Of all the artistic media I'm aware of, theater and film probably have the most available artistic space. Any good film student will tell you that's why film is so tough to get right (and so awesome when you do). There are so many elements to balance: writing, acting, cinematography, special effects, music, editing, etc. Each one of those elements is an artistic genre unto itself, each with their own landscape of artistic space.
For one thing, films and plays tell stories, so every dimension of Narrative Space exists in theater and film as well. The rules of story structure are just as important in film as they are in fiction (although there is one area that fiction has access to that film never will...but I'll save that for the next post). Characters need depth. Protagonists need antagonists. The plot needs structure: an inciting event at the beginning, a final showdown at the end, two major turning points and a midpoint scene, and so on. Whether you're aware of these devices or not, a movie that fails to use them, or arranges them poorly will seem somehow "wrong" to even the most uneducated viewer.
Music is a major part of film and theater as well. It's a strong emotional cue that allows us to interpret a given scene with greater depth. At best, the wrong music will give us the wrong emotion, but at worst, it will clash with the clear emotion of the scene, knocking us right out of the story. Many a movie has been ruined by poorly curated music.
Acting is another hugely important dimension of the artistic space. In film, acting is done in 30-second bursts. Scenes are frequently shot out of sequence, and some actors don't even read scripts, they just read the lines for whatever shot they're currently working on. A skilled actor is familiar enough with character emotion that they can bring about the proper response on command. An unskilled actor will knock the audience out of the story, because they themselves never get into it. Unskilled actors sound like they're just reading words, and that makes the audience aware of the words.
In theater, acting is everything, because it must be sustained for hours at a time. There are no trips to the trailer between scenes. The confines of the stage often mean smaller casts, which means more stage time for everyone, which means more work for everyone. The skill required to attain and represent the proper emotion (not to mention simply memorizing the lines) is far beyond what is required of movie actors in most films.
In movies, cinematography and editing contend with artistic space similar to all visual art (see the first post in this series). Done well, it achieves a transparency comparable to that of a frame on a painting. Good cinematographers and editors compose and order shots such that our focus remains on characters. settings and action. While there is art in a composed shot that is beautiful for its own sake, by and large this area of artistic space is best used to draw attention to others. If explored purely for its own sake, it detracts from the story, no matter how artistic it may be.
For example, in the Oscar-winning film Birdman, the shots are composed so that the entire movie appears to be done in a single take. The technique is awe-inspiring, and has a profoundly interesting effect on the story's structure. In most stories, the maxim "arrive late, leave early" reminds us to only show the most interesting and essential moments. There is much less arriving late and much less leaving early in Birdman, because there are no hard cuts. Scenes stretch on for longer than they would in other films, giving it a feel similar to theater (which is appropriate, because the story concerns a group of theater actors).
While the technique is wondrous to behold, and artistically interesting, I found that while I was watching the movie, the filming technique was all I could think about. Which could have been worse; at least I was thinking about how good it was. But in the end, it was a gimmick and a distraction, and I found myself a little out of sync with the flow of the story. I never got invested in any of the characters, and I often struggled to find the emotions of the scenes. So while Alejandro Iñárritu's exploration of this area of artistic space was masterful in its execution, it was perhaps not the best choice for a viewer like me.
It's easy to see how the choice of which areas to explore and how much to explore them can influence the audience's perception of a work of art. In film and theater, the space is greater than most other media, but this means that an emphasis on one area over another can be even more jarring. A play whose producer put most of his effort (and budget) toward set design might find the overall work suffers because he couldn't hire talented actors. A movie producer might hire the best actors in the world, but if he's working from a sloppy script, all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to keep the story together.
Next: Fiction
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