What does Meng Taiji mean?

Montage is a general term for the form and method of film composition.

Montage - is the transliteration of French montage. It was originally a term in French architecture, meaning composition and assembly. It was later borrowed, and its extended use in movies is editing and combination, indicating the assembly and connection of shots.

To put it simply, montage is to shoot a film into many shots according to the content to be expressed in the film and the psychological sequence of the audience, and then put them together according to the original concept. In a nutshell: montage is a means of joining together split shots.

It can be seen that montage is a means of connecting the shots captured by the camera according to the logic of life, the order of reasoning, the author's perspective and tendency, and its aesthetic principles. First, it's the means of using the camera, and then it's the means of using the scissors.

Of course. Movie montage is mainly achieved through the re-creation of directors, photographers and editors. The screenwriter of the movie designs a blueprint for future movies, the director of the movie uses montage to recreate it based on this blueprint, and finally the photographer uses the expressive power of the film's modeling to concretely embody it.

In the production of a movie, the director shoots many shots according to the theme of the script or the film, and then organizes and edits these different shots organically and artistically according to the original creative concept. Together, they can produce coherence, contrast, association, suspense and other connections as well as different rhythms, thereby selectively forming a film that reflects a certain social life, thoughts and feelings, and is understood and loved by the audience. These constitute The form and means of composition are called montage.

To sum up, it can be seen that the basic element of film is the lens, and the main way and means of connecting the lenses is montage, and it can be said that montage is a unique expression method of film art.

Since the smallest unit of a film is the shot, what exactly is the basic element of the film - the shot? What does it have to do with montage? 7 We know that a lens is a piece of film shot from different angles, at different focal lengths, at different times, and processed differently. In fact, the montage technique has been used since the beginning of the filming.

As far as the lens is concerned, shooting from different angles will naturally have different artistic effects. For example, front shot, Yangbai, overhead shot, side shot, backlight, filter, etc., the effects are obviously different. For lenses shot at the same focal length, the effects are also different. For example, long shot, panorama, medium shot, close shot, close-up, extreme close-up, etc., the effects are different. Furthermore, the lenses after different processing will also produce different artistic effects. In addition, due to the use of spaces, indentation, promotion and other techniques, various specific artistic effects are also brought about. Furthermore, due to the different times used for shooting, long lenses and short lenses are produced, and the length of the lens will also produce different effects.

At the same time, when connecting scenes and paragraphs, you can choose to use different connection methods according to different amplitudes of changes, different rhythms and different emotional needs, such as talking, melting, drawing, cutting, Circle, pinch, push, pull, etc. All in all, what kind of shots are shot and what kind of shots are put together. What method is used to connect the shots that are arranged together? The method and means used by the filmmakers to solve this series of problems are Mondaqi. If pictures and sounds are the "vocabulary" used by a film director to communicate with the audience, then the montage method used to combine pictures and sounds into shots and use the combination of shots to form the rules of the film is the director's "grammar".

For a film director, mastering these basic principles does not mean mastering "grammar". Montage often presents various appearances in the specific content and aesthetic pursuit of each film.

For the audience, montage is from point to point. For the director, montage first goes from combining to dividing, then cutting, and then from dividing to combining again, that is, combination. The smallest unit of cutting is a shot, so the director should write a shot-by-shot script. As an audience, how should we appreciate the director's art from the perspective of montage? After all, montage is a method used by directors to tell stories; listeners always hope that the story will be told smoothly, vividly, and be infectious, and can arouse the audience's associations and arouse the audience's interest. These requirements are fully applicable to montage. . The audience is not just satisfied with understanding the plot summary. Or generally comprehend the ideas of the film, but require a clear and smooth perception of every link and detail of the film's narrative process. A montage of a film should first be understood by the audience.

Nowadays, a contemporary story film generally consists of about 500 to 1,000 shots. The scene, angle, length, movement form of each shot, and the way the picture and sound are combined all contain elements of montage. It can be said that montage has been used since the beginning of the shot. At the same time, the photographer’s will, emotion, praise and criticism, and ingenuity are already included in the handling of the angle, focal length, and length of the lens.

In the arrangement, combination and connection between shots, the subjective intention of the photographer is more clearly reflected.

