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"Characters and characteristics in motion pictures."
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Dirty Real
The story of how the movies assumed a gritty facade in the name of authenticity, with working actors transforming into artists, poets, painters, troubadours, and filmmakers—both on- and off-screen. This is the tale of how Hollywood, inspired by the success of Easy Rider, sold a cycle of films as the new dirty real. Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Monte Hellman, Jack Nicholson, Kris Kristofferson, and Sam Peckinpah, among others, parlayed a nostalgia for the gutter and donned bohemian personae, pulling on soiled shirts and scuffed boots to better counter the glamour and phoniness of Tinseltown. The result was a generation of movies, including The Hired Hand, Five Easy Pieces, Two-Lane Blacktop, The Last Picture Show, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. With great care for the historical record and displaying a refined critical acuity, Peter Stanfield captures that pivotal moment when Hollywood tried to sell a begrimed vision of itself to the world.
eBook
Visual character development in film and television : your character is your canvas
\"This book takes a unique look at visual character development in motion pictures and television by using famous works of art combined with modern works of film and television to demonstrate how to weave a visual tale. In a single shot or scene, what should we reveal about a character? What should we conceal? How can we show a character's progression over time? In Visual Character Development in Film and Television, authors Michael Hanly and Elisabeth Rowney explain how to create compelling visual characters for the screen by analyzing fine art aesthetics and combining them with modern cinematic techniques. Full-color chapters cover character-driven approaches to costume design and makeup application, production design, cinematography and lighting, plot development, editing considerations, and more. By exploring how surroundings, habits, lifestyles - even the color of a sweater - can tell us more about a character on the screen than what can be said in dialogue alone, this book will prove a valuable resource for anyone wanting to take their filmmaking to the next level\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
Children’s movies often provide messages about morally appropriate and inappropriate conduct. In two studies, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to derive predictions about actual depictions of morality, and people’s preferences for different moral depictions, within children’s movies. According to MFT, people’s moral concerns include individualizing foundations of care and fairness and binding foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Prior work reveals that although there are political differences in the endorsement of these two broad categories—whereby stronger political conservatism predicts stronger binding concerns and weaker individualizing concerns—there nonetheless is broad agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. We therefore predicted that heroes would value individualizing foundations more than villains, and that despite political differences in preferences for moral messages, there would be more agreement in the importance of messages promoting individualizing concerns. In Study 1, we coded heroes and villains from popular children’s movies for their valuation of moral foundations. Heroes valued individualizing concerns more, and binding concerns less, than villains did. Participants in Study 2 considered moral dilemmas faced by children’s movie characters, and rated their preferences for resolutions that promoted either individualizing or binding foundations. Although liberals preferred individualizing-promoting resolutions and conservatives preferred binding-promoting resolutions, there was stronger agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. Despite political differences in moral preferences, popular depictions of children’s movie characters and people’s self-reported moral endorsement suggest a shared belief in the importance of the individualizing moral virtues of care and fairness.
Movies are often infused with moral messages. From their exploration of overarching themes, their ascription of particular traits to heroic and villainous characters, and their resolution of pivotal moral dilemmas, movies provide viewers with depictions of morally virtuous (and morally suspect) behavior. Moral messaging in children’s movies is of particular importance, since it is targeted at an audience for which morality is actively developing. What moral messages do filmmakers (and consumers, including parents) want children’s movies to depict? Are these preferences related to people’s political identity? And what are the actual moral depictions presented in movies? In the present two studies, we draw on an influential theory of moral judgment—Moral Foundations Theory—to develop and test predictions about the depiction of morality in children’s movies.
Journal Article
Quantifying the unquantifiable: the color of cinematic lighting and its effect on audience’s impressions towards the appearance of film characters
This study is an attempt to investigate the ability of different colors used in cinematic lighting designs to affect audience’s impressions towards the appearance and mood of film characters. The study critically appraised existing cinematic lighting techniques and identified the two basic color groups (i.e., warm and cold colors) that should be examined in order to answer the research questions and formulate its conclusions. To provide the needed empirical evidence for this research work, some experiments with a representative sample of viewers were conducted. These experiments confirmed the existence of direct relationships between various colors of lighting and the perceived appearance and mood of film characters. Moreover, specific color hues of lighting appeared to be more effective than others in altering the perceived appearance and mood of film characters. The study concluded that audience’s perception of appearances and moods within cinematic shots is linked, even in part, to different colors of lighting.
Journal Article
Facial Feature Study of Cartoon and Real People with the Aid of Artificial Intelligence
There is an impression that there are many facial differences between different American animated characters. Japanese animated characters, on the other hand, tend to be typecast, with large eyes, sharp chins, and angular faces. In essence, the subject matter of animation is primarily based on the culture of the people who make it, and the designers of the characters also have their own sense of national belonging; therefore, is it possible that the characters in animation are designed with more reference to their own people? In this study, the facial features of characters are extracted from the data of animation with high awards, box office, and ratings in America and Japan. R-language analysis of four sets of facial features data, comparing American and Japanese animated characters, was conducted using: U.S. and Japanese live action; American animated characters with American live action; and Japanese animated characters with Japanese live action. Results revealed that 23 of the 42 observations for the American animated character sample and the American live action sample were ≤0.05. Among them, 15 reference values were ≤0.001. In the group of Japanese animated characters, compared to Japanese live action, only 12 of the 42 observations were ≤0.05. Among them, seven reference values ≤ 0.001. These data prove that the design of faces of American and Japanese animated characters are exaggerated and, based on proportions of their own faces, American animators prefer to design a diverse cast of characters, which is perhaps related to the diverse ethnic structure of the United States. It is true that Japanese animated characters mostly have a single face design, and although this face has Western characteristics, it retains more of its own Japanese characteristics. However, the ‘formulaic’ style of Japanese animated characters can easily lead to aesthetic fatigue, and without continued innovation in storytelling, the character-based Japanese animation industry may be in decline.
Journal Article
Children as a Reflection of Transcendence in the Filmography of Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrej Tarkovsky is a Russian film author who has indebted the entire world’s cinematography with his cinematic style. His (auto)biography and filmography give us a hint that he was a deeply religious man who believed that art should serve to deepen man’s spirituality. By watching and analyzing the author’s films, we came to the hypothesis that Tarkovsky uses the characters of children to express something supernatural, and therefore, we wanted to explore which narratives and stylistic devices the director uses to give his interpretation of the spiritual and transcendent. Thus, we analyzed nine characters of children that appear in the director’s six full-length feature films: Ivan Bondarev (Ivan’s Childhood), Boriska (Andrei Rublev), Aleksej, Ignat and Asafjev (Mirror), Marta (Stalker), Domenico’s son and Angela (Nostalghia), and Gossen (The Sacrifice). The methods we have used are qualitative content analysis, description, comparison, and synthesis. The characteristics we have noticed in the characters of the children, which could point to the transcendent, are a deep and penetrating gaze, the supernatural powers children use, the mysterious environments they inhabit, the deep influence they have on other characters, asking religious questions, hermit-like loneliness, modest clothes, and allusions to a Christ-like figure.
Journal Article