Battleship Potemkin

Just watching the beginning of Potemkin, it's obvious that montage will be used frequently in the film. It's strange to watch the film without sound because I feel like it's critical to the creation of a scene's mood, but through our study of montage this is not the case. For example, the scene where the sailors are all bunking together. The juxtaposition of the sailors in their hammocks and the black screen with simple text "There is a limit to what a man can take" sets up the mood for the distress of the sailor recruits. It takes two unrelated film strips such as one with the sailor burying his head in his pillow and the strip displaying someone smacking him on the back, and creates a new meaning to the images. Instead of just being the sailor burying his head and an image of someone smacking him on his back with an object, the juxtaposing of the two films strips plus the black screen creates a feeling of distress and evokes dissatisfaction of the sailors on the ship, implying that they are at their wits' end being on the ship and there is only so much a man can take before he snaps.



Montage is used in every film that I've seen. It's used to create depth and add emotion to the film by juxtaposing the independent film shots. It weaves the two film strips together to create meaning and build an idea that is conveyed through the connections the viewer creates with the images presented.

 

Understanding Comics

First off I must admit I'm kind of a comic freak so this book was right up my ally. I've always been interested in comics since I was a kid and plunged into the world of manga and anime during my middle school years. All of this has been very eye opening and I loved it!



This book really makes you reconsider a lot of the things you automatically do. Montage is the juxtaposition of two things that create meaning. Montage in comics is defined by Cloud as juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence. This juxtaposition allows the audience to create meaning through closure - the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole. This is the act of our minds mentally creating connections to complete what is incomplete based on past experiences. Comic artists utilize this innate characteristic in the viewer to create and convey ideas, feelings and emotions within the static, juxtaposed visuals.



Cloud presents this concept of closure in the use of basic comics of people. He demonstrates that people do not need so much detail to be able to see human faces when presented with a circle with two dots and a line. Humans use their recognition and relation to the shapes presented in a deliberate manner to create the idea of a face in their minds with the shapes given to them.



Word and Image

According to the article, the definition of montage is the process or technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole. This author analyzes these edits and juxtaposition of unrelated film strips and describes montages as the creation of concepts through the representation and image of the objects in the film.



Einstien suggests that "We should have turned to those cases where the shot pieces are not only unrelated to each other, but where this final, this general, this whole result is not merely foreseen, but itself predetermines both the individual elements and the circumstances of their juxtaposition" (10). In other words, these objects within the film have their own representation, such as the women in mourning clothes and the grave, but when juxtaposing these objects, it creates a new meaning and image. We create these images from the connections we make with the objects represented in the film strips and create new concepts with the combining of the unrelated representations. We make the significance of the image through the creation of the image and concept and recall the image meaning through the assembling of the representations and assembly of its significance.



We can utilize this idea with our event by juxtaposing unrelated ideas to create different concepts. Our event is similar to a montage in a sense - combining many unrelated events and objects to create new meaning to build our celebration. It will be very exciting to see what connections people will make to create images of our event!



Theories about Events

The concept of events is a practice of the situated practices - a key concept in communication. Situated practices is the learning in a community of practice through socialization, visualization, and imitation. We learn through our experiences in our communities and connect and explore real life situations to find answers, or to solve the problems. George Herbert Mead argues that the self (the "I" and the "Me") “is only a development and product of social interaction” (Mind, Self and Society). Through these social interactions, the self is constructs our learned behaviors through our social interactions with our environment. This behavioral understanding is then passed on through our community, which is learned and reiterated, and builds the rituals that our communities participate in, such as events and celebrations. Because our environments shape our learned perception of these rituals, certain actions are established as acceptable and unacceptable.



In "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor," Erving Goffman suggests that the ceremonial aspect of behavior possesses two components, deference and demeanor. Goffman defines deference as "the appreciation an individuals shows of another to that other, whether through avoidance rituals or presentational rituals." Goffman also defines demeanor as "the element of the individual's ceremonial behavior [that is] typically conveyed through deportment, dress, and bearing, which serves to express to those in his immediate presence that he is a person of certain desirable or undesirable qualities." These two concepts are often intertwined in the activities that are referred. For example, an audience applauding after a speaker's presentation acts as a presentational ritual that expresses a positive, supporting demeanor. This presentational ritual demonstrating both deference and demeanor is a learned behavioral practice. It is picked up through our situated practices in our environment and is reiterated with each expression, building and shaping our perceptions of the ritual, which is an event/celebration in our case.



