FILM MUSIC: It is created and conditioned by the Perhaps, it would philosophically be more correct not regional theatre which has newly emerged in the 19 th to think of Structure and Function as two separate things cent. The presentation of this theatre were replete in the at all. They are two aspects, of the mode of existence of songs which are followed and imitated successfully by an object, of an event, of an act of communication, or of the film – music strategically. a work of art. Also Indian film music was a continuation of the LANGUAGE OF FILM tradition popularized and perfected by the musical folk A film consists of three physical elements: drama of various regions like Tamāsha, Jātrā, and 1. Visual shots : Fragments of visual ‘Pictures ’. Kīrtana . These folk dramas with theatrical music were 2. Sound Shots : Fragments of sound ‘Pictures’. not less than the carriers of the heritage so thoroughly 3. Editing : A system by which the fragments i. e. systematized in ancient Sanskrit dramaturgy. Visual shots are combined to form a Whole i.e. the Anthropologically it is true that in all cultures music in continuous film. invariably employed to establish links with the 1. Visual Shots: The visual shot is a fragment. It is not supernatural, the element which enable mythology to a “whole” picture in the sense a still photograph or a have a firm base. So it was evident that the Indian painting is a “whole” picture. cinematic impulse was congenitally bound with music The film picture is a moving picture movie- .In addition to this, Indian music is itself charactarised photography can record and reproduce the physical by the primacy of vocal music. Music and mythology movements of a moving object , e. g. the run of a are the expressive agents for mass - appeal because they running man . The names of cinema , Kino , Kinema , both posses in built cultural appeal. Consequently, they movies , moving pictures , chalachitra , refer to this enjoy tram-regional effectiveness. As motion films are special quality of the medium . motivated to secure a pan-audience of the whole country Shots are ‘made by ’ a camera . A complicated there fore they use whole folk music and folk machine is at the very artistic base of cinema . mythology to impress their clientage in the total Indian 2. Sound Shots: The Sound Shot is a fragment of a Public, hence music and mythology have because the sound ‘picture ’. It is not a whole ‘picture ’ in the sense a chief component in their make-up. Even classical music, music performance is a whole sound ‘picture ’. Karnatak and Hindustani have been profusely used in Sound Shots are ‘made by ’ a microphone and the cinema. recording system . A complicated machine is at the very AUTHOR : PADMA SUDHI. artistic basis of cinema . 3. Editing: Editing is the process of joining visual shots FILM, IT’S NATURE and sound shots a continuity for continuous seeing , A FRAME FOR DISCUSSION hearing and understanding by spectator . LANGUAGE, STRUCTURE, MEANING This continuity is also the basis of scripting . This areas in which we can talk about film . script, therefore, provides the basis for the shooting I). the properties of the “Language”, Picture , Sound process, which is discontinuous . Scripting , Shooting and Editing , Acting , Lighting , etc . II). The film itself , editing are aspects of the same process of making a film. considered as a structure “ made of ’’ the elements of The process of making a film is to create for “Language ”, i. e., fragments of picture and sound perception by the spectator the image of (say an event ; arranged in order . by juxtaposing visual fragments and sound fragments) III). The meaning of the film, what it expresses, the (relating to that event) in an editing order that makes function of the film . (some) sense about the event to the spectator . Structures are functional . This seems to be a law of VISUAL SHOT Nature . Natural objects (a horse , a fish , a tree , a human Objects in the real world around us are in three body) have structures (skeleton , nerve structures , etc .) dimensions. The camera reduces the three- dimensional which are functional in the sense that derive their logic objects to two- dimensional shapes on the picture plane. from the mode of existence of the object (a horse , a fish , A shot is a two-dimensional visual composition, a tree a human being) .Any elements of a structure which although the perspective lines, lighting, and relative become unfunctional have a tendency to down . movement of objects creates the illusion of three This is also true for artificial structures made by dimensions for the spectator. human being , as follows : The following elements , taken together , constitute the I).Verbal communication (a sentence considered as a visual composition of a shot . structure ‘made of ‘vocabulary) follows