Ivn Romero

HOW THE AESTHETIC OF A FILM INFLUENCES ITS MESSAGE

HOW THE AESTHETIC OF A FILM INFLUENCES ITS MESSAGE

Ivn Romero
Thesis
Spring 2014
Visual Design
Oulu University of Applied Sciences

ABSTRACT
Oulu University of Applied Sciences
Degree programme in Visual Design
Author: Ivn Romero
Title of thesis: How the aesthetic of a film influences its message
Supervisors: Heikki Timonen, Jos Pava Cogollos.
Term and year when the thesis was submitted: Spring 2014
Number of pages: 32
When starting to work in a film project, the first question asked is what the
director wants to say to its watchers. When that question is answered, then
the director has to thing in what is the best way to transmit the message he
wants to the audience.
In this thesis has been researched wether and how the most visual part of a
film, the aesthetic, influences the message of the film in order to make easier
the task of transmit the message wanted.
The methodology used for this research has been to create a script that
shows a conflict to the audience without giving information about the matter of
that conflict. That script has been shot with three different aesthetics, keeping
the rest of the features of the film, as the actors, equal between aesthetics.
These shortfilms were shown to different people -just one shortfilm per
person, in order to keep objetivity-. That people had to fulfill a survey, in which
they were asked what they had understood from the film, what sort of conflict
would be belieable for them -e.g. a conflict related to marital problems-, and
the level of knoledge in cinema they had. The intention of this survey was to
find tends in the answers got from the different shortfilms, in order to
determinate the way that the aesthetic influences the message.
The results got from this research show that actually the aesthetic does
influence the message. Shortfilms which features are exactly the same but the
aesthetic lead to a different response in the film understanding of the
audience.
This research shows that the aesthetic to be used in a film is something that
can make the film successful or unsuccessful, and is a really important
meaning-builder feature of a film that can not be disregarded.

INDEX
1. Introduction, objectives and methodology
1.1 Choice of the topic
1.2 Why this is a good topic for a thesis
1.3 Basis of the thesis
1.4 Prime objetive
1.5 Research procedure
1.6 Research methodology
1.6.1 Script
1.6.2 Short films
1.6.2.1 Nouvelle vague
1.6.2.2 German expressionism
1.6.2.3 Classic cinema
1.6.3 Survey
2. Analysis
2.1 Results for the nouvelle vague
2.2 Results for the classic cinema
2.3 Results for the German expressionism
2.4 Comparison for topics related to each aesthetic
3. Conclusions
4. Attachments
4.1 Survey
4.2 Script
5. Bibliography
5.1 Books
5.2 Articles
5.3 Online resources
5.4 Audiovisual resources

1.1 Choice of the topic

As a film student, all fields related to media look interesting for me but keeping
in mind that after my studies the field of specialization I am more appealed by
is film directing, I decided that my thesis should be related to this. From this
starting point, there were a lot of possibilities. One of the strongest ideas was
doing an analysis of the film biography of any film director whose aesthetics I
am appealed by, but there are lots of previous studies with this topic and my
analysis, probably, will be senseless because of the extremely huge amount
of information already done with this.
A second strong idea was making a short film taking the advantage of the
locations that are closed to me due to my current place of living, Finland.
However, this idea was dismissed because of the problems that I have had in
my previous short film, Yhdensuuntaiset suorat, which were language
problems and problems in finding good actors.
Because of this, I had to think in another idea, and it had to be something that
would help me in my future as film director. Thinking in the basis of what a film
is -a way to transmit a message- and the problems that I have had with my
other short films -how the audience understands the film, which most of the
times has been something different from what I wanted them to understand- I
came up with a question: what influences the audience in the understanding
of a film? Immediately, I remembered when I was studying a course about
Theory and ecology of the media two years ago. In this course we studied
Marshall McLuhan, one of the founders of the media studies. Being more
specific, we studied his famous phrase "The medium is the message". What
McLuhan meant by this sentence was that the message is influenced by the
medium through which is being transmitted. In this way, the same message
can be interpreted differently if it is transmitted in writing or orally. I.e.: In a
written medium it is hard to misunderstand any of the words, because you can
read again the text itself. However, if the message is just being said,
misunderstandings can happen due to the pronunciation of the emitter.

