Moving Images, Understanding Media

Chapter 5 Personal Expression and Studio Production 167

CHAPTER IN FOCUS

In this chapter you will:

• create a portrait of a person or a place


• compare and contrast who makes movies and why they are made


• classify and evaluate ways that moving images communicate stories
  and ideas

Of Media and Messages

What types of moving images have you seen during the past few days?

Did you see a short fi lm or feature or show that told a story? Did you see a

motion picture that showed a series of images designed to illustrate an idea,

to persuade the viewer in a particular way, to express a feeling, or simply

to show visuals without a narrative? Th ese may have been moving images

playing in the background of a room or on a digital screen or through an

advertisement. Or did you see moving images that linked you to friends or

that you made together and then shared with other people?

As discussed in Chapter 2 of this text, the fi rst motion pictures introduced

two particular forms for motion pictures: the documentation of real events

through recorded light and the depiction of actions through a staged fi lming.

Essentially, the roots of documentary and fi ction fi lms were set in their most

elemental of forms.

As you answered these questions, most likely when you thought of

some examples of motion pictures you have seen recently, you probably

had a clear understanding of their basic formats and central goals. If the

examples were feature fi lms or television shows, there are standard contexts

• Have you seen a story-based motion picture
  recently? What are the key ways in which the
  moving images first established that they would
  be telling a story?


• Have you seen moving images recently that
  documented reality? What value did you see in
  the images? Did they preserve any moments that
  were significant?
  
  
  • Have you seen any moving images within the past
    few days that do not tell a story? What were they?
    How did you react to them? Afterwards, did you
    think about them very much?
  
  
  • With the previous moving images described, do
    you know who was responsible for their creation?
    Why were they made?
  
  
  
  

Framing the Discussion

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