the logic of the 1. Distance of camera from objects : Extreme long shot/ meaning of the sentence . long/ shot/medium shot./close shot/ close up/ Extreme II). A house or a railway station/ a political structure close up. 2. Height of Camera from ground : High/ Eye like the constitution of a country / a social structure like level/ Low. 3. Movement of the Camera : No movement caste or family . of the camera / tilt up or tilt down / pan right or pan left / III). Works of art. Works of art have sometimes truck or track , forward or back or parallel , or diagonal , complex structures because they express complex or any other direction / hand -held camera mounted on ‘meanings ’ which objectify the nature of human feeling . crane / any other mounting of the camera plateform , What is said (meaning, function) in an art work cannot since the camera would take on the movement of the be separated from the ‘way’ of saying it (structure). platform on which it is mounted . (3a) Speed of the Language is a symbolic system through which human camera movement e . g. fast pan or slow pan. beings communicate. A symbol is something which 4. Lighting : Sources of Light/ Intensity of light. stands for something else. Let us consider the 5. Lenses : Telephoto to wide angle / The special case of basicProperties or the symbol of the following the zoom (A zoom is not a camera movement but a languages, which are used by human being for narrative continuous change in the property of the lens ) purposes. 6. Black and white , or , colour , or any combination of Verbal Languages: The basic symbol is the word. It is these . abstract and general because it is either a sound (as in 7. Relationship of frame outlines with elements speech) or a scribbling (as in script) which has no contained within the frame outline . relationship with what the word stands for. The sound- 8. Changing graphic relationship within the shot due to (or the script TREE) has no relationship with the green camera movement and subject movement . thing out there, for which it is a symbol. 9. Special Textures of the picture . Drawing: The basic drawing is less abstract and less 10..Camera Speed : Normal speed of shooting / slow general than language because the shape of the drawing Motion / Fast Motion . of a tree is somewhat like the tree itself. 11 .Duration of the shot : Unlike the still photograph, a Photograph: The photograph is less abstract, less shot has a time duration i . e. lasts on the screen general and more specific. The photograph of a tree has duration of time . in it all the visual details of the tree, except movements. SOUND SHOT: The following sounds can be recorded Film: Film is the least abstract, least general, most and used in film composition : Human speech / Natural concrete and most specific of the languages. A camera Sounds / Music , Vocal or instrumental / any other kind of shot of a tree shows that specific tree, tall or short, the sound , real or artificial . specific leaves, foliage, sparse or thick, and so on, down The source of sound can (visually) be on-screen or to the last visual detail. A sound shot would record the off screen . rustle of the leaves. The two together would create the The spectrum of ELS - MS -CSCU -ECU is applicable experience of looking at the tree itself. This life-like to sounds also . So also , fade-in and dissolve and fade- quality of the image may be called “photo- phono - out . graphic realism”. In Hindi there is a word to describe EDITING: The following technical methods are used this property. It is ‘Hu-ba-hu’. Many other Indian for joining shots in Editing . languages have a parallel word. In “Indian” English it is Cut /Dissolve / Wipe / Fade out / Fade in / any other “same-to-sameness”. optical devices . Apart from the above, film creates the further illusion The devices work in cinema because they reproduce that the spectator is “in” the same space where the action mental processes by which , in actual life , we see and is taking place. The normal illusion of a still photograph hear fragments of visuals and sounds and make sense of is as follows. This is a picture of, say, Manoj Kumar them. For instance , we actually “see ” the world around walking on the beach. I am sitting on my chair. The us in “cuts ”. picture is in the book. ‘I am sitting on my chair and For editing continuity , we can join together picture looking at the picture of Manoj Kumar in the book’. In fragments and sound fragments in any order which contrast, the normal illusion of a moving film makes sense to the mind. These arrangements can be of photograph is as follows. ‘This “is” Manoj Kumar , the following kind :- walking on the beach, and I “am” myself on the beach (1) The eye sees and the ear hears fragments in looking at Manoj Kumar walking on the beach’ chronological sequence .