In words of Marshall McLuhan:

"The medium, or process, of our timeelectric tech- nologyis reshaping

and

restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is
forcing us to reconsider and re- evaluate practically every thought, every action, and every
institution formerly taken for granted."

The next question that came to my mind was: If we speak about films, what is
the medium through which the message is being transmitted and in which way
can it be changed? The answer was aesthetic. Aesthetic is the way a film can
change. The same script can end up in a completely different way depending
on how the director has done it. Related to this, the aesthetic can be directly
linked with film movements. Therefore, at that moment, the topic of my thesis
had discovered itself: How different cinema movements influence the
message of the same film.
With this topic, it will be possible to start understanding how the audience
understands the message of a film according to the aesthetic that film has.1
1.2 Why this is a good topic for a thesis
Previous researchers have just focused on the emitter and the receptor of the
message as message influencers, so it is interesting to start thinking, as
McLuhan said, if the medium is also part of the message.
Film directors have always used everything within their means to make the
audience think exactly what they want them to think: composition, close shots,
anticipation, kuleshov effect, script tricks, etc. If this thesis gives a clear
response to the question "Does the aesthetic of a film influence its
message?", then the aesthetic will be a new point to this countless list.

1 McLuhan, M. The medium is the message. Random House, 1967.

1.3 Basis of this thesis

This thesis is based on the idea that the medium is the message, so apart
from the objective information given by a film, we assume that its aesthetic will
take part of the message. That way of thinking is assumed according to
Marshall McLuhan's phrase and the constructivism theory. Even though the
constructivism theory is related to education, we can transfer it to cinema if we
understand film as a process in which the audience is being taught something
by the director, using images as a teacher's speech. Speaking in the
constructivism theory terms, the aesthetic of a film, beside its own experience
-active audience theory-, is the tool by which the audience has to solve the
problematic situation of a film, which is its understanding.
1.4 Prime objetive
The important matter here, as the title of this thesis tells, is how the audience
receives different messages depending on the aesthetic or the cinema
movement the film has. Because of that we want to know, as objectively as
possible, how the audience could understand the same film with different
aesthetics.
The problem we encounter in the way is that there is not any film that had
been recorded with different aesthetics. Because of this, it is impossible to
study and analyze information related to this as long as it is nonexistent. We
neither have previous material to work on, so the only possible thing to do is
to create the material we are going to work with. This gives the possibility to
do so in the best way to make the information help us.
1.5 Research procedure
In Hollywood, the idea of knowing what the audience thinks about a film had
been always stocked in producers minds. Even though they have tried a lot of
ways to get it -e.g. sensors detecting brain waves-, the history has shown that

the cheapest and probably the best way to gather that kind of information is
the projection-survey system.
Keeping in mind that the information wanted to get is, in its figure, close to the
information Hollywood wants, the system to be used is obvious.
Therefore, the plan for the gathering of information is designing a script,
shooting it with different aesthetics, projecting it to an audience, and then
filling up a survey prepared for this investigation. All this will give the
information needed for this analysis.

1.6 Research methodology

To decide the way we are going to use to achieve the results we want to
obtain, the first thing to know is what result is wanted to be achieved.
Keeping in mind that this is an impartial thesis and we do not want to get
arguments supporting any idea, we could say that this is exactly what we want
to achieve: impartiality on the procedure of getting impressions and
information from the audience.
The things to be created for the analysis are a script, three same-script short
films with different aesthetics and a survey.
1.6.1 Script
Starting on the basis that what we want to keep in this thesis is impartiality, it
is important to decide the characteristics of the script in order to keep such
impartiality.
Bringing to the paper once again the constructivism theory2, whatever we
would write in the script will be used by the audience to understand the
message that the director wants to transmit to them. Consequently, as long as
what is wanted is to analyze how different aesthetics interact with the
message, we must decide carefully what is going to be written. If we would,
for example, write about how somebody in a couple has cheated the other
one, the audience will not have to understand anything because the
information will be already given, and that is completely the opposite way
cinema works. In films, the information is given to the audience in small
doses, so that they can build the meaning of the film, and sometimes what is
wanted bt the director is to confuse the audience and make them think
something that is not true. For example, in the film Frenzy, 1972 by Alfred

