What does Chaos Cinema means?

When audiences watches action sequences or dialogue sequences, the movements might be shaky, intensified, or even to an extent of feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information that is happening on screen. Audiences will receive the tension and chaoticity from this type of style under a particular sense of purpose.

The viewer attention span has became increasingly shortened (Stork, 2012) where directors started bringing in abrupted and faster cuts to accommodate this trend, especially with the aid of emergence of digital special effects. Growth of CGIs and other special effects enables the cultural shift towards a sensationalistic expression.

Cinematography and Editing Techniques

Compare the camera movements and the pacing of cutting away from shots. It is a good method to deliver disorganised mood. See how the Wicked uses mostly handheld camera with shaky movements and quick panning. The shots are being put together in a way that we audiences need to look closely on each frame to actually understand what is happening. With these techniques, it communicates to the audiences in more of a sensationalistic way instead of having a clear narrative. Whereas in Mary Poppins, much less chaotic feeling is delivered even they are both singing and dancing parts with lots of thing happening. The camera stay static at most of the time, even if it is panning, it is still panning with a tripod on. Cutting of shots happens much less frequent and it focus more on the coherence of narrative.

Problems with Chaos Cinema

Utilisation of chaos cinema techniques are risky and could easily bring confusion if not used intelligently. If the shots are not being properly communicated as the director intended, not only the destroys the believability in the film aesthetics, and fails in allowing people to comprehending the space and time in the film.

by Hermione Au 33725262

Reference

Chaos Cinema Part 2 (2012). Press Play. Available at: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/film-studies-in-motion/chaos-cinema-part-2-by-matthias-stork (Accessed: 28 November 2024).