Audiovisual Syntax: Editing, Continuity, and Lighting Techniques

Audiovisual Syntax – Editing

-Metric montage is generated through the juxtaposition of shots containing different lengths of shot. Contrast emerges from the duration of shots.

-Rhythmic montage is the movement within the frame that impels the montage movement from frame to frame. Contrast emerges from what’s inside the frame. Whereas metric and rhythmic montage are relatively easy to grasp, the concepts tonal, overtonal, and intellectual are more abstract ones.

-Tonal montage essentially refers to the overall atmosphere of a scene, or series of shots. Contrast emerges from the aesthetics.

-Overtonal montage consists of the interlinking of thematic elements across the whole film through associations of composition, motif, rhythm, and sound that articulate the shots in even more complex networks of interrelation. Contrast emerges from the montage of sequences. As Cubitt himself points out, this overtonal potentiality of montage has been thoroughly explored by contemporary electronic videoclips.

– Intellectual montage is probably Eisenstein’s most significant contribution, both in theoretical and practical terms, to Film History. Contrast emerges from the ideological implications. This is the type of montage that better reflects the influence by the aforementioned Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism in Eisenstein’s postulates. Intellectual montage is based on the premise that if two shots with radically different diegetic contents are placed in conjunction with each other, the spectator can only explain their relationship by means of a concept which links the two at the level of symbolic meaning.

Audiovisual Syntax – Continuity

This leads to several considerations regarding:

• Movement between spaces and screen direction
• The eyeline match
• Shot/reverse shot
• Crosscutting

Movement between spaces and screen direction: Even though in early films contiguous spaces were frequently linked by characters moving onscreen, screen direction was not always kept until the late 1910s.
What is screen direction in terms of continuity?:

• If a character is moving in one shot right to left, and leaves the frame on the left, he should enter the next frame on the right.
• The same happens if something falls downwards and leaves the frame on the bottom side. The next shot should present the same object entering the frame from the upper part.
• The end of the clip introduces one of the basic rules regarding continuity, the 180-degree rule, which relates to the imaginary 180-degree arc that is established once the camera shoots the first frame.
• The 30-degree rule also applies in the name of continuity and is related to the aforementioned 180-degree rule.
• The rule suggests that, when there is a cut to a different camera position, the camera should move at least 30-degrees from the previous position.

But, what happens when the 30-degree rule is broken?: If this rule is not observed and two shots are cut together of the same person or object within the scene, without the camera having moved more than thirty degrees, the effect on the spectator is a jolt, as if the camera has jumped a bit. Essentially, in terms of spatial logic there is not enough difference between the two shots in terms of angle (and, therefore, a clearly renewed position on the object) for the transition between the two shots to remain unnoticed. The result is a noticeable jump, what is termed a jump cut. The 30-degree rule serves to create an undisturbed seamlessness in the film because such shift does not draw attention to itself and is logically motivated in the narrative”

The eyeline match

• If a character movement can cue contiguous spaces, so does character glance.
• Continuity determines that gazes offscreen are usually employed as a way to introduce some contiguous space, which is the reason why they are often followed by a POV shot.
• The POV shot can show either a portion of the space seen in the establishing shot, or it can show a contiguous space. Filmmakers who first employed the POV shot used it in both ways.
• The second shot also shows a space that has been seen previously, but not from a character’s POV.

Lighting Techniques

Natural light – It can be direct or reflected.

• Direct natural light: Prevailing in documentaries. It is also a basic light component when shooting outdoors, although it is frequently complemented with additional lights to better control the final result.
• Reflected natural light: We obtain it reflecting natural light with white or pale reflectors. The resulting light is diffused and soft, easy to control and redirect.

Artificial light -it can be created with different kind of light projectors

• Tungsten lamps: Similar to domestic bulbs, but with a higher voltage. The most popular incandescent tungsten lamp at a professional level is the photoflood lamp, whose color temperature is 3400oK. Its life span is quite limited, as the color temperature starts to fade away very quickly.

• Fresnel: Named after their inventor, Augustin Fresnel, it is the most used artificial lighting in films. -“lights with lenses (…) [with a] stepped ring design that reduces the thickness of the lens to save on cost and also to prevent heat buildup in the glass, which can cause cracking”. -Fresnel’s beam is quite concentrated and focused. -There are two basic models, one for studio shootings and a lighter version that is more portable. -As the power capacity of Fresnel units ranges from 100W to 10.000W, they can be used for multiple purposes

What is continuity?: Thomson defined continuity as the tool that audiovisual pieces implement in order to achieve a “smoothly flowing narrative, with its technique constantly in the service of the causal chain, yet always effacing itself”. There is “a set of guidelines for cutting shots together”, but continuity goes beyond specific rules and ultimately refers to everything that works in favor of the aforementioned effort. Thompson explains why continuity became an issue in the first place focusing on two main notions:

• Analytical editing: continuity and editing are so linked that, before montage came up, continuity was not even a problem.
• Multiple spaces: once we introduce editing, some more specific problems may come up, one of them being how to visually connect different spaces. Several considerations need to be taken into account in this respect: Movement between spaces and screen directions, The eyeline match, Shot/reverse shot and Crosscutting.

Analytical editing: The use of the cut-in for detail starts to accommodate between two long shots in the early 1910s. The motivation for the cut-in is compositional, for without a closer view, we couldn’t follow the action adequately. Cut-ins frequently introduce POV shots, with a clear aspiration to realism

Multiple spaces: As introduced in the previous epigraphs, when filmmaking moved from stories told in very few wide shots to a more fragmented language, filmmakers had to learn how to deal with the multiple spaces that opened up in front of their (and their spectators’) eyes

shot. The situation is more stimulating if the characters move. That movement changes the axis of action, but can be used intentionally to move the camera, accordingly, introducing new spaces or situations. The key here is always having the 180º rule in mind. To sum up, if one of the characters move, the axis of action changes, which affects the way we edit the conversation between the characters from then on.

Continuity for one character: Imagine we want to get closer to or farther away from a character in two consecutive shots. We may want to preserve the axis camera-character.

• If the subject is centered, when we move the camera, the axis needs to frame him or her centered.
• If the subject is not centered, the axis of the subsequent tighter shot is usually the same, so the background remains a reference point for the spectator.

There’re 3 factors:

• If the light source is ‘hard’ or ‘soft’, determined largely by the size and distance.
• The angle of the source in relation to the camera position.
• The color of the light.

The angle of the throw, that is, the direction from which the light comes has the power to suggest:

• The mood of the scene
• The time of the day
• The type of location.

The color of the light: “Often the story may allow color to be used in ways that go beyond strict realism, or the situation logically justifies a colored lighting effect. In such cases filters may be used on the light sources”

To sum up: Color is an essential component of (metaphoric) storytelling; early filmmakers like Mèlies were so aware of the persuasive power of color that they literally painted on their frames to enhance their images.