Exhibitions
Paula Cooper Gallery 534 W 21st Street
_______________________
Assignment Updates and Revisions
Jackie, Arri, Alejandro
Jiaqi -- revision next week
_______________________
Thesis Projects Update
_______________________
Continuity / Montage
The concept of the scene -- a depiction of a period that is more or less continuous in space and time. The techniques are ways of giving sense of continuous time and space
• Continuity: Creating a sense of continuous time and space through shooting and editing techniques
The idea of continuity or 'the scene' contrasts with the concept of montage:
- Montages consist of images assembled to capture a state of mind or memory, to make a point or a comparison, or for many other reasons. Even in a fiction film or documentary, a montage sequence may include images from a variety of times, locations and sources, and the connections between shots may be left to the viewer. Some filmmakers (e.g. Dziga Vertov) propose as montage the most effective form of cinema: others view cinema as fundamentally a story-telling medium. which often requires a depiction of lived experience with a sense of continuous space and time -- a series of scenes
Unlike a continuity sequence, montage (a term proposed by Eisenstein) consists of a series of shots that form a unit or conglomerate in some way or another. We’ll see filmmakers developing visual connections, conceptual or content connections, associations, and repetition. In a fiction film, a montage sometimes advances the story, conveying passage of time, offers a set of similar things, or a variety of actions happening in different locations at the same time, capturing a moment
To construct a montage, one needs to pay attention to shot to shot editing and also, perhaps more importantly , to the overall structure. Think of of signposts, of rhythm, of repetition, of journeys or meditation on a moment — always the interplay between the actual time that the film is on screen (duration), the time depicted, and the time experienced.
Continuity
• Taste of Cherry dir Abbas Kiarostami (1997)