This project examines the how camera movement as a stylistic element is used as a storytelling device in the films of select international filmmakers. The main intention of the study is to trace the changing function of the mobile frame to see how a specific stylistic element develops across different narrative paradigms, national industries and between “early” and contemporary periods of filmmakers. My primary assertion is that the norms guiding the development of the tracking camera expand gradually from normative functions toward figurative uses. In order to be able to differentiate between normative and figurative uses of the tracking camera with conceptual clarity, this project adapts Roland Barthes’s typology about the narrative function of distinctive textual/stylistic units. Barthes’ conceptual framework becomes functional by assigning specific codes (hermeneutic, the semic, the proairetic, the symbolic and the cultural codes) to the interactions of the elements of narration. When transforming and changing the function of stylistic elements across their films, artists respond to a wide range of industrial, technological, aesthetic, cultural factors, from which this study focuses on socio-cultural trends. The underlying assumption of this project holds that the mentioned trends can be detected in the stylistic choices of artists. This study takes a bottom-up route: starting with an analytical interpretation of a specific aesthetic device, it moves towards an explanation that connects camera movement to larger, dynamic signifying systems. The arch of my project traces the relation between normative and figurative textual codes through the prism of camera movement.

Since the beginning of the 2010’s, consumers have increasingly picked up the habit of using smartphones to shoot and watch video in portrait mode – vertical video. The format has also spread to professional film making in the form of advertising, fiction film and other genres produced for viewing on vertically oriented screens – especially smartphone screens. This rise of the vertical format can be attributed to digital conversion and new social habits of video communication via social media; in other words, the so called digital – or mobile – revolution. However, neither vertical media nor vertical film is actually new. In this paper, a media archaeological approach is used to show that vertical media is as old as human art, and that audiences have enjoyed vertical moving images at least since the 1830’s. For example, many early optical images and the first television images in the 1920’s were vertical. This paper is an elaboration on an archaeology of vertical video, inspired by the methods of media archaeologists Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka and the visual arts perspective of Anne Friedberg. Apart from the ancestry of the vertical frame, this paper also includes an analysis of what is inside the tall frame – a study on vertical shot composition. Focusing on eleven short films in competition at the 2016 Vertical Film Festival near Sydney, the analysis focuses especially on camera movement, scale of shot and editing. Using formal style analysis, as well as statistical style analysis, this paper defines characteristics of vertical shot composition; these include a frequent use of both long shots and tilt shots, and a general experimental playfulness in shot composition and in editing. By tracing the ancestry of – and analyzing the artistry of – portrait mode video, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the vertical video format and its renewed popularity in recent years. / <p>Grade on the bachelor's thesis: A</p>

In the late 1990s, motion picture and television production began a process of rapid digitalization with profound implications for cinematographers in Hollywood, as new tools for “digital cinematography” became part of the traditional production process. This transition came in three waves, starting with a post-production technique, the digital intermediate, then the use of high-definition video and digital production cameras, and finally digital exhibition. This dissertation shows how cinematographers responded to the technical and aesthetic challenges presented by digital production tools as they replaced elements of the film-based, photochemical workflow. Using trade publications, mainstream press sources, and in-depth interviews with cinematographers and filmmakers, I chronicle this transition between 1998 and 2005, analyzing how cinematographers’ responded to and utilized these new digital technologies. I analyze demonstration texts, promotional videos, and feature films, including Pleasantville, O Brother Where Art Thou, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, The Anniversary Party, Personal Velocity, and Collateral, all of which played a role in establishing a discourse and practice of digital cinematography among cinematographers, producers and directors. The challenges presented by new collaborators such as the colorist and digital imaging technician are also examined. I discuss cinematographers’ work with standards-setting groups such as the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the studio consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives, describing it as an effort to protect “film-look” and establish look-management as a prominent feature of their craft practice. In an era when digitalization has made motion pictures more malleable and mobile than ever before, this study shows how cinematographers attempted to preserve their historical, craft-based sense of masterful cinematography and a structure of authority that privileges the cinematographer as “guardian of the image." / text

