|
There
is tension, suspense, between the
beginning and the end of a film, as well as the beginning
and the end of a scene. The viewer's interest is aroused throughout
the film when there are even more moments of excitement in
the film. The central theme has often additional supporting
tensions.
If
the central tension is about "who murdered X in the men's
room?" one of the additional tensions could be "did
the small, quiet boy actually see the murderer?". In
a way, the main suspense carries the additional tension. The
additional tensions might even precede the main suspense or
the revelation of the actual theme
in the viewer's consciousness. Each scene
of a film needs its own moment of excitement. Hitchcock used
suspense cleverly in his film scenes. See e.g. "North
by Northwest".
Suspense
can be divided into smaller units. There is also suspense
in dialogues,
supporting the tension of the entire scene.
In
a film there is fundamentally tension between the beginning
and the end of each picture. According to Jan Kucera each
picture in a film answers a number of questions arisen from
the previous pictures, and presents, correspondingly, a number
of new questions. Just before the entire picture is seen,
before answers to all of the questions are given, one should
cut into the next picture.
Kucera
sees only two exceptions to this rule. The first picture of
a film answers no questions, it only presents them and, correspondingly,
the last picture no longer presents questions, it only answers
them.
Cf.
start-up
sequence and fade out in Olsson's model.
The
questions arisen from documentary films and video programs
can be different from those of fictive stories, but there
is a common factor is all films: attempting to get and hold
the attention of the viewer. A good program is absorbing and
takes you along. Structure,
form, is a means to create it.
Alfred
Hitchcock: North by Northwest (1959). [us.imdb.com/Title?0053125]
Studio Binder [What is Suspense — The Elements of Suspense Explained (studiobinder.com)]
|
