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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

•Identify what the details of what we see in a scene tell us about the characters and the story.

•Recognize the dramatic and narrative impact of elements of the mise en scène, such as costumes, makeup, props, lighting, and set design.

•Explain how filmmakers use actors within the setting to reinforce the story, whether realistically or artificially stylized, and have a working knowledge of the actor's job and the sequence in which movies are shot.

•Recognize the difference between an actor and a character.

•Identify different types of acting methods and types of actors.

•Explain how casting shapes the outcome of a movie as well as audience expectations for it, and some of the processes involved in casting a film.

•Explain the collaboration between actors and directors.

5.1 What Is Mise en Scène?

Still of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.

Francois Duhamel/©Weinstein Company/courtesy Everett Collection

A still of Christoph Waltz as Nazi officer Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009). Critic Roger Ebert writes that Waltz and Tarantino created "a character unlike any Nazi—indeed, anyone at all—I've seen in a movie: evil, sardonic, ironic, mannered, absurd."

The first few minutes or so of Inglourious Basterds, writer and director Quentin Tarantino's 2009 reimagining of World War II, establish a situation in 1940 Nazi-occupied France by showing scenery, props, actors playing characters in specific costumes using specific body language, and those actors moving through the setting, all with very little dialogue. We get our initial feeling about the characters and what might happen by seeing where they are, what their belongings are, how they are dressed, how they are lit, and how they react. What colors things are may also draw our attention to certain objects and people, as well as setting an overall mood. All the things we are looking at in the scene have been carefully chosen and placed there by the filmmakers to help tell the story to the audience in ways that do not require dialogue to explain anything. What we see is called the mise en scène, a French term borrowed from the theater referring to what is "placed in the scene." We will come back to this sometimes-misunderstood concept in more detail shortly. For many viewers, the most memorable parts of the mise en scène, and indeed what may be the reason they decided to watch a movie, are the actors and their performances.

The rest of the 20-minute opening sequence in Inglourious Basterds consists mostly of one actor talking to another at a table inside a small farmhouse. The actor doing most of the talking is Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, a Nazi officer known as "the Jew hunter." He arrives at a dairy farm in France to talk with its owner, Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), whom he suspects is hiding a Jewish family. Landa is not physically threatening. Instead, he is charming, intelligent, and relentless, wearing the increasingly nervous LaPadite down until he confesses that the family is hiding beneath the floorboards. (Landa immediately has them shot.) He is alternately complimentary and repulsive; his one consistent quality is that he is compulsively interesting. His mannerisms as he speaks, the wry smile, the overwhelming confidence that he has the upper hand here and will get what he wants—he exudes that power. It is chilling, fascinating, scary, brilliant. The audience may be horrified by his behavior, but they are at the same time engaged, compelled—they simply can't look away. Col. Hans Landa is in no way a sympathetic character—the person Waltz is playing in the movie whose traits are created by the writer to help tell the story—yet we want to see more of him. That is no easy trick, but for a good actor, it is a necessary skill. Waltz won a well-deserved best-supporting actor Oscar for the role. But simply handing him a trophy doesn't really capture the magic going on here. Waltz's performance encapsulates what is in many ways the true magic of movies: He isn't just pretending to be someone else. He becomes someone else. And this is the magic of effective acting.

Still from Prometheus of characters exploring a new planet.

This scene from Prometheus depicts the mysterious surroundings of a new planet and reflects the feelings of the characters as they explore their unknown, likely dangerous, environment. Mise en scène includes all the elements that film has in common with theater, such as setting, costumes, props, and blocking.

Acting can set the tone of a film and goes a long way toward establishing whether or not we will like it. Oddly enough, while this may sound contradictory, acting is also the last thing an actor wants to think about in the middle of a performance. The best actors inhabit their roles, as Waltz does in Basterds. Sir Ben Kingsley, himself an Oscar winner, talked about this while discussing working with Martin Scorsese in Shutter Island:

The sinking feeling is if I do something between "action" and "cut" and I know I'm going to have to exaggerate this and demonstrate it, because I don't trust this director is seeing what I'm doing. And then you know what creeps in? Acting. I hate acting. It's marvelous to throw all the acting out on a film set and allow the director to film the behavior of the character, not me acting. (Goodykoontz, 2009a)

Acting is, to be sure, an inexact science. It is as much technique as feeling, Kingsley's protestations notwithstanding. Different actors use different methods, demand different things from directors, get to the emotional core of their characters in different ways. Performances are as unique as the people who give them. The best actors invite us into films, allow us to accompany them on their journey, while, like any good magician, never letting us see how they perform their tricks.

(A reminder about word choice: We will use the word actor to refer to both men and women. This is not gender discrimination. Instead, it has long been the preferred term when talking about the craft for both genders.)

5.2 Telling the Story Through Setting, Props, and Costumes

If we have established that actors are often what bring audiences to a film, we must also ask, what do they do once they have us there? Where does the director put them, and what does he ask them to do? Actors are critical in bringing a character to life for the audience by interpreting the intentions of the writer and director. But an actor is also a tool of the director, just one more part of the scene that helps to tell the story to the audience. A character's relationship to the story's themes, the plot developments, and the other characters can be suggested, emphasized, and intensified for the audience by the use of certain costumes, makeup, props (short for "properties"), and even position on the set (the placing of actors is referred to as blocking). These are all key elements of the mise en scène (see Behind the Scenes: Mise en Scène).

The Vocabulary of Film and TV: Mise en Scène

Mise en scène, French for "that which is put into the scene," includes costumes, set design, and lighting, which creates mood and atmosphere. Alterations to the mise en scène alter the viewer's perception of the narrative.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.How does the idea that film is a "visual language" relate to the importance of mise en scène?

2.Name three components that make up part of a film's mise en scène.

Put simply, mise en scène is what the audience sees in a scene, and this includes the actors. The way characters are dressed, their physical appearance and the way they carry themselves, and the things they use and the spaces they inhabit all tell us something about their personalities and function in the story before the actors even say or do anything. Without a single line of dialogue, or any actions on the part of the actors, the mise en scène can convey a great deal of story information about the plot or character that might take pages to describe in a novel. The setting, the basic environment, with all its textures and attributes, patterns of lighting, props that are visible, even the weather—all contribute to what is going on in the plot at that moment, whether it's establishing the general mood, time of day, place in the world, era of history, or a character's current situation in life or state of mind.

Films from the silent era may use the mise en scène especially densely, not having recorded dialogue, narration, or sound effects to fall back upon, but the best sound era films use sound to reinforce and supplement what they show, not just as a substitute for showing information to the audience visually. Extended sequences may require close audience attention to the surroundings while actors are doing things without saying anything. The science-fiction thriller Prometheus and the original Alien films that inspired it are good examples of tension built simply by the viewer following a character through eerie and unfamiliar surroundings with the threat of danger around every corner. Even cartoons, such as Despicable Me, Rango, Up, Ratatouille, and others, make extensive and careful use of their mise en scène to help viewers understand the characters and the events of the plot, independent of the dialogue and the actions.

Many elements of the mise en scène may be symbolic, whether representing story themes or character attributes or social metaphors. The set decoration of a character's apartment, for example, can explain a complicated backstory and set up the present situation, as in the opening scene of Hitchcock's Rear Window. The camera looks out the window of Jeff's apartment and then slowly pulls back to track and pan across various things in the room, from a thermometer showing a very hot temperature and the leg cast that has Jeff currently incapacitated in a wheelchair, to photographs on the wall and magazine covers (including one of his fashion-model girlfriend) that show he's a professional photographer who's been around the world on exciting assignments, to a spectacular racecar crash photo and a broken camera that imply how he got the broken leg. The leisurely lingering over the setting before any dialogue or action begins also reinforces how bored Jeff is at being cooped up and why he spends his time spying on his neighbors through his telephoto lens, trying to find something interesting to see.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Mise en Scène (What Is "Placed in the Scene")

Everything in the mise en scène is controlled, chosen, or at least approved by the director. The mise en scène is everything visible in the scene used for telling the story, before the camera is even brought onto the set. The mise en scène may be natural, semi-realistic, or heavily artificial and stylized. Mise en scène includes

•settings and sets (whether actual locations or custom-built in a studio)

•lighting

•colors

•props

•costumes

•makeup

•actors (including their positioning and movements)

Still from Winter's Bone of a woman and a little girl hanging laundry on a line outside a wood cabin.

The cold, desolate Ozark setting in Winter's Bone is so palpable that it almost establishes itself as a character.

In Debra Granik's Oscar-nominated Winter's Bone (2010), Jennifer Lawrence gives an intensely powerful performance as Ree Dolly, a teenage girl searching for her missing meth-cooking father so the family home will not be forfeited for the jail bond. But just as intense as her determined character, almost a character in itself, is the rural Ozark environment in which she lives. The film uses dialogue sparingly, mainly when the audience needs to know critical information, and what dialogue there is has a very low-key, matter-of-fact delivery. The surroundings we see provide at least as many details about the plot and characters as any lines of dialogue. This independent production was shot on location in rural Missouri using a number of local nonprofessional actors, as well as a hand-built private home that served as Ree's house, actual former meth-lab locations, and numerous small props that give a rich textural detail to the scenes (see Neda Ulaby's 2011 National Public Radio feature "On Location: The Frozen Ozarks of ‘Winter's Bone,'" http://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139753185/on-location-the-frozen-ozarks-of-winters-bone (http://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139753185/on-location-the-frozen-ozarks-of-winters-bone) ). Cool bluish colors and drab earth tones contribute to the mood. We can almost feel the poverty and isolation these characters live with every day in their struggle to survive, and that drives them to act the way they do. Yet we also feel their neighborly compassion in those same surroundings as they share food and music performances together.

A film like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) relies heavily on its dialogue to define its characters and further its plot, yet it uses the mise en scène just as intensely to reinforce characters and plot symbolically. The film takes place on the hottest day of the year from morning until night and the next morning. The lighting not only reflects the time of day by the position of the shadows, but its warm colors, combined with the choice of bright reds, oranges, and yellows that decorate the setting, emphasize the heat—of both the weather and the characters' emotions. The positions of characters in the scene also reflect their position of respect in the community. The woman known as "Mother-Sister" is seen up in her apartment window, while the alcoholic old ex-baseball player known as "Da Mayor" is always seen below her, both literally and figuratively, until the end of the film, when they are on the same level for the first time.

Still from Girl With a Pearl Earring in which Vermeer (played by Colin Firth) and his assistant (Scarlett Johansson) examine jars of different colors.

The inspiration for the mise en scène in Girl With a Pearl Earring can be attributed to Vermeer himself, a painter who reveled in depicting women in domestic scenes working in beautiful opalescent light.

Some films employ extremely understated acting, preferring to favor the mise en scène over extensive dialogue or action to tell much of the story. Even more reliant upon mise en scène to convey story information than either Do the Right Thing or Winter's Bone is Peter Webber's Girl With a Pearl Earring (2003). The opening shots show a young woman (Scarlett Johansson) slicing vegetables in a room dimly lit by indirect sunlight with unlit candles on the table, establishing for the viewer through the costumes and setting that this is a working-class girl in a past period (17th-century Holland, as it turns out). The pale bluish daylight gives a melancholy mood, contrasting sharply with the warm yellows and oranges and more natural colors seen later in the plot in a richer, happier setting. The girl's obvious care in arranging the food on the plate suggests both her diligence at her work and her innate artistic sense, foreshadowing what is to come when she leaves her home to work as a servant-girl for the famous painter Vermeer (Colin Firth). The director's use of the scenery, and staging of her moves through it, again reinforces what is going on in the character's mind as she is literally and figuratively looking for a new direction in her life (at one point near the beginning she even pauses on a large compass pattern painted on the pavement). In this film, much of the movie's action is going on inside the characters' heads rather than happening as a series of obvious events or explained through dialogue. In this case, the viewer may need to work to infer all that is happening, paying close attention to how the film packs information into careful and significant dramatic use of the mise en scène—setting, lighting, color, props, costumes, makeup, and actors' movements, instead of relying on what the actors are saying.

Each of these films just discussed has a generally realistic mise en scène, yet each is controlled by the filmmakers to serve the needs of the story. The location where Winter's Bone was shot is the most naturalistic of the group. The carefully reconstructed period settings of Girl With a Pearl Earring are also very realistic. In Rear Window, the apartment and view outside were constructed on a studio soundstage, and while they give the sense of surface realism, they have an underlying, somewhat larger-than-life artificiality. Do the Right Thing was shot on an actual city block, again presenting a surface impression of realism, yet the extreme control over the colors, traffic, extras, and cleanliness of the streets presents a stylized portrait of the neighborhood, eliminating certain natural details (e.g., litter, street people, or drug dealers) that might distract from the specific themes of the story. Other films may take stylization to an extreme, such as the German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the films of Tim Burton (heavily influenced by Caligari), or most digital cartoons, which make no pretense at presenting reality. Still others might reserve extremely stylized settings and acting performances for dreams or flashbacks, helping differentiate them from a more naturalistic main plot.

5.3 The Actor as Part of the Mise en Scène

Actors portray the characters who live out the story presented for the viewer through the plot. Those characters are written by an author. They are placed into the film's sets by the director, who also guides the actors' performances. So what do the actors actually bring to their roles? When we see a character move away from another character and look out a window during a line of dialogue, this action might well have been written into the script by the screenwriter (or have been part of the original story as a novel). However, the script might just as well have had no action indicated during the dialogue. The movement might have been the director's decision, whether to help convey character relationships or simply to add some action to the scene. On the other hand, it might equally as easily have been a movement the actor came up with intuitively when interpreting how the character should respond in a given situation. It may even have been improvised during rehearsals, and the director decided that the movement was the best choice for that scene. The director, usually working closely with the actors and following the demands of the script, determines what the actors will be doing, how and when, and where in the scene they will be at any given time. The director (and sometimes the actor) also gives approval on costumes, makeup, and props used by the actor. A strong director has final say on the performance, not only guiding it during shooting but manipulating it through editing (as will be noted later) or deleting it altogether. Again then, what does an actor really do?

On its face, what an actor does is simple: act. That is, he or she pretends to be someone else—the character he or she is playing in the movie. The actor brings a written character to life. In practice, it's much more complex. Perhaps it's easiest to start with what an actor doesn't do, or most of them, anyway. The actor does not write the script nor direct the film. Thus, even though the actor can influence the film, a role we will discuss in more detail later, he or she does not create it. Ask a television actor what the following season holds for his or her character, and you will likely be greeted with a look of puzzled bemusement: "I have no idea." This is typically followed by, "Ask the writers." Many fans are stunned to learn that their favorite characters are as in the dark as they are about what the future holds.

Out of Order

The same thing is true of film actors. While many stage plays may occur in a single set over a continuous time period, most movies are made up of numerous scenes—portions of the plot occurring in a single location for a single length of time—taking place at many different points in time. Movies are seldom shot in sequence; that is, they aren't made in chronological order. Because of scheduling demands, quirks of weather, illness, or any number of other reasons, a wrenching death scene might be shot on Tuesday afternoon. Then, on Wednesday morning, the same character will be very much alive, having dinner with his family and offering a toast to a happy, robust future. Also, various shots such as close-ups, medium shots, and long shots are typically filmed separately with the same camera rather than simultaneously with multiple cameras. Thus in a scene where first there is a close-up of one character, then a faraway shot of the character including scenery and other actors, then a medium shot of two characters, each part was probably filmed separately but edited to appear as if it is continuous.

Still from Timecode showing a man holding a video camera.

Almost all movies are shot out of sequence. This saves time and money. Timecode is truly an exception. Director Mike Figgis shoots with four cameras in four locations operating simultaneously and continuously for 90 minutes. The four stories are shown in split screen to dizzying effect.

Because of this, screen acting tends to be compartmentalized. Although an actor must keep the arc, or the overall story, in mind, for an effective performance he must remain in the moment, concentrating on whatever task is at hand for the character. On rare occasions, a director (or star) may have the power and the budget to shoot a film in sequence. A recent example is Roman Polanski's Carnage, adapted from a stage play and starring Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. The plot unfolds in real time on the screen in a single set, a rarity in itself, so Polanski's choice to rehearse and film the script in sequence was a great aid to the actors in developing their character arcs. Sequential shooting is especially helpful when a plot chronicles emotional psychological character shifts as it progresses (A Beautiful Mind is another example), but shooting in sequence is highly unusual in film production.

Besides shooting scenes in a different order than they appear in the script, directors typically shoot several versions of a given scene, then construct the final film from the best of these elements. Good actors will offer variations on their performance, giving the director several options from which to choose. In some ways, this takes incredible skill. Imagine what it must have been like to perform the harrowing scenes in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire in which first-time actor Gabourey Sidibe is physically and verbally abused by her mother, played by Mo'Nique. At one point, Mo'Nique's character throws a television at Sidibe. Now imagine working through that and the director yelling, "Cut!" and then asking you to do the same thing again, only a little different this time from the last four or five times.

Understanding how actors must act out of order makes it easier to understand how making a movie works—a series of scenes will be put together in coherent form later by the director in an editing room. Yet this also shows how isolated a part of filmmaking acting can be. In an interview, Robert De Niro was asked about some of his more famous roles, such as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, or Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Surely in such iconic performances he could tell that he was doing great work in great films, right? Wrong, De Niro said—he was concentrating on his performance, offering the directors as many good options as possible. Beyond that, everything else was out of his control, he said. "I really don't think you can tell how it's going to be received. You just never know. If you think it's going to be received well, you're deceiving yourself" (Goodykoontz, 2009c).

But if actors like De Niro aren't the ones putting the building blocks together (though De Niro has directed), they are the ones who provide the raw materials. That's the actor's job.

Learning Your Lines

The most basic skill an actor must possess is a good memory. He or she must learn a character's lines, and remember when who says what—all while making the words they're reciting sound like natural conversation. Stories abound of shortcuts—George Clooney writing out his lines on scraps of paper and taping them to sheets and pillows when working on E.R. and the like. But for the most part actors do indeed memorize their lines, so that they might deliver them as genuinely as possible. This may mean taking a few liberties with the script, not delivering the lines word for word, but interpreting them in their own words while still getting the main point across.

Photograph of John Cassavetes.

Courtesy Everett Collection

John Cassavetes is the father of independent American filmmaking. His ensemble films, such as Shadows and Opening Night, were created in an atmosphere that depended on improvisation to create and sustain an impression of reality caught on the fly.

However, most directors insist upon a fairly close reading. That is, unless the director is open to improvisation, coming up with your own lines that capture the spirit of what the writer and director are trying to accomplish in a particular scene. Even though this can lead to creative performances (especially in films featuring talented stand-up comedians accustomed to ad-libbing before live audiences, from Bob Hope to Chevy Chase to Jack Black), the director must strike a difficult balance between allowing actors to improvise and maintaining control of the set and the scene. Improvisation during the actual shooting can also complicate the editing process later on. Because of this, some directors encourage improvisation only during rehearsals so that an agreed-upon version of a scene is finally "locked down" before shooting.

Certain directors are famous for their use of improvisation. Robert Altman, who directed such classic films as M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, and Short Cuts, allowed his actors to improvise freely, explaining in general terms what he wanted to achieve in a scene and allowing them to find the means to do so. His confidence in his actors and in his ability to piece the story together resulted in some of the finest dramas ever made—dramas that feel natural and realistic, like genuine conversations between people instead of dialogue recited by characters, because at some level that's what they are. Christopher Guest does much the same thing in the films he directs (and often stars in), including Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind. By employing brilliant improvisational comic actors, such as Fred Willard, John Michael Higgins, and Jane Lynch, he is able to let scenes unfold as the characters play off one another, then choose the best (and funniest) bits to construct his films.

Mike Leigh, meanwhile, who has directed such films as Life Is Sweet, Secrets & Lies, Happy Go Lucky, and Another Year, uses an even more elaborate method with his actors. He will take up to six months in rehearsal, allowing his actors to get to know each other, to create their characters and learn to relate to one another, all before a single frame is filmed and without using a traditional script of written dialogue. This may sound like a feasible option for contemporary fictional stories set in modern times, but Leigh has followed this process even when the film is a biographical true story about real people set in an historic time period like Topsy-Turvy.

5.4 Types of Acting

Memorizing lines and repeating them in a believable fashion is the essence of acting; however, actors use different methods in their performances. Which method they use often depends upon the film, or the role itself. A serious drama lends itself to one type of acting, a raunchy comedy another, and a highly stylized, symbolic film yet another. Some actors stick with one method, for the most part. Others move easily from one to another. There is not any one necessarily "right" way to act. Instead, it's just whatever the role and the story call for.

Stylized Acting

Stylized acting is used when actors and directors want to call attention to the fact that the actor is, indeed, acting. While this is generally not desirable, sometimes it is. In the Coen brothers' 1987 movie Raising Arizona, Nicholas Cage plays a former criminal who marries a former policewoman (Holly Hunter). They can't have children, so they hit upon a novel notion: They kidnap a baby from a family that's just had quintuplets. The dialogue, the actions, the performances are all highly stylized—that is, they draw attention to themselves by being intentionally unrealistic. Consider this exchange between Ed (Hunter) and Gale and Evelle, played by John Goodman and William Forsythe, respectively, who have shown up at Ed's trailer-park home:

Ed: You mean you busted out of jail.

Evelle: No ma'am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance.

Gale: What Evelle here is trying to say is that we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us. (Coen & Coen, 1987)

Still of Jack Nicholson gesturing with his arms outstretched in Anger Management.

In Anger Management, Jack Nicholson gives an over-the-top performance based on his irascible reputation. Compare the self-parody in Anger Management with his more nuanced performance in Chinatown, for example.

Now, it's unlikely that a couple of convicts on the run through rural Arizona would actually talk that way; only Ed's dialogue sounds genuine. But the stylized dialogue serves two purposes. It tells us that the Coen brothers' facility with language, the tricks they can play with words, are serving to make larger points. Plus, it's hilarious when delivered by actors who get the point. But not everyone thought so. In his review, Roger Ebert wrote, "I have a problem with movies where everybody talks as if they were reading out of an old novel about a bunch of would-be colorful characters. They usually end up sounding silly" (Ebert, 1987).

That's one of the dangers of stylized acting: If you go too far over the top with it, it doesn't just draw attention to itself, it can pull the audience out of the movie. Yet for a film like Sin City, not just based on a graphic novel but made to look as if you've wandered into one, it's impossible to think of any other method. With a heavily stylized mise en scène that looks like comic books, and characters who bend, twist, and strangle reality to the breaking point, no other type of acting would be right. The story and the sets demand that the actors' performances go over the top; otherwise, they would be lost among the clutter. The Pirates of the Caribbean films provide a good example of how a movie can blend extreme stylization with a surface realism, a technique we will discuss next. While Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom give reasonably naturalistic performances as the romantic leads (as do many of the supporting and background players), Johnny Depp and the actors playing the various other pirate characters deliver stylized, over-the-top performances that exaggerate their outlandish personalities and situations to the extreme. Of course, this stylized acting is part of the fun in such a fantasy adventure.