Depuis les années 1990, un motif formel particulier a pris de l’ampleur au cinéma : il s’agit de la conjonction du caméscope intradiégétique et du point de vue médiatisé, deux procédés qui représentent respectivement un caméscope intégré à une narration filmique et le point de vue de ce que tourne une caméra intradiégétique (caméscope ou non) dans une scène donnée. À partir de cette constatation, cette thèse propose d’observer certaines caractéristiques propres à ces procédés, en utilisant les outils du néoformalisme de Kristin Thompson et de la poétique historique de David Bordwell, autant en ce qui concerne leur utilisation dans les films et leur évolution dans l’histoire du cinéma. La problématique comporte deux volets. Le premier est analytique et se penche sur un corpus de films qui utilisent le caméscope intradiégétique ou le point de vue médiatisé de façon importante, soit American Beauty (1999), Blair Witch Project (1999), Caché (2005) et Le journal d’un coopérant (2010). L’objectif est de dégager des séries de fonctions, de stratégies, de normes, de conventions et d’alternatives propres à l’usage de ces procédés. Pour cela, le corpus principal sera comparé à un corpus plus large, comprenant une variété de films provenant autant du cinéma classique que moderne. Le second volet est historique et concerne l’évolution stylistique particulière de ces deux procédés et de leur conjonction, principalement dans le cinéma classique hollywoodien. Dans un premier temps, l’étude des caméras intradiégétiques au cinéma avant les années 1980, donc durant la période qui précède l’arrivée du caméscope, permet de comprendre les différences et les ressemblances avec le cinéma actuel. Dans un deuxième temps, l’évolution récente du caméscope intradiégétique et du point de vue médiatisé depuis les années 1980 est une façon d’observer comment cette conjonction s’est développée en parallèle à d’autres phénomènes comme la progression du mode amateur, les nouvelles possibilités de tournage en vidéo au cinéma, l’essor du cinéma pornographique gonzo ou la popularisation du style run and gun et de la caméra-épaule. Derrière ces observations, il sera question de voir à quel point la popularité de la conjonction du caméscope intradiégétique et du point de vue médiatisé est représentative d’une fragmentation ou d’une intensification du style du cinéma contemporain par rapport à celui qui l’a précédé. / Since the 1990s, a formal pattern that has become increasingly popular in film is the combined use or “conjunction” of the intradiegetic camcorder and the mediated point of view, two devices that are represented respectively by a camcorder integrated to a filmic narration and the point of view of what an intradiegetic camera (camcorder or not) is shooting in a given scene. Taking this observation as a starting point, this dissertation proposes to examine some of the characteristics of these devices, using the tools of Kristin Thompson’s neoformalism and David Bordwell’s historical poetics, with concern both for their uses in movies and their evolution in the history of cinema. This research problem is divided into two aspects. The first is analytical and is concern with a corpus of movies that make salient use of the intradiegetic camcorder or the mediated point of view: American Beauty (1999), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Caché (2005) and Le journal d’un coopérant (2010). The objective is to reveal a series of functions, strategies, norms, conventions and alternatives that are characteristic of the use of these devices. To achieve this, the main corpus will be compared with a larger one composed of a variety of movies from classical as well as modern cinema. The second aspect is historical and is concerned with the particular stylistic evolution of these two devices and their conjunction, primarily in classical Hollywood cinema. On the one hand, the study of intradiegetic cameras prior to the 1980s (during the period before the invention of the camcorder) elucidates the differences and similarities between previous and actual cinema. On the other hand, the recent evolution of the intradiegetic camcorder and the mediated point of view since the 1980s provides insight into the way in which this conjunction has developed in parallel with other phenomena such as the development of the amateur mode, the new possibilities offered by shooting in video for the film industry, the expansion of pornographic gonzo cinema or the popularization of the run and gun style and of the hand-held camera. Using these observations, we will determine the extent to which the popularity of the conjunction of the intradiegetic camcorder and the mediated point of view is representative of a fragmentation or an intensification of the style of contemporary cinema compared to the cinema of previous periods.