Personalities and Cinematography (student exercise)
What is the relationship between an emotion or effect on the viewer and the cinematography used to create it? How are personalities created on film?
In this exercise students were asked to identify the camera placements, angles, and movements as well as the lenses and lighting that could be used to create a particular effect. I gave students lists of personality traits as their starting point. In our analysis of films we’ve typically done the reverse- where we identify the effect or emotion created by particular techniques of cinema.
The personalities traits I gave students are among those identified in Dimensions of Brand Personality by Jennifer Aaker (Journal of Marketing Research, 1997). The general categories included excitement, sincerity, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. Students examined 3-4 traits in small groups before presenting their results to the class. Here are the results (page links out).