Because each lens does not exist in isolation, its form must be related to the upper and lower lenses connected to it, and different relationships produce different artistic effects such as continuity, jump, strengthening, weakening, parallelism, and contrast. On the other hand, the combination of shots not only plays a role in vividly describing the content of the shot, but also generates new meanings that the individual shots themselves may not be able to express. Griffith's first attempt to use montage in film history was an experiment that combined a shot of a man on a desert island with a close-up of his wife waiting at home. After such " The audience felt "waiting" and "sorrow", and created a new and special imagination. o In addition, if a group of short shots are arranged together and connected by a quick cut method, the artistic effect will be different if the shots of the same group are arranged together and connected by a "lightening" or "brightening" method. Same.

For another example, if the following three shots A, B, and C are connected in different orders, different contents and meanings will appear.

A. A person is laughing; B. A pistol is pointed directly; C. The same person has a look of shock on his face.

What kind of impression do these three close-ups create on the audience?

If you connect them in the order of A-B-C, the audience will feel that the person is a coward and a coward. Now, if the shots remain unchanged, we only need to change the order of the above shots, and we will draw the opposite conclusion.

C. A man's face shows a stern expression, B. A pistol is pointed directly at him; A. The same man is smiling.

If you connect them in the order of C-B-A, the person's face shows a look of fear because there is a pistol pointed at him. However, when he thought about it, he felt that it was not a big deal, so he laughed - laughed in front of death. Therefore, he strikes the audience as a brave man.

In this way, changing the order of shots in a scene, without changing each shot itself, completely changes the meaning of a scene, draws diametrically opposite conclusions, and receives completely different effects. .

This coherent organizational arrangement is the use of the unique montage method of film art, which is what we call the structural issue of the film. From the above examples, we can see the importance of this arrangement and combination structure. It is an important means of organizing materials together to express the ideas of the film. at the same time. Due to the different arrangement and combination, different artistic effects such as positive and negative, deep and rich, strong and weak are produced.

The Soviet film master Eisenstein believed that A shot plus B shot is not a simple synthesis of A and B shots, but will become the new content and concept of C shot. He clearly pointed out: "The alignment of the two montage shots is not the sum of two numbers, but more like the product of two numbers - this fact was correct before and still seems to be correct today. The reason why it is more like the product of two numbers The product of two numbers rather than the sum of two numbers lies in the fact that the result of the arrangement is qualitatively (or "dimensionally" if you want to use mathematical terms) water far different from the individual constituent factors. The above example. The woman - this is a picture, and the mourning clothes on the woman - this is also a picture; both pictures can be expressed in real objects, and are produced by the juxtaposition of these two pictures. 'Widow' is no longer something that can be represented by a physical object, but a new representation, a new concept, and a new image."

It can be seen that the use of montage can be used. The connection of shots creates new meanings, which greatly enriches the expressive power of film art, thereby enhancing the appeal of film art. Regarding this question, we can also get great inspiration from a phenomenon in physics: As we all know, carbon and diamond are two substances. In terms of their molecular composition, they are the same. But one is surprisingly crispy and the other is extremely hard. The results of the research by scientists have proved why: it is because of the different molecular arrangements (character structures). This means that the same materials, due to different arrangements, can produce such completely opposite results, which is really thought-provoking.

Hungarian film theorist Béla. Balazs also pointed out: "Once the previous shots are connected, the unusually rich meanings hidden in each shot are emitted like electric sparks." It can be seen that this "electric spark"-like meaning is captured by a single shot. The "potential" things that people are not aware of must be "assembled" before they can create a new and special imagination. When we talk about montage, we first refer to the relationship between lens and lens, and also include the relationship between time and space, sound and picture, picture and color, etc. As well as the meanings and functions generated by these group relationships.

In short, "montage is the connection method of the film. The whole film has a structure, and each chapter, each large section, and each small section must also have a structure. In the movie, this connection method It's called montage. In fact, it means composing the individual shots into a segment, then organizing the individual segments into a large segment, and then organizing the individual large segments into a movie. There is no mystery or anything in this process. What's the trick? If it's in line with the logic of reason and sensibility, in line with the logic of life and vision, and looks 'smooth', 'reasonable', rhythmic, and comfortable, then this is a clever montage. On the contrary, it's a shabby montage.

"There has never been such a profound and easy-to-understand explanation and elaboration of montage.