2 Kitchener, R. Piaget's theory of knowledge. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1986.

Hitchcock, Ian Blaney is presented to the audience as a very strong suspect

of murder. Although he is not the real murderer, the script has been built in
order to make the audience accuse that character of being guilty. In that way,
this thesis wants to study how the aesthetic can help the directors desires.
Coming back to the matter of the script, if we would give the answer of what is
happening to the audience, the analysis task will be useless because the
audience will not have to build the meaning of the film. However, if we do not
give any completely clear information to the audience about what is
happening, then they will have to build that meaning and they will be able to
take information about what is happening only from the aesthetic. Three
different short films with the same script will be shown to the audience, and
each spectator will build his own meaning from the film. The scripts are the
same so that aesthetic will be the active meaning-builder and will take an
important part in the message of the film. What is taken from this is that in the
script we will not give any clear information about anything, just small neutral
doses of dialogue that will not say anything at all, in order to keep impartiality.
Because of the neutral dialogues and the conflict that will be added on them,
the audience will have a need and curiosity to understand what the conflict is
about and they will only be able to get information from the aesthetic in order
to build the meaning of the dialogues.
Since our procedure will be the projection-survey, we have to take into
account that the shorter the script is the better will be for the whole project, so
that more people will be able to attend the projections and they will not be
dissuaded for its length. Because of this, the script should be designed to last
between one and two minutes.
We have to keep in mind that we will attribute meaning changes to aesthetic
differences, omitting the active audience theory 3 for each person as a
meaning-builder. In this case we are thinking about the audience as a whole
entity whose numerous individual differences make homogeneous itself so

3 Munday, D.; Chandler, R. A dictionary of media and communication. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011.

10

that the fact of gathering information can be analyzed regardless these

differences.
The genre in which the script will be located is drama. This choice is made in
order to make it possible to use different cinema movements that would not fit
with some other genres.
1.6.2 Short films
The number of aesthetics that are going to be used for convenience has been
set to three. This number represents a few cinema movements but sets the
base for next studies about this topic and it is enough to start seeing the
differences in the audience understanding.
In order to maximize potential differences in the message, the three cinema
movements that are going to be chosen should have big plastic differences
among them.
On the one hand, there is the German Expressionism with a dark aesthetic
that can be very useful as a way to represent bad things, and whose main
characteristics are feelings and subjectivity. On the other hand, opposite to
the latter, there is the Nouvelle vague, a cinema movement famous due to the
objectivity that wants to transmit. It is lighter than the German Expressionism,
and it is a movement whose aim was to break what was imposed in those
times. The third movement, which can be located in the middle of these two,
is the classic cinema. It is a kind of aesthetic that wants the idyllic characters
and locations, where everything is seen a bit unreal because of the enormous
production involved.
More aesthetics have been considered for this analysis, but for its own nature
it would be impossible to use them in an impartial way. For example, the
cinema-eye was a possibility but because of its characteristics, as can be the
not-preparation basis, it would differ with the standards needed for giving
impartiality to the film, because it has to give the same exact information in

11

the three short films not to interfere in the audiences reaction. Besides, this
kind of aesthetic cannot be used as other fiction genres because this cinema
movement belongs to the documentary field.
Another cinema movement taken into account was the Italian neorealism but
it was not a good option because it is usually located outdoors, and that would
make the production harder and will give information about the environment
-e.g. talking about extremes to explain it better, in a post-apocalyptic scenario
we will be giving some information about what kind of thing could be
happening in the story, which is not what we want to achieve. The production
is more neutral if it is shot in a standard indoor location-. In addition to this, the
Italian neorealism usually speaks about post-war scenarios where poverty
and desperation are the main topics.
To study more deeply the way to re-create the chosen aesthetics, there are
some characteristics in these movements that will be utilized to build the
different short films.
1.6.2.1 Nouvelle vague
The characteristics to be used in this aesthetic are the following:
i.

Hand-held camera

ii.

Long shots in conversations

iii.

4:3 format

iv.

Black and white

v.

High contrasts.

vi.

Pans with steady cam

vii.

White clothes

viii.

Very short shots.

ix.

Very wide shorts (not American shot)

x.

Really basic locations

xi.

Simple composition

xii.

Hard light with filled shadows

12

xiii.

Use of "from black to image"

xiv.

