Visual Culture

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Visual culture is the aspect of culture expressed in visual images.

Mise en scene

In the previous blog, I briefly recorded some learning content of mise en scene and some basic concepts. Here I re-summarize the content of mise en scene.

Scene scheduling comes from French, meaning “placed in an appropriate position” or “placed in the scene.” Starting to be used in stage plays, movie scene scheduling includes two levels: actor scheduling and shot scheduling, in addition to the internal elements of the screen such as light and shadow, space, scenery, and clothing.

Actor scheduling The director uses the change of the actor’s movement direction and position, as well as the dynamic and static changes when the actor communicates with the actor, etc., resulting in different shapes and scenes of the screen, revealing the changes in the relationship between the characters and their emotions.

Camera scheduling The director uses the change of camera position and various perspectives to obtain lens images of different angles and viewing distances to show the changes in the relationship between the characters and the atmosphere of the environment.

The combination of actor scheduling and Camera scheduling constitutes the scene scheduling of the movie. Its flexibility can make the actor and the camera in motion at the same time so that the performance and action of the actor can go on without interruption, and the emotions are not interrupted. At the same time, it is conducive to show the relationship between the characters and the environment, and achieve the effect in one go.

Scene scheduling not only refers to the scheduling within a single shot but also includes the scheduling of a complete scene formed by the group of shots.

Scene scheduling and long shots are regarded by the French film theorist Bazin as the historical development tendency of film language realism, and they have become the relative aesthetic spirit of expressionist montage aesthetics.

This theory influenced the French “Movie Notes” critics to establish the relationship between scheduling style and “authorism”. After this group of commentators became the main players of French New Wave films, their films all attached great importance to the function of scene scheduling. The term “scene scheduling” has become a very important topic in film theory and aesthetics after the 1960s. In terms of creation, many directors have paid more and more attention to the expressiveness of the elements of “scene scheduling”.

I refer to some materials, and most of them analyze some classic shots in movies, such as the dialogue shots in “Rashomon”, the “silent film bridge” in “Blood Maze”, and the opening shots of “Playing Time”. But I also saw a saying that the scheduling of each movie is not only for the plot but also for the content that the whole movie wants to express. When we evaluate a song, shouldn’t it start with its interlude?

So I think this blog mainly focuses on the analysis of an animated film “Perfect Blue” that I have been paying attention to recently. The scene scheduling, visual metaphors, and color composition of this movie are all worth discussing.

The heroine Mima is an idol singer, but at the request of the agency, she began to transition to the career of an actor, but in the process of transformation, Mima, the agent of Mima, and the fanatic fans of Mima, three people All of them were mentally split to varying degrees, and a series of events occurred.

Regarding the scene scheduling, one of the more outstanding sections is that Mima just discovered a website about her life record, and her heart is full of anxiety. And the uneasy emotions generated by this plot, Director Satoshi Kon uses the following scene to convey.

①An extreme close-up shot of the Mima’s foot, running from left to right. 1.5seconds
②In a close-up shot, Mima runs to the left, and the background moves. 2 seconds
③An extreme close-up of Mima’s foot running to the right, with the background moving. 1 second
④A close-up shot, Mima runs to the right and the background moves. 2 seconds
⑤Low-angle shot, Mima running across the camera to the depth. 1 second
⑥Outdoor wide shot, Mima runs out of the subway station, holding the fence and panting loudly before leaning on the fence and looking up. 12 seconds
⑦Subjective shot, the clouds in the sky moving slowly (Mima still gasps). 5 seconds
⑧Close-up of the frontal shot, Mima is still breathing, and then turns to look right. 5 seconds
⑨Mima taken by the camera is displayed on several TV sets for sale, staring at it for a moment, and walking out of the TV screen. 4 seconds

We know that in movie scene scheduling, the motion direction of the subject will form an invisible straight line, that is, the “axis”. In the shot scheduling of a scene, the range of camera position changes, and the shooting angle of adjacent shots are restricted by the axis. If you set the camera position randomly across the axis, it will cause confusion in the direction of movement of the characters in the picture and the visual discontinuity of the audience. In this shot, the first three shots used close-ups and extreme close-ups, as well as rapid and repeated cross-axis, to combine the inner chaos of Mima with the visual chaos of the audience, and in order to avoid overstimulating the audience’s viewing habits, these few The motion and background of each lens reduce the sense of movement. Then, a balanced depth lens and a slightly longer and gentle panoramic lens gradually calmed the intense emotions. The nervous piano sound in the background gradually disappeared, and the slowly moving clouds in the sky were also used to calm down. The mood of the audience. Later, in the final shots, in several TV sets for sale, Mima was ingested. This is a metaphor after the previous emotional preparation. The TV set illuminates Mima’s heart like a mirror. Tell the audience that the source of her fear is actually the other-self in her heart.