Realism

Still from Casa de los Babys of two women and a man sitting and chatting at outdoor tables.

©IFC Films/courtesy Everett Collection

Casa de los Babys (Baby House) is about the complexity of Americans trying to adopt infants in Guatemala. Director John Sayles has built a reputation based on his ability to tell believable stories about ordinary people facing difficult choices.

Realism, as opposed to stylized acting, can also be thought of as naturalistic. This is acting that doesn't draw attention to itself but instead gives the impression of genuine human action and reaction. What is considered realistic and natural, however, can change over the years and in particular situations. Performances considered powerfully realistic on stage often appear contrived and exaggerated on film, and filmmakers may need to coach actors into giving performances suitable for the intimate close-ups that appear gigantic on a movie screen. Yet viewers accustomed to live theater may still feel that somewhat "theatrical" acting is more realistic, and that performers intentionally tailoring their performances for the camera may be "underacting." It depends partly upon the appropriateness of a performance to a specific character, but general styles of screen acting vary from one generation to the next. One generation's realistic performance may appear highly mannered, stylized, or heavily overacted to later generations, while one generation's underacting may be praised as naturalistic by another. "Method" acting, discussed later, was once considered extremely realistic, compared to classical acting. Today it may appear to have an artificial intensity.

Evaluation of acting realism may be tied closely to the plot, the staging of the actors, and how the actors deliver the dialogue. Films with a great deal of improvisation often are considered realistic. Robert Altman is a director whose films play out almost like slices of life the audience drops in on. Conversations start, stop, start again—just as a real conversation might. Obviously this technique wouldn't work in an action film or a horror movie, but in something like this, a character study in which we are invited to observe realistic behavior (albeit somewhat heightened; if something interesting doesn't happen, there wouldn't be much of a movie), it's quite appropriate, and it adds to the enjoyment of the movie. That said, it takes a talented actor to make realism interesting. The casting in Altman's films tends to be spot-on, with actors who gained his trust, so that he could let them develop the story as they went along.

However, taking improvisation and realism to an extreme in film can backfire. The films of John Cassavetes, with their intense improvised character interactions, have as many detractors as fans. Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married (2008) is designed to look almost like a home movie recording an actual family and its relationship problems, but even though some critics praised its performances for their raw realism and true-to-life emotion, others disliked the film because it was embarrassingly self-indulgent, uncontrolled, and as uncomfortable to watch as a home movie. Some had similar reactions to Robert Altman's similarly themed A Wedding.

Method Acting

Photograph of James Dean wielding a knife in Rebel Without a Cause.

Courtesy Everett Collection

In his brief career, James Dean personified the struggle to come of age. A student of Lee Strasberg, Dean is best remembered for his roles in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause (pictured here).

Method acting (often known as "the Method") is perhaps the most famous type of acting, and the most often ridiculed and parodied. Based on the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky and popularized by Lee Strasberg, the Method requires that actors draw on their own memories and experiences to reach the heart of a character, so that they more genuinely feel the emotions they're portraying instead of just pretending to. The technique started in theater and was adopted by film actors. Peter Flint, in his 1992 New York Times obituary of Stella Adler, another Method proponent, described it like this: "The Method revolutionized American theater. Classical acting instruction had focused on developing external talents, while Method acting was the first systematized training that also developed internal abilities, sensory, psychological, emotional" (Flint, 1992). Strasberg, who headed the Actors Studio until his death in 1982, rooted his view of the Method on what Stanislavsky had stressed in his early career, that the actor should perform extensive "affective memory" exercises, improvising and conjuring up "the conscious past" to convey emotion: for example, dwelling on a personal tragedy to show anguish.

Many famous actors have employed the Method technique, including Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Burstyn, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean. Often actors who employ the Method are criticized for taking their roles too seriously; some proponents of the technique, for instance, don't "break character" on set, meaning they continue to behave—to the extent that they want to be called by the character's name—as if they were still acting. (This is not part of the teaching of the Method; it is just an example of how far some actors are willing to take it.) Although some of the criticism is justified—it's easy to take such things to ridiculous extremes—many Method actors have given some of the greatest performances ever captured on film. It's not a requirement, by any means, but when done well, it can lead to astonishing results.

Stage vs. Film Acting

Still of Viola Davis in Doubt.

A scene from the movie Doubt. John Patrick Shanley adapted his own prize-winning play Doubt into a film whose four major stars (Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis) would all be nominated for Oscars, yet some critics felt their performances were often too "theatrical," except perhaps that of Davis.

Acting is central to both film and theater, but it is a different discipline in each art form because the forms themselves are so different. Even though we tend to think of theater as the more intimate form, that is not necessarily the case. In fact, the opposite may be true. Yes, when we see a play, we are in the same room as the actors, watching them perform right in front of us.

And we might see a film in a giant multiplex completely lacking in personality and charm, watching the story unfold on a screen. But the actors' jobs are quite different, and not entirely interchangeable.

In the theater, we are at a distance from the actors and from the action. There are no close-ups, no changing points of view. It is left up to the actors to provide the different perspectives that we are used to seeing. Also, because they're playing to a large room, the actors' mannerisms and expressions tend to be broad and big, the acting being much less subtle. They must emote more, or express their feelings in a more showy "theatrical" way, so that the emotions and feelings they are trying to impart aren't overlooked by audiences at various distances from the stage.

Exaggerated Acting: Murder in the Red Barn (1935)

A scene from the film Murder in the Red Barn, demonstrating exaggerated acting styles more commonly found in stage performances.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.What was your reaction to this scene from Murder in the Red Barn? Did you find the acting to be exaggerated?

2.Do you agree with the statement from the textbook that film may actually be a "more intimate" experience than live theater acting? Why or why not?

In films, on the other hand, cameras can capture even the smallest gesture, a nod, the raising of an eyebrow, so that the acting doesn't have to be as broad. An effective screen actor must know how to adjust a performance for extreme close-ups, for medium and long shots, and for extreme long shots with the camera farther away than any theater audience would be from the stage.

5.5 Types of Actors and Casting

Just as there are different types of acting, there are also different types of actors.

Impersonators

The term impersonator is considered somewhat demeaning in the acting world, suggesting that the actor has simply copied the manner, dialect, and behavior of a character, instead of creating the character. There are times when such a skill is useful—when a filmmaker needs a portrayal of a recognizable historical figure, for instance, but doesn't want to distract the audience by casting a recognizable actor in the role.

Better still are the actors who can play a famous character and yet go beyond a mere impersonation. Think of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, in which he convincingly played author Truman Capote, right down to the trademark lisp. Yet he was also able to bring something of himself to the role (for which he won an Oscar). The physical resemblance helped, of course, as it did for Helen Mirren in her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen; for David Strathairn, who played famed television reporter Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck; and for Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln, in which Strathairn also appeared, as Secretary of State William Seward. But it's not essential. Anthony Hopkins looks nothing like Richard Nixon, but he brilliantly captured the former president's essence in Nixon—the paranoia, the self-doubt, and the political brilliance. Hopkins likewise only vaguely resembled Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock, but he conveyed the famous director's personality so effectively that reproducing his exact physical appearance did not matter. More often than not, actors who can be called "impersonators" are equally adept at a wide variety of character roles and may be termed "wild card" actors. See Table 5.1 for current examples of impersonators and other types of actors.

Table 5.1 Types of actors and some actors who fit each category

Impersonator Philip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Mirren, David Strathairn, Meryl Streep [Note that each of these actors can also handle numerous character roles of fictional characters besides impersonating real people, and might fit into almost any of the following actor types.]

Interpreter Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Guinness, Forest Whitaker

Personality Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez

Wild card Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Helen Mirren, Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence

Character William H. Macy, Chris Cooper, Robert Duvall, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emma Thompson, Sam Anderson, Harry Dean Stanton, Jim Broadbent, Steve Buscemi, Viola Davis

Interpreters and Commentators

While Hopkins was some form of an interpreter in Nixon, this description more typically refers to actors who take material and put their own stamp on it. Often this involves actors interpreting well-known roles. There have been countless portrayals of the title character in William Shakespeare's Richard III, for instance, but the performance of Laurence Olivier in the 1955 film version that he also directed is so iconic that it's almost difficult to imagine another actor in the role. Kenneth Branagh's overall performance in the title role of the 1989 version of Henry V (which he directed as well) isn't as strong or as searing as Olivier's, but when he delivers the famous St. Crispin's Day speech before leading his men into what seems an almost suicidal battle ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"), he manages to give the lines a contemporary feel; he has made the role his own.

Still of Amy Acker performing a kitchen scene in Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing.

Amy Acker's performance in Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, coupled with the modern home setting, revitalized Shakespeare's play, making it relevant to a new generation.

In another example, Director Joss Whedon's 2012 Much Ado About Nothing, in which he filmed a black-and-white version at his own home over the course of two weeks, Amy Acker puts a contemporary spin on the character of Beatrice while using the original language from Shakespeare's play. This is a familiar play, with well-established characters, and one might argue that the sharp-witted Beatrice is one of Shakespeare's more contemporary characters to begin with. But Acker, with the help of Whedon's setting the play in such an unusual place, makes the language, the phrasing, and the context at home in the present, even while retaining the intricate wordplay with Benedick (Alexis Denisof). Denisof and the rest of the relatively unknown cast do an outstanding job of interpreting Shakespeare's words through both vocal inflections and physical mannerisms, so that modern viewers can follow the plot without needing an annotated dictionary of Elizabethan English. The same might be said of the star-studded cast interpreting the same characters in Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film of the play, although it was set in a time and place closer to Shakespeare's original (and some critics have issues with Keanu Reeves's performance).

Personality Actors

John Wayne in WWII-era military gear and holding a gun in Sands of Iwo Jima.

Courtesy Everett Collection

John Wayne (shown here in Sands of Iwo Jima) was among a number of Hollywood actors, including Ronald Reagan, who linked their on-screen all-American images to their political viewpoints.

As with impersonators, there is sometimes a negative connotation to the term personality actor, which is odd, in some ways, because acting depends so heavily on a strong personality. But relying on it too much is thought of as a crutch, as a substitute for skill and technique. Personality actors are, at some level, playing themselves (or at least that is the perception). Films with strong personality actors can make it difficult for audiences to differentiate between the actor and the character. In a film starring Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone or John Wayne, how often do you use or even remember the names of their characters when discussing them with friends? Actors with distinctive personalities who manage to click with audiences often wind up playing similar characters in film after film. Keanu Reeves, for instance, seemingly has been saddled with roles that virtually require him to utter "Whoa" after becoming famous as a dim-bulb teenager, even though Reeves has been a grown (and thoughtful) man for some time. Some actors become so famous that their personalities become a kind of shortcut, allowing them to relate certain things to an audience simply by showing up on screen. Jack Nicholson, for instance, has such a strong presence and such idiosyncratic mannerisms and tics that we know what he is trying to convey simply by watching him raise an eyebrow, one of his signature moves. Even though his personality dominates his films, Nicholson's performances remain impressive, as evidenced by his 12 Academy Award nominations and three wins. And actors like Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant remain popular personalities more than half a century after their heyday. But a lesser talent who relies too much on personality risks not having staying power. Will audiences 50 years from now recognize the strength of personality? Or will it simply seem mannered and curious, a distraction instead of a beloved trait?

Stars

To define a star, think about a personality actor, only more so. A star is a distinctive screen persona who is well known and popular with the moviegoing public, often to the point that some avid movie fans become deeply curious about the actor's private life. Hollywood has had a century-long love affair with stars, since the days of Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Stars are actors who are simply famous on screen and off, personalities so magnetic that we are interested not just in their movies, but in their personal lives as well. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both talented actors. But they're also famous stars, celebrities, so much so that tabloids and gossip sites endlessly speculate on their relationship, their children, and every other aspect of their lives.

Obviously, this has been taken to almost absurd extremes today, where websites breathlessly report the content of text messages between actors and their mistresses and the like. Nevertheless, the attachment of any famous star to a movie project is invaluable in attracting financing, distribution, and viewers, whatever the film's ultimate dramatic or artistic value turns out to be. Being a star does not guarantee being a great actor, and any number of major stars (especially in action films) routinely get savaged by film critics. On the other hand, many great actors never become stars who are household names. The entire cast of Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing is an excellent ensemble of strong actors, and while many have had some television acclaim, none has much name recognition (if any) among moviegoers.

Wild Cards and Character Actors

Still of Philip Seymour Hoffman with long hair and a beard in Pirate Radio.

Still of Philip Seymour Hoffman dressed as a priest in Doubt.

Could Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayals in Pirate Radio (left) and Doubt (right) be more different?

Some actors exist outside traditional, easily defined categories. How could we describe Meryl Streep, for instance? She is a star, certainly; her 16 Oscar nominations are the most in history (she's won two). She's not a mimic, yet her portrayal of Julia Child in Julie & Julia relies heavily on aping the famous chef's quirky mannerisms. She certainly interprets roles and often brings a distinctive personality to the screen. So which category does she fit into? One way to look at it is that she defies such categories—she is a wild card, an actor who is difficult to classify as one certain type, often because he or she can play a wide variety of characters equally well without becoming typecast. Other actors are able to fit invisibly into a wide variety of disparate characters, adapting to the needs of each script and director they work with, known as character actors. Because they are so effective at this, they often are not immediately recognized by the public and may take years to achieve "star" status, even though they are constantly in demand. Critically acclaimed actors such as William H. Macy, Chris Cooper, Kristin Scott Thomas, John C. Reilly, and others (including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Mirren, and David Strathairn, noted under "Impersonators") bring their talents to both big-budget Hollywood films and low-budget independents. But average moviegoers may be only vaguely aware of them because each of their roles is so different from the other that they see only the characters rather than the actors. Their versatility makes them invaluable as character actors. On the other hand, young character actress Jennifer Lawrence appeared in some obscure but well-received independent films, gained major critical recognition with her Oscar-nominated performance in Winter's Bone, and then became a popular star with her roles in major action sci-fi films such as The Hunger Games and X-Men: First Class. Yet she returned to a strong character part in the relatively low-budget Silver Linings Playbook and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2013, she co-starred in the sequel to The Hunger Games as well as the popular and critical success American Hustle. Will she become the next Meryl Streep and avoid becoming typecast?

While Streep is a star and major box office draw, most character actors tend to get starring roles in small-budget films, but mainly supporting roles and even uncredited bit parts in major films. (A "bit" part is a short character appearance with few or no lines, rarely more than a day's work for the actor, if that, yet sometimes these roles can become memorable with the right actor.) Occasionally, major stars turn to character roles as they grow older and may accept smaller but perhaps more challenging parts, either for the money or just for fun. Some even seek out bit parts in projects by director or actor friends. Think of Tom Cruise's flamboyant but uncharacteristically short role in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder or Bruce Willis's brief appearance in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Robert Altman's The Player is crammed with numerous appearances by famous stars, many playing themselves, some for just a few minutes in the two-hour-plus film, others for mere seconds of screen time.

Types of Actors

5.6 Casting: Stars, Actors, Non-Actors

Still from The Bicycle Thief with the characters talking next to a bicycle.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Still from The Bicycle Thief. Sometimes the best casting is casting from life. Before Slumdog Millionaire's unknown children, neo-realist Vittorio De Sica pioneered the use of nonprofessional actors in The Bicycle Thief.

Casting just the right actor to play a character is sometimes considered half the task of directing a successful movie. But before Clint Eastwood was able to become the iconic "man with no name" in A Fistful of Dollars, which made him a star and established his screen persona for the rest of his career, he first had to win the role (which had first been offered to and refused by Henry Fonda, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson). In retrospect, with successful films, it's easy to think how naturally and how well an actor fits a role. It's impossible to imagine anyone else but Ben Kingsley in the title role of Gandhi, but what if director Richard Attenborough had gone with a different actor? The entire film would have been changed drastically. Before becoming a star, Jennifer Lawrence had auditioned for the role of Bella in Twilight, but she lost it to Kristin Stewart. Even such beloved classics as The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon originally had other actors planned for several leading roles that now seem inseparable from Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, and others. It can be instructive to watch a film and two or more of its remakes to see how different actors interpret the same roles. We'll take a brief look here at the methods of casting, as well as some of the pitfalls.

Auditions

An audition occurs when an actor is invited to try out for a part, in front of casting directors, producers, and perhaps the director of the film as well. It's no different than trying out for a high school play, really, though the stakes are usually somewhat higher. Sometimes a director or casting director will also do a screen test, in which an actor is filmed doing a scene from the script, often with another actor who has already been cast. A number of DVDs, Juno, for example, include bonus features showing some of the audition tapes or screen tests, letting the public see other actors who were not cast, as well as early, sometimes different interpretations by the actors who were cast.

Some actors, after achieving a certain level of success, no longer wish to audition for a role; some flat out refuse to. Instead, they want to be cast on the basis of their previous work, their reputation, and their talent. But it takes a while to get to this point, and it's typically reserved only for the biggest stars or distinguished character actors (some of whom will submit to an audition anyway). No one but Clark Gable was seriously considered to play Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, but numerous famous stars tested for the role of Scarlett O'Hara, and the part finally went to Vivien Leigh, who was virtually unknown outside of England at the time.

Still of Will Ferrell shouting in Stranger Than Fiction.

Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction. Comedians typically have a hard time branching out from typecast roles. Will Ferrell's comedic charm actually lends itself to his role in Stranger Than Fiction, where he plays the straight man placed in an absurd situation in which he is able to hear a voice narrating his life.

A process called open casting is when a public invitation is issued for people to try out for roles, rather than casting directors contacting actors' agents about available roles. The popular television show Glee, for instance, conducted a nationwide casting call for actors for its second season. Sometimes aspiring actors are asked to submit audition tapes, and casting directors call back the most promising for in-person auditions. Open casting calls require determination and luck on the part of the actor; tens of thousands of singers attend open castings for American Idol, for instance.

Typecasting

Sometimes a relatively unknown actor will achieve success in an early role—and then be doomed to repeat the same type of role again and again over the course of a career (as noted earlier in the discussion of personality actors). A famous example of this typecasting in television is Gary Burghoff, who played Walter "Radar" O'Reilly in the television show M*A*S*H (as well as in the film). Often a comedic actor, such as Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler, becomes so well known for humorous roles that it is difficult for audiences to accept them in dramas, even when they are outstanding in the other roles (both have been). Sandler specializes in broad, crude slapstick comedy, yet he impressed critics with his dramatic range in Punch Drunk Love and Reign Over Me. Neither film did well at the box office, however. Carrey's serious turn in The Majestic received mixed critical response and bombed theatrically. Funnyman Will Ferrell had a seriocomic role in the offbeat Stranger Than Fiction, which found modest box office success but grossed only a tiny fraction of his Anchorman films and other wacky parodies he is noted for. Robin Williams, who grew to fame as a stand-up comic and television star, then went on to a successful career in comedies, was able to break the mold, winning an Oscar for a dramatic role in the film Good Will Hunting. Leslie Nielsen went the opposite route, starting as a serious character actor, supporting player, and leading man and later switching to comedy, spoofing the very types of roles he'd previously played straight. Now viewers may find it difficult to take his earlier characters seriously! Like popular stars, character actors also (much to their frustration) may become typecast if they are particularly successful in one type of role.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman embracing in Casablanca

Courtesy Everett Collection

Humphrey Bogart (shown here with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca) was an American icon—hardboiled, with a soft spot for "dames."

The Star System

In old Hollywood—that is, in the first half of the 20th century—films were the products of studios that owned all their own production resources, including vast stages and prop warehouses, film labs, equipment, and the services of in-house production crews, writers, directors, and actors. Stars were their major assets because producers knew their appearance in a film would sell tickets, and the popularity of stars with the public meant prosperity for the studio. Studios relied on stars, signing them to long-term contracts and casting them in one movie after another.

While this star system offered steady employment for the biggest stars, it also created a system in which studios would invent out of whole cloth images and personalities for their actors. Rock Hudson, for instance, was a closeted gay man, but the studio went so far as to arrange a marriage to a woman to prevent his fans from knowing the truth about his sexual orientation. The studio-based star system was largely abandoned by the 1960s, though some of its trappings remain, as stars and their publicists carefully cultivate public images to give the public information—just enough, not too much—that will be beneficial to an actor's career.

Miscasting and Lucky Breaks

Like any creative endeavor, casting is prone to mistakes and happy accidents. Sometimes, despite the best instincts of the people making the film, as well as tools such as marketing research, an actor will still be miscast in a role. One example is the casting of George Clooney as Bruce Wayne and Batman in Batman and Robin. Clooney is a well-loved major star but an underrated actor (though he once won an Oscar). Yet many viewers concluded he was the absolute wrong choice for this film, feeling his innate charm came off more as arrogance. On the other hand, Michael Keaton, at the time noted as a comic actor, seemed like a terrible choice for the role in Batman and Batman Returns. Despite the doubts of many, Keaton proved to be a very capable Batman, satisfying most fans and critics alike, and he went on to more dramatic roles. Harrison Ford was a bit actor who got a lucky break with Star Wars, going on to become a major action star and later a respected character actor.

How Stars Affect Movies

It's sort of like the all-squares-are-rectangles-but-not-all-rectangles-are-squares principle: All stars are actors. But not all actors are stars. The differences may be subtle, or they may be pronounced. But they're there, and they affect the way audiences perceive movies—and whether they show up to them in the first place.

George Clooney talking into a headset in a black and white still from Good Night, and Good Luck.

George Clooney made his reputation as a leading man following in the tradition of Cary Grant and Clark Gable. In Good Night, and Good Luck (shown here), he takes an unusual role in a biography of Edward R. Murrow. As director and co-writer, Clooney brings his social conscience to bear. Audiences sense an identification between Clooney's portrait of Fred Friendly (co-producer with Murrow of See It Now) and Clooney's personal views.

Casting a star in a movie guarantees certain things. One thing it guarantees is attention. If Brad Pitt is even considering making a movie, it's news. Some believe that any publicity is good publicity; however, immense star power has a downside—it can overwhelm the film itself. Weak directors can also use star power to make up for a weak script (think of any of the later Rocky movies, for instance, which coasted on the image and fame of Sylvester Stallone). To enjoy a movie, an audience must employ suspension of disbelief, or the ability to convince ourselves that something our rational mind knows isn't true—for instance, that Robert De Niro is an unbalanced cabbie in Taxi Driver—is really happening. The moment we begin to think of the actor on screen as an actor, the magic is lost, and so is the movie. Yet paradoxically many viewers will avoid movies that feature actors they've never heard of, gauging their probable enjoyment more by star familiarity than by story content.

Frequently, established stars will do what is known as playing against type, or playing a role of a type that audiences are not used to seeing them in. As mentioned earlier, comic actors such as Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey will occasionally take on dramatic roles. Indeed, Tom Hanks, who would win two best-acting Oscars, started his film career in goofy comedies such as Bachelor Party. His career is often used as an example for actors hoping to break out of a particular mold, though in truth he is more the exception than the rule.

