Rosemarys Baby: editing through frame selection
"Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin. ... Farrow plays an expecting mother who fears that her husband may have made a pact with their eccentric neighbours, believing he may have promised them the child to be used as a human sacrifice in their occultic rituals in exchange for success in his acting career."
(Zach James and Rich Raddon, Movieclips)
Fig.1 excerpt from "Visions of Light" (1992), Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105764/]
[Jump to 7:54 to see Polanski's skilful use of framing to heighten the audience's interest and sense of intrigue.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Principles of the Visual Language: A Dialect of Our Own Design
"A visual language informs all design, from architecture to print. Fluency in the same language drawn on by Bauhaus, mid-century Swiss, or postmodern design is essential for brilliant web design. In this practical talk, ground uniquely web-based interactions - from complex CSS3 animations and rotations to JavaScript behaviors - using that time-tested visual primer. Take a more considered approach to choices, evoke the desired emotive responses, learn how to better articulate your design decisions. Extend graphic design's grammar into a visual dialect of web design that guides us to smarter, beautifully balanced juxtapositions of elements in our new, multidimensional web experiences."
(Simon Collison)
Fig.1 Simon Collison (03 June 03 2011) "A Dialect of Our Own Design".
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Welles and Toland's use of deep screen space in Citizen Kane
"It begins with young Charles Kane in long shot, playing with his sled in the snow. The camera then pulls back to reveal that it has been shooting through a window. This effect creates a visual metaphor. The boy playing in the snow is not as free as he at first seems. Just as his image is suddenly confined by a window frame, so his life will be circumscribed by a decision that is being made for him inside the house. Kane's mother appears at the window calling out to her son to 'Be careful,' and 'Put your muffler around your neck, Charles.' As the camera tracks back, wards from the window into the space of the house, it reveals Mr. Thatcher standing at the right of the window. He says, 'We'll have to tell him now.' Ignoring this comment, the mother replies, 'I'll sign those papers now, Mr. Thatcher.' From frame left Kane's father appears, saying, 'You people seem to forget that I'm the boy's father.' The camera tracks backwards as Mrs. Kane walks over to a desk in the foreground of the image and sits down to sign the papers, with Thatcher seated next to her. An argument ensues in which the father, who appears in the middle ground of the image, strongly protests the mother's decision to hand his son over to a bank and threatens to take the case to court. The mother is icily adamant in honoring the agreement she has made with Thatcher. In exchange for the bank's full assumption of the management of the gold mine (the Colorado Lode), the bank which Thatcher represents will assume full responsibility for all matters concerning the boy's education and place of residence. Mr. and Mrs. Kane will receive fifty thousand dollars a year as long as they both live. This last bit of information, which Thatcher reads aloud, silences the father, who mutters, 'Well, let's hope it's all for the best.'
Throughout the scene, while all this activity takes place, we can see the boy Charles playing with his sled far in the back of the image, in extreme long shot, framed by the window pane, and totally oblivious to the momentous decision his mother has made about his life. Because of the length of the shot and the careful blocking of the action, our eye is free to focus on whichever player we choose, or our attention can wander from one player to another, as if we were spectators in the theater.
At the same time, the camera places us sufficiently close to the actors in the foreground of the image that we can read their expressions with much greater clarity than would be possible in the theater. We can look for clues in the frozen but somehow anguished expression of Mrs. Kane for why she is so determined to separate herself from her son. We can wonder in observing the slightly exasperated and nervous expression on Thatcher's face what kind of guardian he will make for a young boy. Or we can observe the father's angry, worried expression and wonder why he backs down. The father's position further back in the screen space makes him seem smaller than his wife and Mr. Thatcher, his diminished size somehow appropriate to his lack of power to influence his son's fate. The crowning brilliance of the scene is the tiny image of Charles Kane far in the depth of the screen space. Although the film is about him and in later scenes he will loom large indeed, here he is a tiny speck. On first viewing the film, some may not even notice him. But his understated presence playing outside the window, shouting 'Union forever' as his mother is about to send him off into the world without her, is one of the most poignant moments in film."
(Marilyn Fabe, 2004, p.85-86)
3). Marilyn Fabe (2004). "Chapter 5 Expressive Realism" in "Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique", University of California Press (3 Aug 2004)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Tunnel box miniature theatre of garden scene with dancers
"Title devised by cataloger. The set includes six hand-colored etched prints on light gray laid paper, with sections carefully cut out to create a perspective view when the prints are arranged in a viewing box. The prints are numbered 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, and 378. The set number (56) appears on print no. 378; the prints are otherwise without text.
Attributed to the engraver and print-seller Martin Engelbrecht of Augsburg, Germany. Artists Jeremias Wachsmuth or David Nessenthaler may have collaborated on the illustrations."
(Smithsonian Institution)
Fig. 1 Martin Engelbrecht [Garden scene with dancers, to be used as the set for a miniature theatre]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Art of Tatebanko
"河出書房新社さんから「そのまま立版古」という本が出版されました。 広重、北斎の名作浮世絵を元素材に、５作品が立版古になったものを作って楽しめるキット本となっています。 またキット部分以外でも簡単な「立版古の説明」などの情報もあります。出来上がりは丁度手のひらに乗るくらいのコンパクトな感じに仕上がります。"
Fig.1 Hokusai (circa 1830). "The Great Wave off Kanagawa (北斎 / 神奈川沖浪裏), woodblock print
Fig.2 Daniel Rua (February 2010)
[Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa uses layering much like that used in the traditional Japanese art form of Tatebanko.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