Visual metaphor

The image modeling language is used to make the image no longer an object in daily life, but a certain meaning in the film’s prescribed situation. The visual image constructed by the modeling language has a metaphorical function.

In “Perfect Blue”, in addition to the above-mentioned TV screens, there are many other visual metaphors, such as mirrors. Director Satoshi Kon likes to use mirrors very much. He frequently borrows “image in the mirror” to show the protagonist’s personality imbalance and split between Mima and the murderer Rumi staying in the United States. Among them, in order to show Mima’s struggle and reconstruction in the process of transforming into an actor, Mima and the mirror image of himself appeared 21 times.

At the end of the film, The murderer Rumi in the hospital and the idol singer in the mirror looked at each other affectionately. Unlike other animals who are dismissive of their own mirror images, humans are a kind of mirror-loving animals. Lacan’s psychoanalysis of people and mirror images provides us with help in interpreting the deep connotation of images in mirrors in movies. He pointed out in his discussion of the “mirror” theory: “The process by which the child in front of the mirror refers to his image in the mirror as another child to recognize that it is himself includes a double misunderstanding: when he When he refers to his mirror image as another child, he refers to the “self” as the “other”; but when he refers to himself in the mirror image as himself, he regards the illusion of light and shadow as reality—confusing the reality And fiction, and from this, I began a lifelong fascination with my own mirror image.”

Aesthetics

I think, to put it simply, what aesthetics is discussing is the question of “what is beauty”.

There are different aesthetic styles in different films, and this almost establishes the atmosphere of the entire film.

In “Perfect Blue”, some people call it “horror aesthetics”, that is, the coexistence of horror and beauty. Generally speaking, horror is a kind of negative emotion of people, and it is completely opposite to comfortable beauty. But the ingenuity of this film is that the alternate between virtual and reality is seamlessly connected under montage editing, which allows the film to carry a considerable amount of interpretation and provides the audience with a rich imagination. It makes people look forward to the development of the story while they are nervous, and they still have an aftertaste after watching it.

There are a lot of sexual and violent scenes in the film, and the audience is not disgusted, but attracted. I think this is the unique horror aesthetic of this film.

Color composition

Color Theory is also pretty unique in “Perfect Blue”, and it’s worth analyzing. Instead of using traditional theories, such as red for danger and green for jealousy, Satoshi Kon used them in a more nuanced way to show the progress of a story.

What is obvious in the film is the large area of red. This is especially true for the first shot of Mima’s room with many red areas. And when she first found another self on the network, the red color of the whole room was more intense, while her whole face was in front of the red background, which indicated that the Mima involved in the madness and red start to as the dominant.

Since then, whenever a large area of ​​red appears in the film, it indicates the gradual madness that Mima experienced, and Mima’s mind is gradually collapsing. Until Mima faced her fantasy for the first time, the tone of the picture gradually shifted to red.

And this makes sense throughout the film, not only on Mima but also on murderer Rumi. When the film is nearing the end and the identity of the murderer who stayed in the United States is about to be revealed, there is a scene where both Mima and Rumi are in front of the red background, indicating the next thing.

This film uses red to the extreme, and each picture has an intention to convey. I think this is also the difference between animation and live-action movies. In live-action movies, the camera shots are not as fully controllable as animations. There may be some stuff in the shots that the director did not expect. However, the appearance of the objects in the animation screen is all moral and all have their own functions.

Rhythm

In movies, the rhythm not only refers to music but also related to pictures, stories, performances, etc. In my opinion, the simplest understanding of rhythm is the speed change. The film itself is also an art form that attracts attention. Therefore, the rhythm cannot be fixed. It will make people feel bored, and it will not change all the time, making people feel confusing. Excellent works can affect the audience’s attention and allow them to focus on the work. Give the audience a new rhythm in the familiar rhythm, which will always remain attractive.

In “Perfect Blue”, there is a plot where the writer is killed, and the rhythm is used very well.

In the beginning, the bloody warning, illuminated by the red light, foreshadows what will happen next.
The writer got out of the car and looked at the empty parking lot. At this time, the camera moved, the noisy music in the background gradually increased, and a tense atmosphere was slowly created.
The writer suddenly shouted and the shot turned to an extreme close-up shot, breaking the previous rhythm here.
A wide shot, the music in the background stopped, and the tension was weakened again as if to let the audience relax.
The writer pressed the elevator, but the music started again and the writer turned around. Now the rhythm became tense again.
As the music grew louder, the camera circled around the writer, matching his nervous expression and creating an atmosphere of panic.
When the elevator door suddenly opened, the writer quickly turned back, and the music suddenly grew louder as the door opened. The quick rhythm made the audience nervous.
The red carpet and the music signal that the writer is about to be killed, and the panic is at its peak.
Since the foreshadowing has already made things clear, a relatively slow shot is given here. The music becomes smaller and the elevator door opens, revealing the ending of the writer’s death.

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