Dramatic Metaphor

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The Graduate

I think my favorite part of the movie was at the beginning where Ben is first confronted by Mrs. Robinson. The use of montage creates a feeling of tension build as the scenes shift from Ben to Mrs. Robinson and back to Ben. This use of juxtaposition of scenes shifting from the image of one character to the next and back to the original character, supposes that there is some kind of game being played. With the use of the dialogue, the viewer gets a sense of uneasiness when Mrs. Robinson strong suggests that Ben do the following things such as drive her home, stay with her in the home without her husband in the house, and talking about the attractiveness of Mrs. Robinson. The juxtaposition of the dialogue, the viewer's impression of society's expectations, and the shifting between characters constructs this tension and feelings of uneasiness. I like how the filmmaker created this tension by the situation and its suggestions. It builds these feelings, maybe not to reflect Ben's feelings in the scene but the overall tension of the situation that leads to the progression of the film. The tension persists throughout the film as this structure of tension is replayed through the banter between Ben and Mrs. Robinson. It persists throughout the film also due to the filmmaker's and the viewer's ideas of marriage as a sacred object. It's interesting how the tension is build through the juxtaposition of not only elements within the film (i.e. the cuts of scenes, the dialogue, the positioning of the characters) but also the juxtaposition of the events occurring in the scene in contrast to the expectations held by society. These two types of juxtaposition build the tension and weave the plot using the viewer's perceptions and expectations.



Eventology

I agree with Priscilla - it's very interesting how he refers the science of events to event-ology. There is a type of science to it but like Professor Cole said, there isn't much theory to it. A Lot of interesting things here, but nothing really substantial. The author does hit some valuable points though, acknowledging it as a phenomenon. He breaks down planned events into three core parts that include how its experienced and the meanings attached to the event itself.



The author does touch upon symbolic meaning and mentions semiotics, but not how this study of signs ties in with the creation of planned events. To me, semiotics play a large role in building meaning around an event. It uses images, words and even sounds and ties them to a concept or meaning that helps build the individual's experience of the event. In addition, the societal culture also plays a role in the way the event is constructed and interacted due to the social and cultural structures and expectations that exist within that environment. The individual's culture greatly influences how he experiences the event. For example, in western culture, social events are seen as a leisure activity that one spends their free time to be entertained. Because of this concept of leisure, events must convey a certain tone about the purpose of the event and what kinds of people they'd like to attract.

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In the larger sense, this seems to connect to situated practices and culture, and how meaning is build and experiences are molded. I think we should not only think about who the event is for and what is it for, but also how we are communicating what it is for and who we are trying to attract.



Communication and Mediation

According to the article, communication is a noun of action that calls for individuals to take part in the common. It is changed from this action to an object, such as lines of communication, railways, canals, and now, media.

 

This meaning has converged over the years because of the communication of communication. We as a society have communicated, or made common of, this idea of communication as an object rather than only the action it was originally. And now there is a differentiation between the types of communication, ones that transmit and ones that share. These differences have been clarified through the use of other terms, such as manipulative and participatory communication.



Through communication, our ideas are mediated by our sense. Our senses are those mediums or intervening. These senses act as a middle, interceding and acting as a transmission of ideas from what we see to what we perceive. It's interesting how Williams defines the complex meaning of the word mediation through the many ways we mediate in our lives. From the political to the dualist to the formalist sense, these conflicting meanings all communicate through one word, but through the situation, we practice this action in different ways.



It seems that for our event, we should try to communicate as other events do to create this mediation of our ideas. In other words, "When in Rome, do as the Romans!"



Communication and Events

Well events are  planned public or social occasions that follow a specific set of rituals. What about Collins' "Ritual Interaction Chains" or Goffman's "Deference and Demeanor?" Rituals are planned occasions, so why shouldn't they be events?



I'm sending Prof. Cole the PDFs.