Some actors, once they become stars, gain the power to choose more challenging roles that can demonstrate their acting ability—star power in service of acting power. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt began as attractive but generic and typecast romantic leads. Bruce Willis is often considered an action hero. But now that they are successful stars, they are unafraid to play characters fans might not expect from them, occasionally even supporting or unadvertised bit roles. Johnny Depp started as a disposable hero in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street but now thrives on quirky performances of quirky characters in quirky scripts for quirky directors. George Clooney gained fame by playing suave, self-confident characters, often with a comic edge, which is what makes his performance in Michael Clayton so fascinating. Clooney is such a good actor that we are able to believe that this person is in fact a troubled man whose life is spinning out of control, and who may be powerless to stop it.

Box-Office Clout

The economic impact of stardom is sometimes lost in the People magazine style of coverage. There is a reason that stars with the stature of Will Smith or George Clooney are paid tens of millions of dollars to make a movie: They can "open" a film, or bring a large audience to it for the all-important first weekend and guarantee future video sales.

But a star's reach extends beyond the box office. Richard Kind, a character actor—that is, an actor who typically does not play starring roles, but instead plays smaller-though-crucial characters—is friends with Clooney. He compared his lot in life to that of his pal's, saying "I'm allowed to fail . . . If he fails, his next project is affected . . . the perception of career . . . If I fail, some seats are not going to be filled . . . If he fails, the loss is in . . . millions of dollars" (Goodykoontz, 2009b).

Photograph of Daniel Day-Lewis in a wheelchair in My Left Foot.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Daniel Day-Lewis is well known for his hard work to stay in character. For My Left Foot (shown here), playing Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy, Lewis insisted that the crew spoon feed him on the set. He learned to paint holding a knife with his foot. As a result of the weeks he spent bent over in a wheelchair, he broke two ribs. He won an Oscar for this portrayal.

How Actors Affect Movies

Without the benefit of extensive media coverage, studio hype, and star power, smaller films are more dependent upon telling a good story than blockbusters are. If a movie is well made and well acted, it may still find an audience. Some actors made their name playing choice roles in small films; some actors never leave that world. Actors such as Daniel Day-Lewis and character actors mentioned previously try to submerse themselves in their roles. The characters they play are more important than any star persona associated with them. Sometimes, as with Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove) and Alec Guinness (Kind Hearts and Coronets), they may flex their acting muscles by playing multiple and very different parts within the same film. Less famous character actors and supporting actors may even base entire careers on their ability not to stand out to audiences, blending in effortlessly to whatever story, period, and character in which they are cast. They carefully avoid cultivating a star persona.

Some actors get their start in smaller roles, gradually gain prominence and move up to supporting roles, and then become stars able to carry a film to success. As they get older, they may shift to character roles and smaller parts, but their fame continues to add prestige and increased box office potential to their films. A few actors have enough charisma and star power to continue to handle leading man or leading lady roles far beyond the norm for people their age (such as Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Cary Grant, and Katharine Hepburn). Other actors shoot to stardom because they manage to touch a public nerve with the right role at the right time, but after brief careers of extreme popularity, they may fade into obscurity in minor films or give up acting altogether. Still others die tragically young near the height of their fame (e.g., James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger, and Brittany Murphy).

Non-Actors in Films

Certain directors, especially for independent productions dealing with slice-of-life situations, prefer to avoid casting not only familiar stars, but also any professional actors. They may still hold auditions, but they will search for people who naturally look and act like the characters they have in their scripts, people without the trained polish of an actor performing a role. They cast people who can essentially be themselves within the context of the story, delivering a performance, often partly or entirely improvised, that looks like real people in those situations rather than actors pretending.

This practice gained some popularity in Italy during and immediately after World War II with a filmmaking movement known as Italian Neorealism, and it continued to some extent with the French New Wave during the 1950s and 1960s and the growth of the American independent filmmaking movement from the 1950s through the present. It is rarely used on major Hollywood movies except sometimes for bit roles, but it is not uncommon in independent films like Winter's Bone or Mud, which cast unknowns and nonprofessional actors for major supporting roles but professionals as the leading characters.

5.7 The Actor's Role in Shaping a Film

Still of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann having a conversation in the film Persona.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann in a scene from the film Persona. Ingmar Bergman had a reputation for extracting emotionally devastating performances from his actresses, several of whom he became romantically involved with, including Andersson and Ullmann.

Despite their visibility, actors do not, as we have discussed, have as powerful a role in telling the story as the audience might believe. The actor's role is still crucial, obviously. If the actor doesn't create the story, he does interpret it—and some successful actors have power beyond that, as well, choosing their own scripts and directors, or even writing or directing their films themselves.

An actor's performance, however unique and individual it may be to that particular actor, can be strongly shaped by the director through choices of camera angles, and even more drastically through editing, as noted near the beginning of this chapter. A performance that literally never existed on the set can be built in the editing room because a scene is shot (or "taken") more than once from the same and different angles. By using bits and pieces from various takes, inserting reactions by other characters, lengthening or shortening pauses between lines, and cross-cutting between other scenes, the director can get exactly the line readings he or she wants, change the pacing of line delivery, rearrange or delete lines of dialogue, and more. New dialogue may even be recorded to dub over the picture. This can change the audience's perception of the performance to something entirely different from what may have been filmed, and it may be especially necessary in "indie" films using nonprofessional actors. Some film actors may come to rely upon editing for their performances, as it means they need memorize only a few lines of dialogue at a time, at most a few pages of script, unless they're working for a director who prefers long, uninterrupted takes. Stage actors, on the other hand, have much more control over their performances, but they must memorize an entire two-hour play and perform it before a live audience without the benefit of "retakes." The stage actor has an advantage over the screen actor in playing a character's experience chronologically from beginning to end. Stage actors thus may be intimidated by filmmaking's segmented process. A film actor may not have to remember the entire script at once but does need the special skill to act small moments numerous times (for different camera setups) and out of sequence (to accommodate production schedules), all the while giving the impression of a consistently developing character in continuous time after it's all edited together.

Collaboration

Successful Teamwork in Filmmaking: On Actors

Directors Adrian Lyne, Martin Scorsese, and David Lynch discuss actors as part of a film.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.Do you agree with director Martin Scorsese's statement that actors are "the whole movie"?

2.Several directors in this video clip mention the need for actors to have freedom of expression. Why is this so important, if it is technically the director's job to take charge of directing?

Films are a collaborative process among writers, directors, and actors. Sometimes, as with Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing, or the films of Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen, the same person takes on all three roles. But in most cases, three people must work together to create the finished film, and while the actor may not have much say in which aspects of his performance the director chooses, he does have a say in the performance itself.

In other words, while the notion for a character's behavior originates with whoever creates the story and is brought to life by the director, who must bring the behavior to the screen in a believable way (if believable is what the story calls for), it falls to the actor to bring the behavior to life. A good actor may get to know his character better than the director or even the writer and can come up with important actions, props, additional dialogue, and line interpretations that never occurred to the writer or director. A good actor literally becomes another person on the screen. But audiences must always keep in mind that actors are playing characters created by the writer and staged by the director.

Unless the actor is also directing the film, he or she rarely has much say in choosing which performance a director will use. (Note that as with anything else in entertainment or in life, this doesn't apply to the biggest stars, who sometimes have as much or more power than their directors.) This doesn't mean that the actor doesn't have strong opinions about the material or how it should be performed. There are stories of disagreements between actors and directors—supposedly Dustin Hoffman clashed often with director Sydney Pollack on the set of Tootsie, for instance, and that's hardly the only example—but the best performances come from a collaboration between actors and directors. Of this collaboration, Ben Kingsley has said:

Acting, as you know, is completely collaborative—the actor–director collaboration, the director–[director of photography] collaboration, the actor–actor collaboration, all of it is collaborative. And it's how, with skill, you are able to put these jigsaw pieces together. And you know how a jigsaw piece works—one bit pushes outward and docks into a bit that curves inward. So I think it's to do with individual need, some comforting psychological need. (Goodykoontz, 2009a)

How Actors Prepare for a Role

Many actors conduct extensive research into the characters they play. If they are playing a fictional character, perhaps they will create what is called a backstory, or an unwritten, imaginary history of their characters' lives. Or perhaps they will spend time with someone who does something similar in real life. In Brothers, for instance, Natalie Portman plays the wife of a Marine Corps officer who is often overseas, leaving her at home to raise their children. To prepare for the role, Portman visited a military base, spending time with real-life military wives and mothers.

Still of Robert De Niro talking to a man in a car in Raging Bull.

Photo by: Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

Robert De Niro gained 60 pounds to play an aging Jake La Motta in Raging Bull.

Some actors are known for their elaborate preparation and devotion to roles. In director Martin Scorsese's 1980 film Raging Bull, for instance, Robert De Niro played the boxer Jake LaMotta at different stages of his life. The problem was that LaMotta gained a considerable amount of weight after his boxing career ended. Rather than reflect this through the use of makeup and prosthetics, Scorsese first shot the scenes with the younger, fitter LaMotta character. He then stopped production on the film for weeks so that De Niro could gain weight, whereupon he filmed the scenes of the older, fatter LaMotta. The transformation on screen is astonishing, almost as if two different actors were playing the role. (De Niro won an Oscar for his performance.)

This level of devotion is unusual, however, and typically associated with Method actors who immerse themselves into roles on and off the set. Many other actors merely study the script, come up with a characterization (with the approval of the director), and fall easily into and out of character as soon as the camera starts rolling or the director says "Cut." In some cases, actors may not even get their script until the first day of shooting, whether because they are last-minute replacements for other actors or because a director may not want actors to see the script for any scenes they are not acting in. Some actors rely upon directors to explain character motivations and even give specific movements and gestures to them. Others are the exact opposite and prefer the director to let them do their jobs as actors. Likewise, some directors prefer absolute control over every aspect of their actors' performances, while others rely upon the actors to interpret the characters more or less on their own, so they can devote more time to the numerous other aspects of a production.

Summary and Resources

Chapter Summary

In a well-made film, the things we see on the screen are not merely random and are more than just actors playing characters doing things. The mise en scène—what the audience sees on the screen—is the most visible part of a film, the things and people we see in the scenes. The sets, costumes, makeup, props, colors, lighting, and placement of the actors can tell much of the story even without dialogue, conveying both mood and key plot information, and often symbolic thematic content. Mise en scène and acting styles may strive for naturalism or may be intentionally artificial and unrealistic, or "stylized." The actors are a major element of the mise en scène, and for many viewers they are the most memorable thing about a movie, bringing the characters to life. Yet their job is more than just memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera. It is a collaborative process between actors and directors that requires several takes of the same scene, as well as a tremendous amount of preparation and the ability to appear consistent in scenes shot out of sequence.

There are many methods an actor can use in his or her performance; some actors use more than one, depending on the film. There are also different kinds of actors, who may be cast in their roles for different reasons, be it star power, screen persona, ability to disappear into different characters, or untrained naturalism. A technique used by certain actors and directors is improvisation. While the actor does not typically have final say in which performance a director will include in the final film, he or she does have the option of providing many different versions and discussing how best to approach each scene. When the actor and director work well together, the performance can be the most magical part of a movie.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Acting When Viewing a Film

•What and how much story information is the mise en scène telling you that you are not getting from the performances of the actors?

•How do the ways the actors are placed and move around in the settings contribute to your understanding of their characters and of the story?

•Who are the actors and what kinds of actors (impersonators, interpreters, personality actors, stars, wild cards, character actors) are present in the film?

•What type of acting is present (stylized, realistic, method acting, stage acting vs. film acting, untrained natural acting)? Also, how realistic or stylized is the mise en scène, and how does it complement or contrast with the performances?

•How do the actors convey the story's meaning by the way they interpret their characters? How much of their performances might be attributed to the director, camerawork, or the editing?

You Try It

1.Think of the films you've seen that tell you something about the characters through the use of props, costumes, makeup, or their placement in a setting, before the actors start to talk or do anything. Can you remember any elements from the mise en scène that you feel are symbolic in some way about a certain character? Do any characters' later actions in the plot fulfill or reverse your initial expectations implied by the mise en scène? Consider, for example, the scene in Dracula where Renfield meets Dracula. Go to www.movieclips.com (http://www.movieclips.com) and search "Dracula" to view this scene:

Hyperlinked photo of actors Bela Lugosi (as Dracula) and Dwight Frye (as Renfield) in the film Dracula. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

"Renfield Meets Dracula" (http://www.movieclips.com)

To view this clip with closed captioning, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips (https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips) and use the searchbar to search for "Renfield Meets Dracula."

2.Recall scenes or significant sections in any film that use no dialogue, that rely instead upon a combination of the actors' movements and various other elements of the mise en scène to tell the viewer what is going on. How did the mise en scène help you understand what was occurring in the scene? Perhaps no example of this is more famous than the shower scene in Psycho. Go to www.movieclips.com (http://www.movieclips.com) and search "Psycho" to view the following clip:

Hyperlinked photo of actress Janet Lee showering in the film Psycho. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

"The Shower" (http://www.movieclips.com)

To view this clip with closed captioning, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips (https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips) and use the searchbar to search for "The Shower."

3.Who is your favorite actor? Now think more about why this is so. Is it because the performance is believable? Funny? Sad? What does the actor do to make it that way? In how many of the actor's films do you remember him or her primarily as an actor and in how many do you remember primarily the character he or she played? Does your favorite actor play the same or similar characters from film to film?

4.Think of an acting performance that you especially like and one you dislike. Which type of acting does the actor use in each case? Would another type have been more effective in the one you disliked?

5.Come up with examples of each type of actor below and explain why you think they fit those categories. •Impersonator

•Personality actor

•Star

•Wild card

•Character actor

Key Terms

Click on each key term to see the definition.

actor (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A person who plays a character in a film or play, interpreting a character that a writer has created, under the guidance of a director.

audition (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The process of an actor "trying out" for a role, performing short scenes to let a director or casting director see how well he or she can do; an audition can be accomplished either by submitting tapes or by trying out in person.

backstory (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Elements of a film's story that do not appear in the plot. Actors often try to imagine what happened to their characters before the plot began, creating an elaborate backstory (which may or may not be based on the writer's original ideas), and may research similar real-life people to help them understand a character's motivations.

bit part (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A short character appearance with few or no lines, rarely more than a day's work for the actor.

blocking (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The placement and planned movements of the actors through the sets, usually determined by the director.

character (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A (usually fictional) person whose traits and actions are fashioned by a writer to help tell a story to the audience through the course of a plot.

character actors (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Actors who specialize in playing a wide variety of characters, most often supporting or minor roles rather than leading roles.

impersonator (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An actor who attempts to impersonate actual people for a role, such as in historical and biographical stories.

improvisation (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A process used by actors in which they make up dialogue and actions "in character," after discussing the characters and plot motivations with the director. Some directors allow actors to improvise in rehearsals to develop scenes that will appear more natural for each actor than what may have originally been written. Others may even allow actors to improvise while the camera is running for an unpredictable, spontaneous feeling.

in sequence (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A rare method of shooting a film so that the scenes are shot in chronological order, the same order in which they appear in the story. Most films are shot out of sequence for scheduling convenience due to actor and location availability.

interpreter (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An actor who tries to put his or her personal stamp on roles, often playing characters that have been done by others.

method acting (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Often known as "the Method." An approach to acting that originated with Konstantin Stanislavsky. Teaches actors to draw upon their own experiences to portray what a character experiences, even to the point of going out and experiencing something just for the role or remaining "in character" on and off the set.

mise en scène (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The physical things we see in a scene, including setting, props, costumes, actors, makeup, lighting, colors—anything that would be on the set before the camera is even brought in.

open casting (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An audition that is open to anyone interested, rather than requiring a special invitation or solicitation by an agent.

personality actor (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An actor whose own personality tends to define all the characters he or she portrays, so that the actor's name alone lets audiences know what the screen character will be like.

props (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Short for "properties"; the things in the scene that are used by the characters or that decorate the set indicating the sort of location in which a scene is taking place.

realism (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A style of acting that appears to viewers to be "realistic" rather than artificial. Conceptions of what is realistic often vary from generation to generation and from medium to medium (stage to television to film).

scene (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A portion of a film that takes place in a single location over a single continuous period of time, usually numbered in the order they appear in the script. A setup is a different camera position used to shoot the same scene (closer, farther, alternate angle, etc.), typically adding a letter to the scene number to differentiate it.

star (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An actor, often with a distinctive screen persona, who is well known and popular with the moviegoing public, often to the point that some avid movie fans become deeply curious about the actor's private life.

stylized acting (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Acting done in a style that is intentionally unrealistic for dramatic or symbolic purposes.

take (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The portion of a scene recorded from the time the camera is turned on until it is turned off. Each camera setup in each scene will have one or more takes until the director and actors are satisfied with the performances.

typecasting (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Casting actors based on their physical appearance or on the types of characters they've most often played in the past, rather than on an audition that might reveal an unexpected acting range. Casting against type gives actors the chance to demonstrate whether they can successfully play more than one type of character.

wild card (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A term applied to an actor, usually a star, who is difficult to classify as one certain type, an actor who can play a wide variety of characters equally well without becoming typecast.

Editing

Still from 127 Hours, showing actor James Franco trapped under a fallen rock.

The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.

—Francis Ford Coppola

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

•Describe how editing can affect a film's pacing, plot structure, and perception of its mise en scène.

•Explain how editing can juggle plot threads and rearrange the order of story content for dramatic effect.

•Identify the basic building blocks editing uses to tell a story, including how a variety of transitions can affect perception of time.

•Define systems of editing, such as continuity editing, discontinuity editing, and the montage theory, and describe how editing guides what a viewer is seeing and hearing in order to refocus attention and to enhance or even completely change what was in the script.

7.1 What Is Editing?

Still from The Great Gatsby, showing a party at Gatsby's mansion.

©Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

In Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby, a flurry of short shots edited together adds to the quick-paced, almost frenzied nature of the party scenes.

In narrative movies, the story idea usually comes first, and the screenwriter puts his or her vision into words, describing what will be seen on the screen. With most movies, the director chooses and arranges what will actually be in the scene (the mise en scène) and how it plays out. The cinematographer composes various images in the camera that force the audience to view only part of what is in the scene, and to view it in a specific way with each shot. The editor then decides which of those shots to use, in what order they appear, and how long they are on the screen. This can have a critical effect on how well an audience can pick up on what the director has put into the scene. Directors typically work closely with both the cinematographer and editor to make sure their visions coincide. There are cases, however, when a director who wants to maintain personal control may shoot a scene in such a way that it can be edited in only one way, or is in one continuous take with no alternate angles to cut to. Alfred Hitchcock's Rope is a rather extreme example, an 80-minute film with only 10 individual shots running 5 to 10 minutes each and five of the cuts disguised to make it appear like only five individual shots. Sometimes viewers of Rope have the impression that the entire film was shot in one long take because the few cuts it employs seem so natural that they're not perceived as cuts. Effective editing is sometimes called "invisible" editing. This is because viewers often do not even realize when a shot changes from, say, a two-shot to a close-up of one actor, or even from one location to another, if the editor appropriately anticipates what viewers want to see and when they want to see it, and remembers to maintain a plausible continuity between shots.

The Technology of Film: Constructing the Sequence in Film

Editors literally tell a story by piecing together film footage, using a variety of shots to construct a sequence.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.According to the video, how many different types of shots are at an editor's disposal? Name three of them.

2.How much responsibility do you think the editor has in regard to how the film's story is ultimately told? Does this power vary from film to film and editor to editor?

Some films take the opposite approach and use certain scenes to show off their ability to edit numerous shots together, as in the battle scenes of 300, action sequences in XXX and Star Trek Into Darkness, and party scenes in Baz Luhrman's remake of The Great Gatsby. A film such as Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) looks from beginning to end almost like an exercise in all the possible techniques of editing. The montage theory of editing, which will be discussed later, is a rebellion against the idea of invisible editing, and instead considers that not only is editing the most important aspect of filmmaking but that the joining of shots should intentionally juxtapose disparate images to create new meaning. Most standard character dramas and comedies, however, tend to use functional continuity editing that serves the story and does not call attention to itself. Editing can shorten scenes that were shot, tighten them to pick up the pace and increase dramatic tension, and lengthen scenes, stretching out reactions longer than they were originally delivered by the actors on the set and so slowing the pace for dramatic emphasis. Typically, using fewer and longer takes in a scene slows the pacing, while using more shots of briefer screen time quickens the pacing. (Compare, for example, the divergent editing styles in the 1974 and 2013 versions of The Great Gatsby.) Editing can even rearrange or eliminate words, actions, or entire sequences—segments made up of closely related scenes. For example, the last scene in the script might be split in half, with the first half placed at the beginning of the film so that the middle of the picture becomes an extended flashback. The entire plot structure can be changed through the editing. Quentin Tarantino has stated that the edited movie is really the final draft of the script. And of course editing can change the film yet again through various stages from "roughcut" to "preview print," undergoing revisions for the "premiere" version and often a shortened "theatrical cut" (sometimes slightly different for different countries), then a revised "director's cut" for home video, and sometimes even a later "definitive director's cut." Changes in different editions may be due to ratings or censorship concerns. They may be made to make story clarity more obvious for certain target audiences. Or scenes may be deleted simply to shorten the running time so theaters can schedule more showings per day.

To understand what goes into editing, it can be a useful exercise to read original screenplays in various drafts, and then to compare them with the finished film, if possible, in its various cuts. A select few DVDs and Blu-ray discs include the film's screenplay, sometimes as a DVD-ROM file (as with Nurse Betty, The Stunt Man, and Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong) and occasionally as a file designed to appear on screen while you watch the film (as with Pirates of the Caribbean, Taxi Driver, Pleasantville, and American Beauty). Articles and entire books have examined particular films from script to screen in their many different incarnations along the way. A few films are available on DVD or Blu-ray in multiple versions that can allow you to trace the modifications in two or more different cuts for yourself, including Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional, and Oliver Stone's Alexander, among others. Many foreign-language films are drastically recut for American release, primarily to shorten them and speed up pacing, but also to eliminate character development and subplots deemed unnecessary for the basic storyline or too confusing for American audiences. It can be instructive to compare the very different versions of films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Luchino Visconti's The Leopard and Senso, or Ishiro Honda's Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira), to name just a few. Do the changes improve the films for an audience with a different cultural background, do they destroy the director's original intent, or do they merely present the same basic story differently?

Still from A Clockwork Orange, showing actor Malcolm McDowell as Alex undergoing painful behavior treatment.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was originally released with an X rating. Because of concerns about sex and violence, some VHS editions were later edited and released with an R rating.

Another useful exercise is to watch your favorite films over again, picking out an especially impressive scene to view repeatedly, sometimes in slow motion, so you can observe all the different shots that make up the scene. Try to understand how the editor's choices affect how you perceive the scene's pacing, and how you notice specific props or actions more clearly at key moments than if different shots were used or a different number of shots were cut together over the same screen time. Additionally, if a DVD or Blu-ray edition of a film offers the opportunity in its supplementary features, it can be very instructive to watch unedited takes of a scene and then see the complete edited scene (and possibly alternate edited versions) immediately following. Certain DVDs include bonus features that break down selected scenes shot by shot, explaining how a sequence is constructed, sometimes comparing it with the shooting script and "storyboards" or "animatics" that directors use to pre-visualize the scenes. Others give you the option of viewing alternate camera angles during a scene. Sometimes (as with the Men in Black Deluxe Edition) they even let you rearrange shots or remix the audio to see the effect that has.

