TS3243 Stage and Screen Notes
TS3243 is a Theatre Studies module that teaches both film art and styles, as well as how concepts from theatre carry over to their screen adaptations. In this module, we used RENT (musical, film), Dangerous Liaisons (Original novel, Broadway adaptation and 3 different films), Romeo and Juliet + its musical derivations: West Side Story and the film version of WSS.
With all the musical-related stuff going on, this might be my favorite module in Year 1 Semester 2. I also enjoyed political science, but come on. Broadway is so much better.
WARNING: This is an awfully messy copy paste of notes that were hastily smashed into Evernote while our professor talked in real time. I have attempted to expand some parts of it, but laziness prevents me from doing much. If you want any further explanation, I'll guide you through them at a flat rate of $50 for an hour's consultation. Sorry love, I gotta make money somehow. It's already super cheap for university level tuition. If you can decipher my notes, it should be enough for you to bag the A- that I have. And I was the only freshman in the class😎
Storytelling is repetition by nature
What is adaptation? Adaptations are expected to be truthful retellings of the story
Intentional and specific form of storytelling which transitions from one genre of media to another
Faithfulness to the original adaptation
Process of adaptation is metamorphosizing the original text into a new medium, new interpretation of source text
Similarities and differences
Are film and theatre different mediums of performance?
Story vs Plot
Story: Set of all events in narrative, explicitly presented + viewer's inference
Plot: How story is told, everything film presents to viewer in the order in which it is presented
Narrative - chain of events, cause and effect relationship
Film style: Mise en scene, editing, cinematography, sound
- Mise en Scene - setting costume lighting + figure behavior
COSTUME: Attention to character, defines the character, defines genre
LIGHTING: Illumination to see action, mood of film, visually define objects and people via shadows, directs attention to specific mise en scene (High key lighting vs low key lighting)
FIGURE BEHAVIOR: Expression and movement of any figure in film. Character development, space and time - blocking etc
EDITING - refers to coordination of shots in relation to each other (not just the physical joining of shots)
- understand relationships among shots in film
- understand both temporal and spatial relationships
SPATIAL RS - where shots are in rs to each other. Eyeline match, shot/reverse shot, match on action
Crosscutting
CINEMATOGRAPHY - everything to do with camera. Determines what we see in the shot. Camera angle, camera height, camera distance.
Duration of shot - long take, short take
Camera movement - pan, whip pan, slide
lens used, effects
speed (slomo, normal, timewarp)
long shot, wide, extra wide, close up, extra close up, medium etc
SOUND - Voice, background music, dialogue hook, sound bridge
Use of the term "original" - inherently authentic (problematic?), puts the text on a pedestal
Rent: Broadway versus the Film
Certain parts of direct exposition is replaced by use of B-rolls and additional footage.
Furthermore, there is a greater sense of space in the film than there is in the musical. While the musical has to rely on the illusion of space depicted through lighting and set design, the film version actually gets to deal with actual buildings.
Case Study Scene: Out Tonight/Another Day.
- Realism vs mimicry
- Both are still musicals - asks audience to suspend belief
Established conventions of musicals and films: The distilled version of reality is compensated for with the emotional value of songs in the musical, but onscreen where there is an expectation of realism, the audience has to simultaneously suspend their belief for the musical numbers while being jarred by the seamless transition to real life. More on that later.
Case Study of Dangerous Liaisons: Slit Staging
Slit staging is a cinematography technique where the action is viewed through a claustrophobic slit, so that the audience can observe a character in their private moments. In Dangerous Liaisons, slit staging is primarily used to depict voyeurism and to convey emotional vulnerability.
Slit staging creates a sense of voyeurism by allowing the audience to assume the gaze of Valmont. When Valmont watches Madame de Tourvel undress in her room after rejecting his advances, she is viewed from her bedroom keyhole. The audience is hence complicit in the predatory act of the male gaze, where he then plots to seduce her. Later, right before he seduces her proper, there is also a slit shot of him in the shadows as he prepares to approach the unsuspecting Madame de Tourvel.
Fidelity of film in acknowledging its status as an adaptation suggests some level of faithfulness to the play.
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