Screen Media: Analysing Film and Television
Kelly McWilliam
Language: English
Pages: 416
ISBN: 1741754488
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Presenting a manner of thinking “on both sides of the screen,” this review offers screen enthusiasts the analytical and theoretical vocabulary required to articulate responses to film and television. It provides guidelines for developing the skills to understand and analyze how and why a screen text was shot, scored, and edited in a particular way, as well as for considering what impact those production choices might have on the audience. Production techniques and approaches to screen analysis are presented in a historical context. Other topics discussed include recent technological developments; the implications of increasing convergence of film and television technologies; and the aesthetics, narrative, realism, genre, celebrity, and cult media of global screen culture. Featuring extensive international examples, this is an ideal introduction to critical engagement with film and television.
The Price of Paradise (Doctor Who)
Home Cinema Choice (November 2015)
other side in a continuous shot, thereby denaturalising the spectator’s experience of screen space and setting. Such manipulations of screen space are as aberrant as they are fascinating, and in what follows we focus on established spatial and design conventions, considering not only the narrative function of setting, but also its contribution to defining character and conflict, and its aesthetic and experiential significance. The first major distinctions between different types of settings are
references to The Virgin Spring. We express sincere thanks for the expertise of our editor Lauren Finger and our publisher Elizabeth Weiss at Allen & Unwin, who have overseen the entire project and offered helpful input and guidance. The research for this book was undertaken with the assistance of a University of Queensland research grant in 2007. Jane Stadler and Kelly McWilliam Brisbane, December 2007 x Introduction: Thinking on both sides of the screen This book is for those who like to
inform readers unfamiliar with Gondry’s work that he has shot music videos for Björk and the White Stripes, and brought two of Charlie Kaufman’s inventive scripts to the screen (Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Particularly if a film is not easy to classify within an established genre, it is helpful to relate the film to others with the same actor, director, genre, style or theme. Audiences may want to see a film if they love previous work by the star or the director. All
cliffhangers are techniques that suspend the narrative then bring us back to the box after the ‘ad break’, or for the next episode, whereas repetition and redundancy are techniques used to rejoin narrative segments. The usual format of each television show is structured around commercial breaks. Advertisements not only target the demographic of the show’s audience, they often ‘echo the main narrative themati- Fragmentation refers to the cally’ (Thompson 2003: 15). That is, segmentation and
Coppola’s 2006 extravaganza Marie Antoinette. The range of skills a production designer requires in order to effectively manage the art department may include training in fine art, architectural drafting and interior design; the ability to undertake or oversee historical and cultural research; budgeting, business acumen and managerial expertise; inventiveness and a keen sense of style; insight into the practicalities of lighting, textiles, construction and cosmetics; and even legal expertise. The