In this chapter, we will examine some of the basic tools of editing, which is one of the elements of filmmaking that occurs in post-production, or after principal photography is completed. However, some aspects of editing may begin before filming ends, as the director will look at dailies, or the footage shot during a given day. Every editor, like every director, has his or her own style. And, as with the director's relationship with the cinematographer, his or her relationship and level of cooperation and supervision with the editor vary from film to film. But most editors operate with these tools at their disposal, so a working knowledge of them should help us to understand how the film is put together.

7.2 Rearranging the Story Into a Plot

Before we get into the technical details of what goes into editing, you must understand the purpose of editing; briefly, it is to arrange the screenwriter's story and cinematographer's shots into the film's final plot. The writer puts story elements into a plot in a certain order, the director oversees their filming, but the editor is the one who assembles everything into the final movie. Directors rely upon their editors to make sense of all the little pieces, not only to bring out the best performances of the actors but also to enhance the themes of the story and ensure the audience can follow what is going on. Because most films are not shot in chronological order, but in the order in which scheduling, weather, and other factors make the most sense, it is crucial for the editor to put the story back together for the audience.

Still from The Right Stuff, picturing actor Dennis Quaid as an astronaut in space.

©Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection

The complexities of the parallel stories in The Right Stuff (1983) have roots going back to D. W. Griffith's 1915 and 1916 masterworks. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance were films that pioneered multiple-storyline filmmaking.

For instance, in a huge, epic film like The Right Stuff, in which parallel stories of the men first assigned to the Mercury space program and test pilot Chuck Yeager are told, it is essential that the various storylines hold together. Otherwise, the audience is left confused, making the film unnecessarily complicated. The editing team of Glenn Farr, Lisa Fruchtman, Stephen A. Rotter, Douglas Steward, and Tom Rolf had to keep the stories flowing in a sensible order, even as focus shifted from Yeager to the astronauts and back, while also incorporating historical footage of space shots. The editing team clearly excelled at this, as they won the Academy Award for their efforts, and the film, all 193 minutes of it, was nominated for Best Picture.

Importance of the Editor

Film editing is a somewhat different discipline than what we think of as editing in other art forms. One thinks of the editor of a book, for instance, checking for grammar and spelling errors, but also ensuring that the writer has constructed a story that makes sense, that one chapter reasonably follows another (unless there is an artistic reason for it not to), and that the assorted chapters hold together as a whole work. The film editor's role parallels this to some degree, but he or she does more: The film editor helps create the film, literally constructing it, piecing together different takes of individual scenes and then placing the selected scenes in the order that tells the story the director wants to tell. The editor's role is crucial to the making of a successful film. Editing determines not only the order in which elements from the story occur in the film's plot, but also the frequency (how many times we see them) and the duration (how long they last on the screen).

And yet the best editing doesn't call attention to itself (unless the story calls for it). Instead, even if it involves incongruous editing, or putting sequences together out of order, it is still done in service to the story. Poor editing does the audience the ultimate disservice when it comes to film—it makes its members aware that they are seeing a film, taking them out of the transformative experience going to the movies should be.

How important is the editor's job? Actress Natalie Portman was asked in an interview whether she could tell if a film was good or bad while she was in the process of shooting it. "I can't at all," Portman said. "It really, I feel like, always happens in the editing room. That's why, whether it comes out good or bad, you sort of can't take credit for it" (Goodykoontz, 2009d).

Chronological Order

Still from Miller's Crossing, picturing a man on the ground with a gun pointed at his head.

Mary Evans/C20TH FOX/Ronald Grant/courtesy Everett Collection

In the film Miller's Crossing, the Coen brothers push the familiar gangster genre in new and unexpected directions. The brothers are best known for breathing new life into familiar formulas.

Often a film is cut with the scenes arranged in chronological order. This makes sense; most stories are told in this way, and they are easy to follow. We simply watch one scene unfold after another, from beginning to end. Don't mistake this for simplistic storytelling, however. Some are complex stories, such as Miller's Crossing, the Coen brothers' 1990 film about a gangster (Gabriel Byrne) who plays two rival bosses (Albert Finney and Jon Polito) against each other. There are numerous twists and turns as loyalties shift to suit the whims of the characters. Yet the film has a clear beginning, middle, and end. This is also useful when a scene refers to another that has gone before it. For instance, at one point Byrne's character is dispatched to kill a crooked bookie (John Turturro). The bookie pleads for his life, begging Byrne's character to "look into your heart." Seemingly moved, Byrne lets him go. Later in the film, however, Byrne's character is again about to shoot the bookie. Again, he pleads, "Look into your heart." Byrne's character says dismissively, "What heart?" and shoots the bookie between the eyes. The scene is much more effective and powerful because of our knowledge of what has come before, informing us that in the previous scene, Byrne's character let the bookie live temporarily to serve his own purposes.

Incongruous Editing

Other films make intentional use of incongruous editing, or jumping around in time. Quentin Tarantino rearranges story events in Pulp Fiction so that we see some things long after they've already happened in the plot thread we've been following, and we see certain things a second time from a different point of view. In 1941, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane became famous for the way it told the life story of its title character through multiple flashbacks, some of them overlapping, from different points of view, using a framing plot thread that shows a reporter interviewing people who knew him. Not nearly so influential but several years before that film, The Sin of Nora Moran related most of its story through flashbacks within flashbacks and even dreams within those flashbacks, sometimes making it a challenge to keep track of what was going on until the end.

In Don't Look Now, discussed earlier for its use of color, there is an intense sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. It drew attention in part because of the frank and relatively explicit way in which it is shot, especially for the time. But the scene is also notable for the unusual way in which it is cut. Director Nicholas Roeg cuts between shots of the couple making love to scenes of them dressing for dinner afterward, then back again. The unorthodox editing helps to further establish a central theme of the film, which plays with the idea of time throughout. Sutherland's character seems to have the gift of premonition, though he is skeptical. Still, he sees things that others do not, and it is unclear to him and the audience when these events are taking place. The jumping around in time during the sex scene helps to accentuate the fluid nature of time in the film.

Sidney Lumet's complexly plotted heist thriller Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) constantly jumps back and forth in time, repeating scenes or partial scenes but following different characters, slightly overlapping some of the action before continuing with the story and jumping back again to where a previous scene had left off. To avoid audience confusion, often a superimposed title lets the audience know when a new scene is taking place and which character will be the focus. We know most of the basic story within the first 10 minutes, but we learn more and more details about things that were happening simultaneously, until we finally see how it all ends in the very last scene of the movie. Vantage Point, a 2008 action thriller about a plot to assassinate the president, has a similar structure of repeating scenes from different viewpoints, adding new layers to the story information until finally allowing the end to unfold chronologically. In Spike Jonze's Her (2013), the basic story is shown chronologically, but we sometimes see a shot of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) followed by flashbacks of the happy life together that he and Catherine (Rooney Mara) had before they decided to divorce, even though the soundtrack often keeps us in the present time. This lets us know that he is remembering, rather than merely letting us know what happened in the past.

Still from Memento, showing the character Leonard Shelby looking into a mirror.

Courtesy Everett Collection

In Memento, character Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) uses his tattoos, among other techniques, to fill the holes in his memory as he searches for answers to his wife's murder. The editing techniques used to show Shelby collecting jumbled memories puts the audience in the shoes of the protagonist, leaving them feeling equally lost and confused.

Perhaps the most ambitious use of editing to tell a story is found in Memento, Christopher Nolan's 2000 film in which Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance investigator, has a form of amnesia that prevents him from making new memories. He is trying to investigate what he believes to be the rape and murder of his wife; unable to remember any of what he discovers, he relies on notes, tattoos, Polaroid photographs, and other devices to try to piece together what his memories cannot. To further complicate matters, Nolan tells the story in two ways. The scenes shown in black and white unfold chronologically, while the color scenes play in reverse order. The effect leaves the audience as confused and in the dark as Leonard, but the truth about Leonard's wife is revealed by the end of the film. Although some audiences were confused by the technique, it is generally considered an ingenious, compelling way to tell the story.

Many of these films were heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), an ingenious blend of two short stories into a new and different work and a film whose unexpected worldwide acclaim suddenly introduced international audiences to Japanese cinema. Revising one of the stories into a framing story, Kurosawa has the rest of the film recount the other story in a series of flashbacks within a flashback, each of which covers the same incident, a rape and killing, from a different point of view. The original story was written as a series of testimonies by witnesses at a trial exploring the nature of subjective truth, but the film's editing takes it to a new level with the complex interaction among the incident itself, the conflicting trial testimony, the people telling the story of the trial, and the people listening to the story.

Many, if not most, films, of course, have the plot order predetermined by the screenplay, but the editing process gives the director another chance to shuffle scenes around, delete them entirely, show events more than once from different points of view, or completely restructure the plot.

Analyzing the Editing of a Scene

In this video analyzing editing, Michael Cioni, CEO of LightIron Post Production, discusses a scene from the film JFK.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.According to Michael Cioni, why is editing an important part of how a film's story is told? Do you agree?

2.How does the editing of the scene from JFK affect the telling of the story?

7.3 The Basics

The editor is charged with the actual construction of the film. Again, working in collaboration with the director, the editor selects the best takes of individual scenes and then places them in the order that best tells the story the director is trying to tell. Often this is chronological order, which is the most straightforward method and the easiest for the audience to follow. However, some films challenge the audience with incongruous editing, using various tools to jump around in time and space. Like the cinematographer, the editor has many tools at his or her disposal to help tell the story. But also like the cinematographer, the editor must think of them as tools to advance the story, not crutches to limp it along.

Shot and Take

The process of editing involves arranging what has been photographed and joining shots into the most effective order to communicate the content to the viewer. In writing a story, an author uses words as basic elements, choosing and arranging them into sentences. Sentences are organized into paragraphs, and multiple paragraphs become chapters or sections that tell the complete story in a carefully ordered manner. As we have learned previously, with film, the basic element is the shot, the view a camera takes from a single position or setup (stationary or moving), obtained by turning the camera on for a certain amount of time and then turning it off. Each time this is done, it is referred to as a take, and if a shot is performed badly or ruined for some reason, the director will order additional takes until that shot is satisfactory. The best take of a shot or the best portion of a take is later used in the film, and that portion used in the finished film is also called a "shot," even though it may not be the complete take. As we'll soon see, different portions of different takes of the same shot setup can be assembled to fine tune an actor's performance. This can be obvious, using jump cuts, or imperceptible, if there is coverage that can be exploited, both of which we'll discuss shortly.

From Frames to Acts

Still from L'Arroseur Arrosé, showing a man being sprayed in the face with water.

Photo by Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/courtesy Everett Collection

This simple single-shot from L'Arroseur Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled) of a man being sprayed in the face is the great-grandfather of physical comedies. The Lumière brothers (along with Thomas Edison in the United States) are credited with inventing motion pictures.

A shot may be as short as a single frame (one still image lasting 1/24th or 1/30th of a second on the screen) or as long as the entire movie, with the maximum length determined by how much film or tape the camera can hold, or how large a digital file will fit on a digital camera's hard drive or memory card. The earliest films, produced back in the 1890s, each consisted of a single shot about a half-minute or less to a minute or two, sometimes simply showing a place or person of interest, and sometimes depicting a brief story acted out in front of the camera. One of the most famous examples is the 1895 French comedy Arroseur Arrosé (A Sprinkler Sprinkled), sometimes called Watering the Gardener in English, which lasts about 50 seconds. When motion pictures were a new technology, there was no concept of editing, unless an exhibitor decided to splice together a variety of thematically related films (such as news events or travel views) into a longer presentation, turning each shot into a scene that told part of a longer story.

A scene, as we discussed in Chapter 5, is a portion of a film that takes place in a single location over a specific time period, showing viewers an episode in the story before moving on to another scene. By the late 1890s, filmmakers who wanted to tell stories longer than a minute or two would connect a series of scenes, each one shot in a single take. Good examples include such films as the six-minute 1899 version of Cinderella by Georges Méliès. Even today, a scene may be a single shot, especially if it's a short scene, but ever since the early 1900s, each scene is more often made up of several and sometimes numerous individual shots that direct the viewers' attention to what the director thinks is most important at any given moment. Several related scenes follow each other to form what is called a sequence, a dramatic unit comparable to a chapter in a book. Several sequences then might make up an act of a film that follows the traditional three-act or five-act screenplay structure, or of an extra-long epic film that has an intermission between two major and dramatically cohesive sections of an hour or two each.

Transitions

When filmmakers decided to expand films beyond individual single-shot scenes into a series of single-shot scenes, and eventually into a series of multiple-shot scenes, they had to decide how to connect them in ways that would not confuse the audience.

Cuts

The most common method of changing scenes and joining shots within a scene is the cut, so called because film originally had to be physically cut with a razor blade or scissors before being glued or taped to another piece of film (even though almost all movies today, whether shot digitally or on film, are edited on computers rather than by physically cutting film). Shots, scenes, and sequences are assembled by the editor to tell the story, and the editing process is commonly called cutting a film. A direct cut is the simplest of many possible transitions between two shots. On the screen, the viewers see one shot instantly replaced by another one after a cut. Technically, a direct cut does not even provide a transition, but merely an immediate change to a new shot of the same scene (showing continuous action) or a new scene taking place at a different location or time. When action flows smoothly from one shot to the next, direct cuts are usually just taken for granted by viewers if they're noticed at all. See Table 7.1 for the different types of editing transitions.

Table 7.1 Major types of transitions between two shots

Direct cut One shot instantaneously replaces another on the screen.

Fade-out/fade-in Image slowly fades to black or fades from black screen slowly into the image.

Dissolve A fade-in superimposed over a fade-out, so both shots are briefly seen together.

Wipe One shot pushes the previous one off the screen, typically from side to side or top to bottom, but various other shapes and effects may be used, such as a page turn, Venetian blinds, multiple stars or diamonds, or a rotating cube.

Iris A circle (or square or other shape) closes down on the image from the outer edges until the image goes black for an iris-out, or opens up for an iris-in.

Still from Run Lola Run, picturing the character Lola running in front of a red and black background.

Photos by Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

Still shot from Run Lola Run, picturing the character Lola running in front of a pure black background.

While these two shots of Lola in Run Lola Run are similarly framed, she is magically transported from one background location to the next. In classical Hollywood editing, jump cuts were seen as serious errors that interrupted the flow of the story, reminding viewers that they were watching a fabricated reality. Today, jump cuts are just another kind of stylization, which viewers take in stride.

If there is an obvious jump in the action with something either missing or repeated, or if the new camera position is very similar to but not exactly the same as the previous shot, the scene has a jarring effect, and this is referred to as a jump cut. Jump cuts may be accidental on the part of the editor, or they may be done intentionally as part of a film's style, as in the Australian thriller Kiss or Kill or the German film Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run). A scene of Lola running from the camera in Run Lola Run starts with her a short distance away, but as she's running she is suddenly many yards away and then several yards further, as jump cuts eliminate part of the shot's action without changing to different camera angles. Throughout Kiss or Kill, the editor eliminates perhaps a second or a few seconds from a shot every so often, again without cutting to a different angle. This jarring, jump cut effect, first popularized in French New Wave films such as Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960), adds to the nervous energy of the characters and the film's edginess. In Seijun Suzuki's audacious and kinky yakuza crime thriller Branded to Kill (1967), jump cuts and elliptical editing get straight into the heart of scenes, eliminating unnecessary connecting action and exposition that audiences are expected to understand already as part of the conventional genre formula. Many films now use this technique to indicate passage of time, such as scenes of a character getting dressed or working or eating, instead of the more traditional fades and dissolves.

Fades, Dissolves, Wipes

The second most common transition used in films after the cut is the fade, either a fade-out or a fade-in. These are often used at the beginning or end of a scene or sequence as a sort of punctuation mark, fading into a shot from a black screen or fading to black at the end, like bringing the lights up or down during a stage play. A fade-out/fade-in often signals a significant passage of time. Another common transition, the dissolve (sometimes referred to as a cross-fade), is just a fade-in to a new shot superimposed over a fade-out from the previous shot, so the two adjoining scenes can both be seen simultaneously for a moment. Georges Méliès's Cinderella has a dissolve between each of its single-take scenes. Like the fade-out/fade-in, dissolves are often used to indicate time passing, and a montage sequence is typically made up of numerous quick dissolves or wipes to chronicle a series of events in a short time on the screen.

Still shot from Strike, showing a dissolving black and white image of a man's face.

Courtesy Everett Collection

In this shot from Strike, directed by the Soviet master Sergei Eisenstein, one image dissolves as a new image fades in. At the midpoint of dissolve, the two images are briefly superimposed.

A standard wipe, just as it implies, looks on the screen like one shot is "wiped" off the screen by another shot, whether from side to side, top to bottom, or diagonally. More spectacular wipes may be done in fancy shapes such as stars, Venetian blinds, an imitation of a page turning, and more. Some filmmakers like to use wipes to introduce split-screens smoothly, rather than cutting directly to a split-screen or multi-image effect. Run Lola Run uses a split-screen to show Lola racing to her boyfriend on one side, her boyfriend waiting anxiously on the other side, and a clock ticking away at the top. Having a split-screen shows two or more scenes happening at the same time, eliminating the need to cut back and forth between them and allowing the viewers to decide which scene to pay most attention to. Wipes are also frequently used in montage sequences, as well as individually, but their flashy nature calls attention to their artificiality. Baz Luhrman's stylish Romeo + Juliet is full of many different varieties of wipes and irises.

An iris is similar to a wipe but is shaped like a circle or rectangle, and instead of bringing in a new scene it usually closes down on the picture from the outer edges of the screen until the image is black, or opens up from the center of a black screen to reveal the picture. Sometimes an iris stops over a portion of the image without going black or before finishing its close to black. This is done to emphasize a portion of the scene as an alternative to cutting to a close-up or having the camera zoom or dolly in. Griffith used the iris this way in many of his features.

7.4 Manipulating the Audience

The choice of not only which shots to use, but also what transitions to use and how to use them, influences how viewers perceive the film and becomes a part of the film's style. The audience may easily follow a simple dialogue scene if it is filmed in a static medium to long two-shot (the camera showing both characters on screen at the same time). But viewers can become much more involved in the conversation if the scene cuts frequently to medium close-ups and close-ups of each person speaking, whether "single" shots (of single characters), or over-the-shoulder shots, or a variety. The identical conversation might have a completely different effect and a much stronger impact if the editor cuts to one person listening to certain lines, rather than keeping the shot on the person talking, and the effect will be different still if those cuts are done on certain words or lines rather than other words or lines. Cutting directly to something that a character is talking about as the dialogue keeps going (perhaps a flashback, flash-forward, or simultaneous action that may either verify or contradict what the person is saying) will provide yet another impression for the viewers. For example, when the detective in The Boondock Saints looks at a crime scene, he starts to describe how he thinks it happened, and we see it happening around him as he speaks. Films such as The Boondock Saints (both I and II), Fight Club, Memento, Run Lola Run, and others rely heavily on their editing, and any analysis of their characters, action, or possible meanings must take the editing into account.

Directors' Approaches to Editing

Some directors prefer to rehearse scenes thoroughly and allow the actors to work out their timing for dialogue, actions, and reactions, capturing the carefully planned performances in single long takes of two to five minutes or even longer. Often those long takes are "disguised" for viewers by choreographing the camera almost as if it is a character in the scene, moving in, out, and around the setting as characters move closer to or farther from the camera. The long takes allow the actors to shine at what they do best—assuming they can perform the entire scene exactly as the director wants from beginning to end.

Having an entire scene play out in a long take is an example of how a cinematography technique can overlap into editing techniques. It eliminates the need for editing that scene, because it is complete as shot. Not only that, but shooting only long takes can eliminate the possibility of the studio or an editor making cuts the director doesn't want because there is no coverage from any other angles that might be used to hide the fact that lines or gestures have been cut out. In films such as The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero, writer-turned-director Preston Sturges likewise filmed many long dialogue scenes running two or three minutes without a cut, often having the camera move with actors to keep the scene from looking too static. As sort of an experiment, Alfred Hitchcock filmed Rope (1948), an 80-minute feature adapted from a stage play, in just 10 long takes, essentially planning all the editing in advance and shooting only what was needed. Thus, the editor merely needed to join together what was shot into its proper order without making any editorial decisions. Hitchcock would do this meticulous pre-planning with other films as well, which used more conventional styles of editing but with shots all plotted out through storyboard drawings so that only the necessary shots would be captured on film and the editor merely needed to follow the storyboard to assemble them in order. As noted above, half the shots in Rope were designed so they would appear as one uninterrupted shot when cut together, an unusual technique. For example, just before the roll of film would run out (cameras can typically hold about 11 minutes' worth of film), an actor might walk in front of the lens. The camera operator would load a new roll of film and would start shooting as the actor walked out of the way of the lens. The movie Russian Ark, shot on digital video, was able to be done in a single uninterrupted shot about an hour and a half long, and thus uses no editing at all.

Other directors may employ relatively long takes through much of a scene, so when they use a cut to a close-up or a long shot at a certain point, it then has a much greater dramatic impact, sort of a jolt to the viewer after a long uninterrupted take. Orson Welles does this often in his films, notably the long take that opens Touch of Evil, described in Chapter 6, which finally ends with a cut to an explosion we've just heard off screen. The scene from Citizen Kane described in Chapter 6, with Kane as a child playing in the snow while his mother and the banker determine his future, has two very long takes as the scene plays out but finally cuts to a brief close-up of the mother, showing her determination, and quickly tilts down to the boy, intensifying his unhappiness about leaving home. Immediately after this, a dissolve to a shot of the sled being covered with snow reinforces Kane's intimate connection with "Rosebud" and the connection of the entire scene to the snow globe we saw at the beginning of the film. In films such as The Stranger, Welles sometimes shot long takes with no coverage from alternate angles to ensure his scenes would not be shortened by a studio editor. However, in the case of The Stranger, an elaborate and very long tracking shot was drastically abridged by the editor, who hid any obvious jump in action by using a dissolve shortly after the shot began to a point near the end of the shot.

Taking Advantage of Coverage

Still shot from Juno, showing the character Juno talking to a married couple.

What kind of shot is shown in this still from Juno? In the theater, dialogue is always a "master shot." We see all the characters involved in a conversation. In film, editors reinforce and may even create the energy of the exchange. If the director provides enough coverage—shooting the scene with a variety of shots (close-ups, two characters in the frame, etc.)—then an editor has great latitude to create pacing and rhythm to increase the impact of the scene.

