Hi All,
I was wondering if anyone has any good resources for Soviet Montage Theory? I have a few handy videos but feel as though students struggle most with the concepts of tonal v overtonal montage. Some of the stuff on YouTube seems to muddy the waters a bit too.
Thanks in advance.
G’day Michael,
I summarise them as follows:
METRIC MONTAGE: Shots are joined together according to a length that is based on a formula scheme corresponding to a measure of music (i.e. beat).
RHYTHMIC MONTAGE: The action/content in the frame is given more weight in making cutting decisions.
TONAL MONTAGE: Edit choices focus on the creation of an emotional expression – not purely thinking of temporal length or rhythm.
OVERTONAL MONTAGE: A combination of the above three in a longer sequence to induce both motoric and emotional effect.
INTELLECTUAL MONTAGE: Specific shots are joined together in order to encourage the viewer to engage with the juxtaposition on an intellectual level.
https://www.mads.my/5-essential-types-of-montage-to-use-in-your-film/
I find that many video explanations of these differ slightly, but this one’s pretty good:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtnTs90knro
It has a really simple way of thinking about them at the end, but I think when you try to abridge something that is inherently visual that much (and even my summaries above are guilty of this) its easy to lose the nuance. Even so, sometimes it can give students something to help differentiate!
Hope that helps.
😊
JM
Dr John McMullan