"Realism" in Film

[Alexander Disenhof]

Hey everybody, its been a long while since I posted here, but I am currently doing research for my Senior thesis, and I figured this would be a great place to get some opinions and information.

 

My basic thought is that all narrative films present the "unreal" as "real" by the very nature of how they are made. With this in mind, my thesis is concerned with realism in film. What is reality, and how does filmmaking construct and manipulate it?

 

I was hoping to get some ideas about how the process of making movies manipulates reality, and HOW it does that?

 

An example I can think of off the top of my head is that when lighting a space in a film, many times one will try to avoid casting multiple shadows, with the fear the audience will recognize (at least subconsciously) that it is "lit" (Even though, of course, it IS lit). Yet, in real life, objects have multiple shadows a majority of the time, depending on how many light sources there are. Thus, when creating a scene where things only cast one shadow, the filmmaker is constructing a separate reality that, for some reason, is more readily accepted by audiences.

 

Of course, film uses many different tools to construct this reality, not just lighting and cinematography. Do people have any thoughts?

 

 

Alex D.

[Paul Bruening]

We just did this topic. But, I'm not finding it with "search".

[Will Earl]

Paul, were you thinking of this thread?

[Paul Bruening]

Thanks, Will.

[Thomas James]

The most realistic film format ever produced is the 3D Omnimax HD Dome format. This format is projected inside of a tilted dome with a triangular aspect ratio of 180 degrees horizontal and 120 degrees vertical so it puts you inside of the picture with objects popping out of the screen. So this is the ultimate widest and highest screen possible. The high definition Imax HD format also projects at 48 frames per second for the most realistic look possible. Regular Imax projects at 24 frames per second.