Still other directors, especially those using less experienced actors, actually prefer using the camera to capture numerous takes of each scene from a wide variety of angles. In the editing room, they can then "build" a performance by choosing the best bits of each take (as noted earlier), and shortening or lengthening pauses between lines artificially. To do this effectively, a director must remember to shoot what is called coverage—covering the scene from numerous different camera setups, especially tight close-ups. This permits the editor to cover any inadvertent continuity gaps (e.g., an actor who sips from a drink or scratches his head on one word in the long shot but a few words later in the close-up) by cutting away to a shot of something or someone else before cutting back to the alternate angle of the actor. By shooting the entire scene in long-shot, medium-shot, and close-up on each actor, it also makes it possible for editing to cover up the fact that certain actors may not have been able to memorize more than one or two sentences at a time. By cutting back and forth from actor to actor in close-up, then in two-shots and long shots, the editing makes it look as if the audience is seeing a continuous conversation from beginning to end. All of the blown lines and overlong pauses are simply eliminated in the editing process. An editor can also cut in close-ups of an actor reacting at a spot in the scene where the actor's actual reaction when it was shot was very different and perhaps completely opposite. Thanks to the "Kuleshov effect" (which we'll discuss later), the audience will assume that he or she is reacting to the shot they've just seen or the dialogue they are currently hearing. This technique is a boon to filmmakers working with amateurs, small children, and animals that are not as easily controlled or disciplined as professional actors who can perform 10-minute scenes perfectly without a break. It also allows infinitely more options in the editing room than those available to directors who know exactly what they want in advance. Such directors may shoot alternate angles of only those portions of scenes they expect to use for each angle.

Classical Editing Style

On the other hand, even with experienced professional actors, many directors make sure to shoot coverage from numerous angles. The entire scene may be shot completely in a long take, but in the editing process it will be interrupted by many cuts to alternate angles and closer views. The long take may thus be used as the master shot, sometimes the establishing shot, and later a re-establishing shot. A master shot is a single take that usually includes an entire scene and all the main actors, rather than just a short portion of it or close-up view. An establishing shot is a shot in a scene that sets up, or establishes, where a scene is taking place and who is in it, usually done in a long shot, possibly with some camera moves. In classical editing style, the director starts a scene with a long shot and as the action and dialogue progress, will concentrate on closer views—medium shots and finally close-ups of the main characters, inserts of what they're doing, or cutaways to others observing them—to emphasize specific elements. Words of dialogue and characters' states of mind can be intensified by cutting to just the right view at the right time instead of letting the scene play out in a long take. Periodically, the editor may cut back to the master shot, using it as a re-establishing shot to remind the audience of the broader view. Some directors like to begin scenes with close-ups, later introducing medium shots and not establishing the overall scene with a long shot until much later, if at all.

Still shot from Dersu Uzala, showing a group of tribal men crossing a river on a raft.

Photo by Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

The great Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa sets the stage for dramatic action in this establishing shot from Dersu Uzala, a film shot almost entirely on location in Siberia. When the environment is a character, it is important to show the expanse of the natural setting.

The term "establishing shot" may also be used in a slightly different sense. Classical Hollywood editing may carefully establish in a shot or two just where the next scene will be taking place. For example, instead of cutting directly from a character at home to confronting his boss at the office a short time later, it may insert a shot of the character driving to work, a long shot of the office building, and a shot of the boss's office door with a nameplate, before the character walks in on his boss. This will establish unambiguously the sequence of events and exactly where the character is before the office scene begins, although it also will stretch out a film's running time and may not be necessary in many cases, especially if the audience has already seen the boss or the office earlier in the film.

Often, films may begin before, during, or just after the opening credits with a series of shots, especially long shots, that establish what the audience will be watching for the rest of the movie before the main action starts. The 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption opens with the camera following a bus that is driving toward a large building. The camera rises up, and we see that the building is a prison. As the scene continues, we see the bus arriving, and a cut inside it shows a man sitting in the back, now in the center of the frame. A voice-over tells us that this is Andy Dufrense (Tim Robbins), the film's protagonist. With this series of establishing shots, we learn whom the movie is about and where it will take place in less than a minute.

The Magic of Movie Editing

Still from Gone With the Wind, showing men and women dancing at a ball.

Courtesy Everett Collection

In the glory days of studio filmmaking, elaborate interiors—like this ballroom scene from Gone With the Wind—were created on soundstages.

Whenever a shot is joined to another one, it implies a relationship between the two, and viewers will automatically assume they are connected somehow. The simplest editing merely assembles takes into a coherent order. But editing is a powerful tool that a good editor can use to create a world in the audience's mind that never really existed. Performances, actions (especially stunts), and even the locations themselves can be constructed artificially through effective editing. The seamless manipulation of time and space by means of editing is part of the "magic" of motion pictures and need not require any sort of fancy digital or optical special effects. It is sometimes the case that two actors in a dialogue scene are unable to shoot the same day, making it impossible to get a master shot of their scene that shows both characters at once. The director will instead shoot close-ups of each actor at different times, taking care to match the lighting, with someone else feeding the other character's lines from off camera. And if the entire set does not need to be visible, the scene might be shot on an entirely different soundstage with a simple partial background (such as a drape or a wall) that matches it. When the shots are edited together, the scene will look as if both actors are talking to each other in the same place at the same time.

Studio-made films typically shoot exteriors in front of façades constructed on back lots, with interiors shot on soundstages. Aided by careful camera composition that hides the fact that these are only partial walls and not complete structures, editing creates the illusion that people are walking into real buildings and talking inside real rooms in those buildings. For example, in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), a character walks up a hill and enters a gothic-looking house. The house, as anyone who has taken the Universal Studios tour has seen, is actually just a framework of the front and two sidewalls, propped up in the back. The interior entryway was shot on a studio soundstage in a set consisting of only three walls and an open ceiling. But cutting from a character entering a door from the outside, to the same character entering a similar-looking door inside what looks like a room, makes the audience assume it is two views of an actual location happening in continuous time. The actual house never existed, but editing makes the house seem solid and real on the screen.

Editing to Imply Actions

A Talk With Hitchcock: Editing Method: Juxtaposition

Using the famous shower scene from Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock explains one method of editing a film montage, which relies on the juxtaposition of various images.

Critical Thinking Questions

1.Why does Alfred Hitchcock dislike the term "cutting"? What term(s) does he offer instead?

2.Why is the film Psycho seen as such an impressive example of film montage? Do you personally find the scene effective?

Effective editing can also make audiences believe they saw something that never really happened, sometimes eliminating the need for expensive special effects that might simulate it. At one point in Psycho, Janet Leigh's character is famously stabbed to death in the shower. It plays as a hyper-violent, graphic depiction of murder. In fact, however, thanks to Hitchcock's masterful planning of every element of the scene, we actually see very little. We never truly see the knife stab her, and we never see explicit nudity. But thanks to the quick jump cuts Hitchcock employs, the scene is terrifying and disturbing (Leigh supposedly limited herself to baths for years after shooting the scene). It is deservedly one of the most famous scenes in movie history, yet it is all the more notable for how much Hitchcock makes us think we're seeing, while showing us very little. The low-budget independent movie Open Water (shot on standard mini-DV video) is about a young couple accidentally abandoned on a scuba-diving vacation. The characters are eventually eaten by sharks, but of course the actors were not. By intercutting shots of real sharks and shots of the actors in the water, the scene looks as if they are being threatened. Showing close-ups of an actor with blood in the water around him, shots of a hungry shark, then the actor appearing to be pulled under, and cutting to shots of a shark eating something makes it appear that it is the character that the shark is eating. Steven Spielberg's Jaws similarly used editing to make its giant artificial shark appear to be real, never allowing it to appear on screen long enough so viewers could tell it was a fake model of a shark. In an interview for Wendy Apple's 2004 documentary The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing, Spielberg noted how the mechanical shark rarely worked properly so he wanted to include as much usable footage of it as possible, whereas editor Verna Fields kept cutting shots of the shark shorter or leaving it out altogether. Spielberg admitted the result was a much scarier film after following Fields's editorial judgment to show less, making viewers more uneasy by what they could not see and building suspense so that the few shots of the shark became all the more frightening. Numerous films avoid depicting extreme violence on screen yet often convey its intensity just as effectively by cutting away to reactions of the observers.

Continuity Editing

The system of continuity editing has dominated popular cinema since the 1910s and contains a few common editing techniques that guide viewers through a scene without confusing them (and sometimes manipulate what they think they're seeing). Continuity editing involves cutting to different camera positions while maintaining the illusion that everything is happening in a continuous time and space. The reason many very early films (pre-1911) have very few or no cuts within each scene is that producers believed cutting to a new camera position would confuse the audience. They figured viewers, accustomed to watching stage performances from a single position, would assume that a new scene was starting or even a new story altogether, because many complete films of the 1890s and early 1900s consisted of single shots or a few single-shot scenes strung together.

Some very early films that cut to different angles of the same action were careful to repeat a second or two of the action so audiences would know it was the same thing, just a different view. Very quickly, it became obvious that editing looked far more natural if the positions of the actors matched exactly at the point of each cut, so that the actions seemed to be continuous. Today, when actions do not match from shot to shot, whether overlapping or eliminating part of the action, we now perceive a jump cut that destroys the illusion of continuity. One editing technique that helps us perceive continuity, called matching on action, cuts from a shot to something else in the scene or even an entirely different scene, but still matches the direction of movement of action in one shot with the following shot, helping tie the two together. An example of this is the parallel sequence in Walkabout, where shots of a city butcher chopping meat are intercut to match the actions of the aboriginal protagonist in the desert butchering his latest catch. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, a famous shot of a bone thrown into the air by a primitive man cuts directly to a shot of an orbiting satellite of similar shape, bridging millions of years at the same time it elegantly but simply connects the progression of human technology from bone tools to space exploration.

Still from Before Sunset, picturing actor Ethan Hawke as Jesse.

Still from Before Sunset, picturing actress Julie Delpy as Céline.

©Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Collection

Close-ups of characters engaged in conversation, as the two main characters in Before Sunset are here, are usually edited using shot/reverse-shot. The camera jumps from a shot of the first character looking toward the other in one direction, then the next character matches eyelines by looking toward the first in the opposite direction.

By trial and error, filmmakers realized matching on action was not the only principle that aided the illusion of continuity. They discovered that they could indeed cut in close-ups of different parts of the scene without confusing viewers if they were careful to keep the screen direction consistent. That is, characters would always be looking right or left, whether seen in a long shot, a medium shot, or a close-up, so the audience would be able to tell who was looking at whom. This was easy to accomplish if the camera remained on one side of an imaginary 180-degree line drawn between the two main characters or groups in the scene—known as the 180-degree rule (see Figure 7.1). If the camera ever crossed the line, the result on screen would be characters appearing to look in the opposite direction. Thus, if a director plans to use continuity editing, it is critical for the cinematographer to frame shots during production with the editing process in mind. This system is especially helpful in large-scale battle scenes and chases, so viewers immediately know which side is which by noticing what direction they are moving toward. As long as one character looks left and the other right with matching eyelines (the eyeline match), the audience assumes they're looking at each other. Typically, conversations are filmed so they can be edited in a shot/reverse-shot pattern, meaning that the audience will first see a shot with one character, then a shot with a second character looking at the first. This can occur with tight close-ups or over-the-shoulder views, but it should follow the 180-degree rule. Each character must be looking toward the opposite side of the screen to reinforce the illusion of continuity.

Figure 7.1: The 180-degree rule for eyeline matches in continuity editing

The camera must not cross the imaginary 180-degree line that goes between the major characters in the scene, or the audience will think they are looking in the wrong directions and may be confused (unless there are frequent re-establishing long shots to help them out).

Illustration depicting the 180-degree rule for eyeline matches in continuity editing. Two actors are shown facing one another from three different angles. The first angle depicts the actors on an imaginary line, which serves as the diameter of a large circle. The camera must not cross this imaginary line in order to maintain continuity. Directional arrows overlay the arcs on either side of the large circle's diameter, indicating the direction in which the camera must move in relation to the imaginary line. If the camera remains on the left side of the 180-degree line, one actor will appear to be facing right and one will appear to be facing left (and vice versa if the camera stays on the right side of the 180-degree line). However, if the camera moves to the opposite side of the 180-degree line, the actors will appear to have switched places on screen.

The eyeline match concept can be extended so that a shot of an actor looking off screen that is followed by a shot of something else and a cut back to the actor still looking makes the audience assume that what's in that inserted shot is what the character is seeing. The inserted shot may or may not be from the exact point of view of the character, but the audience will still make the connection. An identical shot of an actor's blank expression, in fact, may be cut to a shot of anything, and the audience will believe that is what the actor is reacting to. This principle is known as the Kuleshov effect, after a Russian director who experimented by cutting in shots of a bowl of soup, a little girl, and a dead woman with the identical close-up of an actor. Audiences marveled at his expressive range of emotion—even though he not only did not change expression but was not even looking at whatever was edited in. The Kuleshov effect is a valuable editing tool for manipulating audience reactions. Just look at virtually any mystery or detective film for countless examples. An obvious one is Hitchcock's Rear Window, with numerous shots of Jeff looking out his window or through his camera's telephoto lens followed by shots of the apartments across the alley. Joining the two shots together makes it obvious that we're seeing what he's seeing in continuous time.

Still from Lawrence of Arabia, showing a group of men riding through the desert moving toward the left.

Still from Lawrence of Arabia, showing a group of men riding through the desert moving toward the right.

Courtesy Everett Collection

If the editor were to break the 180-degree rule, we'd first see Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia charging to the left. Once the camera crossed the line, then on screen he would be running back to the right—appearing to be retreating instead of charging on to victory.

When techniques of continuity editing are followed, viewers rarely notice them because they're paying attention to the story. When the techniques are not followed, viewers may become confused or temporarily disoriented until they regain their bearings in the scene. The spell of the movie world is momentarily broken when viewers suddenly realize they're just watching a movie and have to take the time to figure out that the scene hasn't changed, but the camera position is not what they'd subconsciously been expecting.

Discontinuity Editing

Not every film follows the principles of continuity editing. Some ignore them or intentionally violate them to create discontinuity. Discontinuity editing is a style of editing that does just this; it intentionally violates the principles of continuity editing, making no attempt to disguise the fact that viewers are watching a movie or to create the illusion of continuous time and space. Directors may get away with violating the 180-degree rule if they remember to start with a good establishing shot and periodically cut back to re-establishing shots. This way, viewers may not mind or may not even notice when the rule is "broken" because they still have no trouble following what's happening. However, there are directors who prefer viewers to know they're watching a movie at all times; Soviet directors such as Sergei Eisenstein promoted the montage theory, which says that two or three shots joined in a certain order become much more than the sum of their individual parts. Rather than trying to create an illusion of continuity, those who follow this theory concentrate on other concerns. Instead of ensuring that time and space appear consistent, they pay more attention to rhythmic relations between shots to control an emotional tempo or graphic relationships of similar or contrasting image composition to reinforce thematic connections. They are also far more concerned with the accumulated content of a series of shots, instead of worrying whether temporal or spatial relationships seem logical.

Still shot from Man With a Movie Camera, showing a black and white image of a man's face surrounded by animation.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Man With a Movie Camera is a tour-de-force. This portrait of workers' lives in revolutionary Russia combines disparate images and techniques, including superimpositions, split-screens, freeze frames, and animation. Images here are at the service of ideas, and ideas become poetry in this film.

Key films that use this editing technique include Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera (1928) and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925). In the Odessa Steps sequence from Potemkin, citizens are depicted rallying to support a sailors' mutiny and then being massacred by the czar's troops. At one point, the battleship fires on the city, and after a long shot showing the explosion, Eisenstein cuts to close-ups of three different stone statues of decorative lions at various parts of town. Individually, the shots might seem meaningless, disconnected, or vaguely symbolic. However, when put together so that the explosion in the city is followed by a shot of a sleeping lion, a lion alert, and then an aroused lion, the film conveys the idea that the populace has been a slumbering lion that the revolution has awakened to action. Likewise, during the massacre, Eisenstein frequently violates both matching on action and the 180-degree rule, so that it's difficult to tell where all the characters are at any given time. But it doesn't really matter in this context because the director wants us to feel the mass chaos rather than be following individual characters too closely.

The montage theory also comes into play when directors edit in visual metaphors that are not strictly part of the story's world, as in the example mentioned in Chapter 3 of the scene in Chaplin's Modern Times cutting between a crowd of workers and a flock of sheep. In Chaplin's The Kid (1921), he employed the same concept when he cut from a shot of an unwed mother holding her baby to a still shot of Christ carrying his cross and back to a shot of the mother in the story. This type of discontinuity editing goes against the "invisible" tradition of continuity editing, but it adds another dimension above and beyond the basic story to reveal the director's intentions and story themes more clearly.

Rhythm and Pacing

Effective editing can effortlessly manipulate time and space, but what really holds a viewer's attention is the way it manipulates rhythm and pacing throughout a film. Long takes, especially when combined with static camera positions, will slow down a film to a leisurely pace, possibly as an overall editing style when a director wants viewers to concentrate on actors' performances and various elements of the mise en scène. See Figure 7.2 for a well-known scene broken down into individual shot lengths. The slow pacing is compounded when the camera is set up, mainly in long shots, a great distance from the actors and setting. Slow-paced scenes may also be used as a contrast to much faster-paced scenes that have just come before, allowing viewers to "catch their breaths" after an intense action scene, battle, or chase.

Figure 7.2: Rhythm and pacing

Timeline of a scene lasting less than 20 seconds, broken down into the individual shot lengths. The black vertical lines indicate the time at which each shot or sound begins, and arrows show what is occurring at the beginning of each. The dark blue line represents images. The lighter blue lines represent two layers of soundtracks, including the music cues and sound effects and the dialogue (each cut usually matching the picture, more or less). An editor might also have several layers for the various sound-effects tracks in addition to the dialogue and music. To watch the clip illustrated here, visit http://movieclips.com (http://movieclips.com/) and search for the clip "Maverick vs. Viper" (Time: 0:08 to 0:24).

A timeline of a scene from Top Gun broken down by shots, music, sound, and dialogue. The timeline illustrates when the action on screen synchs up with specific points in the film's music, sound, and dialogue tracks.

Varying Shot Length

Still from The Birth of a Nation, showing members of the Ku Klux Klan riding horses across a river.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Still from The Birth of a Nation, picturing a woman yelling for help as another woman moves up behind her.

Photo by Mary Evans/DAVID W. GRIFFITH CORP./Ronald Grant/ Everett Collection

D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation combines bravura filmmaking with a story that makes the Ku Klux Klan seem heroic. Here the Klan rides to the rescue, while the heroine is threatened by an "evil mulatto." This film shows how society has changed over time, as discussed in other chapters; this film clearly would not be made today.

Having shots appear on screen for very short periods of time, varying from perhaps several seconds to small fractions of a second, will speed up the pace of a scene. These so-called shortcuts are typically used in fights, chases, and other action scenes to increase the excitement, besides allowing the opportunity to include a wider variety of angles and draw attention to many individual details of the scene. The duration of shots may vary, cut longer and shorter with a certain visual rhythm that reflects the emotions of the characters, the course of the action, and the shifting dynamics of the scene. As excitement builds, the shots typically get shorter and shorter, sometimes using parallel editing to show two or more things happening at the same time (e.g., characters in danger while the hero is racing to the rescue), until some climax that is followed by a longer take and slower pacing. This type of rapid-pace editing was pioneered in the frenetic short comedies of Mack Sennett and the elaborate epic melodramas of D. W. Griffith as early as the mid-1910s and was taken to an extreme by Soviet filmmakers in the late 1920s.

Parallel editing does not need to be fast paced to be effective. A powerful use of parallel editing is found in The Godfather, when director Francis Ford Coppola repeatedly cuts between detailed scenes in a church of the baptism of Michael Corleone's godson and scenes of Michael's mobsters killing the heads of the other Mafia families. The juxtaposition between the sacred and profane is exceptionally powerful, and it firmly establishes Michael's full acceptance of his new role as the leader of the Corleone family. He has forsaken his former life as a "civilian" for good.

Extremely rapid editing became the norm after video and computer-based editing equipment made it much easier to achieve than the old system of physically cutting and joining pieces of film. While films from any era may have individual scenes that contain extremely fast- or extremely slow-paced editing, typical shot lengths in older films may vary from 10 to 30 seconds or even a couple of minutes before a cut. Films from the past couple of decades are more likely to have shots vary between about 2 to 10 seconds, possibly running as long as a half-minute or so before a cut. Movies made for smaller screens, such as television, also tend to use faster cutting, whereas films designed for theaters, especially those using widescreen processes, are more likely to let shots linger a bit longer to give time for the viewers to take in all the information that's visible at the larger size.

Pacing With Music, Slow Motion, and Fast Motion

Still from The Untouchables, showing a man in a train station.

Paramount Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

The Untouchables includes a dramatic homage to the Odessa Steps sequence in Potemkin. Unlike Eisenstein, who used a montage in the original, director Brian De Palma heightens the drama by slowing down the action.

Editing can enhance the rhythms of a sequence when the picture is cut to match beats in the soundtrack, whether it's the background music (especially in music videos), the sound effects, or lines of dialogue. Conversely, for dramatic impact an editor may intentionally cut the picture in sort of a counterpoint to the soundtrack, with long visual takes over fast-paced, chaotic sounds or a rapid-fire series of pictures over a slow, moody soundtrack. The action within an individual shot might even be sped up or slowed down or presented in freeze frames of still images. For a time, it was fashionable to end a movie, or certain scenes, by freezing the last image on the screen, which is done simply by repeating that single frame over and over on the final print. The memorable ending of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) helped start this trend, and George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) popularized it using entire sequences of still images within a live-action film.

Slow motion is used for a variety of reasons in films, often to give a romantic, ethereal feeling to a scene or to reveal fine details of fast action that call attention, say, to brief facial expressions or things too fast to see, such as bullet impacts. For example, the surrealistic fight scenes in The Matrix are often slowed down to enhance their futuristic nature. The careful choreography of sword duelists, whose preternatural leaps become like flying in Chinese martial arts films such as Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, is often emphasized by slow-motion cinematography and freeze-frame effects. Another example is the entrance of Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) into a bar in Martin Scorsese's 1973 film Mean Streets, while the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash plays in the background. It lends the scene a heightened sense of cool that playing the scene in real time would not have accomplished.

Fast motion is most often used for comic effect, but it is also used frequently in action sequences to make chases and punches in fights appear to be much quicker than they actually were on the set. It might also give a creepy supernatural feel to a particular scene, as in the vampire movies Nosferatu (1922) and Let Me In (2010). Fast-motion effects can be easily achieved in post-production by skipping frames, but smooth slow motion can be accomplished only through high-speed cinematography, for example 48, 96, or 240 frames per second to show action at 1/2, 1/4, or 1/10 natural speed. If a scene is shot at a normal rate, it can still be slowed down by repeating frames, but the result is a staccato, jerky appearance.

Nosferatu: Thomas Rides in the Carriage

In a clip fom the film Nosferatu, Count Orlock's personal carriage brings Thomas to the castle.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What does the pacing in these scenes do for the overall appearance of the mysterious horse-drawn carriage? Is this an example of slow motion or fast motion?

2.How does the use of music impact this silent film? What would be the effect if music were not used?

