(Thesis)
Chapter 2. Image on TV
1. The beginning of the qualitative development of television
In the 1930s-1950s, Soviet television developed under the banner of technical and aesthetic searches, the formation of structures and the definition of program functions. This was the period of the emergence and initial development of television.
To some extent, the television of those years deserved comparison with the printing house, producing reproductions of painting.
By the end of the 50s, it was already possible to see works on the TV screen, in which the ability of television to independently create itself was clearly manifested, and more recently such an ability seemed unclear or simply denied.
The emergence of journalistic programs "irrefutably testified to the possibility of creating television messages proper, albeit still in the field of information, non-artistic."
Information programs began to appear in television programs, which were read by radio announcers in the frame. As a rule, these were repetitions of the “Last News” broadcasts. The first attempts at reporting with the commentary (except sports) were made in 1952-1953. These were programs from the Central House of Artists and from the industrial exhibitions that were then deployed in the Central Park of Culture and Rest. M. Gorky. Attempts to these interesting as the beginning of the development of television advances in broadcasting and cinema.
The report on the movie screen has already become a well-defined genre. In particular, it was clear that the announcer's commentary should be integral with the image, not duplicate it, but complement and enrich it. For a television screen depicting an event at the time of its occurrence, live speech is necessary, it is necessary "... a word created at the very moment of the flow of the event."
But on television, the proportion of conversational programs, speeches, and conversations is large. However, even in this case, some researchers talk about the inevitable primacy of the image: "even when the lecturer is on screen, the viewer's attention is largely focused on him as a person, on the process of birth of thought, and only then on the content of his statement" .
This, however, is a polemical sharpening. It seems that the process of the birth of thought, the purely external side of its formulation, hardly interests the viewer more than its content itself.
It would be ridiculous to deny the role of the image in the modern communication process. In the age of television, thought moves, relying primarily on iconic signs. However, this reliance on the image sometimes gives rise to a superficial analysis of phenomena, a statement of the purely external aspect of the event: "The aggressive power of these images, where they leave no room for reflection, analysis, drains the mind and soul of man, is immersed in a state of passive perception."
The specificity of television lies in the fact that it is a means of communication, and the telecast refers rather to the sphere of communication between the author and the audience, and not to a number of entertainment arts like cinema. That is why we observe on television "the prevalence of the verbal element over the plastic element: this is characteristic of a television message of any kind, since it is determined by the requirements of high communicativeness of the entire television journalism system."
The communicative factor also determines some features of the television image. Thus, initially, television was viewed as a consequence of technical imperfection of the picture on the television screen. However, with the development of television technology, with improved image quality and the appearance of color, television has not lost interest in the close-up. In television programs, close-up is natural and logical, contributes to a fuller and deeper understanding of the text, does not distract the viewer with the diversity of visuals.
2. Functions of the visual range
According to the apt expression of R. Kopylova, the image represents the "foundation of the visual image".
A. Montagu explains this fact by the fact that "the image is more meaningful, it gives a more direct impression than the sound."
Events on the television screen unfold in the sequence established during the image editing process, and the set of plans for constructing an installation phrase has a much smaller number of options than the set of possible combinations of words in the announcer text. This gives us the right to speak about the "determination of the verbal series by the assembly structure of the image."
The impact of television is certainly in the image. "The TV program always comes with the image above the sound."
Television of the 50s still surprised its viewers as a technical miracle, and it was for this period of television development - the period of its audience development - the thought of V.S. Sappak was quite fair: "We mainly watch, but only secondarily listen to the television screen ".
"The screen shows the actual occurrence of the event, makes the viewer" involved "in what is happening. It is not by chance that the telechronicians see their task in first of all ensuring that the events are promptly shown, subjecting the story to the image of living reality."
The image to the viewer is psychologically much closer, easier to “read” and requires less effort in perception. This statement is confirmed by the fact that "most people have better visual memory than auditory memory. Of what they see, 30% of the information remains, and 20% of what they hear."
