The Basic Elements of Audiovisual Language
To master the craft of film, learning the language of film is the first step, just as you want to understand a culture, the best way is to learn its language. In the Principle of Art, Collingwood says that if art has the characteristics of ideography and imagination, then art must be language. Compared to painting, the language of art is color, line and composition. The language of dance art is movement and music. The language of film art is audiovisual language. Audiovisual language takes audiovisual elements as the carrier to convey and receive information. Communicate and exchange ideas. To put it simply, it is the rules and techniques of lens use, picture editing, sound and picture combination in film creation. Audiovisual language is the beginning course of learning film creation. Not only can direct the scriptwriter, photography, editing of the various workflow. It also gives us the perspective of the creator before the screen. Although film integrates literature, photography, music and other artistic categories, audiovisual language has a completely different way of expression. Its verisimilitude and illusion. The images depicted by audiovisual language must be concrete, not abstract. The image of the face, let the audience instantly get a vivid impression. As is often said in literature, a thousand readers make a thousand Hamlets. The images presented in the film are accurate and realistic. Re-create without audience participation. This realistic representation of reality on the screen reflects the creator’s deep understanding of the real world and the ability to recreate time and space. It gives the audience the pleasure of controlling time and space. Different films have very different image and sound textures. This texture is based on the accurate grasp of light and shade, color, sound. A realistic recreation of reality. Arouse the audience’s daily perceptual experience, so as to convey accurate and rich information. However, if the details are ignored, such as awkward lines, suffocating acting, traversing props, cheap special effects and piercing shots, the illusion of reality carefully created by the film can be instantly broken. Let the audience play. Illusion and verisimilitude are like two sides of a coin. The pursuit of verisimilitude is to create the illusion of the screen world. By creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on the two-dimensional screen. It looks real but it’s not. Motor hallucinations and stereoscopic hallucinations are the most essential hallucinations. When the external stimulus stops acting, it can be retained temporarily for a while but feel. This is called a sensory afterimage. All kinds of sensory organs can produce sensory afterimage. Specifically to the visual is the visual afterimage. It can produce both positive and negative afterimages. The positive and posterior images can produce visual retention phenomenon. It means that an image can remain in the vision for more than 0.1 seconds after it disappears from the field of vision. Another cause of hallucination is simulacry. It refers to the phenomenon that objects that have not been displaced in space are perceived as moving by the audience. Like two flickering points of light on the screen. It looks like a single photoelectric, moving back and forth between the two positions, giving the viewer a sense of the depth of space in a two-dimensional plane. It is because the audience makes psychological compensation for what they see based on their daily life experience. For example, the perspective generated by the near large and far small, the object occlusion produces the front and back layers, and the depth layers generated by the air scattering. Motion parallax of a moving object and so on. In addition, modern film and television production, the use of stereo, surround sound. The illusion of space shaped by sound. It also gives the audience a realistic sense of presence. Using the illusion of images, audiovisual language can guide the audience to imagine, transform abstract concepts into visible images, and complete the narrative and performance. For example, the psychological distance is implied by the scene of the lens. The position of the characters is implied through the Angle of the shot, and the editing uses the technique of montage to combine the shots. Through the juxtaposition of a series of images, the illusion is generated between the shots, suggesting a deeper meaning. Understanding audiovisual language requires little learning because it evokes the most basic physical and psychological feelings. However, the freedom of expression in audiovisual language is a lifelong pursuit of many directors.
The basic elements of audiovisual language
What are the basic elements of audiovisual language? What are the ways we can analyze them? In analyzing the audiovisual language of film,
Usually the lens is the most basic unit. The word lens refers to different concepts in different contexts. A shot is what the camera takes from the time it starts shooting to the time it shuts down. You end up with raw, uncut footage. The cinematographer would refer to the shooting script and storyboard written by the director. The so-called shot in the clip refers to a piece of footage between two clip points. We understand audiovisual language from the perspective of the audience. The so-called shot here is the finished shot, that is, the frame between the two editing points. The camera position is the position of the camera. If the path of the camera position is drawn in the scene diagram, the set map is obtained. The frame is the edge of the film image, and composition is the structure and layout of the picture within the frame. Field is the size of the subject in the picture, the scope of the picture. Angle refers to the Angle between the camera and the subject. The action mirror is the motion of the camera. This includes changes in camera position, Angle and focal length. Light refers to the light effect in a scene, the light and dark layout of the picture. Color is the representation of color in the picture. The distance between the focus of the camera and the focus of the camera is called depth of field. Scene scheduling refers to the comprehensive arrangement of actors, cameras, lighting, props, costumes, scenery and other elements on the scene. Then there’s the auditory element, which is just as important as the visual element, but often underrated. Sounds can be divided into vocals, music and acoustics. Vocals include dialogue, narration and monologue. Music. All sounds except voices and music can be called acoustics. The above audiovisual elements are all inside the lens. The element that determines how the shots are connected is the clip.
15 audiovisual elements: picture frame, composition, camera position, field, Angle, focal length, depth of field, operating mirror, light, color, scene scheduling, voice, music, sound, editing.
The Excavation of the Script Core
The mining of the script core is how to better reflect the theme of the script.
Never let your audience forget what your main character really wants.
To do this, of course, you can use a variety of methods. Such as arranging for the main character or another character to speak or restate in a moment of emergency. There are also plays in which the characters speak directly to the audience about their desires in the form of a monologue. When you read or watch your favorite play, pay particular attention to how well the playwright communicates to the reader or audience the inner intentions of the characters in the play.
The first step is to understand what your story is about, or what kind of story you want to tell. In movies, we call it a theme. The general audience will generally understand the theme as family affection, friendship and love, or about time, life and small people, but this is still the representation of the theme.
As a scriptwriter, the theme of the story is divided into two parts: 1, ask questions 2, answer questions
The film raises questions, which are divided into table questions and inside questions. Table questions represent the story line, while the inside questions are the character growth line and puzzle line. The question you ask, and how you want to answer it, is what you want to focus on. The answer is your values, your attitudes, your thoughts, your thinking, your life.
What you need to stick to is your answer, because it’s your attitude, your way of looking at the world, your way of looking at problems. Once you get too much influence, this question will be lost. Of course, if someone tries to give you a better idea of the problem, for example, if you talk to someone about it during the creative stage, you’ll get a fuller perspective, and exchanging ideas is part of your search. But you have to answer for yourself. The steps we’re talking about here are the heart of a story.