Film Language

Comprehending Film Language

  • Film language refers to the systems, conventions, and technologies utilised to communicate narrative, themes, and meaning in the cinematic medium.
  • Film language includes visual elements like composition, framing, camera angles, and movements.
  • It also uses auditory aspects like dialogue, sound effects, background noise, and musical score.

Elements of Film Language

Mise-en-scène

  • This French term, meaning ‘put in scene’ or ‘staging’, represents everything that is presented before the camera and its arrangement - costumes, props, set design, actors’ performance, lighting, and composition. It is crucial to the look and feel of a film.

Cinematography

  • This pertains to how the film is photographed. Here we discuss aspects like framing, camera movements, lighting, film stock choice, and lens choice.
  • It includes a wide range of camera techniques and movements such as long shots, close-ups, tracking shots, zooms, pans, and tilt.
  • The director of photography is responsible for making decisions about cinematography to complement the film’s narrative and mood.

Editing

  • It is the process of assembling various shots into a logical sequence to form the film. It can greatly affect the pace and mood of the narrative.
  • Elements include the rhythm, pace, and transitions of the film. A lot of the narrative structure is established during the editing process.
  • Methods of editing include cross-cutting, match-cutting, and the use of shot-reverse-shot.

Sound

  • Sound in film can be split into diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. Diegetic sounds are those which come from within the world of the film - character’s voices, footsteps, and ambient noises. Non-diegetic sounds are added in post-production like score music, voice-over, and sound effects.
  • Sound can dictate the emotional tone of a scene or act as a tool for foreshadowing.

Visual Effects (VFX)

  • These are the processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shot. They are often used to create realities that are impossible or impractical to capture on film.
  • They could include the use of models and miniatures, matte painting or computer generated images 


By considering all these aspects, learners can understand movies beyond their face value and see how the filmmakers craft and control every aspect of the narrative, visual style, characters, and themes.