April 9 2012 - Visual Language Interlude

Taking a small break from advertising to bring up a subject that should have been mentioned long ago. There have been lots of posts on this blog about Language, yet we missed on the one that affects human more than any other-- the visual language.

In terms of telling a story, it was the ancient production of plays that cemented in our minds, how visual narrative works. You have the proscenium arch.

This is the frame that the audience views. If characters walk to the right or left, they exit the frame of the stage, and this motion registers to us, that they have left the scene. They are not involved in the story currently and they are doing something else within their own time and space. Additionally, when they move closer to us, we know that they are becoming more personal and intimate. Perhaps they are about to divulge a secret break the 4th wall. It all makes rational and logical sense to our brains.

However, this all fine and dandy for theatre. But, commercials, television, and movies do not take place on a stage. Their frame is the camera, and it is mobile. Rather than the characters moving, we move the camera. And this idea actually took Hollywood several years before realizing. If you look at some of the earlier films from cinema history, you'll notice the camera stays in one place, and the action looks just like it might on a stage.

Just look at the first scene. The frame is static.

It wasn't until D.W. Griffith in 1915, made a story where the camera moved to change the frame of the characters. Decades later, and it is still the dominant method of using cameras and film. Over that time period, however, we have determined the three fundamental shots of the visual narrative. They each have similar theatre counterparts.

The Wide (or Long) Shot

It serves to establish. It allows us to see the context of the characters, and their connection and relationships between each other. It sets the scene and is excellent tool for creating distance between the audience and the  story.

The Medium Shot

When you can see just the top half of a body, you know it's a medium shot. When we talk to people, this is how we usually see them in real life. That's why this is the shots you normally get when a news anchor is talking. They want to appear personal and honest, like they are in your own living room. In movies, its where most of the exposition and story will take place. It's great for dialogue scenes.

The Close-Up

This is when we zoom in real close on something. It serves as an exclamation point. It draws attention to the object or the character and it invades our personal space. It is often used to build tension or suspense, which is why it's frequently found in horror movies and spaghetti westerns.

And those are the three ways, we relay all visual narratives. A typical scene starts wide, goes medium, then close-up, then medium, and then back to wide. That's because we start by revealing the world before getting to the finer details. It's just that easy.