Summary and Resources

Chapter Summary

Editing is far more than merely assembling shots into some coherent order that tells a story. Filmmakers may attempt to use "invisible" continuity editing that viewers rarely notice, or they may embrace the "montage" approach, in which changes from one shot to another are intentionally obvious. Editing controls exactly what viewers will see and when they will see it and can profoundly affect how they will interpret a film. It establishes and can manipulate the pacing of a story on screen while allowing viewers to follow multiple plot threads simultaneously through parallel editing. It may rearrange the story order, creating in effect the final draft of a script. It can assemble a series of partial details, creating by skillful arrangement the illusion of complete actions and spaces that exist only in the minds of the viewers. In most cases, the director oversees the editing of the film, but editors do the actual putting together of the scenes.

The editor literally constructs the film, working from takes and scenes, knitting them together using techniques such as direct cuts, jump cuts, fade-ins, fade-outs, dissolves, and wipes to imply time and place relationships. If a director has covered scenes from multiple angles and distances during shooting, editors have nearly an infinite variety of choices, but if a director shoots only what he or she wants to be seen, the editor may simply need to assemble shots into their correct order. Like other parts of making a movie, editing is a highly collaborative process, but it is the director who typically makes the final decision about which scenes are used and which go in what sequence as they are edited. Other editing decisions include which take of each shot to use, how long each shot will be on the screen, and what sort of transitions will be used between each shot and scene. A choice must also be made whether to follow the traditions of continuity editing, to embrace some form of discontinuity editing, or to shift editing styles for different scenes. As will be seen in the next chapter, the coordination of the picture with sounds of various types is another important part of the editing process. But directors rely on the talents of editors to help with those decisions and to execute them in as seamless a manner as possible.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Editing When Viewing a Film

•How are the shots and scenes arranged into acts?

•What kind of transitions are used (cut, fade, dissolve, wipe)?

•How is coverage used?

•Is there continuity or discontinuity editing?

•Is there any editing to imply an action that you cannot see?

•What is the rhythm like? What length are shots?

•Is there slow or fast motion, and if so, why?

You Try It

1.In a film you have at home, watch a scene and look for establishing shots. What do these shots tell you about where the film is headed? Do they do a good job of leading you in that direction from the start? For example, one of the most famous establishing shots is the opening scene from Touch of Evil, which can be viewed via the following link:

Hyperlinked photo of actors Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh as part of a crowd walking toward an exploded car in the film Touch of Evil. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/Periedolia/clips/touch-of-evil-opening-scene.m4v/view (http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/Periedolia/clips/touch-of-evil-opening-scene.m4v/view)

2.In the same film or another, look for different methods of cutting from one scene to another. Does the director use jump cuts within scenes? Are fade-ins and fade-outs used? What about dissolves and wipes? Of the transitions you are able to identify, which are the most effective? Which are the least effective? Why?

3.In the same film, look at one self-contained scene that is about two to five minutes long. Count the number of individual shots used and time how long each shot is. How do the varying shot lengths reflect what is going on in the scene? Do you think the scene would have been more effective with longer or shorter shots at certain points?

4.In the scene you watched in the previous question (or any other complete scene from another film), try to figure out which camera setup was used as a master shot, how many actual camera setups were used, and then how many times the director uses small portions of each take (or at least the same camera position) during that scene. Then determine how often the scene cuts back to the master shot to re-establish the setting or show all the characters at once. Why do you think the director decided to show one view or another at any given moment?

Key Terms

Click on each key term to see the definition.

180-degree rule (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Principle wherein the camera is kept on one side of an imaginary 180-degree line drawn between the two main characters or groups in the scene, which helps the audience know who is looking at whom in a scene.

continuity editing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Advance planning of shots so that cutting to different camera positions will maintain the illusion that everything is happening in a continuous time and space, and the audience will not become confused; sometimes called invisible editing.

cut (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

As a verb, to edit a film, joining shots together in a specific order; also to delete a portion, or simply to mark the point where a shot should begin or end. As a noun, the point at which one shot ends and is replaced instantly by another shot; also a completed edited version of a film.

dailies (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The raw footage that has been shot each day, typically processed by the film lab and viewed by the director the next day (or the same day in the case of digital productions).

direct cut (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An immediate, sometimes jarring cut between one scene and another.

discontinuity editing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A style of editing that intentionally violates the principles of continuity editing, making no attempt to disguise the fact that viewers are watching a movie or to create the illusion of continuous time and space.

dissolve (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A method of transitioning between scenes that superimposes the end of one scene onto the beginning of the next (a fade-out superimposed with a fade-in), making it appear as if the first scene literally dissolves into the second.

editor (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The person who arranges the best film footage that has been shot into a coherent, effective order.

establishing shot (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

As the term implies, an opening shot that establishes the essential information about the film—where it takes place and who is involved. This is typically done as a long shot, sometimes as a master shot. Similarly, a re-establishing shot in a scene returns to the longer view after a series of close-ups to remind the audience where all the characters are in the scene.

eyeline match (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A form of continuity editing, eyeline match typically shows us a character looking at an object or person off screen; the director immediately cuts to what the character is looking at, giving the audience the experience of seeing what the character sees.

fade-in (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

When a scene begins in darkness and gradually fades to light and focus.

fade-out (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

When a scene gradually fades to darkness.

incongruous editing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Editing technique that puts sequences together out of order; jumping around in time.

iris (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A variation of the wipe that looks like the screen is closing in from all sides in a circular or rectangular or some other shape until the image goes black or another shot replaces it.

jump cut (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A quick cut that accelerates a scene by eliminating action the director believes to be unnecessary; also refers to particularly jarring cuts between shots, due to an obvious gap in continuity.

Kuleshov effect (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A concept related to the eyeline match, but created solely through editing, so that any shot of any actor looking at something may be intercut with a shot of anything else, and the audience will assume that is what the actor is looking at, even though it is never established in a longer shot that they're both actually in the same place.

master shot (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A single take that usually includes an entire scene. A master shot is often a long shot.

matching on action (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Cutting between two different shots at the exact point where the characters' positions match, maintaining the illusion that the action is happening in continuous time even though the shots were done at different times.

montage theory (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The idea that joining two or more shots together in a certain order results in something greater than and different from the individual shots, and that juxtaposition of different shots to convey meaning is more important than maintaining an illusion of continuity.

parallel editing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Cutting between two or more scenes that are occurring simultaneously, showing either the similarities or the differences between them. This technique is often used during a typical race to the rescue or to convey ironic contrast.

post-production (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The process of completing a movie after the principal photography has been completed. This includes editing shots together, mixing the soundtrack (including re-recording and adding new sounds), incorporating special visual effects, and adding titles, among others.

sequence (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A segment of a movie's plot made up of several closely related scenes.

shot/reverse-shot (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Similar to the eyeline match; form of continuity editing that takes place between two characters, with one character looking at the other one, who is sometimes off screen. Then the director cuts to the other character, looking back at the first. This establishes that the two are indeed looking at each other.

split-screen (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

An editing technique wherein the screen is divided into two or more images viewed simultaneously, rather than cutting back and forth between them. This may be used to show action happening simultaneously (e.g., two sides of a phone call, a robbery occurring while the police prepare their arrest), or multiple views of the same scene, or things happening in the past or the future while we see the main action.

wipe (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A transition that looks as if one shot is literally "wiping" another off the screen; often used to introduce a split-screen.

Sound and Music

Still from The Hurt Locker, showing a man running away from an explosion.

Still from The Hurt Locker (2008). ©Summit Entertainment/courtesy Everett Collection

Is a scene spooky? Funny? Violent? Sad? Whatever the feeling, a good film matches sights with sounds to make the scene come alive.

—Geoffrey Horn

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

•Describe how sound contributes to the overall impact of films.

•Trace the history of sound from the Silent Era through talkies.

•Describe the basic types of sound recording and playback technology used for films, past and present.

•Explain how dialogue, sound effects, and music work individually and together in a film's soundtrack, and understand the difference between a score and a soundtrack.

•Identify and appreciate how various sound production techniques contribute to what you experience in a finished film.

8.1 What Does Sound Contribute to Movies?

At the beginning of Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, we don't see Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, or any of the other soon-to-be-iconic characters. No, instead, we see words. The backstory about the Empire and the resistance scrolls up the screen, telling us that we're watching a story set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." It sounds like a rather dull start for what would become the most lucrative series of films in movie history. But it's not. Instead, it's exciting, making us anticipate what we're about to see (that is certainly the case the first time we see it). It's not the visuals, certainly. What is it, then?

It is the music. John Williams's stirring score (the background music) grabs us by the collar and forces us to sit up in our seats; it demands our attention, drawing us in from practically the first note. Try watching the opening of Star Wars with the sound turned down, and you will be startled. Williams's score is our introduction to the film, and it is a magnetic one.

People in a movie theater watching the black and white silent film Sherlock Jr. A band seated at the front of the theater plays live music to accompany the film.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Silent films such as Sherlock Jr. were accompanied by live music. Director and actor Buster Keaton was a master of deadpan reactions and physical comedy.

Once the film starts, it's not just the music that thrills us. The sound effects are also essential to our enjoyment of Star Wars—the mechanical, menacing breathing of Darth Vader; the electronic hum of the light sabers; the roar of the enormous space ships; even the silence of space. The same applies to the dialogue, which includes any number of memorable lines and helps to advance the plot, explain relationships, and establish characterizations. In fact, the personality of robot C3PO comes just as much from the dialogue and its delivery as from the movements of the actor in the distinctive costume.

As hard as it may be to fathom, movies were once silent, at least in the case of having no recorded dialogue or sound effects. There was always, however, a musical accompaniment to help interpret the moods for the audience, just as today's movies often rely upon evocative music scores to intensify dramatic impact. But instead of being pre-recorded, the music was played live at each showing in the theater. Many of these so-called "silent" films are without question great—Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are among the geniuses who worked their comedy magic without the use of sound. Directors such as F. W. Murnau, Sergei Eisenstein, Abel Gance, and King Vidor created compelling visual dramatic masterpieces with no need for spoken dialogue or audible sound effects. But once the technology became available to marry sound with pictures, the medium of film was reborn. Audiences didn't just expect sound; they demanded it. And yet, for such an essential part of a film, audiences today often take sound and even music for granted. Certainly, they miss it if it's not there, but it is far too easy to overlook the important role sound, and especially music, plays in movies.

8.2 The History of Sound in Film

Musical accompaniment that supports a film's moods and actions is really just an artificial convention to help manipulate audience response. While heard by the viewers, it does not exist in the story world inhabited by the characters and thus is termed non-diegetic. Other non-diegetic elements in a film might include superimposed titles, title cards, or voice-over narration by someone who is not a character in the story. By contrast, sounds of spoken dialogue (or narration by a character in the story), natural sound effects matching sources seen on the screen, and any music that is being performed or heard by characters in the story is called diegetic. Today's movies usually employ both sorts of sound, and filmmakers have the option of using only diegetic sounds, only non-diegetic sound, or a mix of both at once. Before the refinement of recording technology, it was much simpler for filmmakers to rely not only upon non-diegetic sound alone (a musical score and in certain theaters, especially in Asia, also a narrator), but also upon the exhibitors to supply it.

The Silent Era

We live in a world in which we can shoot and edit movies on our smartphones and email them to our friends. Moving pictures are an established part of our lives, a fact of our existence. But imagine a world in which images were stationary, in which pictures did not move. And then, one day, they did. This bit of magic alone was good enough for audiences, who at first were simply amazed at what they were seeing. When movies first moved from scientific experiment to entertainment product in the 1890s, it seemed like a miracle.

However, as with any art form, some people began to push further. Filmmakers began using the medium to tell stories. The invention of sound recording actually came well over a decade before the invention of motion pictures. However, during the first few decades of movies the technology to synchronize sound with the picture was too inconvenient to make films with recorded sound practical. Instead, filmmakers embraced the technical limitations of the medium to tell stories visually; where dialogue was necessary, title cards were used—a character would speak, those in the audience would see his or her mouth move, and a card with whatever the character said would appear in print on screen. Seen today, this practice seems quaint—funny, even—if one is unfamiliar with the convention. At the time, it was as cutting-edge as the medium allowed.

Today, lack of sound would be considered an almost insurmountable handicap; yet some of the filmmakers who worked during the Silent Era, when films didn't have recorded sound (a time period that lasted from the invention of movies through approximately 1930), thought the lack of a need for carefully scripted dialogue was something of an opportunity. They enjoyed the freedom. "The great advantage of silent films was that they didn't have words, so not everything was literal," said the director King Vidor, whose sound films include Duel in the Sun, The Champ, and War and Peace. "The audience could make up its own words and dialogue, and make up its own meaning" (as cited in Stevens, 2006).

Such an idea may seem inconceivable now, when studios go to great lengths to ensure that audiences do not have to work much at all to understand what is going on, leaving nothing to chance. Yet Vidor and others, working in a new medium, used this latitude to their advantage. It also permitted them to give the actors precise directions while the cameras were actually rolling, as no sound was being recorded. Some of the greatest films ever made were produced during the Silent Era, including Vidor's The Big Parade and The Crowd, D. W. Griffith's controversial The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Keaton's The General, and Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (in which he famously dangles from the hands of a clock high above the street). F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh and Teinosuke Kinugasa's A Page of Madness managed to tell their stories without even using title cards.

Still from Safety Last!, picturing actor Harold Lloyd pretending to nearly fall from the top of a building.

Photo by Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

Shown here is Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! Of the three great silent clowns—Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd—Lloyd is the least known today. A great star and daredevil, he made more films than Chaplin and Keaton combined.

As noted previously, "silent" films were not typically shown in complete silence. Most theaters employed at least a piano player to accompany the film. Better theaters installed pipe organs or added another instrumentalist or two with the pianist (often a violinist and drummer, perhaps a few more) to have more of an orchestral sound. Large theaters in major cities had full pit orchestras of 20 or more players and a large music library of specially composed "photoplay music" to match various moods, situations, and nationalities. Important Hollywood releases sometimes had custom-commissioned scores composed for them, with the sheet music sent out to the theaters. Whether or not a new original score was composed for a film, the filmmakers expected that theaters would provide appropriate music, and many moviegoers decided where to spend their money as much by the reputation of a theater's music quality as by what film was playing. At theaters with a single accompanist (piano or organ), the live interaction between the musician and both the screen and the audience was never exactly the same twice, more akin to a live theater performance. Music became not just an added attraction but an integral part of the filmmaking process and moviegoing experience—which it remains to this day.

Acting Styles in Silent Films

Because audiences couldn't hear what was said during films, actors often relied on overstated gestures and heightened mannerisms, especially early on, before filmmakers grew to trust the audience more and tone down theatrical-style performances for the more intimate camera. Thus, some dramatic silent films may seem almost comical today because of what appears to be overacting. Some of it was, even at the time these films were made. But all of it was a distinctive stylization, much of it following an accepted catalog of conventional gestures and movements—melodramatic facial expressions and more—that had been in use since the 19th century. Especially when coupled with an appropriate musical score, it is perhaps more akin to ballet or opera without words than to modern movie acting. It was all done with the knowledge that the audience would not hear what actors were saying but would instead rely on title cards, music, and long-established acting technique to follow the story.

Still from Nosferatu, showing a vampire standing on the deck of a ship.

Courtesy Everett Collection

A classic vampire film such as Nosferatu is a perfect vehicle for what today would be considered exaggerated overacting.

It must also be said that the speed at which silent films are projected today, typically fixed at an invariable 24 frames per second, with some projectors offering an alternate so-called "silent speed" of 16 or 18 frames per second, also has an impact on the modern audience's reception of them. Because sound was performed live rather than pre-recorded, films could run at any speed. Camera operators would typically hand-crank the film relatively slower for action scenes (thus speeding up the motion when projected on screen) and faster for dramatic scenes (slowing down the motion) but there was no set speed. Projectionists in the theater would usually run the film at a speed that seemed appropriate on the screen, sometimes changing it from scene to scene, although sometimes orchestra conductors could adjust the speed during a show to fit the music they'd selected.

James Card, in his essay "Silent Film Speed" from Image, also points out that silent films were often shown at different speeds in the same theater on the same day. Theater managers would sometimes project the films more slowly during the afternoon when there were fewer customers, and speed it up at night so that they could work in an extra showing when the theater was more crowded.

When silent films are run on modern projectors without variable speed control, the action typically looks sped up to various degrees, and occasionally too slow. When silent films are transferred to video, they must run at the standard sound speed. Sometimes they are converted to 24 frames per second by duplicating every third or fourth frame, which results in a more normal speed of the action but also introduces an unnatural jerkiness that modern viewers mistakenly attribute to "poorer technology back then." The variable silent speed issue, combined with the older stylized acting and today's fascination with technological advances (digital CGI and 3-D, for example), often results in silent films not being given their due. But they were so unlike anything people had seen before that it is not overstating the case to call silent cinema a revolutionary form of entertainment. And then, with the advent of sound, film would undergo a revolution of its own.

Talkies

Technology would eventually catch up with movies, and sound would become a part of them. But sound wasn't exactly the foregone conclusion that we assume it to be now. Some believed silent film to be the purer art form and had no interest in making the change to sound (and some still believe this). Others had more businesslike interests. Wendy Ide, writing in the Sunday Times, reports that Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers Studios, declared in 1926 that talkies, as films with recorded dialogue were called, would never succeed. "Silent films," he argued, had "an international appeal, a visual language that transcended the spoken word. They allowed the audience to invest their own meanings, imagine their own dialogue" (Ide, 2008). Jack Warner recalled in his 1964 memoir My First Hundred Years in Hollywood that his brother Harry, when pitched the potential for sound films, retorted, "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (Warner, 1965). Rarely would a studio executive be proven so wrong.

Still from The Jazz Singer, picturing a scene with actor Al Jolson in traditional blackface makeup.

Courtesy Everett Collection

The Jazz Singer included a title character whose stage act was derived from the traditional blackface minstrel show. In this silent melodrama with synchronized music and sound sequences, popular stage star Al Jolson brought his vaudeville dancing and singing to the silver screen.

Studios had experimented with synchronized sound, which matched the dialogue with the movement of the characters' mouths, in short films since the 1890s, and in the mid-1920s some feature-length films had rudimentary sound effects. Warner Brothers' Vitaphone technology was introduced in 1926 as a way to allow small towns the chance to experience full orchestra accompaniments with their movies, recorded on disks played in perfect synchronization with the film, and to present famous New York vaudeville acts as prologues before the feature, all much more affordably using film rather than hiring live performers. Audiences and theater owners weren't so sure about it, as recorded sound at the time could not come close to replicating the experience of live music. That is, until The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927—only a year after Warner made his mistaken pronouncement—finally managed to capture the public's imagination and has inaccurately gained a reputation as the first true "talkie."

The Jazz Singer is a sentimental story of a Jewish boy rising to fame as a Broadway entertainer after rejecting his religious father's wishes that he become a cantor, and it is really just another silent film for the most part. It has a prerecorded soundtrack of music and a few sound effects, plus several songs and some brief segments with audible spoken words. The first bit of dialogue comes 17 minutes and 25 seconds into the film, when star Al Jolson as the title character utters the fitting words, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!" Jolson performs six songs during the course of the movie, periodically adding some ad-libbed lines, as he'd been accustomed to doing in his stage performances. Thanks in no small part to the charismatic persona Jolson was able to communicate on screen, the film became a hit, and its unexpected success created a huge public demand for recorded sound. The death knell for silent films was not sounded immediately, but the end was coming soon. (Note: Some modern viewers find themselves uncomfortable with the use of blackface makeup in certain scenes of The Jazz Singer, and its central function in the plot, interpreting it as a racial slur. The "Wikipedia" article on the film discusses this in detail with references for further reading, as well as noting the film's favorable reception in the African-American press of 1927.)

Throughout 1928, theaters rushed to install sound systems. Studios rushed to add sound to silents already in production, whether reshooting the entire picture or merely including dialogue or songs in a few scenes—"part-talkies," as these hybrid films were called. By summer of 1928, the first 100 percent all-talking feature, The Lights of New York, was released. Sound now permitted faithful film versions of stage plays and created the brand-new genre of the movie musical, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4. Viewers rushed to see films advertised as "all-singing, all-talking, all-dancing," many of them with the added attraction of Technicolor for certain scenes or the entire films.

After sound was introduced, the behavior of the audience had to change. Before, as the piano, organ, or orchestra played, people watched with rapt attention. Vidor, the famous director, has argued that the audience's attention waned when sound came to pictures:

In silent pictures, you couldn't turn away from the screen as much. When sound first came in, that's when popcorn and all the drinks started, and necking in the theater, because you could turn away and do all sorts of things and still hear. You wouldn't miss anything—the sound would take care of it. But in silent pictures you had to just sit there and try to figure it out. (Stevens, 2006)

Robert Sklar, in his book Movie-Made America, notes another interesting change. "During the silent era it was considered acceptable for members of the audience to express audibly their views about the action on the screen," Sklar says. He explains further as he writes:

Sometimes this might cause disruption or annoyance, but it also had a potential for forging a rapport of shared responses, a sense of community with surrounding strangers. . . . With talkies, however, people who talked aloud were peremptorily hushed by others in the audience who didn't want to miss any spoken dialogue. The talking audience for silent pictures became a silent audience for talking pictures. (Sklar, 1975)

Despite the deep-seated love audiences had developed for silent movies, only two years after the release of The Jazz Singer the revolution was nearly complete in the United States, and a year or two later in much of Europe. In Asia and third-world countries, filmmakers continued making silent films into the mid-1930s. There were actually early 1930s silent films, by Japan's Yasujiro Ozu for instance, that showed movie posters for American talking pictures. (It is also instructive as to just how widespread the influence of Hollywood movies became after World War I and remains to this day.) Although a few American films would be released with little or no dialogue (Chaplin's City Lights in 1931 and Modern Times in 1936 being the most famous), the last year mainstream silent movies were produced by major Hollywood studios was 1929. For the next couple of years, many films produced with sound had silent versions prepared for theaters that had not yet converted to the new technology (especially for foreign export), but from here on, there would be no looking back. Sound was here to stay. Or so it seemed. In 2005, independent filmmakers Sean Branney and Andrew Leman made a low-budget but multiple award-winning version of the classic H. P. Lovecraft horror story The Call of Cthulhu as a black-and-white silent movie, shot on digital video and shown primarily at film festivals. In 2011, French director Michel Hazanavicius made a comedy-drama homage to classic Hollywood studio moviemaking and the conversion to sound. To help capture the period flavor, he chose to make it as a silent movie in black and white using the classic 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with a brief talking sequence in the final minutes. The film he created, The Artist, found international distribution, went on to earn widespread critical acclaim, and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The same year, Spanish director Pablo Berger made his own ambitious silent, black-and-white 1.33:1 feature called Blancanieves, a clever updating of the "Snow White" fairy tale to 1920s Spain and the culture of bullfighting. While it was well received by critics, Blancanieves had only limited theatrical distribution during 2012 and was largely unseen by the general public. In 2009, American director Gus Van Sant shot a silent version as well as the sound version of his quirky independent feature Restless, but he used the same color film and widescreen aspect ratio rather than imitating the fashion of the 1920s. The sound version was released theatrically in 2011, but both versions were included on the 2012 Blu-ray/DVD edition. These remain rare cases in today's commercial cinema, however. In the rest of this chapter, we will explore the impact sound has on movies, both in production practices and in dramatic potential.