And this is no accident, because from the point of view of semiotics, "the main feature of the pictorial sign is in its similarity with the object, which is absent from symbolic signs."
The main task facing the visual series is to provide an accurate and clear space-time orientation of the viewer in the event displayed on the screen.
With the current level of development of television technology, it is no longer enough just to show an event, you need to bring it as close to the viewer as purely as possible to the viewer, to make the viewer take part in the action on the screen.
If we talk about the characteristic features of modern tele-journalism, it is impossible not to note the recent trend towards a convergence of the style of the visual game and non-game style. The slogan “the reality within the frame should be understood aesthetically” was close to many directors and cameramen, and documentaries on the visual texture began to resemble more and more feature films.
Speaking about the shortcomings of the television image, we note that it is more of a graphic nature, unlike plastic in cinema. This feature of the television image is noted by many researchers, paying attention to the fact that "... the main difference between a TV picture and a photograph and a film image is the degree of its conventionality. A television image informs our eye less about the subject and space in less detail."
The lowercase flickering character of a television image does not allow transmitting as much visual information as the film does. Attempts to increase the information density of the television screen lead to the fact that the viewer needs much more time to view the image than would be necessary when watching a movie in a movie theater. "Because of the relatively lower image quality, it’s harder to perceive a TV show than a movie on the screen."
But is it really necessary immaculate quality television screen?
Необходимо учитывать, что, по выражению А. Моля, телевидение относится к числу "множественных каналов, через которые на получателя сообщения одновременно оказывается воздействие различными, наложенными друг на друга средствами". Количество информации, передаваемое каждым из каналов, не должно достигать определенного уровня насыщения, за порогом которого зритель будет "затоплен" потоком новых сведений.
Телевизионное изображение как иконический знак должно обладать достаточной лаконичностью, иначе зритель станет уделять излишне много внимания рассматриванию картинки, восприятию чисто внешней стороны сообщения и потеряет интерес к передаваемой информации в целом.
В пользу рассмотрения телевизионного изображения не изолированно, а как звена многоканальной цепи передачи аудиовизуальной информации, говорит интересное наблюдение Р. Н. Ильина о том, что "иллюзорному повышению четкости и даже объемности изображения на телевидении способствует высокое качество звука".
Таким образом, эти два канала взаимно влияют друг на друга, стремясь обеспечить некое техническое единство рождающегося на телевизионном экране образа. Значительно уступая в техническом отношении кинематографическому изображению, телевидение компенсирует этот недостаток достоверностью показываемого на экране. "Подлинность - вот первое и самое ценное качество телевизионного изображения".
3. Оптика и изображение
Cinematographers have long sought to combine in one frame the features of plans of different scales, that is, to fill the frame with information that is turned both to the feeling and to the mind of the audience at the same time. This is what determined the interest of cameramen to wide-angle optics, which has a large depth of sharply depicted space.
The short-focus lens "allowed one-dimensional, synchronously merging - to fuse! - large and general plans (the zoom combined them one frame), made it possible to maximally thicken the density of the" information field "in the film frame".
Plans taken with a short-focus lens well convey the landscape and interior, allow to show a large number of objects in one frame, make it possible to cover large spaces at once. "Wide-angles" well convey the movement of objects in the frame, especially when moving to the camera.
Short-focus optics greatly expanded the possibilities of shooting. The use of these lenses allows you to work even in such difficult conditions as shooting in trains, airplanes, moving cars.
In television journalism, which often uses the method of observation, the proportion of frames taken with the help of long-focus optics is still quite large. With such lenses, operators capture the most tense moments, convey to the viewer the emotions of the people being filmed.
