Films
Film Form & Meaning
Narrative & Narration
Formal Elements
Moonlight
100

“The ball is round, a game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theory.”

Run Lola Run

100

"A significantly repeated element in a film."

Motif

100

How the plot presents or implies story information.

Narration

100

The arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, costume

Mise-en-scene

100

Who is the director of Moonlight?

Barry Jenkins

200

"I look up, I look down... I look up, I look down..."

Vertigo

200

Implied and insinuated "message" of the film, inferred intended meaning.

Implicit meaning 

200

Omniscient or "all-knowing" narration - spectator knows more than the characters.

Unrestricted narration 

200

The distance between the foreground and background of a shot which is in sharp focus.

Depth of field

200

How might you describe the narrative of Moonlight?

3-part structure, coming of age film, etc.

300

"Cut the deck please. Choose nine cards with your left hand. Three for the past, three for the present, three for the future."

Cleo 5 to 7

300

Progression moving from beginning through middle to end, plot segmentation

Development 

300

Spectator sees and hears what characters see, hear, think and feel as camera goes "inside" their minds.

Subjective narration

300

The use of the edges of the film frame to select and to compose what will be visible onscreen.

Framing

300

Name a motif in Moonlight and provide an example from the film.

400

“Stop putting yo' head down in my house! You know my rule. It's all love and all pride in this house! Do you feel me?”

Moonlight

400

Explicit and Implicit Meanings are "symptoms" of social ideology."

Symptomatic meaning 

400

Everything visible and audibly present in the film before us.

Plot

400

An arrangement of key, fill, and backlighting which serves to model the character while maintaining an even illumination in the shot.

Three point lighting

400

What are the themes of the film?

500

"I remember I led a peaceful, uneventful life as a little girl. I loved fries with ketchup, Bruce Lee was my hero, I wore Adidas sneakers and had two obsessions: Shaving my legs one day and being the last prophet of the galaxy."

Percepolis

500

Name the 5 principles of film form?

1. Function

2. Similarity and Repetition

3. Difference and Variation

4. Development

5. Unity and Disunity

500

The set of all events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly presented and those the viewer infers

Story

500

“The process of lighting, framing, and capturing moving images on film stock or a digital medium” LM

Cinematography

500

What are some examples of types and functions of sound in Moonlight?

1. Vocal sounds

2. Music

3. Environmental sounds

4. Silence 

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