History of Sound in Film

8.3 Sound Technology and Equipment

It was the continually evolving technology of sound recording and reproduction that kept talking pictures in the experimental realm from the 1890s until the mid-1920s, as no system was compatible with any other. Just as with digital technology many decades later, once quality reached a certain level and standards were finally agreed upon, it became much easier to commercialize talkies, and eventually to arrive at the movies filled with the digital surround sound that we expect today. It is useful to have a general familiarity with the most common recording processes used for movies in order to understand how various inherent byproducts of the technology can affect the sound you hear, especially with older films.

Acoustic and Electro-Mechanical Sound

Sound is perceived by the brain when the ear detects vibrations in the air. The earliest sound recording machines in the 1870s and 1880s used large cone-shaped horns to pick up those vibrations, connected to a needle creating ridges in a rotating wax cylinder or disk. Playback simply reversed this completely mechanical process, reproducing a crude recording of the original sounds. Acoustic recordings required no electricity, but their fidelity and volume were limited. Electrical research during the first two decades of the 20th century led to microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and radio. Adding sound to films became more feasible with electrically controlled higher-fidelity recordings that could fill a large auditorium.

Optical Sound

Photograph of a Vitaphone camera booth, with soundproofing, c. 1928.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Photograph of a Vitaphone camera booth, with soundproofing, c. 1928. Early sound recording required isolated, locked-down cameras. Active, mobile camerawork gave way to static shots of actors speaking into microphones sometimes hidden among the props—for example, in a flower pot placed on a table.

In the mid-1920s, Warner Brothers developed its Vitaphone sound system, which recorded sound electro-mechanically onto large 16-inch disks. At the same time, Fox Pictures was developing a rival Movietone sound system that used optical recording and playback technology. Instead of using a mechanical disk as a recording medium, the electrical signals from a microphone recorded a photograph of the sound wave onto film. With only light shining through the soundtrack instead of a heavy needle resting in a record groove, a film soundtrack did not wear out nearly as fast as the disks did. Although a portion of the image area had to be sacrificed to make room for the optical soundtrack, having the sound on the same piece of film as the picture meant it could never go out of sync. Optical sound soon became the worldwide standard still in use today for theaters that still run 35 mm or 16 mm film. See Figure 8.1 for an illustration of this technology.

Figure 8.1: Traditional optical sound reproduction technology, the world standard from the 1920s to the 2000s

A very narrow beam of light focuses on the film's soundtrack, and the solar cell behind the film turns the varying light into electrical signals that an amplifier sends to the theater's loudspeakers. A misaligned lens might read the edge of the sprocket holes, resulting in a loud hum, or part of the image, resulting in noise. Any dirt or scratches on the film are read as noisy static, clicks, and pops with analog optical sound. Severe dirt or scratches on digital optical sound render the track unplayable, and the film defaults back to the analog audio. Most modern theaters now have a "reverse-scan" soundhead with a red LED where the solar cell had been, focusing a slit of red light onto the film that is picked up by a "red reader" located where the exciter lamp's lens had been. This makes it easier to play films with the cyan-colored soundtracks used since the mid-2000s, and it may also allow for decoding digital soundtracks. Otherwise, a separate digital sound head with a red LED is also attached to the projector.

Illustration of optical sound reproduction technology, including the exciter lamp, lens and slit, solar cell, film, and sound drum.

Magnetic Sound

During the 1930s, scientists developed a means of using the electrical signals from a microphone to control a magnetic field that could magnetize particles on a moving metallic ribbon. This was able to record a wider frequency range of sounds from low to high than was possible with optical sound, and without the noticeable background hiss inherent in sound on disk. After World War II, higher-quality magnetic recordings of film dialogue, sound effects, and music would be used to master a standard optical sound negative that could be printed beside the picture so theaters would not need to install new sound equipment.

Nevertheless, the CinemaScope widescreen process introduced in 1953 included magnetic stripes coated onto the film that could record up to four separate soundtracks. Theaters that installed magnetic sound heads on their projectors were able to play back four-track stereophonic sound, with three channels located behind the screen (left, center, right). The fourth channel ran through speakers placed all around the auditorium walls for surround sound effects. (See Figure 8.2 for an illustration of stereophonic sound.) Because it was much more expensive, magnetic stereo sound soon became reserved for big-budget films, especially epics and musicals.

Figure 8.2: Stereophonic sound

Stereophonic sound is directional sound, with two or more individual audio recordings playing through different loudspeakers arranged behind the screen and throughout the auditorium. The "point one" in a digital stereo sound mix consists of low-frequency sounds amplified separately and sent to large subwoofer speakers. The original 1950s four-channel magnetic stereo and 1970s Dolby optical stereo had three speakers behind the screen, and the fourth channel, if used, went to all the surround speakers. The old 70 mm six-track magnetic stereo audio format, used from the 1950s through the 1990s, had five individual channels behind the screen, with the sixth used for all the surround speakers, rather than splitting the surrounds into two or four separate channels, as is done with modern digital formats and many modern home theater systems.

Illustration of a typical movie theater equipped with 7.1-Channel Stereophonic sound. At the front of the theater, behind the movie screen, are two subwoofers and a left, center, and right speaker. The left and right walls of the theater each contain three surround speakers. The rear of the theater is equipped with a left-rear and a right-rear speaker. Behind the theater, in the projection booth, are a film platter, a 35-millimeter film projector, a digital projector, and audio and computer entertainment.

The Dolby Corporation developed noise-reduction systems that greatly improved the quality of optical soundtracks and in the 1970s refined some late-1930s technology into a four-channel optical sound system that could be inexpensively printed on the film with the picture. (See Figure 8.3 for an illustration of an optical soundtrack on a modern filmstrip.) After its effectiveness was demonstrated by George Lucas's Star Wars in 1977, studios and theaters alike started jumping back onto the stereophonic sound bandwagon. With optical stereo, any theater could still play a film in monaural sound, or sound that comes from a single (mono) source, if it didn't have stereo equipment. The superior magnetic sound became reserved only for 70 mm film releases, and those were phased out as various digital sound systems for film became widespread during the 1990s.

Figure 8.3: Optical soundtrack

Shown here is the latest optical soundtrack variation on the film format standard, which has seen only minor modifications since 1894! An optical soundtrack is a photograph of the sound wave, printed onto the film beside the picture. The right and left stereo tracks are processed by a special electronic circuit to extract a center screen channel and a surround channel. By 2014, most commercial movie theaters had switched to digital projection, but a number are still capable of running 35 mm film prints.

Illustration of a filmstrip with an optical soundtrack. In the middle of the film strip are the actual film images. To the left of the images is the DTS digital timecode, used for synching audio on a CD-ROM with the film. To the left of the timecode is the variable-area optical stereo soundtrack. The left and right optical stereo soundtracks are decoded into 4-channel sound. To the left of the optical stereo soundtrack is the Dolby Digital audio data, which appears between the film strip's sprocket holes. On the right and left outside edges of the filmstrip is the Sony SDDS digital audio data.

Digital Sound

Digital recording systems convert the analog electrical signals from a microphone into an arbitrary code of ones and zeroes that another converter can decode back into audible sound. The result is the elimination of all analog background noise, whether a faint hiss from magnetic media, periodic clicks and pops from flaws or dirt on optical film, or a needle scraping against a disk. Digital recordings' dynamic range from dead silence to the loudest possible recording was drastically improved over analog systems. Filmmakers started to record digital audio in the 1980s and theaters started adding digital sound playback capability in the 1990s.

The increased abilities of digital audio often inspire filmmakers to exploit them for truly spectacular soundtracks that seem to put the audience in the center of the action and have them literally feel the rumbles of thunder or blasts of explosions. But there's a downside to this: If the digital track becomes damaged or worn beyond the capacity of the system to recognize the ones and zeroes, there simply is no sound at all. Thus, all current digital film processes use the standard analog optical soundtrack as a backup. The shift toward digital cinema projection in the 2010s does away with film copies and puts the entire movie, both picture and sound, into a digital file played from a computer hard drive.

Modern Sound Technology and Consumer Demand

Recorded sound synchronized with movies began as a novelty, a gimmick to attract more ticket buyers, but once sound quality reached a certain point, audiences began to demand it. Hollywood added sound to its films in order to make more money, and the evolution of technology to provide better sound continued apace. After sound became the norm, stereo sound became a promotional gimmick until eventually it was expected, first for major pictures and then for all movies. The 1974 film Earthquake was shown in some theaters with accompanying Sensurround, which is basically a pumping up of bass sounds so that they would be felt as vibrations in the theater. This technology was used for a handful of other films, but it faded quickly. The concept later returned with the advent of digital technology and a separate subwoofer audio track that could create vibrations in the theater and more intense sound. This ability to reproduce ultra-low-frequency sounds is now commonplace in consumer sound systems for homes and cars.

Surround sound involves placement of speakers all around the theater so that audiences get the impression that some sounds are coming from all around them. It was pioneered by Disney's Fantasia in 1940, became an increasingly frequent option with CinemaScope's magnetic stereo sound in the 1950s, was integral to Dolby's optical stereo in the late 1970s, and remains an important part of our moviegoing experience. By the 1990s, stereo and surround sound became popular enough that they soon were routinely used in home video systems, consequently motivating more theaters to install better sound to compete with the home experience.

Clearly, the careful use of sound is essential in modern films. Whether it is something as challenging as creating the sound of space (and the silences that go along with that) or something as seemingly simple as footsteps on pavement, sound is one of the movie industry's most expressive tools. Among the elements that make up the magic of movies, sound and its many varied uses is among the foremost.

8.4 Three Basic Categories of Film Sound

Once sound became an established part of moviemaking, individual elements of it became increasingly important. Indeed, sound production would become as important a part of making a movie as any other—if not as well known or well respected. During the Silent Era, the responsibility for adding music to films (and sometimes limited sound effects) lay with the theaters. Sound technology suddenly enabled the filmmakers to have control over these, as well as adding audible dialogue. The three basic categories of film sound—dialogue, sound effects, and music—require careful balancing to serve the story; because of this, each category is typically recorded separately and mixed together during the final editing process. We will discuss the importance of each of these three elements and the function that they each serve now.

Dialogue

Characters talking to one another in films, known as dialogue, is now so much a part of the movie experience that audiences take it for granted. But creating scenes in which characters talk to one another as they do in real life is no easy task. This was especially the case early on, when filmmakers often used the new technology basically as a way to show it off. For a couple of years, background music was considered an old-fashioned relic of the Silent Era. Films exploited natural sound effects, but especially dialogue (hence the term "talking pictures"). Now that spoken dialogue could be heard, numerous films were quickly made of stage plays, but the results often looked more "stagey" than cinematic. Settings were generally limited to a few rooms instead of numerous indoor and outdoor locations as with silent films. The camera had to be confined within a soundproof booth so its mechanism wouldn't be recorded, instead of free to move throughout the set like in silent films. Actors suddenly needed to stay close to the microphones instead of being free to move around.

Still from The Shining, showing actor Jack Nicholson in the role of crazed father Jack Torrance.

The film The Shining is perhaps best known for character Jack Torrance and his phrase, "Here's Johnny!" Sometimes a catch phrase and the character become interchangeable.

As with most new art forms, the writing of dialogue improved quickly. Instead of using a formal, theatrical style, many films more closely reflected the everyday speech of their times. This, of course, may make films appear dated within a few years, but it also makes them a valuable record of cultural norms at the time they're created. The popularity of films soon reached the point that films would eventually influence personal communication, instead of the other way around. Countless phrases uttered in movies have become a part of our everyday conversation. How many times have you said things like, "Go ahead, make my day" or "Hasta la vista, baby" or "We're not in Kansas anymore," with the sure knowledge that the person you are talking to will recognize it and instantly know what you mean, no matter what the context? Dialogue from movies has become so well known that it is used as a form of cultural shorthand.

Bryan Crable, the chairman of the communications department at Villanova University, said in an interview with The Arizona Republic,

When we cite bits of movie dialogue, we're using a bit of shared culture to do the same thing. . . . [M]aybe something goes wrong unexpectedly . . . I can just turn to someone and say: "Houston, we have a problem." If a movie moment is able to capture a situation or an emotion that really hits home, then a catch phrase is born. (Goodykoontz, 2010c)

Still from My Dinner With Andre, picturing two men talking over dinner.

Courtesy Everett Collection

A theatrical, dialogue-heavy film like My Dinner With Andre owes much of its success to the writing and to Andre Gregory's many years of experience as a theater director and actor.

There is no shortage of a desire among audiences to see action films; however, there have been and presumably always will be films in which dialogue is the most important element. Perhaps the most distilled example of this is My Dinner With Andre (1981). It basically consists of Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory playing versions of themselves, talking for nearly two hours over dinner. It sounds as if it would be a horrible bore, yet many found it a fascinating film; critical reception was glowing. My Dinner With Andre may well stand as the purest argument for dialogue in film. "It should be unwatchable," famed critic Roger Ebert wrote, "and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted" (Ebert, 1999).

Although Andre is an extreme example, any number of films—you can practically name one at random—rely on dialogue to establish character and advance the story. If well used, it can be a richer way to move the plot along than by simply showing what happens. This doesn't mean it is more important than what we see—if that were true, we might as well read a book. But the dialogue and the visual action work together to create the entire film experience.

In film, there are three basic reasons to use dialogue:

1.to further the development of the plot

2.to enhance characterizations

3.to establish very quickly important information the audience needs to know to understand the action (e.g., names, locations, dates, motivations, backstory)

The most effective dialogue often does two or all three of these simultaneously. Effective movie dialogue expands or elaborates upon what is visible on the screen and does not simply repeat in words what is already obvious in the action (which is what TV dialogue often does so viewers can easily follow programs while they're doing something else).

Here is something to keep in mind about dialogue: What you hear coming out of the mouths of characters, which may appear to be perfectly synchronized with their lips, is often not what was recorded during filming. Instead, in a post-production process called automated dialogue replacement (ADR), or looping, actors often re-record their lines so that they can be heard more clearly. (Background noises during filming on location can make the originally recorded dialogue unusable.) The actor watches footage of the scene in a studio and re-creates the dialogue, a process that often requires multiple efforts. Thus, what we see and what we hear may actually have been created at different times.

Still from Fight Club, showing actors Edward Norton and Brad Pitt sitting on an airplane.

The unreliable narrator in Fight Club uses voice-over to lead us through the story and to explain how Tyler Durden inspires him to abandon his old life.

Besides traditional dialogue, the voice-over is used in some films. This is when a character's voice narrates the action to help the audience understand what is going on. The technique is often criticized as a shortcut to avoid depicting something visually, a way of not trusting the audience's intelligence, of spoon-feeding information that the film itself would make clear with time and thought. Among the most criticized examples is the 1982 theatrical release of Blade Runner, in which the protagonist, Deckard (Harrison Ford), provides narration throughout the film.

Other films revel in using voice-over as part of their style, letting the viewer in on character thoughts that cannot easily be dramatized, or, as in Fight Club, providing information by the narrator that the viewer later realizes is not always trustworthy.

Sound Effects

In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the hugely successful 2009 sequel to the first Transformers movie, in which cars and trucks are revealed to be aliens who have disguised themselves, the sounds of explosions might as well be a credited member of the cast, so ubiquitous are they. The bone-crunchingly loud, theater-rattling explosions serve one purpose only: to enhance the action. The sound of these explosions simply does not allow the audience to passively watch the film; it serves instead as a rush of adrenaline. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Editing (its only nomination); nevertheless, it was lambasted by critics.

Still from Wall-E, picturing the robot Wall-E in front of an abandoned city.

In Wall-E, the first third of the movie is without dialogue. The story is told as much by the sound effects as by the images.

The sound of explosions is also integral to another 2009 film, The Hurt Locker. This critically acclaimed movie tells the story of a U.S. military bomb-disposal unit working in Iraq. Explosions here mean something far different than they do in an action-adventure movie. Here, they often mean death. The sound ratchets up the tension to an incredible degree, as the audience watches the soldiers do their work. One false move, one small mistake, and things can end in tragedy—loud, violent tragedy. The Hurt Locker won the Academy Award for Best Sound Design, one of six Oscars it took home (including Best Picture). Both Hurt Locker and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen illustrate, in different ways, the importance of the use of sound effects in films. For all their varying quality, neither film would have been nearly as effective without the expert use of sound effects and sound editors. Films with explosions are only the most extreme and obvious examples of their importance. Films such as Master and Commander and the remake of 3:10 to Yuma include explosions, but they have other scenes full of subtle sounds that establish the environment, carefully placed in the stereophonic sound field to enhance the viewers' identification with what they are seeing. Every film uses sound in some way to draw the audience into the movie and keep it there.

Foley Artists and Unconventional Sound Effects

Recording natural sound in a usable way while filming a movie can prove almost impossible. Many movies are shot on large soundstages—vast warehouses in which sets are built—which are not exactly the place to find realistic sound. Additionally, often a clear recording might be impossible without a microphone in the shot. Thus, sound effects typically have to be recorded separately and added into the final film in post-production (as with ADR dialogue and voice-overs). Before their use in film, sound effects were used in radio for years to add realism to the broadcast. Crumpling cellophane may have been used to make the sound of fire, a doorbell in the studio might indicate the arrival of a visitor, and more. This process was adapted and used to add everyday sound to films and is now referred to as Foley, after Jack Foley, who developed a studio for creating appropriate sounds while watching the film projected on a screen. People who make these everyday sound effects are now called Foley artists.

Still from Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, showing Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader.

The sound of the light sabers in the Star Wars films was created by recording and processing the hum of a projector motor found at the University of Southern California, where director George Lucas had been a student.

Indeed, Foley artists and sound editors often go to unusual, sometimes humorous lengths to achieve the effects they are after. Producer Frank Spotnitz says that the sound of the boulder from which Indiana Jones flees in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark is actually a recording of the sound editor's Honda Civic rolling down his driveway (Spotnitz, 1989). In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-1000 robot is made of a sort of liquid metal that allows it to change shapes and absorb blows and bullets and such. According to Tom Kenny, the sound of the T-1000 going through metal prison bars is actually dog food being sucked out of a can. "A lot of that I would play backward or do something to," sound designer Gary Rydstrom said. "But those were the basic elements. What's amazing to me is . . . Industrial Light & Magic using millions of dollars of high-tech digital equipment and computers to come up with the visuals, and meanwhile I'm inverting a dog food can" (Kenny, 2000).

Popular Sound Effects

There is also a need for more mundane effects, of course. What about the murmur of a crowd in the background of a scene, heard mostly as unintelligible sounds? That is known as walla, and it dates back to radio days. In films, background crowds are usually instructed to keep completely silent so that clear recordings of the actors' dialogue can be made. The crowd noises are recorded separately and mixed in during post-production and the sound editing process.

In addition to sound recordings made for individual movies, there are certain stock sound effects that editors use over and over. These may be nature sounds, mechanical noises, door creaks, and many sounds that might otherwise require new Foley or ADR recordings. One of the more unusual, and most interesting, is the Wilhelm scream. Since its original recording in 1951, the Wilhelm scream has been used in more than 200 films, including Star Wars, Toy Story, Reservoir Dogs, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Iron Man, and Iron Man 2.

Music

At the end of Fight Club, director David Fincher's 1999 film about an office drone (Edward Norton) who becomes friends with a soap salesman (Brad Pitt) through underground fighting, we learn that the protagonist's friend is really the protagonist and is a creation of his own imagination. Yet it is too late for him to stop his army of followers from bombing office buildings. After a suicide attempt, he sits in the dark with his girlfriend, holding her hand, as the explosives go off and skyscrapers all around them crumble. Simply by description, this scene is pretty creepy. However, Fincher ratchets up that feeling considerably by his choice of music for the final scene. As the protagonist and his girlfriend watch the destruction of the world around them, the atmospheric, almost drone-like "Where Is My Mind," by the band the Pixies, plays. It is an unusual choice—the Pixies are more of a cult favorite than a mainstream band, and "Where Is My Mind" is far from their most popular song. Yet the selection is perfect, with the haunting vocal sounds, the cacophony of the drums, the repeated refrain, "Where is my mind." It is, one might say, the perfect soundtrack for the end of the world.

Music has been a crucial part of the moviegoing experience since before the advent of recorded sound in films. So important was its use that over time directors began inserting indications for specific music to be played at specific times. After the conversion to talkies, music became a basic element of constructing a movie, as essential an element as lights and cameras. However, sometimes even the best directors have a hard time keeping that in mind. There is a famous story about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 film Lifeboat, set at sea. Author Tony Thomas, in his book Music for the Movies, related the incident:

An intermediary informed the composer, "Mr. Hitchcock feels that since the entire action of the film takes place in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, where would the music come from?" Replied (composer David) Raksin, "Ask Mr. Hitchcock to explain where the cameras come from and I'll tell him where the music comes from." (Thomas, 1997)

Hitchcock knew, of course, the importance of music and would use it to brilliant effect in later films such as Psycho. Any good filmmaker knows how important music is to the success of a film. We will examine the use of score and soundtrack and their effects on moviemaking, and we will see how contemporary films could not exist without them.

Score

Basically, the film's music score is what plays in the background of a scene while action takes place. It is NOT the film's soundtrack (which includes all dialogue, music, and sound effects), and it is not even the "soundtrack recording" or album, though the two are often confused. What is popularly known as the soundtrack, which we will discuss momentarily, is a collection of songs used in the film (or, sometimes, "inspired" by the film, if they are included on the soundtrack CD but not heard in the movie). The score is music usually written—though not always—specifically for a film. Most often it is played by a full symphonic orchestra, but it may be played on a synthesizer, by one solo instrumentalist, or by a small group of instrumentalists.

Still from The Big Chill, showing a family posing in front of a dinner table.

The Big Chill evokes the lost youth and idealism of baby boomer radicals with a soundtrack of "classic rock" and Motown hits.

Sometimes a film's background music has a recognizable style; at other times it has an almost anonymous feel, perceived more on a subconscious level. David Bondelevitch, who teaches film at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, in an interview made scoring a film sound almost like refereeing a basketball game—if you do it right, no one notices. "Most composers would say if you notice the music, something is wrong," Bondelevitch said. "And most people don't think about what they're hearing; we're trained to notice what we're seeing" (Nilsen, 2008).

A Talk With Hitchcock: Musical Scores

Alfred Hitchcock affirms that color and music in film can both be used to heighten drama. Composer Bernard Herrmann offers insight into his scoring process, and Hitchcock describes the collaboration.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What did Alfred Hitchcock mean when he said that the director is "in the hands of the musician"? Do you agree? If so, do you think this a good thing or a bad thing?

2.Why did Alfred Hitchcock change his mind about the use of music in the Psycho murder scenes? Was this a good decision?