Long-focus optics allows you to shoot from a distance without interfering with the course of events. The long-focus lens very well reveals the main object in the frame, separating it from the surrounding background, focuses the viewer's attention on it. However, long-focus optics have the ability to "flatten" the perspective, as it seals the object to the background, deprives the frame of space and slows down movement in the frame. Therefore, the "long focus" is used mainly in conjunction with the zoom lens, which allows the viewer to orient in space and then sharply or smoothly bring the object closer to the viewer, giving him emotional information.
In recent years, such lenses with variable focal lengths have become very widespread (the so-called zoom lenses, or zoom lenses). At the disposal of operators today are lenses with a ten- or even twenty-fold focal length range. Other innovations are also being introduced, such as electronic zoom, which ensures that the subject is approached 100 times or more.
Zoom allows you to observe the movement of an object in a frame for a long time, quickly and accurately compose a frame, almost instantly move from a general plan to a large one without an assembly gap. This technique allows you to combine shooting and editing. Applying the zoom, film-camera operators in the conditions of sequential shooting get the opportunity to build a frame according to the principle of “deep stage setting”, when, depending on the content of the frame, the scale of the image changes from the semantic activity of one or another character.
4. Color in film and television
Of great interest is the use in audio-visual information of one of the most important artistic and graphic means - color. If television switched to the display of informational materials in color rather easily, the newsreel as a whole held on to a black and white image for quite a long time.
Perhaps this was due to the common opinion that the color image is characterized by the passivity of the light pattern and reduced dramatic expressiveness.
All this is to some extent true, but it matters more for gaming cinema, where black and white plastic can give the corresponding independent artistic effect.
Apparently, in recent years, the withdrawal of cinema from the "multi-color" image and the increased interest in the so-called "color" film, where any single background color predominates in the frame, are not accidental.
This reception is not a discovery of our days. The effect of “color” cinema was also used by S. Eisenstein in the second series of the film “Ivan the Terrible”.
In essence, a “color” film is a return to the monochrome of a black and white image, but at a higher level. In this case, the color is chosen by the author in advance, enters directly into the structure of the cinematic image. In this sense, the film by A. Vaida "Bereznyak" is interesting, where there is an amazing blue-blue background color according to drama as a symbol of the inevitability of the death of one of the heroes, seriously ill with tuberculosis.
The event information highlights the task of obtaining the most reliable, realistic image of an object that is not distorted by light effects and complex editing. In accordance with this task, "the color on television should give us the color of living reality."
The orientation of television on the color image made the documentary filmmakers, forced to reckon with television as the main channel for the distribution of audiovisual information today, to move decisively to shooting in color. In his study of the expressive resources of the screen, R. N. Ilyin noted that "color will be of particular importance precisely in information and documentary programs. A color report from the scene will probably form the basis of the television of the future."
5. Scale of shooting
Information frame saturation largely depends on the scale of the shooting.
Close-up has enhanced analyticity, well conveys the psychological state of a person. Using a close-up, the cameraman and the director can draw the viewer's attention to some characteristic detail, which, according to the authors, is especially important for comprehending the image created on the screen. It is this image property that primarily interests television publishers.
Close-up is used differently in movies and on television. In the cinema, close-up is included in the general editing rhythm, participates in the construction of an autonomous space-time structure, different from reality. Here, close-up is a kind of rhythmic accent, a stop in time, emphasizing the dynamics of the general narration.
On television, close-up is organically included in the general rhythm of the real flow of time. Therefore, close-up on television is more independent and can be kept on the screen for as long as desired - as the event takes place.
Naturally, in this case the word forming the basis should form the image. That is why television programs of the “conversational” genre are possible and quite natural, built primarily on close-ups: “Double Portrait”, “Rush Hour”, “One-on-One”, “My Family”, “We”, “Man in Mask” and so on. Indeed, such programs can be watched for hours, literally without taking your eyes off the TV screen.
And finally, the main feature of the close-up, which, perhaps, determined the interest in him on television, was that the close-up "is a plan of direct communication with the interlocutor," allows you to make contact with each viewer individually, to talk with him as if alone. S. Obraztsov attaches great importance to this possibility, considering this to be a feature of television, which, in fact, "makes the program a new, independent genre of art, its kind".
