SPACE:

Film confronts us with two kinds of space; first, the IMPLIED SPACE of the setting and the things within the image, which the filmmaker can reveal all at once, through continuous movement or in separate views.

This is broken into three distinct planes; foreground (FGD), middle ground (MGD) and background (BGD) in every shot. These simple image levels can be used to great dramatic effect and should be carefully considered.

The second is FILMIC SPACE. The frame (the four sides that contain the subject matter) is the picture's boundary of reality. While causing people and things to move within the frame, or moving the camera - the filmmaker modifies the position and quality of the frame itself; the angle of vision, relative proximity, the shapes of objects, the relationships of forms to each other, composing visual material into patterns, comparable to those in paintings and still photography.

Here's an example: Actors in motion operate in two ways; they embody the character by acting in whatever way the human being can, through voice, expression, attitude, gesture and movement. Besides being people, actors are also forms - planes, shapes and volumes, parts of a pattern.

The viewer's response to a visual image is conditioned by the overall PATTERNING OF FORMS, which can be made to articulate expressive content by using different formats (frame proportion), angles of vision, proximity and proportion, etc.

RELATIVE CLOSURE is a type of structure of forms in the picture that suggests a closed pattern; e.g. verticals and horizontals together, wheels and circles, exemplify this closed composition.

The camera can 'move' through space in four ways:

• The camera is fixed but the lens is altered - changing the focus plane and using zoom lenses.

• The camera moves from a fixed point - pan, tilt and swish pan.

• The camera moves on a travelling support - tracking, dolly shot, crane shot, steadycam, etc.

• Movement is simulated or created with special effects - fades, supers, dissolves, etc; or in CGI.