Movie Fail

We have opinions.

  • Reviews
  • Op-Eds
  • Interviews
  • Academic
  • Television
  • Podcasts
    • Ghostwood Radio (Twin Peaks)
    • Hoopleheads (Deadwood)
    • Stark Contrast (Game of Thrones)
    • Ember Island Airwaves (Avatar/Korra)
    • Dueling Reviews
    • Søren and Esther’s Oscarcast
  • All
  • Meet Our Staff
  • FAQs
Academic

Dimensionality Evokes the Perception of Life in Persepolis

January 17, 2014 By Søren Hough Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2014-01-08 at 11.44.17 PMIn the next frame, there is a noticeable shift in how the animators produce dimensionality.  The camera shifts perspective to face the protestors, several of whom are running towards the screen. In this shot, the silhouettes are in the foreground, a hill is in the middle ground, and the fog-covered city is in the background. As they come toward the camera, the protestors grow in size until they pass it and move out of frame. Here, the objects in question are not simply moving across the screen to elicit depth as with animetism. On the contrary, they are changing in size (scaling) as the viewer feels closer and closer to them. This is cinematism; these figures are, in a sense, ballistic objects, moving through the scenery along the z-axis. Cinematism in this case furthers the implication made by the animetism in the opening shot, emphasizing that these events are taking place in a three-dimensional world.

Once the protestors have passed the camera, tanks begin to roll over the hill in the middle ground of the composition. Here, it appears neither animetism nor cinematism are taking place. Indeed, the tanks and the hill all seem to reside within the same plane, their gradually descending size from left to right across the frame the only indication of depth. However, these objects are still moving across the landscape, just as the fog in the background moves in the opposite direction. Therefore, although it is subtle, animetism is utilized to show that the tanks and the hill are distinct from the city and the fog. Depth in this instance is shallower than it was in the opening moments of the protest because there are only two planes evident; the tanks appear to move within the same plane as one another, but nevertheless, remain disparate entities from the background.

Screen Shot 2014-01-08 at 11.47.05 PM

Subsequently, the protestors are again shown head-on. This moment is an important counterpoint to the earlier sequence where cinematism is used to show the protestors as they run toward the camera. The shot opens with a camera tilt as it moves from facing the street vertically to the legs of the figures up to a view where it can capture the whole scene, including the buildings and the sky. In this case, there are at least four different planes through which the animators show that the crowd has depth.

In the front is a figure who stands in pure black silhouette in front of the crowd. Behind him are several other protestors whose torsos are also black, but whose legs are covered by the fog. This shows that they are behind the first figure. Behind them are many more protestors who seem to blend into one another. They are a shade of dark grey rather than black, separating them from any of the other planes in front of them. Finally, two buildings and a street lamp are relegated to the background. Unlike the scene where the animators used cinematism to show the protestors run toward the camera, this moment is a clear example of animetism; this is confirmed when the camera tilts along the y-axis past the crowd instead of in or out of depth. We know that the camera is not moving along the z-axis because the figures in the crowd do not grow or shrink in size, and yet nonetheless evidently exist in a deep multipanar environment.

In this sequence, although they remain constant in size and shape, the protestors move as if they are walking. Contextually, it can be implied that they are walking along z-axis – the street, in this case. But it remains unclear whether they are headed in the positive or negative z direction. For the viewer, though, the mob still seems to move toward the camera in this scene. One way the animators achieve this effect is by de-emphasizing the characters in the back. The less-focused, lighter group in the rear of the crowd seem to be one entity, while the figure in the front is clear, sharp, and obviously closer to the camera. This likens the rearguard to the undefined background rather than to the individual characters in the foreground.The pyramidal structure of the protestors also helps to give a sense of pointed direction to their motion; a line could be drawn over the heads of the protestors, peaking in the middle. In combination, the sense of depth, kinesis, and scene composition leads the viewer to believe that the crowd is moving forward.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • More
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Pages: 1 2 3

About Søren Hough

Søren is Editor-in-Chief at Movie Fail. He is a freelance journalist covering science, politics and film. He writes for RogerEbert.com, wrote for ScottFeinberg.com and served as the Assistant Arts Editor for Film and Television at The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.

Listen on Spotify

About Us            Meet Our Staff             FAQs             Privacy

Creative Commons License
Movie Fail is licensed under Creative Commons.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license are available at http://moviefail.com/faqs/.

Copyright © 2012–2025 Movie Fail · Magazine Pro Theme · WordPress

 

Loading Comments...