Manipulation of diegetic time and space

http://ashleighevers.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/manipulation-of-diegetic-time-and-space/
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What is diegesis:
Diegesis is a style of fiction story telling when the narrator tells the audience what the world is like in the characters life. The narrator could speak as a particular character or maybe the all knowing narrator who talks from "outside" in the form of commenting on the action or the characters.

Mimesis is a similar style of fiction story telling but instead of the narrator telling the audience what the world of the characters is like the narrator shows it instead through the characters acting the things they are trying to show the audience without actually telling them.

The reason diegetic not mimetic is used as a descriptor for the film world is that in film the film maker is seen as a narrator character using technical and performance elements (camera angle, point of view, gesture, cut..) to 'whisper' to the audience



Manipulation of diegetic time and space is an editing technique used to portray time unusually. Editorial techniques such as ellipsis and expansion of time manipulate the time as it is experienced by the audience. Flash backs, where the characters think back to the past and see images in their head from the past, are used to show the audience the interior images of their mind. At home what they are thinking about on the screen, or they could have flash forwards into the future where the characters are thinking about something that could possibly happen. It can also be used to show the environment or an object changing in a period of time, an example of this can be seen from a scene from the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film in which Harry Potter and Hermione are able to visit the past using a certain object.


The video below is another example of manipulation of diegetic time and space. Here Indiana Jones partner was meant to pass him the whip so he can also jump over but he didn't and the door started to shut quite drastically fast but as Indiana struggled to jump over the camera was faced away from the door but it was on Indiana, then the scene cuts and shows the door still closing but the door hasn't closed as much as it should have in the time Indiana was struggling. After he manages to jump over the door still hasn't shut and he quickly slides underneath the door just in time.

That was a manipulation of time because they kept cutting the scene to give Indiana more time to struggle to try get over but still manage to get through the door in time. In effect, what the editor has done is not cut forward to where the door would have lowered to in real time when he cuts back to the door but instead he cuts to a point in the doors tedractory earlier than its real times decent which elongates the fall of the door