Less sharpen images

Low points of view and the actors speaking to the camera could be used but
because of the few times these characteristics appear in the nouvelle vague
films, these aspects can be omitted.
1.6.2.2 German expressionism
On the opposite side, there is the German expressionism, which seems to be
a darker and more mysterious aesthetic. It is a muted cinema, due to the fact
that in the period it was produced -around 1920- the recording of live sound
synchronized with the image was impossible. In this project the muted
characteristic will be used, but not completely. In the German expressionism
films, as long as they are mute, directors used to add some music afterwards.
It is well known that the music is one of the best meaning-givers in cinema as
it can change completely the way the spectator can receive a message from a
film. Because of this and as long as it is really difficult to know what kind of
music could be totally neutral and not give any message in this way, the best
option is not to add any music afterwards, so the whole short film will be
silent.
One of the strongest characteristics used in most of the German
expressionism films was the deformed architecture with the aim of expressing
the psychological complexity of the characters. However, this was not a
constant feature in all the films of this cinema movement. One example of this
is Metropolis 1927, Frizt Lang. Because of this and because of the economic
and resources-related impediments, it has been decided not to use this
characteristic.
The characteristics to be used in this aesthetic are the following:

i.

4:3 format

ii.

Use of short shots with a circle shape

13

iii.

Mute cinema

iv.

Use of inter titles

v.

Black and white

vi.

Still shots

vii.

Strong lights

viii.

High contrast in film

ix.

Grain

x.

Basic composition

1.6.2.3 Classic cinema

This is the third and last aesthetic that is going to be used for this analysis.
Talking about the light, classic cinema stands here as the midpoint between
nouvelle vague and German expressionism because it does not have marked
extremes differing from the other two aesthetics.
For the rest of the attributes, it can be said that it is another completely
different aesthetic in terms of productions. For example, the format is
completely different in addition to the editing, that differs completely from the
previous aesthetics.
The characteristics to be used in this aesthetic are the following:
i.

16:9 Format

ii.

Good quality image

iii.

Classic editing -mid 50s-

iv.

Artificial smooth light

v.

Shot scale

vi.

Rule of thirds

vii.

Movable camera

Off voice and hierarchy in the characters are characteristics belonging to this
aesthetic. However, they are not going to be used for the classic cinema short
film due to the basis of the project, which are the use of the same script for

14

the short films and the desire of being objective and not adding any extra
information.
1.6.3 Survey
The survey will be the way to gather the useful information that will be used to
make the research. Because of the sort of information that is needed, making
a survey is the only possible way to collect trustful information about the
matter of this topic, as what will be used is the audience reactions toward the
projection they will watch.
Once the survey is designed, it has to be decided what sort of sampling is
going to be used, based on the resources available for this thesis. The kind of
sampling that will be used is a random basic sampling, in order to obtain no
logic clear stratums that can be used to divide the sampling created for this
analysis. Using this sample, what will be the result at the end is a whole
homogeneous bunch of information without stratum differences, which is what
is wanted for this analysis.
The sort of information needed is, basically, how the spectator understands
what is happening in the film. It is common that the spectator will not be able
to build a whole meaning to the film -or he does?- bearing in mind that these
short films are really short and neutral, as well as there is no useful
information to build a real meaning from the film. What will be logic is that the
spectator builds a vague meaning from the film, guessing what kind of
problem the characters could have -e.g. drugs, economic, marital...- or maybe
they will just not understand anything. Even if it is like this, and that only
happens in one aesthetic, then it may be distinguished what sort of aesthetic
builds more or less meaning for the audience. All the gathering of information
will be useful to analyze the spectators reaction due to the aesthetics, or may
the results shock us and show that there is not an active part from the
aesthetic as a meaning-builder.

