~Micro & Macro Analysis~

Before i begin i would just like to introduce the topic.

Micro (meaning a small aspect of something, in this case it's media) looks at the little things within images and film which ultimately makes up the entire image or film. Without these aspects, we wouldn't have a film to watch and it's these things which are in a sense most important when it comes to film. Im talking about Lighting,special -effects, camera angles, sound and editing (these elements make up the mise-en-scene which i shall go into more detail in another post).

Macro: (Meaning a wider variety of things within a certain area) looks at the wider picture of the shot or film over all and allows us to depict what it is we are exactly talking about. An example would be me looking at a shot and establishing at that moment what Genre it is and the Representation and to roughly determine what the story line could be judging from the film or photo.

Establishing the aspects of Macro

• Genre: The genre is the nature of a film and we have these to separate different films from one another. If we didn't have genre then we wouldn't have different style of movies. Movies fall under categories like horror,comedy,thriller, action, story based, tragic ect. Some films however fall under 2 or more categories and for that it makes the film for more audiences. I will give 2 examples of genre i will mention 2 films and by that it-shall clearly depict what genre is in a nutshell.

Bruce Almighty Is a movie made in 2003 and sometimes the actors alone will give you a rough idea of what the genre is. e.g. because Jim Carey is the main character in his film and he is known for comedy,  this is most likely a comedy (which it is). Even the cover of a film case can sometimes give you an idea of what the genre is and this movies case tells me its a "wacky" film . I wouldn't say its a horror because nothing in this images even suggests that this has the slightest bit of gore involved.

Prince Of Persia sands of time Is a movie made in 2010 and by just the front cover, i can see that it promotes some sort of action because of the daggers in the princes hands, Also the light battle armour also confirms this and may also add the idea that this film has something to do with war. Its a typical stereo type and its these stereo types which make us think of certain genres when we see cases. This is just by looking at the cover alone. . We can't always tell by the cover but in certain cases, The makers of the film like to give the customer that luxury of having an idea what kind of genre the film falls under. This movie actually has some aspects of comedy inside it but its mostly focused on action.

• Representation:  This Is how the character is portrayed in a film. A range of categories fall under this because detail is key when it comes to representation.

Attire is one thing to look out when examining a specific character. This can change throughout the movie which is why its important to look out for. This can determine what the character is like and what they are into. An example is cat woman. Her suit is made of latex and she carries a whip around while fighting in a rather seductive manor. She resembles a dominatrix and we can see that she has or likes the sense of control and authority. When she Hallie Berri Plays her normal self in cat woman, she dresses casually showing that out of her alter ego, she is a regular office woman who goes to work and has normal friends. This is just from the attire alone.

Body language is also a thing which falls under this category because we can sometimes if not all the time determine weather someone is confident or not via their body language and the way they carry themselves. Stereo typical potrail of a nerd would have been walking with his head down and his back slightly hunched. We would be able to tell he wasn't very confident by the way he walks and most probably by the way he dresses. On the contrast, a stereo typical potrail of a confident person would be someone who walks with their chest high and looks around frequently to see if anythings going om. Its also common for the fashion sense to be up to date and if they are round certain crowds, their facial expressions change.  The "popular kids" in college in american films are usually portrayed like this.

Speech can tell us what kind of background they come from and sometimes what class they are from. An example of this is a posh British man will speak proper English and will also have the strong British accent. Depending on what he wears, we can insinuate that he is from a higher class and even from just the way he speaks, we expect him to carry himself with pride. On a completely different contrast, if he was to speak like someone from the ghetto, we would have that stereo type that he was raised in a rough neighborhood and not well educated (this is of course a confirmed stereo type because this isn't always the case). Its not just accents but things like trauma can affect the way someone speaks. their voice becomes softer stutters are stuck in his voice. There are many ways to judge someone by their personal attributes but this judgment becomes more accurate as the film goes on.

