mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound work—are constructed or can be construed to work—to produce meaning (significant or signifying effects) through the dramatic sequence in the context of the film.
Step 1: Select a sequence of shots (a sequence that lasts typically between 30 seconds and two minutes long) that create a dramatic unit within a film scene. A discrete shot is defined as one uninterrupted run of the camera, i.e., an unedited strip of film consisting of those images that are recorded continuously from the time the camera starts to the time it stops. You may select a sequence that is already a clip on Kanopy or on Youtube or you may make a clip using Kanopy, Youtube or Yuja. Here’s how to make a clip or segment on Kanopy AND Here’s how to make a clip or segment in Yuja.
Once you have made your selection, watch the selected sequence while taking notes. Reflect on the following questions:
1. How do the mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing and sound design work together in the sequence to underscore its themes or aims and those of the film as a whole?
2. That is, put a bit differently, what argument or hypothesis can you make about the rhetorical aims of the sequence and the film—what might the film as a work be arguably seeking to achieve or do, including any problems it identifies and wants to address or resolve or appeals that it seems to make to its audience, to us)?
3. Put more directly and simply, why do you think this sequence is effective and what are its (various) effects? Moreover, how does this sequence make sense–have and create meaning–because of its relation to other significant parts of the film that come before and after this sequence?
4. In other words, a sequence of shots can be analyzed closely but the significance/function/meaning(s) of that sequence are not autonomous–the sequence exists and situated within the overall film and its contexts.
Questions to Ask:
Mise-en-scène: How do props and costumes help convey characters and themes? Are particular colors dominant (or absent)? Is the setting significant? If so, how is it presented? How does the lighting help convey the setting and the action? How is character blocking and placement used? How are actors’ performative use of language, physical expression, and gesture deployed to bring a character to life and to communicate important dimensions of that character to the audience?
Cinematography: Where is the camera placed in relation to the action? Distance? Angle? How do particular compositions draw attention to elements of the settings, characters or themes? How does camera movement function in the sequence? Are different focal lengths or depths of field used? How does cinematography reinforce the mise-en-scène?
Editing: What kinds of transitions are there between shots? Are these always the same? Do they change? Does the editing have a particular rhythm, and is it consistent? Does it conform to rules of continuity, or does it seem disjunctive or discontinuous? What spatial and temporal relations are articulated through cutting? Graphic relations? Rhythmic relations? Associational connections?
Sound: What sounds are present? When does volume or pitch change? Is silence used? Are specific sounds linked to cuts or camera movement? When and how are onscreen and off-screen sound used? Are sounds diegetic or non-diegetic?
These questions are just to get you started—our text and related assigned Bblearn essays and video clips/essays offer more detailed analyses of film/cinematic language. You do not need to answer every question in your essay. Use the questions as a way to help select the techniques that will be the focus of your argument.
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