15

The survey will be done in a Google-doc format to facilitate the task of

collecting the information in a whole document and represent it graphically.
With this, the possibilities to obtain survey respondents get increased, and it
also makes possible for the user to take part in this research, independently of
where he is. Because of this, the first target group taking part in this project is
internet users. After having established this requirement, the target is getting
wider. The target group is Spanish-speaking people that are between 18 and
65 years old. As it exists a wide range of people that can be survey
respondents, the survey will have a short section with socio-demographic
questions in case there is any kind of pattern related to those sociodemographic differences after collecting the information. With this, the
objectivity in the analysis is ensured to be real. If results create clear pattern
of response, then the analysis will be made taking this information into
account; and if there are not, then it will be truly demonstrated that it does not
affect the results collected.
The socio-demographic questions will be gender and age as long as they can
be linked to any sort of response to the film. The rest of them such as
religion, ideology or incoming- seem not to have any possible link with the
understanding of the film, so they have just been omitted. Profession and
educational level may be too personal questions, and the respondent is not
wanted to feel uncomfortable with the survey.
For the rest of the survey, which will be the matter of the analysis, it will be a
closed-question survey due to several reasons. For example, we do not know
how much time the audience will be willing to give to this project, and a openquestion survey takes more time to fulfill than a closed-question one.
Commonly, when surveys have open questions, three negative things can
happen: the user do not want to answer the survey so they just do not do it;
they do not know how to verbalize their thoughts; or they just answer in the
most simply way in order to do it as fast as possible. In this assumption, it will
be nothing but problems for the analysis task since there will be lack of
information. Because of this, if we give answers to be chosen in the questions
that have been made, it will be easier and faster for the survey respondent. In

16

addition, as long as the aim of this research is known, using closed questions
is the best option. Besides, we avoid the problem of gathering thousands of
different answers that will do nothing but make it impossible to explain and
link aesthetics and responses.
In spite of using closed questions, we will always give the chance to answer
something extra in order to collect as much information as possible without
having lack of information in closed questions.
For this research, which is not a deep research in this field but the previous
research for a bigger one, what is being pursued is to know in which way the
aesthetic influences the message, not what the aesthetic influences exactly.
To be clearer: this thesis is not interested in knowing if German expressionism
aesthetic makes the audience think that the problematic tend to be precisely
something related to black market. It tries to know if problems tend to be
something illegal for the audience, for example. It is not what specific problem
represents for the audience but in what field or sort of problems they do
classify the messages received.
Because of this reason, it makes logic the use of closed questions to facilitate
the task of analysis, as long as open audience responses will not help the
goal of this thesis.
Once said all the above information, the questions that are going to be made
are basically the same but with different responses in order to appreciate in
which direction the audience tend to understand it. For example, to the
question "What kind of problem do you think the character has?" the
responses could be: Illegal problems, conjugal problems or other problems.
With this, we will see how the audience tends to think and understand these
short films.
Besides, it is interesting to know what level of cinema knowledge the
spectator has. Probably, the more the audience knows about cinema, the less

17

easy influenced the message is, which is similar to what happens in mass
media: the most people know about a fact, the less easy influenced they are.
2. Analysis
With the survey, there has been information gathered on the basis on two
different concepts. For the first one, we have gather information about the
topic understood by the spectator after watching one of the short films. It was
an open-answer question, so the topics that the audience has understood
have been really varied; nevertheless, they have been grouped in "big topics".
Luckily, it has been possible to merge them into the same big topics that were
already written in the closed answer questions.
For the second concept, the closed-answer questions, we have got
information about what the audience thinks at the very beginning but also
what would be believable for them. We will go through this point more deeply
with the data we have in our hands.
The survey was answered by 100 respondents, being the amount for each
aesthetic similar between each other. For a better comprehension of the
research, the amount of people in the analysis have been expressed in
percentages.
2.1 Results for nouvelle vague
The first graph presented is
related to the open-answer
question "What would you
say is the problem of the
lead actor?". In this graph
the three topics with the
highest level of answers are
represented.
Figure 1. Main answers for the open-answer question.

18

The first thing to be remembered is that in our script there was absolutely no
information about the topic or sort of problems. If we understand that the only
meaning-builder in the film is the script, then this would be completely wrong.
Speaking on that basis, this thesis has already proved that the script is not the
only thing that builds a meaning for the audience. Of course, this thesis does
not forget about the active audience theory above mentioned.
In Figure 1 it can be seen that 40% of the respondents though that the
problem was related to the lead actors health. This percentage doubles the
second most-common answer, which is marital problems with 20% of
respondents, and the third one, problems related to illegal matters have 13%
of peoples answers. It is obvious that there is a huge trend toward health
problems when speaking about the nouvelle vague cinema movement.
In Figure 2 it can be appreciated that the audience is forced to choose what
problem they think the lead character has among three options: illegal
problems, marital problems and other problems -i.e. job or health problems.
We have to keep in mind that, once seen the results, the "other problems"
option has been used by the audience as the empty set -speaking in terms of
set theory4-. This means that, in order to avoid taking a decision, the audience
just marked the other-problem option.
Even with this, health problems are included
in "other problems" option. If we have a look
at the pie, we can see that after giving the
respondent these three options, the marital
answer stays with the same percentage and
the legal-problem answer decreases around
7 points. The other-problems answer is
chosen by a lot more people compared with
Figure 2 Answers for the closed-answer
question.

the other two options.

