Chapter 1 Motion Picture Language 11tell you “boy, I’ve been waiting a long time!” in order to realize that some time
has passed. In a similar way, the fade in can be used to introduce a scene or
a new moment in a story, while the fade out can be used to bring a scene to
a close like the curtain closing at the end of a scene in a play.
In a scene from the animated movie, A Bug’s Life (1998), Flik, an adventurous
ant, is about to leave his colony and is being seen off by little Dot and two
skeptical ant “children.” Th is sequence communicates with the viewer using a
wide array of expressive tools of motion picture language built on the physical
reality of fi lming live subjects.
Th ink about this: Th is is a movie made entirely of computer-generated
imagery, so there was no real camera shooting a bunch of ants out on a
fi eld. Yet, it uses elements of live action shooting to show us the scene. For
example, early on in the sequence, there is a focus pull. A focus pull occurs
during shooting when a camera operator or assistant alters the point of focus
on the lens of the camera, for example, from someone close to the camera
to someone far away. In the sequence from A Bug’s Life, this is done to draw
our attention to a particular action on the screen and we react immediately
because of our understanding of this device.
In fact, in this scene, there are a number of clear examples of motion
picture language at work:- Th e point of view shot as Flik looks down.
- Th e swooping feel of the “camera” as Flik takes off , duplicating a
similar feel in live action shots. - Th e “camera” continues when Flik hits the rock; the visual joke is
accentuated by our understanding of shot movement and of its use
timed with Flik’s “splat!”
Figure 1-17 A focus pull: the cinematographer changes the focus in the shot from the fl owers to actor
Dan Wallace. (Courtesy of Kendelyn Ouellette).Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).