Slides from day 2 of my teaching on media at Bible & Culture 2015 (www.bibleandculture.org). This session is about the five dimensions of engaging with films, and about how to read a film – looking carefully at film-making techniques which may give clues to the meaning and message of the movie.

1. Film Analysis

2. 3 Dimensions of Art

3. Beauty
Goodness
Truth

5. 5 dimensions of
engagement

6. Aesthetic

7. The world of
sounds, the world
of forms, the world
of tints, and the
world of poetic
ideas, can have no
other source than
God . . .

8. . . . and it is our
privilege as bearers
of his image, to
have a perception
of this beautiful
world, artistically to
reproduce it, and
humanly to enjoy it.
Abraham Kuyper

9. Emotional
© Phil Shirley, used under a Creative Commons licence

10. The moving image
stirs our emotions
rather than engaging
our minds.
Ingmar Bergman

11. ‘‘Each fictional world creates a
unique cosmology and makes its
own ‘rules’ for how and why things
happen within it. No matter how
realistic or bizarre the setting, once
its causal principles are established,
they cannot change.
Robert McKee, Story, p. 70

12. Intellectual

13. ‘‘[Works of art] are not simply the
oozings of subconscious impulses;
they are the result of beliefs and
goals on the part of the artist.
Nicholas Wolterstorff

14. Surface see it as entertainment
Middle realise that there is a message
Deep realise traces of worldviews

15. 5 worldview
dimensions
humanity
reality knowledge
ethics redemption

16. Moral

17. ‘‘We must recognise ‘ways in which
movies either illuminate our world
and our lives with glimmers of
transcendence or cast shadows of
brokenness and alienation.’
Gordon Matties

18. • Does the film deal with life with
integrity?
• Does it ask the right questions about
life?
• To what extent is the moral behaviour
in the film consistent with biblical
morality?
• What stance does the film take
towards the moral behaviour it
portrays?

19. Spiritual

20. Spirituality concerns
how humans relate to
reality – to themselves,
to each other, to the
world around them and
(most importantly) to
ultimate reality – via
their worldview beliefs,
concomitant attitudes
and subsequent
behaviour.
Peter S. Williams

21. Despite our
constant talk about
the lordship of
Christ, we have
narrowed its scope
to a very small area
of reality. We have
misunderstood the
concept of the
lordship of Christ . .
.

22. . . . over the whole
of man and the
whole of the
universe and have
not taken to us the
riches that the Bible
gives us for
ourselves, for our
lives and for our
culture.
Francis Schaeffer

23. Reading a Film

24. Meaning

25. mise en scène
montage
(editing)
dialogue
soundtrack
actors’
performances
Space Tim
e
cinematography

26. Indicators of
significance
lighting
focus
point of view
looks
motifs
repeated words
sounds
music

27. Mise en scène

28. locationset layout
blocking
(positioning of actors)
set design
props
costumes

29. focus
choice of lenspoint of view
balancelighting
camera movement

30. Whose point of view does the
camera represent?

31. Are particular visual elements
used as symbols, metaphors,
or pointers?

32. Editing

33. • Selecting best takes
• Shots cut and reassembled to create
scenes
• Scenes assembled into sequences
• Sequences arranged into the final
film

34. My job as an editor
is to gently prod the
attention of the
audience to look at
various parts of the
frame. And I do that
by manipulating, by
how and where I cut
and what success-
ion of images I work
with.
Walter Murch

35. simple cuts
dissolves and wipes
match cuts
cross-cutting
jump cutsmontages

36. How does the film’s editing
contribute to the meaning of
the film?

37. Films as narrative

38. Characters

39. What choices do the
characters make? Why?

40. How do the main characters
change?

41. What do they discover?

42. Structure

43. goals

44. What causes the major turning
points?

45. Why does the film end this
way?

46. tonywatkins.co.uk