4 Potter, M. Set Theory and Its Philosophy: A Critical Introduction. Oxford
University Press, 2004.

19

2.2 Results for the classic cinema

Classic cinema surveys have been an interesting fact, which is that job
problems have get enough answers to be represented with the rest of the sort
of problems. In Figure 3, we can see that the only predominating answer is
the

marital-problem

option. If we start to
compare

this

chart

with the previous one

we have seen from
nouvelle vague, we
can appreciate strong
differences in the way
in

which

tends

audience

to understand

the short film, even

though there is not
real

information

about

Figure 3 Main answers for the open-answer question.

the

kind

of

problem

the

lead

actor

has.

We can see in this case that the

audience has used the "other
problems" option as the empty
set again. We can observe that
when we compare the openanswer question with the closed
one, in spite of the fact that the
first thought for 40% of the
respondents

was

related

to

marital problems, at the moment

of choosing among the options,
Figure 4 Answers for the closed-answer question.

they prefer to use the empty set.

However, we can also notice that

20

the "Illegal problems" answer have raised seven points in comparison with the
responses given in the nouvelle vague short film.
2.3 Results for the German expressionism
In this case, it can be seen
in Figure 5 that even though
the highest answer in the
open-answer questions is
marital problems, a lot of
people have thought about
illegal issues at the very
beginning. If we compare
this datum with the other
aesthetics,

we

see

that

German expressionism gets

Figure 5 Main answers for the open-answer question

13 points more than nouvelle vague and 6 more than classic cinema. This is a
huge amount of people if we take into account that there were no clues about
the problem. There is also a big amount of people whose answer was marital
problems. However, the interesting thing from this chart is that there is a big
trend that did not exist in the rest of the short films.
As we can see in Figure 6,
when audience is asked to
choose among these three
options,

the

amount

of

people who prefers choosing

illegal issues raises. It is also
noticeable that this cinema
movement is the one in
which the respondents do
not

Figure 6 Answers for the closed-answer question

21

choose

the

"Other

problems"

option

in

high

numbers.

Compared

with

classic cinema, this means 14 less points and 19 points from the nouvelle
vague. What can be obtained from this is that the audience tends to relate this
aesthetic to illegal topics in a larger amount. Actually, in this question,
German expressionism has get 15 more points in the "illegal problems"
answer than in classic cinema and the great number of 22 points more than in
nouvelle vague.
As an interesting point, it can be said that none of the people whose level in
cinema was high, though at the first moment that the topic was related to an
illegal topic. This explains that the aesthetic do influence people in their
understanding of the message, and the more people know about this
aesthetics, the less they are influenced by it.
2.4 Comparison for topics related to each aesthetic
Now, it is time to compare the different results that have been gathered for the
open-answer question. In Figure 7 we can see the overall percentages.

Figure 7 Open-answer question results

22

We can easily appreciate here that, in fact, the aesthetic of the film has
influenced the message understood by the audience in some way. In each of
the big topics -i.e. illegal issues, marital issues and health issues- there is
always an aesthetic that is more visible than the other ones. For example, we
can see that in the "illegal issues" part the respondents watching the German
expressionism short film are more likely to have this topic as a first though.
From the marital part, it can be noticed that there is a predominance of classic
cinema respondents. Almost one out of three German expressionism
respondents also takes this topic as the plot for this short film but even with
that, the aesthetic of classic cinema short films still gets 6 points more than
the German expressionism aesthetic. Compared with the rest of aesthetics,
not so many nouvelle vague spectators are likely to think about marital
problems.
If we observe the health part of Figure 7, there is a clear interpretation
obviously found. People who have watched the nouvelle vague short film are
more likely to think about health issues. 40% of nouvelle vague respondents
answered that the lead actors problem was related to health in the openanswer question. Only 17% and 18% of people who watched German
expressionism and also the classic cinema respondents respectively, thought
at the beginning that the problem was related with health issues.
In the last columns of Figure 7 we appreciate that people who thought that the
problem had something to do with job issues. As it is seen, the only aesthetic
that got enough answers related to job issues to be represented was the
classic cinema.

