Day 6

Tuesday
21/01/19

In the sixth session, our faculty took our attendance towards the beginning after which he called forward a girl who had volunteered to help one of the students with his blog. Sir said that she has been called forward because she deserves something by which he meant applause because she had understood what he had been trying to make all of us understand but we haven't and she did. Hence, we applauded for her and the class moved forward.

The faculty asked us what all we had talked about in the previous 5 sessions.  The class named the different things we talked about so far. And since in the 5th session we were came across the terms art and science but mostly discussed only art, hence in the 6th session we resumed with our discussion about science. Our faculty asked us what science is to which one student replied that it is a set of principles formed over the observation of natural phenomenon.

He then asked us whether astronomy could be considered as science or not. In the process we came across another term called astronomy. We then started differentiating Between the two, astrology and astronomy. The following words came up for them
Astrology : personal, illogical, superstitious, relative
Astronomy : collective, logical, can be provided
After a discussion about this we came to the conclusion that astrology isn't a part of science as in science the it should be possible to prove the theories experimentally which isn't the case with astrology as it might work for some under some circumstances and might not work for someone else even when under the same circumstances. Our discussion about science ended here.

We then got to talking about the language of cinema. From there we got to talking about structure of films. Every film has a story and is of a fixed duration. We then talked about genre which is basically type, or a means of classifying films into different categories. For example, some of the genres are thriller, horror, drama, romance, comedy, biography.

Then we talked about the classification of films into two categories : fiction and non fiction/ documentary. Non fiction type can include any recording or documentary as both would have the actuality factor. By actuality it is meant that when what's really happening or when reality has been recorded, it becomes actuality.  The difference between documentary and a recording is that the former has a point if view while the latter does not. While every other film which is neither just a recording or a documentary, is a fiction film.

We then moved on from the previous topic and started discussing about the dramatic structure of films. Here we talked about a 5 act drama which has the following 5 parts or acts
1.Exposition : beginning of a film, introduction of characters, time, space and crisis
2.Rising Action : The actions which lead to the climax
3. Climax : turning point of the film, great suspense is created
4. Falling Action : unknown details and plot twists are revealed, the story is coming towards the end
5. Denouement : The end of the film where the moral or the lesson is revealed

Below is an example of the five act structure through the 1962 french movie Heureux Anniversaire.

Act 1:  Exposition

Shot1
-A woman sets up the dining table
-She places a statue of a couple on the table along with an anniversary card
- She places forks, spoons, a bottle of wine on the table and bagels on two plates
- She fetches a small gift box from a shelf and sneaks it under a napkin on one of the plates

Shot 2
- A man (man 1) rushes towards his car with a big gift box and puts it in his car

Act 2 : Rising Action

Shot 2
- Picks up the parking ticket from the windshield and slides in in his coat's concealed pocket
- Is about to get inide his car when he notices his car is stuck between other two cars parked very close to his car
-Blows the horn of the car in front of his car
- A man (man 2) rushes out of a barber's shop
- The car parked in front of man 1's car belongs to man 2 who then gets in his car  and moves it to make space for man 1 to get his car out of the parking
- A few other cars occupy the parking space emptied by man 1 and man 2
- Man 2 come back to his parking space and argues with the man who took his parking space

Shot 3
-Man 1 is stuck in traffic

Shot 4

-Man 2 signals the barber that he'll be back to get his shave completed after parking his car

Shot 5
- The traffic is moving very slow
- Someone's smoking cigarettes, someone's drinking and someone's busy with the newspaper while some is cleaning his car while they're stuck in the traffic
- A man (man3) is looking for a taxi, finds one, gets in it, asks the driver to drive but the driver turns on the meter while not driving the taxi because of the traffic
- Man 3 leaves that taxi
- The driver asks for money for the time man 3 was in his taxi, man 3 pays the driver
- Man 1 is looking at his watch continuously and tapping his fingers

Shot 6
-The woman is seated at the dinning table, looks at her watch and goes in the kitchen
- From the kitchen ahe brings two plates with food on them and places them on the dining table
-Sits back on the chair and keeps waiting for her spouse

Shot 7
- Parks his car, goes to a shop, buys wine
-Returns to his car, tries to get in but there are vehicles parked on both sides of his car and thus the door couldn't open
- Gets in the car parked to the right of his car, reverses the car and in the process damages some things that a few men were carrying
- Two wonen come and start arguing with man 1 because he was in their car
- One of the man carrying the things comes to man 1 and takes him to show the damage man 1 caused

Shot 8
- The woman looks down her balcony
- Comes back to the dining table from the balcony
- Gets temped by the food on the table
- Hesitates to eat without her spouse but after a while gives up and tastes the food
- She sits back in her chair relaxing

Shot 9
- Man 1 parks his car at a taxi stand
- Puts the parking ticket back on the windshield
-Goes to a flower shop

Shot 10
- Man 2 is still seeking a parking spot

Shot 11
- A man with a luggage is looking for a taxi
-  Man 1 buys flowers, returns to his car, puts tbe flowers inside the car on the front seat
- The man with luggage is seated in the back of man 1's car thinking it's a taxi
- Man 1 kicks him out of the car
- Throws his luggage out on the road
- Man 2's car tramps the luggage
- The luggage man and man 2 argue about it
- Man 1 gets in the car, sits on the bouquet of flowers, spoils it and then throws it out and drives away his car
Luggage man slaps man 2, man 2's shaving gel gets in luggage man's hands, he jerks his hands, the shaving cream gets on the glasses of some other car's driver

Act 4 : Falling Action

Shot 12
- Man 1 goes to another flower shop buys flowers, takes it in his car and drives his car

Act 3 : Climax

Shot 13
- The woman had all the food to herself
- She's smoking a cigarette
- Looks at the glass, finds it empty, refills it with the last of wine left in the bottle and drinks it

Act 4 : Falling Action

Shot 14
- Man 1 is driving back home
- Man 2 finally returns back to the barber shop but It's closed

Shot 15
- Man 1 reaches home, parks his car
- Shuts the car roof window
- The sunflower breaks away from the stem
- He gathers the flower as well as the other gifts
- He carries a the gifts with him to the apartment

Act 5 : Denouement

Shot 16
-  Gets in his apartment
- Finds his wife asleep on the table
- Lays down the gifts on the table
- Finds the gift his wife got for him and slips it into his pocket
- Takes a seat at the table
- Eats the bagel left on the dinning table

Here the last act suggests that though the film title says Happy Anniversary but it wasn't much of a happy anniversary as things were only going wrong for the husband and even the wife kept waiting for her husband all day but at last she got tired of waiting. By the time the husband was home, the wife was already asleep on the dinning table and even though technically they did meet finally at the end but, did they really meet and could they celebrate their anniversary together, well, they couldn't, hence it wasn't a happy anniversary after all.

I learnt how a film gradually moves from introducing characters and plot to the the events redporespon for the climax then to climax and how from the climax  the excitement starts to decrease gradually and how it really hesheto the conclusion in the form of a maoralusually at the end.

In this session, we actually learnt more about films compared to the other give classes, hence this session was different from the last sessions in this sense.

- Shikha Singh