The shot and the frame

What questions do you have after our discussion of the shot and the frame this week? What makes sense to you in terms of what these concepts reference as opposed to or in relationship to mise-en-scene?

Comments

[Amy Elder]

The discussion we had on the shot and frame was extremely helpful! I liked the different examples that we were shown, that really helped to put it in perspective especially for me because I have never really looked at any of these aspects of film making before. I think that these concepts are a big part of the m-e-s. The form of the frame is what will lead our eyes to certain parts of the frame or what the director wants us to see.
You could also say the same for the shot being used. The director can use the shot to focus our eyes on a certain object or person. I feel like the camera movement may not be as big of a part of the m-e-s because if you are evaluating the m-e-s as a part of a still most of the time you won't be able to tell how the camera was moving.
The only thing still confusing to me was the lens/stock part of the discussion. I feel like it would take a lot of practice and watching many different movies to truly understand this concept.

[Anna Markee]

Something that I really enjoy about class is that nothing is rushed. We spent quite a while going over shot and frame and that was very helpful to me because afterwards I seemed to understand it very well.

For me, I feel like open form images are generally images that are close ups of people or images that zoom in on somthing. Since the camera is so zoomed in on on particular aspect, it makes me wonder what is going on out side the frame. On the contrary, closed forms appear to me more as camera shots that are further away from objects and focused on many things. Since I can se a lot of what is going on, and things have been placed in order, I don't wonder so much what is going on outside the frame.

The only part I was confused about for the shot portion of the lecture was the lens/filter/stock. I feel like these things would be hard for me to identify without looking at examples of each one and comparing them to each other.

[Lauren Hiland]

I thought the lecture this week was helpful in assisting me in better understanding mise-en-scene. However I was a bit confused about which scene shot was an open frame and which one was a closed frame. The examples of looking out a window, and just having a sort of staged shot gave me good visuals to work with, but I think I ended up mixing up which is which at one point. I think I understand the idea of focus a bit better. The idea of deep focus with the visual of Holly's house, and of shallow focus with the visual of a headshot of Holly, really helped me understand focus better.

[Lily Miller]

Most of the things that we talked about in lecture were, for the most part, easy to understand. I am still having some confusion with open and closed form. I think this may because there are so many different interpretations of it and, depending on the screen grab, there isn't really a certain right answer.
From my understanding, open form has a suggestion that there is a world outside of the image or shot you are looking at. Closed form is contained, and my interpretation of this is the world that you only need to know is what you can see.

[Mason Brause]

The shot and frame seem to be pretty straightforward. One area that would be hard to analyze is the lenses, the standard, telephoto,and widescreen appeared easily distinguishable when they were next to one another but it would be hard to take a single scene and decide what lens was used, thus making it difficult to use it in an analysis.

[Lucas Ashland]

For me, the most interesting thing we talked about this week was how film tends to be shot in analogue format, and even digital film cameras shoot in a way that replicates analogue film. It would be interesting to learn about the after effects they do to the film after shooting a scene and what the process is behind that.

Like some people have already posted, I'm still a bit confused about what it means for a film to be open or closed frame. I understand that the definition for a closed frame is one where every scene is carefully composed and deliberately constructed. But at the same time it is difficult for me to think of a movie this is carefully constructed and closed framed since most movies pay such close attention to fine details.

[Laven Voth]

@Lucas

My understanding, which may not be the correct one, is to think of it like a busy crowded city scene would be considered open frame, since more is going on than the main action, as well as an overall feel of stuff going on naturally. An example would be like a supermarket scene with many extras walking around, and things going on.

I think a closed frame is more along the lines of clear boundaries between what is happening on screen, and what is considered the natural world within the film. Surrealist films are what come to mind when I think of mainly closed frames, whereas with open frames, many holywood movies seem to fit in.

Though, this is my opinion, feel free to disagree!