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In this thesis I bring the nonhuman animal character into the discourse of Film Studies, from which they have by and large been excluded. Including the nonhuman animal character helps to expand film theoretical discussions that have normally been restricted to human characters. In order to address this omission, I introduce and conceptualise two notions: the nonhuman animal call and the cinematic call on behalf of the nonhuman animal. The nonhuman animal call is an umbrella term for a variety of nonhuman animal expressions. Some of such expressions are based on five basic senses on which humans rely, but the nonhuman animal call also includes senses not present in humans. The division of calls is non-hierarchical. The aim of introducing the nonhuman animal call is to emphasise nonhuman animal performance and expression as intentional, meaningful, and important for the film in which the nonhuman animal appears, and thereby opening up new interpretative possibilities which take the nonhuman animal perspective into consideration. The cinematic call on behalf of the nonhuman animal denotes film techniques, which, under certain conditions, can provide space for nonhuman animal calls to manifest themselves in the film, or help clarify nonhuman animal calls which the spectator might find unintelligible, or strengthen the nonhuman animal call's affective impact on the spectator. Cinematic calls on behalf of the nonhuman animal character are versatile, that is, they are not limited to a particular genre or tradition of filmmaking. Therefore, the reflection on the conditions which such film techniques must fulfil to be considered as cinematic calls invites a productive dialogue across genres and aesthetic traditions. As a result of such a reflection, this thesis offers some guidelines for film production and film analysis that are, on the one hand, more mindful of the nonhuman animal characters, and on the other hand, take into account diverse types of spectators, and the ways in which to appeal to them to invite a reflection on the nonhuman animal condition. The nonhuman animal call and the cinematic call on behalf of the nonhuman animal character are, therefore, practical, didactic, and analytic tools that can be applied in order to render the Film Studies discourse as well as film production and reception more animal-oriented.

Time is an aesthetic feature of film and the moving image that we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Beyond music, it is difficult to imagine an artform that places more importance on time as an aesthetic feature, yet questions surrounding how time affects the emotions in film and other moving images such as television and video have largely been overlooked. Taking an analytic-cognitive approach, my original contribution to knowledge aims to fill this gap by uncovering the ways in which time and the temporal relations between and among images, sounds, actions, and events (or what I will generalise as the 'audio-visual makeup' of film) affect our emotions during film engagement. The general claim of this dissertation is that emotional engagement with a film is not solely the domain of sound and picture, but of time as well. Filmmakers can manipulate the temporal relations within and throughout the audio-visual makeup of a film through cinematic means involving the mise-en-scène, cinematography, and sound. Through a close analysis of examples from predominantly contemporary narrative film with some relevant references to television and video, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that time and the temporal relations within and throughout the audio-visual makeup of film influence emotional engagement with narrative films. By focusing mainly on three emotion-driven genres, including horror, suspense-thriller, and comedy, my analyses will seek to demonstrate that manipulating the temporal relations within and throughout the audio-visual makeup helps generate emotions. Refining and expanding Susan Feagin's (1999) conceptualisation of timing in film, which she defines as the duration and durational relations between and among images, I develop a theory of affective timing, which aims to explore the ways in which cinematic timing affects viewers emotionally by generating or enhancing affects such as suspense, surprise, and humour. This dissertation argues that just as it matters what happens on screen or in the soundtrack, so too it matters when something happens on screen. In my view, timing is affective when the duration and durational relations within and throughout the audio-visual makeup of a film help generate emotional responses in viewers, which makes affective timing the art of when. By adopting and adapting certain terms from the study of music such as pacing, beats, and rhythm, this dissertation also seeks to advance a productive lexicon for the further discussion of the relationship between the temporal nature of film and emotion or what I call affective temporality.