23

The second part of the survey asked if the spectator would believe that the
lead actor is immersed in illegal, marital or other sort of problems. After having
known our audiences first thought for the different aesthetics in the open
answer, this is the next interesting piece of information. With this, we will know
what would be believable for the audience, in order to determine which one is
the best option to create a credible environment for the story we want to tell
as directors.
In Figure 8 we can see
a high percentage of
people

who

would

believe that the problem

of the short film has to do
with an illegal issue. In
this case, we see that
German
Figure 8 People who would believe the topic is about illegal
issues

expressionism

is the aesthetic in which

a plot related to illegal

matters is more likely to be believed.

In spite of the fact that classic
cinema and nouvelle vague
can be also used for this
purpose, it is undeniable that
German

expressionism

having 9 more points than

classic cinema and 14 more
than nouvelle vague- is the
best

option

when

the

directors aim is to speak

Figure 9 People who would believe the topic is about marital

issues

about illegal topics.

24

In Figure 9 we can see how, to reaffirm what was said before, people
watching the short film with the classic cinema aesthetic is more likely to think
that the topic is about marital issues.
People who would believe
that the short film is related
to a topic which are neither
illegal issues nor marital
ones are represented in
Figure 10. An actual trend
can not be seen because
of two reasons: first of all
the "other problems" option
is

something

really

general. This choice can

Figure 10 People who would believe the topic is nothing about

ilegal stuff or marital issues

be anything, so people
could believe that there could be anything as it can be seen in the results-.
Secondly, the differences among the three aesthetics, in figures, are not that
much. Even though there are 15 points of difference between nouvelle vague
and German expressionism, we are speaking about 60 and 75 points, so the
difference is not that huge keeping in mind that a lot of people in both
aesthetics would believe the topic.

25

3. Conclusions
This thesis has demonstrated that the aesthetic of a film does influence its
message. Thinking in terms of the constructivism theory and Marshall
McLuhans idea, we can say "The medium is the message", which means that
everything takes part in the meaning-builder task in a film. When the script
gives no information about the story, it is the medium, the film itself and its
aesthetic the tool to be used by the audience to understand the film.
In practice, it has been shown that when there are different films with the
same script, same location, same actors and same attrezzo but different
aesthetic, the audience of the different aesthetics tends to understand the film
differently. At first sight, some conclusions can be taken from this analysis: the
best aesthetic to narrate a story about health problems is the nouvelle vague
aesthetic, to narrate about topics related to illegal activities the best aesthetic
is German expressionism and classic cinema is the best option to speak
about marital problems.
As a real example, we can speak about the film Goodfellas, 1990 by Martin
Scorsese. This film tells the story of a group of people who work to be in the
up part of the mafia hierarchy. Even though the film was made in 1990 and
was filmed in the United States of America, which means that the aesthetic
should be more related to classic cinema, Scorsese used an aesthetic similar
to the German expressionism, where the screen is nearly always in black with
some spots of light, giving the scene that dark atmosphere that can even be
seen in the poster of the film. Together with The Godfather, 1972 by Francis
Coppola -that also uses this dark aesthetic-, these two films are named as the
best films in history that speak about mafia topics.
This is the beginning for further researchs, and after having observed these
facts, a question is brought to the paper: Are we really free in the task of
understanding a film?

26

4. Attachments
4.1 Survey
1.- What short film have you seen?
Short film 1 / Short film 2 / Short film 3
2.- In one sentence, what would you say that is the lead actors problem?
(Open answer)
3.- From the following problems, what would you say the lead actors problem
could be?
Problem with illegal stuff / Marital problems / Other problems
4.- Would you believe that the lead actor is cheating his wife?
Yes / No
5.- Would you believe that the lead actor is related to any illegal activity?
Yes / No
6.- Would you believe that the lead actor has any problem in the job or of
health?
Yes / No
7.- What is your age?
(Open answer)
8.- Are you a men or a woman?
Men/Woman
9.- How much would you say you know about cinema?
A lot, it is my job / I love cinema / I like some directors / I like watching
films, as everybody / I dont watch so many films / I dont like cinema at
all