Medium and general plans are much richer in information. They give the effect of the continuity of the flow of life in its screen version, show the event, the action as a whole.
If the close-up is designed for sensory perception, then in general terms messages addressed to the consciousness of the viewer prevail. Showing an interest in a person, concentrating his attention on him, "television uses a close-up plan as a tool of observation, analysis." However, where it is necessary to show the action, to inform the viewer about a specific event, phenomenon, the authors of the programs resort mainly to the average and general plans, and not by chance: "in documentary television reporting, the general and average plans are used much more often."
6. Point shooting and angle.
The operator's skill is largely determined by his ability to choose the right shooting point, to find the necessary angle, which will most fully reveal the volumetric shape of the subject, to express the attitude of the authors to the image.
As a rule, informational materials are shot in rather tough temporary conditions and sometimes without detailed elaboration of the shooting plan. In this case, the operator is sometimes not in search of interesting points of shooting, and this leads to errors in the visual series, which negate all the efforts of the film crew.
It is not always possible to find a frame-symbol of the event, which would tie together everything that was removed even from a not very interesting perspective. But if this succeeds, the winning video sequence is obvious. Perspective surveys give the image on the screen greater expressiveness, expanding the viewer's view of the object being depicted.
Sightseeing surveys require considerable mobility of camera cameras and are usually carried out using wide-angle optics. That is why the foreshortening was little used by television until such time as there was enough lightweight hand-held television cameras and television cranes, including those operated remotely. Now, television increasingly goes to show events from unusual at first glance points of shooting.
Thus, the appearance in the last decade of mobile equipment has allowed to significantly diversify the visual range of television programs.
7. Movement in the frame and installation
Television allows not only to show the form of objects, but also their movement, the development of action in space and time.
Movement on TV screens is present in three forms. The movement of people, objects in front of a fixed camera is called an objective movement. In television journalism, this type of movement is usually chaotic, unorganized.
Recently, along with the proliferation of lightweight portable video cameras and lenses with a variable focal length, the viewer is increasingly being offered a subjective movement in the frame obtained by moving the shooting equipment itself.
This type of movement is more dynamic, has a pronounced expressiveness and is fully controlled by the director and the operator, that is, is thoughtful and focused.
Shooting on videotape is usually quite dynamic, because the viewer in the video image, first of all, is interested in the action itself, the course of the event. In the case of building a television program with studio material, the visual series is largely static, with a long fixation of the image on the screen. In this case, the image carries a minimum of information; the main content, the thought is contained in the text of the transmission.
Recently, as it seems to me, under the influence of foreign television products, our television has begun to pay more attention to the studio picture: the event taking place in the studio is shown from several cameras, often using even trajectory shooting, which, of course, facilitates the perception of video information, makes a picture of studios more diverse, not boring. Most recently, the reception of the trajectory shooting began to be used when creating the program "Field of Miracles" and a little earlier - "KVN".
Recently, with the creation of television programs, there has been a tendency towards a rational combination of the technique of direct shooting and video recording. When planning the ratio of the use of these two methods are mainly based on considerations of economy and technical capabilities of existing equipment.
Shooting directly with video cameras is much more convenient than video recording equipment. However, rewriting on a magnetic tape gives ample opportunities in the field of image transformation, creation of combined frames and a variety of special effects, it makes it possible to use in the telecast chronical frames and in advance prepared video clips.
It turned out that the television image is distinguished by a slower (compared to the movie) tempo. Therefore, when installing fragments of newsreels, the image is often slowed down, numerous frame stops are required. All this allows the viewer to mark and assimilate the nodal points, to comprehend what he saw in more full, to correlate thoughts and feelings, information and emotions.