General stereo types This just about rounds up everything i have mentioned because representation comes down to the way the character is throughout the entire movie, Like i said, stereo types can cloud our judgment of a certain person but its because of stereo types is why we can thoroughly enjoy a movie, because we get to know that character on a more personal level.

• Narrative: This is simply the story line and what happens to surroundings and characters in the film. Where there is a narrative, there is a beginning middle and end; with that comes a plot that may sometimes have a twist to it. This way the story can become organized. The narrative is supposed to attracted the viewer further on so that they watch the entire film and gets them thinking or sympathizing. It draws out the emotion of the viewer, weather it be sorrow are happiness. Apricot is a good example of a good narrative short film because it has a good story line yet its short. This in turn makes it a good narrative because its short and snappy. Its about a man who looses his memory and asks this woman questions about things he needs to know.

Establishing the aspects of Micro

•  Sound: The sounds effects are a key element to the movie. of course without this you cant hear things that are behind the character for example. Someones walking and  a mellow sound is behind them. The sound would add to the tension however if the scene were to be deprived of this sound then it changes the whole meaning of the scene and takes away from the tension.   Different types of sound techniques all link into the category "sound techniques" because music and soundtracks are used in a fashion where it makes certain scenes seems more unique that others. An example of this is When the music is a complete contradiction to what is actually going on in the scene like a montage of nuclear bombs going off and sand man bring me a dream playing in the background. It sometimes used for comedy purposes but i will elaborate on the different techniques in a future post.

• Cinematography: This is basically the different shots used in a film or image. The type of shot will suggest the atmosphere (e.g. if i were to used a worms eye view for a blacked out figure with glowing white eyes and a pumpkin shaped mouth, this will tell us that this is a tense and awkward atmosphere) and will help develop the film to make it what it is at the end result. If we were to use the same shot every time in films, then it would take away from the effect of he different shots we have now, in addition to this, it wouldn't make the film very interesting For example. If we never hand extreme long shots and close ups for horror films, it would defeat the whole purpose of a horror film and it would ultimately be a dull film with blood in it. The shots in the film is what makes the film the way it is. You could say it is the the rule or art of film because the different shots have different effects on us as the viewer.

• Special effects (SFX): This is used in most films of today and the quality of special effects only get better by the year. This is used to illusionist something with the help of Props camera work and editing by the computer. Where ever you see a volcano in an action movie, this is obviously not a real volcano but special effects. Th scenery is aided by a big blank green canvas behind the cast and it allows them to later on put images behind the actual people to make this look real. Of course special effects wasn't always this sophisticated.

In 1895 Alfred Clark was the first person to actually implement a proper special effects scene. It was a scene where the actor who was playing Mary was going to get beheaded, All the actors had to freeze before the axe reached her neck so that they could replace her with a manikin. This at the time looked real and they had to implement a secretive jump cut so it all fit together. If you click here you can see for yourself how real it looked. From that day on, special effects has become even more real; but it had to because back then was black and white but now we have coloured film. It is harder to do good special effects. (click here to watch the scene)

• Editing: This links to special effects a lot but editing comes under a lot of categories. Usually editing is done on the actual computer so they can re-arrange images or add in detail that wasn't originally in the film to make it look even better. Without editing, films would be one big scene. Even adding in the name of the film is a form of editing because it wasn't originally there. So editing plays a major part of the filming organization. We even use editing to establish different scenarios and maybe even flash backs. Flash backs arent even possible without editing. You could imagine that without editing, its extremely hard and difficult for the actors because they have to keep up their character for the at least an hour (the average time for a film). They may not even remember their words. 

Silent Hill-  This movie literally used as less editing as possible and done this entire movie in one take with minimal editting. Apparently they had various mechanical difficulties due to lighting and exposure ect. This meant that they had to re-do certain things again. (click here for Wikipedia to read about the details)All these elements are usually corrected via editing.On a future post, i will be discussing what exactly the different type of editing techniques there are.