PHI PHENOMENON BY MAX WERTHEIMER

Max Wertheimer was an Austro-Hungarian-born psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. He is well known for his productive thinking and his idea of Phi Phenomenon and his contribution on Gestalt psychology. He began formulating in 1910 on phi phenomenon. He published his experiments in a paper which was tilted as experimental studies on the perception on movements. Phi phenomenon was a movement caused by light positions. Wertheimer illustrated his phenomenon on the objects which he built that had two lights on different locations. The lights were stationary; flashing at intervals caused the retina to catch it as a moving ray. He along with his partners started collecting the data and then started with the Gestalt movement.

            The quality of the data was quiet different from other parts of the elements. Phi phenomenon was the movement which had the total concept of eye being at the central position. As the eye it moves in response to the flashes of lights. The experiences of the observer are totally based on feedback from the moving eyes. Phi phenomenon is an illusion where certain perceptions of motions are produced in a succession of certain images. Phi phenomenon is used to refer an illusion which is not fully understood, as it’s a visual perception. Max Wertheimer led perception and gave birth to new ideas through discovery. Illusions entertain people, reflect their curiosity and also appreciate for creativity regarding human nature. The cinema has changed and even the audience wants something new, but with the blend of culture. Due to the increase in technology and all 3D cinemas came into this world. Cinema gave birth to illusions of motion picture where one can explore illusions as a medium to cinema.

            Its is popularly known for the motion illusion it creates and in reality the black space that comes between real movie frame are not seen, which makes phi phenomenon true for motion illusion in cinema and animation. Phi phenomenon can be observed when an audience is watching something on a screen where the projector projects two images at the same time. Due to the same timing and same spacing the viewer will experience a sensation of motion between those images.

CONSTRUCTIVISM

Constructivism was a philosophy in artistic and architecture which was originated in Russia during 1919 which had rejected the idea of autonomous art. The agitation or the movement was in favour of art as a practise for social purpose and had a great effect on modern art movements and also influenced major trends during the 20^th century. Like Bauhaus and De Stijl movement was regarding architecture, music, dance, graphic, theatre, fashion, etc. Constructivism in film explains how people might acquire knowledge and then learn. It is directly application ton education. The theory is all about human acquiring knowledge and meaning from their experiences, which is not a specific element. Constructivism has also influenced the teaching techniques with some research and certain results for this research.

            It’s the idea that learning does not just happen by traditional methods of teaching by standing in front of their class. People such as Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky etc also contributed for this theory. Constructivism is an epistemological belief about what knowing is and how one comes to know. They believe in individual interpretations about realty. Constructivism in film examines certain experiments of early Soviet film makers with special features regarding constructivist film to literature, painting,     architecture, design. It is not concerned with the knowledge, but with the mechanisms of knowledge which is constructed.

            Many scholars have put forth there explanation regarding constructivism, as Von Glasersfeld describes it as, theory of knowledge with roots in philosophy, psychology and cybernetics. Constructivism is all about instruction. Like discovery learning, experimenting, collaboration, basically based on teaching and learning process. Didactic approach towards constructivism as behaviourism and program instructions is all about learning is an active process which slowly and gradually increases the knowledge. And knowledge is based on personal experiences and in our surroundings. Learners continuously check these hypotheses through social negotiations. As each and every person has different interpretations and knowledge; level. The learner is not in a blank state but connects his past experiences and other factored for a situation.

            Constructive discards certain philosophy such as: knowledge is an individual person with some truth in it, meanings can be transferred via symbols, signs, learners can take copies of notes for their own use, concepts can be broken into sub concepts and learning can be in the form of complex, realistic, provide social negotiations, self-awareness etc. Constructivism is basically a model of research in cinema that uses concepts like theoretical construction, development, effects in cinema and there historical experiences.

FEATURE OF RUDOLF ARNHEIM’S THEORY OF FILM

Rudolf Arnheim was a German-born author, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. In all was the best personality in film studies, best known for his landmarks book on silent cinema film art. He wrote major books on art, creativity which was known widely. He slowly and gradually became scholar and the most famous person in fields of art, history and gave tremendous contributions in the field of cinema. Later in the field of aesthetics, perception and emotion proved to be an important element in the field of film studies.

            Later on his work on visual arts brought change in films and media, and also reassessing some changes in film theories, which proved to be a help in refining the film as art and related concepts. His topics on film writings in modernism, antipathy to sound and colour in film, formation of his early ideas on films against social, political, methodology, digital media had a wide discussion. Arnheim used to believe that most productive idea comes during early twenties. And then they think on that idea and try to explore it. His idea regarding life and the world was in patterns, shapes and colours of the world. And hence he believed that to understand them in a better way, we need to explore them.  He gave lots of importance to artwork and said it’s the visual thinking and ways to express and help people understand the world and to show that the world changes according to one’s mind.

            There were certain innovations he had dreamt of which includes: special camera that films scenes in five language that to at the same time, technique of recording sound on a thread, for editing by a dress-maker or tailor, a telescope that radiated invisible ultraviolet rays you discover violations of public moral built in cinema, discovery of film bacteria that infected the audience and led to screen phobia, invention of close-up. Despite of his geographical and cultural aspects, Arnheim was a famous person in the Italian cultural during thirties. He was forced to take new escape leading to stop his passion for cinema; however his contribution was much better.

            Due to his different perspectives, he had a humanistic approach and was not opposed to scientific thought. He had a wide knowledge regarding technical innovations in film making which them broaden lots of borders to aesthetics films and there experience. He has helped the new generation of critics and directors to broaden their horizons and move beyond idealism towards realistic.