Very often, some footage of the newsreel needs to be “scrolled” repeatedly, since the camera was in a hurry at the time of the shooting, she only needed to give information at the fact level. And only now, decades later, on the television screen, this frame acquires a new meaning: repeated over and over again, enlarging before our eyes, the fact frame becomes a reflection frame within the same editing phrase.
So, we have already come into contact with the third type of action on the screen - with a temporary movement that reaches the viewer through editing. Installation is generally referred to as the strongest artistic tool. For example, the editing experiments of L. Kuleshov immediately brought the cinema out of the attraction into the series of art. Since then, the installation has become much more complicated, its various techniques have taken shape.
Installation has long lost its original value of mechanical gluing. Today, montage is not only a mechanical or electronic connection of various frames into something single; "montage is the syntax of a movie or broadcast, a way of being a composition of screen elements."
Already the first programs of domestic television showed the difference between television editing and video editing. The television director mounts at the very moment of the shooting and the show, while the video editor has a longer timeline:
the time of the event and its shooting;
period of preview, selection of material;
editing of the film in collaboration with the screenwriter;
film hire, its perception and evaluation by the audience.
In cinema, editing is a means of managing time, and using editing, cinema time can be either stretched or compressed, that is, you can actually create your own on screen — cinematic time, which is almost always different from the actual flow time of the event recorded by the camera. In a television program, editing has several other functions.
In live TV there is one time - the present, which is not amenable to any compression or stretching by any technical tricks. The installation of a television program is actually reduced to the sequential switching of cameras within one specific event that is currently taking place in the place where the cameras are installed.
The time on a television screen, as a rule, corresponds to the actual time of the event, the viewer of which becomes an observer. Compared to F. Fellini’s fast, neatly montage on a movie screen, striving for brevity, selecting the climaxes, nodal points of events unfolding in front of the viewer, in the “live” TV show, each picture must be included in a stretched, tedious and repetitive rhythm "replete with peculiar visual pauses and forced repetitions, for" television editing, especially on the air, follows the movement of real time. "
And one more note about the movement on the screen. More precisely, its absence. Television is very cautious about a completely static frame. For some reason, the slide-film that has become popular among photo amateurs has not attracted the attention of specialists working in the audiovisual information system. But under certain conditions, well-directed change and combination of voiced images can achieve the same effect as filming.
V. Peskov, who quite often uses photographs in the television program “In the world of animals,” wrote: “I was convinced that the photographs on the television screen greatly benefit. The image, while still, still comes alive and breathes. Even the technically weak screenshots gain extraordinary strength and attractiveness. "
RN Ilyin says about how “cinematic” pictures can be. The meaning of his statements on this score comes down to the fact that the photograph on the screen is much easier for the viewer to understand, it allows you to immediately understand the main idea of the author, to focus and keep on this main viewer's attention as much time as necessary.
And, finally, "the use of photography liberates the word." A photograph on the screen as if engages the viewer in the very process of creativity, allows you to complete the image, predict the possible development of the frame, activates the dynamics of the audience's thought.
8. Using a technically unsatisfactory image.
One of the distinguishing features of the modern television image is its "Americanization" that has begun. It is known that American television attaches great importance to the operational display of news from the scene. In this case, TV directors sometimes look through their fingers at the technical imperfection of the image: let the “picture” not be very good, but then the TV viewer can see everything himself.
The clearest example of this kind of work is the programs from the CNN cycle “No Comment” cycle. Suffice it to recall the bloody farce played out by our leaders in October 1993, as if specifically for the operational American television reporters to earn a few extra points in the treasury of their company's credibility.
Cameras installed on buildings in Moscow during the execution of the Russian parliament, the image was transmitted sometimes with malfunctions, sometimes more general than we would like, a plan. The image was sometimes shaky due to the use of a powerful zoom-in zoom, there were other flaws. But all this was watched with incredible interest by those viewers who were fortunate enough to tune in to the CNN channel.
