30 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding MediaWhen you engage in analysis of motion pictures, whether with works
presented to you or those made by you and your peers, it is important to
be constructive and precise with criticism and to avoid personal or strongly
emotional language. Th is also is true of the collaborative work with which
you will be engaged as you make your way in this text. Collaboration works
when people are able to communicate eff ectively and move forward together.
Divisive comments and personal attacks lead to a breakdown of continued
cooperative work and inevitably result in bitterness and frustration among
those involved in the work. A study of the studio system in Hollywood
provides plenty of lessons in this subject!It’s a Wrap!
In this chapter, you examined the ways in which moving images communicate
ideas and narrate events using motion picture language. In order to describe
what you see on the screen, you studied a variety of terms and concepts to
classify, analyze, and interpret various types of motion pictures. As you will
learn throughout this text, the use of moving images and sounds present
infi nitely exciting challenges to us as we attempt to express ideas, stories,
emotions, and imagery to viewers. Now you will begin work with the concepts
we have been discussing through analysis, writing, and exercises.VIEWFINDER
“[What surprised me during] my fi rst fi lm was the unbelievable number
of constraints—fi nancial, temporal, human, and artistic—that could
rise up between the director’s vision and the fi nal result. I thought that
a director’s job was, above all, to have good ideas. I realized instead
that it mainly consisted of managing all kinds of outside elements to
create the right environment to bring those ideas to fruition.”–Takeshi Kitano–
Japanese director and actor whose fi lms include Kikujiro (1999) and Hana-bi
[Fireworks] – (1997)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).