Week 4: Making & Breaking Space
To Do This Week
- Read Time Frames by Scott McCloud
- Journal reflecting on a scene from a favorite movie that plays with time and the viewer experience of time.
Module Notes
Cinema Time
Discuss Time Frames by Scott McCloud
The art of cinema involves the manipulation of the viewer’s experience of time. The duration of a shot is like a temporal framing. In Time Frames, McCloud describes the various comics techniques for creating different temporalities. Consider the framed panel in a comic as a cinema shot. Wider or longer panels are like shots with longer durations (“long takes”), while smaller panels are like shots with shorter durations. The main difference between comics and film is that in a comic, the reader has a spatial “time map” in the simultaneous display of frames, while in cinema, shots are mostly sequential and present an unfolding now.
Cinema Space
“Making Space”
Continuity isn’t only about cutting; it’s also about how bodies, props, and camera choreography carve readable space. Thoughtful blocking clarifies story beats and emotional subtext as well as creates a believable 3D world. A chase scene needs to model space in the cutting in order to be suspenseful.
“Breaking Space”
Discontinuity implies gaps that the viewer can fill in. A cut from day to night implies a leap in time. Montage is the use of discontinuity for certain spatial, temporal or perceptual effects. A chase scene that cuts between many locations and subjective views adds to the suspense, while maintaining logic of continuity.
Key Concepts
- Discontinuity and Montage: gaps force viewer participation in constructing the scene.
- Shot Duration: manipulate time with short and long durations of shots. 5 seconds feels long next to 2 seconds.
- Shot Speed & Direction: manipulate frames per second: slow motion, fast motion, reverse.
- Mise‑en‑scène: setting, lighting, costume, behaviour in frame, color
- Motivated Camera Movement (follows, reveals, POV sweeps)
- Deep Space Composition – foreground, middle-ground and background. lens length (wide/zoom).movement & lighting contrast
- Spatial Tension – using empty space & off-screen space to imply something lacking, unknown or hidden.
In-Class Group Activity: Time Play
Goal: Make a 20–30 second video that uses the illusion of continuity to manipulate subjective time (expand, compress or twist). Think of subjective experience: fantasy and daydreams, anxious or worried states of mind, remembering the past, suspense or anticipation. For all these states, continuity, discontunity, shot duration and editing can express the inner state.
Steps
- Create a situation: a character, location and action in which some change in subjective/narrative time occurs: increased action, slowed down time, fantasy or dream...
- Choose simple actions to shoot: walking, pouring, opening a door, looking at something, dropping or throwing...
- Plan 5-10 shots: keep consistent framing/eye level, screen-direction, match movement across shots - however, the content of the frame can change!
- Shoot: record shot list but feel free to get other shots that inspire.
- Edit: align overlapping motions; use speed changes or repeats to stretch/compress time; optional subtle sound bridge.
- Share: export and upload to YouTube/Vimeo, share url on Slack.
Mini‑Assignment · Continuity Scene 5%
DUE Sept 19
Goal: Film and edit a 30–60s scene (10-20 cuts) that demonstrates basic continuity with each edit: POV shots, shot-reverse-shot, match-on-action, and spatial continuity to tell a coherent story. Be sure to vary camera position (close-up, medium shot,...) and framing (level, high, low...)
- Write a two‑sentence action (no dialogue needed) and plan coverage with establishing shots + at least 4 different angles/positions.
- Use a hand‑drawn diagram to map camera setups and create a shot list or storyboard (sketch the frames) for each shot.
- Edit for seamless movement and screen direction; hide all cuts with match‑on‑action where possible.
- Keep sound from camera, no added music track or voice over.
- Export 720p (or 1080p) H.264; upload to Vimeo/YouTube.
- Share link in Canvas and Slack channel
#continuity-scene.