RHETORIC KEEPING FILM INTO PERSPECTIVE

Rhetoric is the art which aims at improvement of writers, speakers who attempt to inform, persuade, and motivate the audiences. Rhetoric basically came from Greek around late in 19^th century, which means public speaker. According to Aristotle, rhetoric is ability, of each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion." He described three main forms of rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. During those eras there were hardly such movements which were run on a single basis. Threes something substantial which goes on after rhetoric effect. There are few trends like increase self consciousness about cinema history, lowered film making, film production etc.

            So then whets the point in these new waves, it’s the new aesthetics of directions. Rhetoric has several types in it such as ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is the ethical appeal by way of convincing the character. Pathos means emotional way of appealing the readers or the viewers. Logos means logical by means of persuading by way of reasoning. Logos has been derived from Greek word which refers to word of internal consistency of messages. It has the greatest impact on the audiences. Ethos has been derived from Greek word which means character and also refers to the trust worthiness of the writer. Pathos means suffering or experience. Generally it’s associated with the emotions led out.

            Those films which are used as an example are due to their styles of presentation. Horror movies are currently in fashion now days. Are there any rhetoric devices which the film makers untie, so that they have less work during narration? Story is classy one no doubt about that, but what the film makers lack in is that they try to make the audience feel that whatever they are showing is pretty much true, whereas the audience knows the difference between reality and reel cinema.

IF CUTTING IS PROSE, THEN MONTAGE IS POETRY

‘If cutting is prose, then montage is poetry’ to understand this line we first need to understand what is montage? Montage is a way of understanding and creating cinema which is totally dependent upon editing. In 1920 Soviet film makers used to view the montages marks a new note in the approach of film cinema. Montage can be called as the nerve of cinema and determining the nature of montage. Eisenstein’s view regarding montage was that it arises from collision of thoughts where there is element perceived not in the next but on the top of other. Editing in graphic qualities, violations and creation of the impossible nothings gave birth to new technologies. There are changes in the shots which are mostly used in the Hollywood to grasp the attention of their viewers. It’s all about storytelling and poetry.

As there are lot of variations in the prose same way in poetry there are lot of decorative rhymes which has a greater meaning. Story is a long one compared to a poem. It’s just an art if adding and a new revolution in film studies which gives the viewers a chance to learn, interpret and create a better world of understanding. Montage can be seen in almost every films of today’s era, it’s used to make the story attractive and consume less time. Montage includes all i.e. story, prose, poetry which has certain meaning and which speaks more with the feeling.

            There are five methods in montage namely metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtone, intellectual. Montage is said to be a conflict as there are new ideas emerging, a totally new perception of individual gets explored.

            

RUSSIAN FORMALISM

Russian formalism is an influential school of literary criticism in Russia from 1910’s to the 1930’s. It includes work of a number highly influential Russian and Soviet scholars like Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Vladimir Propp, etc. Who revolutionised literary criticism between 1914-1930’s by establishing autonomy of poetic language and literature. Russian formalism is a major influence on some great thinkers like Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman. The term formalism was first used by adversaries of the movement and it also conveys a meaning which is rejected by formalists themselves. Russian formalism describes two different movements like OPOJAZ and Society for study of poetic language. This formalism was a diverse movement producing no unique doctrine and no proponents on central aim. This formalist is a sort of film study which is basically focused on the technical aspects like lighting, sound, shot, editing etc.

      Russian formalism is unique on its functional role of devices and its original concept of history. It has a scientific method for studying poetic language, traditional psychology and cultural historical approaches. It mainly focuses on the uniqueness like literature, music, dance, art, etc. There are two basic principle of formalism: literature itself and literary facts. Formalist’s main endeavour consisted of defining each property specifically to certain poetic language; it may be prose or poetry and analysing the same.

      There are lot of differences in there theoretical assumptions which is to place the study of lietarture on a scientific footing by defining its object and other procedures. They are pretty much untied to find the internal laws and certain principles that make a better piece out of literature literacy, or some art of literature. The literary historical process or literary evolution is a key to concern for Russian formalist. 

      There is no specific relationship between criticism and Russian formalism which was developed during the same time. But they still were independent and have several similarities. Developed during the same time. But they still were independent and have several similarities. 

FOREGROUNDING

Foregrounding is a common term which means a particular part or the scene which is nearest or in front of the audiences. This term has been taken from the paintings when an object from backgrounds brought in front to the limelight. It simply pushes the act of expression so that other elements draw attention. So that audience gets a chance to judge and focus on the art work rather than other things. It reveals the form of art other than hiding the stuff. It’s done by using elements of language and by using gamer mad patterns.

            Foregrounding theory must be applied and used in our daily life, so that the contributions, methodology, concept can be understood in a better way. And it also discovers a new and better way of understanding. There are two types of foregrounding: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative foregrounding is achieved by going beyond the set of patterns. It is just the practice of making something stand out from everything else. The term was first associated with Paul Garvin in 1960, was used it as a translation of Czech which means actualize, which has been borrowed from Prague School during 1930.

            Foregrounding is basically divided into two types: parallelism which is totally grammar and second one is deviation.

Let’s understand these terms one by one. Parallelism can be described as the unexpected regularity and deviation can be seen as unexpected irregularity. Both are the relative concepts, but sometimes something does can only be unexpected regularly or irregularly. The context or the concept can be lilt bit narrow like secondary element or even wider like a primary element. Even deviation is further divided into firstly most of the poems deviates from normal language i.e. primary deviation. Secondary deviation is the unexpectedly different from the rest of the worlds. Rhymes, slogans, adverts are parallelism as they constantly repeat. As parallelism can occur over longer texts itself. They often have three parts or elements in them, which were very similar to parallelism, constitute the two elements, whereas the third one is slightly similar. But the audience wants something unique or different which can be called as deviation.

            Foregrounding can take place in all languages. It’s generally used to show how important are the parts of text, or interpretation in one’s life.