Frame-by-frame Analysis in the Analytical Study of the Film

Abstract

The article discusses a mandatory form of training a professional film scholar, namely the methods and techniques study of the frame-by-frame analysis of a movie or its fragment. The value of this approach is not always fully realized. Nevertheless the frame-by-frame analysis is of particular importance nowadays, when we are witnessing an active transformation of artistic reality as a whole and of cinematic reality in particular.
All these phenomena are associated with sometimes radical changes in the language system of artistic texts, the growing complexity of this language and the difficulty of perception, moreover quite often the over-complication of the perception of the text and at times the possibility of its “erroneous” interpretation are intentionally incorporated by the author into the structure of the text. Frame-by-frame analysis is designed to help in adapting to the peculiarities of the “new language”, to increase the range of sensory perception in studying the film text and the ability to penetrate into the semantic entirety of the text fragment, into the volatile flow of elusive meanings, into the "semantic magma" of the text.
Frame-by-frame analysis is suited for the group work of students with the participation of the professor who takes the responsibility of being an effective guide to the linguistic reality of the text, shaping and controlling the process of perception, thus ensuring the effective navigation through the analytical process. The article advocates the validity of the techniques and procedures of the frameby-frame analysis of a screen work, as well as of specific aspects of segmenting the visual image. Frame-by-frame analysis of a film can be turned into a lively active creative process if not into an exciting journey into the unfolding intra-textual reality.
This is an in-person process based on the cooperation of students and an expert professor who explains to them the existing methods of text dissection, the procedures of analysis and their sequence, the methods of recording the data obtained, and, finally, of processing the empirical material, which permits to put forward certain hypotheses about the author's language strategy and his goals therein. The consequences of the virtual absence of this type of analysis in the course of on-line education transpired immediately; with lack of practice skills usually disappear quickly. The empty space needs to be filled with both lost and newly acquired skills as soon as possible.