The technical imperfection of individual frames is justified if they contain really interesting information that can make the viewer not pay attention to the blurring, instability or increased graininess of the image. Literally fascinating, forcing to empathize, the chronicle footage of the Chechen war, often taken by amateur operators with the help of non-professional equipment.
The use of a technically imperfect image is used in feature films. Take again the contemporaries.
A. Tarkovsky. Not being able to speak at home, the film director went beyond its limits and created there, in particular, the film "Sacrifice." It is naive to believe that some frames of this film, and the main color scheme of the whole work was created on the basis of low-quality films. Rather, on the contrary: better foreign equipment provided more opportunities for various variations of the master, the result of which was somewhere smoggy, veiled, somewhere almost black and white frames, which lead the attentive viewer to the corresponding thoughts of the author.
Do not miss the reception of "damage" of the image and the creators of television entertainment and some journalistic programs. Frame flicker, its imbalance, broken composition, simulated elements of technical defects (fast tape rewind, stripes and deliberate graininess) create an extraordinary image on the screen, catching the eye no worse than immaculate in quality and well-made scenes.
This method has been successfully used by the programs Muzoboz, U Ksyusha, Dolls, Morning Post, Man and the Law, and some others. On the television screen, the flaws in the composition, the delivered light at random, and some other minor errors that we talked about above, not only do not diminish the impression of the transmission, but even on the contrary, as if reinforce the reliability of the television image, convince the viewer of the momentary display.
With the development of television, it turned out that "there is no need and no possibility to create a complete, closed-circuit image on television."
It turned out that when working on a television movie, operators were often hampered by the desire for completeness and completeness of the frame. It turned out that the television image required a fundamentally different approach to the shooting process. There is no opportunity to pay much attention to the finishing of each frame, "it was necessary to think not as separate frames, but as whole episodes".
Following theorists, television practices quickly understood this: the screenwriter and director I. Belyaev was the first to put forward the slogan of "active negligence," and urged to artificially create in the television film a sense of the image not being worked out.
Following this slogan and principle allowed the authors of films to more freely handle the material, expanded the possibilities for the realization of the original idea. If earlier, due to the short duration of the shooting period, many frames had to be abandoned or rejected, thrown away during installation due to minor technical errors, now television directors and cameramen have got more creative freedom.
The image on the TV screen, oddly enough, becomes more alive, more perceived by the viewer. Note that the last statement is true only in case of using a technically imperfect image at the right time and in the right place.
9. Split screen and its features
As you know, the assimilation of information is facilitated by comparing various messages united by a common thought or topic. Such a comparison underlies the contrastive connection of plastic and sound images, which usually attracts the attention of viewers.
At the same reception, a multi-screen display system is also built, when several images are viewed by the viewer at the same time, rather than one after another. The split-screen effect contributes to the formation of more general concepts in the mind of the viewer, giving a broader picture of the event than a single image.
The system of multi-screen film projection, usually called multi-vision, is quite difficult to understand, requires a special concentration of attention from the viewer. Because of this, multivision should be used very carefully.
This complexity of the selection of material should not deter the publicists, since the strongest effect of the emotional impact of the split screen on the viewer justifies the effort expended. A multi-screen system in a pure, so to speak, form requires specially equipped cinema halls with multiple screens and sophisticated sound-reproducing apparatus (stereo or quadrophonic installations).
In practice, however, the method of splitting an ordinary single-screen image into several independent cells is used, creating a kind of “split screen on one screen”. The information density of such a "polycadron" increases dramatically.
This technique is successfully used by modern television publishers in announcing their programs, as well as at the beginning of each new program in order to remind the viewer of the content of the previous one. An example of the use of a split screen can be found in the programs "Travel Club" and "Unlucky Notes".
To summarize: in more than 40 years of qualitative development, television has left the creation of simple "reproductions" of reality and has begun to create a reality itself called virtual. The image has become very dynamic, multi-scale, multi-view and color, as a result of which the informational saturation of the visual series has increased significantly.
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General psychology
Terms: General psychology