Chapter 1 pgs. 1-14 (through "Viewer Expectations")

 LOOKING AT MOVIES

This often imperceptible cinematic language, composed not of words but of myriad integrated techniques and concepts, connect us to the story while deliberately concealing the means by which it does so. 

WHAT IS A MOVIE?

But unlike photography or painting, films are constructed from individual shots - an unbroken span or action captured by an uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera- that allow visual elements to rearrange themselves and the viewer's perspective itself to shift with any composition.

This joining together of discrete shots, or editing, gives movies the power to choose what the viewer sees and how that viewer sees it at any given moment.

a cut to a close-up view can reveal an object to be a charm bracelet, then leap 30 years into the past to a depiction of the character as a young girl receiving the jewelry as a gift.   

MOVIE DIRECTOR

Along the way, as inspiration or obstacles necessitate, changes are made to everything from the script to storyboards to blocking to edits. The director is the one making or approving each adjustment-sometimes after careful deliberation, sometimes on the fly.

WAYS OF LOOKING AT A MOVIE

A)INVISIBILITY AND CINEMATIC LANGUAGE
The fade-out/fade-in is one of the most straightforward examples of the phenomenon. (for a transition to convey the passage of time)

a low-angle shot communicate in a similarly hidden fashion.  a sense of newfound empowerment is heightened by the low-angle shot. viewers' shared experience of literally looking up at powerful figures-people of stages, at podiums, memorialized in statues, or simply bigger than them ....see these figures as strong, noble or threatening. 

Cutting on action is one of the most common editing techniques designed to hide the instantaneous and potentially jarring shift from one camera viewpoint to another. 

B)Cultural Invisibility
Protagonist - main character reinforces our culture's celebration of the individual. 

C)IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MEANING
An implicit meaning, which lies below the surface of a movie's story and presentation, is closest to our everyday sense of the word meaning. 

It is an association, connection, or inference that a viewer makes on the basis of the explicit meaning available on the surface of the movie. 

D)VIEWERS EXPECTATIONS

----Notes finished outside blog, very long.