Online Encyclopedia of Film Ideas
Film Reference is an extensive online encyclopedia of cinema ideas, concepts, techniques and processes (not to mention an A-Z of filmmakers) and it's quickly become one of my favourite stops on the ol' information superhighway.
Certainly Film Reference isnt a replacement for an in-depth text book reading or course of study but it is a fantatsic launch pad to complex thinking by providing beautifully articulate and succinct explanations and detailings of cinematic ideas.It's one of those sites that you enter in a casual way looking for something specific but soon find yourself passed on from entry to entry as you cascade through ideas and cocnepts both practical and mind-expanding.
Three entries in the Film Reference encyclopedia that struck me as particularly good at distilling complex ideas into digestible morsels are those on...
Mise en scene: Often referred to simple as framing, Mise en scene encompasses much more complex ideas that simply the contents of the frame and this serie sof entries gives a good overview of soem the key ideas and history of Mise en scene.
Auteur Theory and Authorship: Deals with the central role of the Director in cinema and the issues surrounding the idea of an Author in a collaborative artform.
Camera Movement: A camera not fixed to a point may seem obvious but there is a complex set of thinking about the impact the moving camera has and the effect on the way viewers 'read' a scene. This set of entries teases out some of these ideas that begin with the simple Pan and Tilt and grow into the Virtual Camera unlimited by space.
Posted at 12:00AM Nov 14, 2008
by Mike Jones in moving image theory |
Posted by Matt Kelland on November 14, 2008 at 01:50 AM EST #