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4.2 Script
Seq 1 Int/night - Meeting room
There is a girl sat. A guy comes. He goes to kiss her in
and she turns her head and looks at him
GUY
What's the matter?
GIRL
Your mom has called
GUY
I think it is ok that you dont like your mother-inlaw but actually I dont like your mom either...
GIRL
Its not that
GUY
So... what happens?
GIRL
She has told me.
GUY (puffs)
It is nothing important
GIRL
I dont think so
GUY
Same as my mother. I think you two are a bit meddler
GIRL
It pisses me off that you hadnt told me
GUY (angry)
Why? Just leave me with my own things...
GIRL
We are worried about you, it's that simple.
GUY (still angry)
If it wasnt for this, it would have been for any
other thing. It was just one time, thats all. Leave it

28

GIRL
What if it happens again?
GUY
Know what? I am leaving
Guy takes his jacket and goes out of the screen while
Girl still looks at him and closes his book angrily.

29

5. Bibliography
5.1 Books
McLuhan, M. Understanding the Media: The extensions of Man. Canada,
McGraw-Hill, 1964.
McLuhan, M.; Fiore, Q. The medium is the message. Random house, 1967.
Field, S. The screenwriter's Workbook. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing
Group, 1998.
Mckee R. El guin. Spain, Alba, 2002.
Ball, J.; Prez, X. La semilla inmortal. Anagrama, 1995.
Riambau, E. El cine francs 1958-1998. Editorial Paids, 2002.
Romn J. El cine alemn y la tendencia expresionista. Facultad de artes,
2004.
Bordwell, D. El cine clsico de Hollywood: estilo cinematogrfico y modo de
produccin hasta 1960. Ediciones Paids Ibrica, 1997.
Pavsek, C. The utopia of film: cinema and its futures in Godard, Kluge and
Tahimik. Columbia University Press, 2013.
Light, E. The complete film production handbook. Focal Press, 2001
Reboratti, C.; Castro, H. Estado de la cuestin y anlisis crtico de textos:
gua para su elaboracin. Buenos Aires, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1999.
Taylor, D. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It, Health
Sciences Writing Centre. Toronto, University of Toronto, 2012.

30

Burch, N. Une praxis du cinma. Gallimard, 1986.

Krackauer, S. De Caligari a Hitler. Ediciones Paids, 1985.
Blaxter, L.; Hughes C.; Tight, M. Cmo se hace una investigacin. Gedisa,
2000
Hernndez, R.; Fernndez, C.; Baptista, P. Metodologa de la investigacin.
Mxico, McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Len, O.; Montero, I. Mtodos de investigacin en psicologa y educacin.
Madrid, McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Martnez, F. El cuestionario. Un instrumento para la investigacin en las
ciencias sociales. Barcelona, Laertes Psicopedagoga, 2002.
Salkind, N. Mtodos de investigacin. Mxico, Prentice-Hall, 1999.

Munday, D.; Chandler, R. A dictionary of media and communication. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2011.
5.2 Articles
Randolph, J.J. "A guide to writing the dissertation literature review". Practical
Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 2009, vol. 14, n 13.
5.3 Online resources
"Audiencia (medios de comunicacin)". 15th of March, 2014.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiencia_(medios_de_comunicacin)/ [Consult:
18-3-2014]

31

"Frenes, 1972". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068611/ [Consult: 20-3-2014]

"Cmo se elabora un cuestionario?" 8th of March, 2007.
http://www.ub.edu/ice/recerca/pdf/ficha8-cast.pdf [Consult: 23-4-2014]
"Cmo redactar fcilmente la bibliografa de tus trabajos".
http://bibliotecabiologia.usal.es/tutoriales/Elaboracion-citas-bibliograficas.pdf
[Consult: 5-4-2014]
"Cmo elaborar conclusiones?".
http://dinacely.wordpress.com/como-elaborar-conclusiones/
[Consult: 20-4-2014]
5.4 Audiovisual resources
Une femme est une femme, 1961. Dir. Godard, J.
Une femme marie, 1964. Dir Godard, J.
Frenzy, 1972. Dir. Hitchcock, A.
Metropolis, 1927. Dir. Lang, F.
Der mde Tod, 1921. Dir. Lang, F.
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1920. Dir. Wiene, R.
The godfather, 1972. Dir. Coppola, F.
Goodfellas, 1990. Dir. Scorsese, M.

32