At its root, film is a visual medium, after all. But scores are not just tossed-off ditties; some become classics in their own right, and composers become important assets to interpreting the film. Some Blu-ray and DVD editions of movies include a listening option of an isolated music score without the dialogue or sound effects. These can be instructive in illustrating how a composer approaches a scene and how the music enhances the action. As noted earlier, background music was not used in many early sound films as it was considered unnatural and old-fashioned, but the success of Max Steiner's evocative scores to The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and King Kong (1933) helped revive the tradition. Herbert Stothart, who wrote the Oscar-nominated score for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), is quoted in Music and Cinema, by James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer, from his writings about that work:

I saw in the scope and magnitude of the story an opportunity for something new in music of the screen. I approached the task with the intention of having the score actually tell the story in psychological impressions. The listener can, without seeing the picture, mentally envision the brutalities at sea, the calm, the storms, the idyllic tropics, mutiny, clash of human wills, retribution. I drew on ancient ship chanteys, music of old England, carols, and other authentic sources, and used these as a pattern to weave together my musical narrative. (Altman, Jones, & Tatroe, 2000, p. 189)

Some scores actually prove so important to a film that they become well known themselves. That is certainly the case with Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, released in 1960. The famous scene in which Marion Crane is stabbed to death in the shower—certainly one of the most famous murders ever committed on screen—could not be nearly as effective without Herrmann's famous strings, which seem to stab at the air itself, the short, rhythmic notes of screeching high-pitched violins mimicking both the jabs of the knife and the screams of the victim. So memorable was the music that it is used as a kind of pop-culture shorthand in other films and television shows, relating in just a few notes a feeling of terror. "The shrieking dissonance of ‘The Murder,' surely the most imitated and instantly recognizable film cue, is the cinema's primal scream," Jack Sullivan writes in The Wall Street Journal (Sullivan, 2010).

Still from Amadeus, picturing actor Tom Hulce as lead character Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducting music.

A music bio like Amadeus has the luxury of creating a score directly from Mozart's compositions, but choosing the best arrangements and editing music that is so well known presents its own challenges.

Some scores contain music that was not written specifically for the film. Yet sometimes they work so perfectly with the movie that they become forever identified with it. This is certainly the case with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. One well-known sequence shows space ships docking set to the Johann Strauss waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube, written in 1866. Even more famous, and forever after identified with the film, is Richard Strauss's symphonic poem Thus Spake Zarathustra, written in 1896, which is used during the opening titles and then throughout the film during crucial scenes.

Soundtracks as Promotional Products

The soundtrack, technically, is the band of optical, magnetic, or digital data containing the sound for the film. In this section, however, we will discuss the more common musical genre definition. The soundtrack, as we discussed earlier, differs from the score in that it consists of a selection of songs (and sometimes dialogue) used in the film. And the films for which soundtrack recordings are released are not necessarily musicals, which obviously rely on songs. Soundtrack albums for non-musicals contain popular songs, usually not orchestral music; though, to confuse things further, selections from the score are sometimes included in soundtrack compilations. Again, as with scores, some are written specifically for films and some are previously existing songs used because the director believes that they fit the tone or mood of a particular scene. Occasionally the "soundtrack" includes music inspired by rather than included in a film, as with the extra songs by Madonna on the Dick Tracy soundtrack album.

This concept of commercializing a film's music separately from the film itself goes as far back as the Silent Era. The love theme composed for D. W. Griffith's 1915 The Birth of a Nation became a popular hit under the title "The Perfect Song," and much later it was used as the theme song for the radio sitcom Amos and Andy. The song "Whistle While You Work" is an integral part of the 1937 Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. For the 1942 classic Casablanca, rather than composing an original love theme for his Oscar-nominated score, Max Steiner used the 1931 show tune "As Time Goes By" that was indicated in the script (which suddenly became a huge hit after the film), as well as incorporating many other then-current pop songs. Motifs from "As Time Goes By" are interwoven throughout the entire score, and that song is now inextricably connected with Casablanca rather than the stage show it was originally written for. See Table 8.1 for a sample of films with hit songs throughout the decades.

Table 8.1 Movies with hit songs through the decades

The Birth of a Nation (1915) "The Perfect Song"

What Price Glory? (1926) "Charmaine"

The Wizard of Oz (1939) "Over the Rainbow"

Holiday Inn (1942) "White Christmas"

High Noon (1952) "Do Not Forsake Me"

The Graduate (1967) "Sounds of Silence"

Saturday Night Fever (1977) "Stayin' Alive"

Rocky III (1982) "Eye of the Tiger"

Top Gun (1986) "Take My Breath Away"

The Little Mermaid (1989) "Under the Sea"

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991) "I Do It for You"

Dreamgirls (2006) "Love You I Do"

A more contemporary example is the film Garden State, written and directed by and starring Zach Braff. A single song sets the tone for the movie. Andrew, the main character, played by Braff, is waiting in a doctor's office when he sees a young woman, Sam (Natalie Portman) waiting also, listening to headphones. She sees Andrew, hands him the headphones, and says, "You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life, I swear." The song is "New Slang" by the Shins, and Braff lets it play as Andrew listens. It perfectly captures the sensibility of the film—catchy, offbeat, different. The song was not written for the film, but thanks to its inclusion in it, it easily became the Shins' bestselling song and made the band much more popular as well. At times, such a use of a song is done specifically to cover holes in the plot and story, but in this case it set a tone that the movie would follow throughout.

Still from Mamma Mia! showing actress Meryl Streep jumping on a bed.

Mamma Mia! is one of the highest-grossing movie musicals of all time. Its soundtrack, based on Abba songs, includes previously released music as well as new compositions created for the film.

Indeed, soundtracks are often closely identified with the movies they support, and vice versa. Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper's seminal 1969 film about two hippie bikers riding from Los Angeles to New Orleans "looking for America," makes the music heard on the soundtrack an essential part of the film. So important was the music to the film that securing rights to the songs used up more of the movie's budget than anything else. It was also something of a happy accident. Laszlo Kovacs, the director of photography on Easy Rider, told MovieMaker:

The editor, Donn Cambern, . . . transferred contemporary rock and roll songs to magnetic tape, and synched it randomly to the film, so every shot had music behind it. Originally, he was just making it more interesting, but the music became inseparable from the pictures. When the film was cut there was a discussion about who was going to score it. They ended up licensing the music that Donn was using. They spent $1 million licensing music, which was about three times the budget for shooting the rest of the film. (Fisher, 2004)

Still from Viva Las Vegas, picturing Elvis Presley playing the guitar for an attractive blonde.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Elvis Presley updates a folk ballad, "The Yellow Rose of Texas," in the romantic musical Viva Las Vegas.

Another influential soundtrack is the one for A Hard Day's Night, the 1964 film loosely based on the crazy experience of living inside Beatlemania, starring the Beatles themselves and directed by Richard Lester. The John Lennon and Paul McCartney songs written for the film would become some of the band's best-loved hits. The album's popularity (it spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in the United States) as well as the quality went a long way toward establishing the soundtrack as an accepted musical endeavor for bands, not just a tossed-off side project. This was certainly the case by the time of The Graduate (1967), directed by Mike Nichols and starring Dustin Hoffman as a recent college graduate. Songs such as "Mrs. Robinson" and, especially, "The Sounds of Silence," written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel, were integral to the film. They helped to establish the feelings of confusion and dissatisfaction Hoffman's character feels throughout the movie. They also became major hit records, which in turn promoted both the film and the band.

Saturday Night Fever, director John Badham's 1977 film about a young, disaffected Brooklyn man whose only escape from his dead-end life is dancing in discos on the weekend, used its soundtrack to capture not only the film's moods but also a moment in both music and society. Soon would-be dancers were wearing white suits with wide lapels in homage to Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in the film. The soundtrack would sell more than 15 million copies, and for a time was the bestselling soundtrack album of all time, besides immensely helping the emotional content of the film.

Soundtrack songs enjoy a unique place in popular culture, in that the best of them can stand alone as art in their own right, yet when a soundtrack fits with a movie just right, both the music and the film become better than they would be alone.

8.5 Sound Production Techniques

Viewers may take for granted the use of sound with films, but all the sounds must first be recorded, and then added to accompany the picture. Unlike a home camcorder, all films do not record all sounds along with the picture. Next we will discuss some of the techniques that make sound in films possible.

Live Recording

Photograph of a man holding up and using an electronic clapboard.

Photo by Ray Tamarra/courtesy Everett Collection

Electronic clapboards use digital readouts, which are useful in synchronizing the different frame rates of film and video.

The earliest experimental sound films either recorded everything live as it was filmed or filmed actors lip-synching to pre-recorded songs or dialogue scenes. Both techniques continued after sound technology became widely adopted, with live recording being the most common. This is one reason many early sound films avoided background music, because to get the best quality it had to be recorded during the scene with the orchestra off camera, with a perfectly balanced mix of the microphones recording the dialogue. Today, even though many filmmakers have actors record their lines in post-production, dialogue is still usually recorded live as the camera films the scene, using what is called double-system sound. This uses a separate audio recorder (tape or digital) connected by cable or wireless transmitter to a boom microphone held by a boom operator just out of the camera range. The clapboard, a hinged board connected to the slate listing the film's title, scene number, and take number, is used to synchronize the picture and sound later. The editor matches the first sound of the "clap" with the frame showing the clapboard making contact, and then the recording remains in sync. With digital production, however, sound and image are usually recorded on the same medium and transferred to computer together. Sometimes live sound is recorded when the camera is not filming. This is done for sounds such as traffic, crowd walla, and nature sounds that do not need to be perfectly synchronized with the picture but instead provide background ambience. This may also be done for lines of dialogue that will occur off screen. Sound recorded this way is called wild sound.

Post-Dubbing

Dubbing is the post-production process that records new sounds (dialogue or sound effects) to match the picture. If anything goes wrong with the live recording, rather than taking the time for retakes, individual lines or entire scenes will often be re-recorded using the ADR technique discussed earlier. Some directors use the live recordings as what they call a scratch track—to remind them of exactly what was said—but use ADR because of the greater control it offers. ADR gives directors the ability to change lines or interpretations, or even to re-dub an entire actor's performance with another actor. Director Blake Edwards did this with actor Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther because she did not yet speak English fluently, and Producer Ray Harryhausen notes it happened with the two American leads on Jason and the Argonauts because their accents did not fit with the otherwise British cast. For many decades after sound was introduced, Italian films usually recorded the entire soundtracks after the fact, partly so international casts could speak their own languages on set, and partly so there would be no need to deal with hiding microphones while shooting.

Even when recording live sound, many of the sound effects a director may want are simply not picked up by microphones positioned specifically to record the dialogue. These are added later through the Foley technique or mixing in stock sound effects or wild recordings as described previously. The background musical score is almost always recorded after the film is edited, and then mixed in with the dialogue and sound effects. Dialogue tracks for foreign countries are often post-dubbed (added after a film is shot and edited) in the appropriate language. For this reason, filmmakers are careful to prepare separate master recordings for the music scores, the sound effects, and the dialogue, to simplify the process of making alternate versions. For instance, occasionally the music rights cannot be cleared for TV or home video versions of theatrical films without great expense, so studios simply replace parts of the music track with different songs.

Prerecorded Playback

While music scores are typically played in front of a screen running the finished movie (just as silent films were performed) and recorded for later post-dubbing, songs that characters perform on screen are more often pre-recorded in a sound studio to get the best quality sound. Actors then lip-synch the song as the director shoots it numerous times from different angles. This eliminates not only the need to hide microphones but also the need for multiple cameras (as required to film a live concert), keeping a consistency to the sound from shot to shot that would be impossible with a single camera shooting multiple performances recorded live each time. It also permits actors with mediocre singing ability to appear to have the voices of professional singers. Rare exceptions to this standard practice include the 2012 film version of Les Miserables and Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love (1975), which recorded actors singing live while the film was shot.

Multitrack Mixing (Mono and Stereo)

After all the film has been shot and sounds have been recorded, the sound editor first builds layers of different sounds to get the desired effect, combining many different audio tracks each containing individual sound effects, dialogue recordings, or pieces of music that play back simultaneously while the volume of each can be adjusted separately. He or she then must mix these multiple tracks (known as multitrack mixing) into a finished soundtrack of either a single audio recording (in the case of mono sound), or more typically today to a carefully designed and balanced stereo track of six or eight separate channels, each intended to be played back through a different speaker. Often dozens of individual sound effects tracks must be adjusted so each effect has just the right volume at just the right time and comes out of just the right speakers behind the screen or around the auditorium. Music is seamlessly combined with the rest of the sound so audiences are often unaware of when it starts and finishes. Sound effects and music must not obscure important dialogue, an easier task when dialogue, music, and effects are all recorded separately. Dialogue can have its volume, tonal effects, and apparent screen position manipulated in the mixing process so that the soundtrack becomes an organic blend of sounds that expresses just what the director wants the audience to hear at any given moment.

Still from Gravity, showing actors Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts conducting repairs in space.

Gravity takes place in outer space. Sound plays an important role in shaping our perceptions of a world that is alien, unfamiliar, and actually mostly silent.

Skillful use of the soundtrack adds immensely to the power of a film, supporting and enhancing the visual elements. The control of volumes and stereo placements can greatly affect how an audience perceives the screen space. Special audio effects might suggest characters' subjective points of view, flashbacks, dreams, or intoxication, or a scene may have completely realistic sounds. Some scenes may fade out all dialogue to emphasize sound effects, such as a beating heart or a noisy environment, while other scenes will use only music to carry the action, just as with silent films. Sound can be edited independently from the picture, so that the sound for one scene can begin slightly before the previous scene has finished, or continue after the next scene has started. Repetition of sounds may give the audience audio flashbacks, reminding them of scenes that already happened, or audio flash-forwards, which may be confusing until the scene they match finally appears.

When analyzing the impact of a film, it is important to consider how the director's use of sound (or lack of it) intensifies, manipulates, and possibly even defines the film's overall content. Brian DePalma's Blow Out showcases how movies use sound creatively with a plot about a film sound technician (John Travolta) who believes he has accidentally recorded a murder while recording wild location sounds. Films such as Twister might almost be considered demonstration films for spectacular digital stereo sound mixes, and if seen on a TV set or computer with a single tiny speaker, the entire intent of the film may be lost.

Summary and Resources

Chapter Summary

Sound is one of the most overlooked elements of making a movie—and one of the most important. Filmmakers can control the sounds audiences hear while they're watching the picture, using only natural diegetic sounds such as dialogue and sound effects, using complementary non-diegetic sounds such as background music or enhanced sound effects to intensify the moods, or using unrealistic sounds for dramatic or comic counterpoint to the image.

Even during the Silent Era, films were not truly silent. Acting and filmmaking styles took into account the absence of audible dialogue and sound effects, but a musical accompaniment was always expected. Theater musicians played scores that helped audiences become emotionally involved in the story. When recorded sound was finally introduced, the spoken word and sound effects would become central to the story of almost every movie. Audience demand for "talkies" was so great that silent film production was abandoned by about 1930 (with a few notable exceptions).

Sound recording technology evolved quickly from acoustic and electro-mechanical processes to optical and magnetic analog processes, to digital processes. Theaters initially played sound through a single speaker (mono sound), but later multi-track stereophonic sound allowed filmmakers to exploit directional audio in telling their stories. First used as a gimmick, stereo surround sound with low-frequency subwoofers eventually became the norm, and the impact of movie sound technology would become so great that it would carry over into homes.

The three categories of movie sound—dialogue, sound effects, and music—work together with the picture but are treated separately during production. Good movie dialogue may become so popular that it enters everyday conversation as a cultural shorthand. While dialogue conveys much story information, the best dialogue enhances the image rather than replacing it. Sound effects, likewise, can be used merely to intensify action or to enhance the sense of environment. Music, as it has since the Silent Era, pulls viewers into the mood of scenes, but it may also be used to identify characters and situations with popular songs. Movie soundtrack recordings, the music used in or inspired by a film, would become key marketing elements; soundtracks would often become bestselling albums, CDs, and, eventually, downloads.

Dialogue is usually recorded live while a film is shot; however, most sounds heard in films are added later (often including dialogue) using post-dubbing processes such as ADR and Foley recording. Background music is usually recorded after the film is edited, while songs performed on screen are typically pre-recorded for actors to lip-synch to while filming. All of a film's individually recorded sounds are mixed together into its final soundtrack. Sounds may be added, subtracted, and manipulated to suggest states of mind, to anticipate or recall other events of the story, or any other reason a filmmaker decides upon.

In sum, it is almost impossible to overstate the importance of sound in film—and equally difficult to explain why it is so rarely given its proper due. The contemporary film is inconceivable without it.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Sound and Music When Viewing a Film

•What kind of sound is present in the film? (dialogue, sound effects, music)

•Whose dialogue do you hear in the film?

•When and where do sound effects appear?

•What kind of music is present? When does it appear?

•Is there a voice-over narrator, and if so, is it one of the film's characters or some omniscient storyteller? What effect does this have on your understanding of the film?

You Try It

1.Watch a silent film, such as Buster Keaton's The General, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, William Wellman's Wings, or F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, and compare the acting styles, camera movement, and overall style of the filmmaking with a contemporary film. With The General, Wings, or Nosferatu, watch it with two or more of the alternate music scores included on the DVD (or get multiple DVDs with different scores) and compare the differences in its effect.

2.Using an action film of your choice, cue up an intense action sequence—but do not watch the screen. Instead, listen only to the sound, and discuss the experience of how it shapes the scene. Then play it again with the sound turned off, and again with both sound and picture, and compare the three. Does the version without sound have the same impact as the version with it? Could you tell what was occurring in the sequence when you could hear the sound only and not see the picture? Go to www.movieclips.com (http://www.movieclips.com/) and search for the following clip from the film Jaws to view an effective scene for testing this:

Hyperlinked photo of kids running out of the ocean in the film Jaws. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

"Get Out of the Water (http://www.movieclips.com/) "

To view this clip with closed captioning, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips (https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips) and use the searchbar to search for "Get Out of the Water."

3.Watch a scene from a film made before 1960 and listen to the score—the orchestrated music that accompanies the action in the film. Now do the same for a scene in a film made after 1980. Are the scores produced any differently? What differences do you notice? For examples, go to www.movieclips.com/ (http://www.movieclips.com/) and search for the following clips in order:

Hyperlinked photo of actors Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable embracing in the film Gone With the Wind. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

"Leaving for Battle (http://www.movieclips.com/) " (from Gone With the Wind, 1939)

Hyperlinked photo of Elliott and E.T. on a bike flying across the moon in the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

Everett Collection

"Across the Moon (http://www.movieclips.com/) " (from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982)

Hyperlinked photo of actor Tom Hardy firing a grenade launcher while actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks on in the film Inception. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

"Dream a Little Bigger (http://www.movieclips.com/) " (from Inception, 2010)

To view these clips with closed captioning, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips (https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips) and use the searchbar to search for "Leaving for Battle," "Across the Moon," and "Dream a Little Bigger."

4.Try to think of five films that use popular (contemporary) songs to help tell their stories. Do they rely too much on the music as a narrative device? Or do the songs legitimately help advance the plot?

5.Try to recall a scene in a film that uses sound effects in some unrealistic way—either raising one or more sounds to a much louder volume than you'd expect from the camera position (e.g., a loud clock ticking in a long shot, heartbeats, or breathing) or completely eliminating sounds you'd expect to hear. For example, in Saving Private Ryan, much of the invasion of Normandy is conducted in silence. What effect does it have on the scene, and why do you think the director did it? Go to www.movieclips.com (http://www.movieclips.com/) and search for the following clip to view a sequence from the scene:

Hyperlinked photo of men in uniform making their way onto Omaha beach in the film Saving Private Ryan. (http://www.movieclips.com/)

"Omaha Beach (http://www.movieclips.com/) "

To view this clip with closed captioning, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips (https://www.youtube.com/user/movieclips) and use the searchbar to search for "Omaha Beach."

Key Terms

Click on each key term to see the definition.

automated dialogue replacement (ADR) (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Computer-based post-production process for re-recording dialogue that for some reason is unsatisfactory.

clapboard (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A device that can make a loud sound used for synchronizing separately recorded sound and picture and that has an attached slate to note which scene and take is being recorded.

dialogue (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Spoken words by two or more characters in a scene.

diegetic (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Existing within a film's story world; its opposite is non-diegetic, which refers to something experienced by the audience but not the characters (such as background mood music or title cards).

dubbing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

See post-dubbing.

Foley artist (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Someone who watches a scene and makes appropriate noises that are recorded close up, permitting better clarity than possible with live recordings when microphones are out of range.

monaural sound (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Sound that comes from a single (mono) source, although it is often mixed from multiple sources.

multitrack mixing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Post-production process of combining multiple recorded sounds into one finished soundtrack.

non-diegetic (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Not existing within a film's story world; experienced by the audience but not the characters (such as background mood music or title cards). Its opposite is diegetic, which refers to something experienced by both the audience and the characters.

post-dubbing (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The process of adding sound to a film after the picture has already been shot and edited.

score (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The background mood music that accompanies the action on the screen, usually com'posed specifically for a film but sometimes partly or entirely compiled from existing music.

scratch track (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A temporary soundtrack used during editing, consisting of the live recorded location sound before any ADR or Foley has been added, and generic background mood music to indicate where music will be after the composer has finished the score.

Sensurround (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Short-lived technical process for providing extra-loud low-frequency sound effects to movies.

Silent Era (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A period from approximately 1893 to 1929, when commercial movies did not include recorded sound. Music scores and sometimes limited sound effects were performed live in the theaters at each showing.

soundstage (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

A large, soundproof, warehouse-like building used for building movie sets that require live sound recording.

soundtrack (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The part of the film containing all the recorded sound (music, dialogue, and sound effects), typically recorded to a digital, analog optical, or magnetic format that may be on the film itself or played in synchronization with the picture. Also used as a term for a separate compilation of songs and music selections used in the film and sold as a promotional tool for both the film and the songs.

stereophonic sound (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Sound that comes from two or more sources, creating a more realistic sound field in which the ears can locate the direction from which sounds are coming. Stereo sound for films typically has three speakers behind the screen (left, center, right) and two or more surround speakers on the auditorium walls.

surround sound (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Movie sound that comes from speakers throughout the auditorium rather than from behind the screen.

synchronized sound (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Sound played back in perfect synchronization with the picture, whether or not it was recorded at the same time.

talkies (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

The first movies with recorded sound. Silent movies had always had music scores and sometimes sound effects (performed live), but talkies introduced audible dialogue. Short for "talking pictures."

title cards (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Printed words that appear on the screen between shots of the action, often used to introduce scenes and in the case of Silent Era films to display critical lines of dialogue; also called subtitles or inter-titles.

voice-over (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Words spoken by a narrator not seen on the screen, who may or may not be a character in the film.

walla (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Generic crowd noises.

wild sound (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm/books/AUENG225.14.1/sections/fm#)

Sound recorded when no picture is being photographed and for which precise synchronization is unnecessary (e.g., crowd noises, wind, traffic), added to the film during post-production.