Elements of Filmic Space

Elements of Filmic Space

We talk about time and space as if they were separate from each other. Actually they’re only different aspects of the same phenomenon. We know time as an accumulation of a series of events and their duration. What we know as space is an arrangement of the material objects of an event and our relationship to those objects. One doesn’t exist without the other. One is the duration and the other is the arrangement – of the same event. The same thing is true of filmic time and filmic space. Filmic time has to do with the manipulation and progression of an ellipsed order of events within a given time frame. Filmic space is concerned with the arrangement of the selected visual and aural elements of those ellipsed events within a given area. Each is a part of the same thing.

Real time and real space and filmic time and filmic space are inseparable but what is real and what is filmic are very different.

Filmic space is illusionary. It doesn’t exist is reality. It only exists on celluloid. Filmic space is created by photographing and then juxtaposing the photographed fragments of different spaces. By ‘cutting together’ different shots from different locations film form can instantaneously take the viewer from one place to another and create the illusion that distant places are contiguous.

Reaction shots and cutaways

Reactions shots and continuity editing cutaways are customarily a part of the scene in which the primary action is being performed. A reaction shot shows how others are reacting to what happening in the primary action. A cutaway shows something or someone else in the scene. Reactions shots and cutaways are not customarily specified as such in the screenplay. Reaction shots are traditionally a part of the film director’s coverage of a scene. Cutaways may be suggested in the screenplay or may be developed during production from elements within the mise-en-scene or actors business.

Intercutting

Intercutting – cutting back and forth between shots from two or more different scenes – is generally specified in the screenplay. This technique indicates that the actions are occurring simultaneously and/or reveals secondary but related actions.

Reorganising Time

In addition to expanding, contracting, and transitioning time, the motion picture medium can reorganise time. It can make the present come before the past, the future precedes the present, and the past follows the future. It can make what’s unreal seem real. The techniques for doing these omnipotent things are flashbacks, flash-forwards and dream and fantasy scenes and sequences.

The manipulation of time and reality is one of the most challenging of all filmic tools. It can be used very imaginatively or it can be used in a pedestrian way. If used as an integrated element of memory, expectation, anxiety, and desire, the manipulation itself can provide explanations; it calls attention to itself as a device and disrupts the dramatic flow of the story. In other words, the reorganisation of time and reality must grow out of and serve the story rather than be ‘tacked on’. The difference lies in the intended receiver of the information contained in the flashback, flash-forward, dream or fantasy.

When manipulating time periods, its important to immediately establish the rules of the game that will keep the audience aware of exactly what time frame they’re experiencing. Transitions can help you do this. Transitions can reveal the reason for the time manipulations at the same time they’re creating the connections that sustain forward movement and dramatic fluidity. There must be a compelling logic that demands the rearrangement of past, present and future. The mixing of time for the sake of mixing time is readily apparent and weakens structural unity. Each movement into a reorganisation of normal time requires its individual motivation, and collectively they must all fit into a pattern that forms an overall structural unity.