Introduction to FILM

Back History• From the beginning film

borrowed principles of visual organization from painting.

• Even today as films are planned a storyboard is often created with drawings of scenes that are realized on film very close to the way they were designed.

…• Images of film move, projected

on a screen at 24 frames per second, and the eye merges them as if they were continuous action.

• - The frames of film appear to be in motion which is why they are referred to as “motion” pictures.

…• When films were first created,

they were silent; and a pianist provided mood music to intensify visual scenes.

• VIDEO: #1 – Robert Bruce for Buster Keaton Film

…• The silent movie writer/producer/director/actor Charlie Chaplin utilized multiple instruments to bring his films to life.

• VIDEO: #2 – The Lion’s Cage

…• After 1926, many films incorporated a soundtrack not only with the dialogue but also with background music that has now become indispensable

Back History• In 1927, Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer

introduced live recorded sound• Other, directors felt the introduction of

sound to film would compromise artistic integrity• Really though, it intensifies the film

experience.• VIDEO: #3 – The Jazz Singer

Brought to Life by Sound:

Frances Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is well known for the exceptional ways that music intensifies the scenes–VIDEO: #4 – Apocalypse Now

Steven Speilberg’s Saving Private Ryan–Surround sound further intensifies the

film experience. –VIDEO: #5 – Saving Private Ryan

Facts:• Except perhaps for

opera, film more than any of the other arts involves collaborative effort

A Group Effort• Films need: a researcher to make it

accurate• A scriptwriter to give it a story• The planning by a director• The funding of a producer• A set designer to bring it to life• A full crew to operate the camera, do

staging, and handle the props,• Costumers, actors and actresses

Vocabulary:•Auteur- author of the film

Directing and Editing• The 2 dominant figures in early films were

directors who did their own editing: D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein

• Some of their films are still considered among the finest ever made.• The birth of a Nation 1916(Griffith) • Intolerance 1918 (Griffith)• Battleship Potemkin 1925 (Eisenstein)• Ivan the Terrible 1941-1946 (Eisenstein)

Directing and Editing• Today most directors control the

acting and supervise the photography, carried out by skilled technicians who work with such problems as lighting, camera angles, and focusing as well as camera motion;

• And, everything else is handled by someone with that specific job:(researcher, scriptwriter, producer, set designer, crew, costumers,

actors, actresses)

Directing and EditingWhen it comes to photography,

directors also choose the type of shot.

Shot - a continuous length of film exposed in the camera without a break

Types of Shots:•Close up - an important object, such as the face of a character•Long shot - the camera is far distant from the most important characters•Medium shot - the camera focuses on something neither up close nor far•Following (Dolly) shot - the camera keeps a moving figure in the frame

…Types of Shots…•Point of View shot - the camera records what the character must be seeing •Crane shot - the camera is on a crane or movable platform •Hand held shot - the camera is carried, sometimes on a special harness•Recessional Shot - The camera focuses on figures and objects moving away

…Types of Shots…•Processional Shot - focuses on figures and objects moving toward •Pans - A movement which scans a scene horizontally• The Aerial Shot - An exciting variation of a crane shot, usually taken from a helicopter

Point of view

Medium close up shot

What shot is this?

Crane shot

Close up

Long shot

Extreme close up

Extreme Close Up•The Blair Witch Project•Though fictional, it is presented as if it depicted real events, and popularized this style of horror movie.

•VIDEO: #7 – The Blair Witch Project

JUST ONE SHOT!•The Dark Knight, 2008•Though special effects add variety and

dimension to a shot, sometimes they are so special that the director, crew, and actors only have one shot to get it right.

•VIDEO: #8 – The Dark Knight

The Editor• The editor, almost always under

the control of the director, puts the shots in order after the filming is finished.

• The editor trims the shots to an appropriate length, then joins them with other shots to create the final film.

The Editor• Films are rarely shot sequentially

and only part of the total footage is shown in a film. • Edited sequences are sometimes

shot far apart in time and place, but are then organized to make sense.• Most arguments in filmmaking

are between the director and editor, who disagree on how to edit a film

* Sometimes having a directors cut.

Connecting the Shots1.Continuity cut: shots edited to

produce a sense of narrative continuity following the action stage by stage

2.Jump cut: moves abruptly from one shot to the next with no preparation and often with a shock

3.Cut in: an immediate move from a wide shot to a very close shot of the same scene

Connecting the Shots1.Cross cutting: alternating

shots of 2 or more actions occurring in different places

2.Dissolve: one scene disappearing slowly while the next scene appears as if beneath it

3.Fade: includes fade in and fade out

4.Wipe: transition between shots with a line moving across or through the screen separating one shot from the next

• Editorial choices are most important to creating structure in a film.

•Example: Micheal Cimino’s Deer Hunter – A portrayal of 3 hometown men who fight together in the Vietnam War. The film continuously switches back and forth between 3 very different parts of their lives; finally reverting back to the present and the effects the war had on all 3 lives.•This type of editing is often confusing/hard to follow

•VIDEO: #9 Deer Hunter

Editorial Choices

•Episodic Structure:•Episodic structure – a story composed of separate incidents tied loosely together. •Cutting – a sharp break in filming quickly moving to another scene without a transition•Montage –joining scenes that are physically different, but are usually psychologically related

•Examples: Thelma and Louise (1991), Psycho (1960) or Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin

•This type of episodic structure is utilized to increase tension•VIDEO: #10 - Psycho

Editorial Choices

Many early filmmakers composed their films by adding single photographs to each other, frame by frame

The still frame and the individual shot are the building block of film

This is called the language of the

camera

Because of the language many filmmakers both early and contemporary attempt to

design each individual frame as careful as possible

All the eye sees is the succession of frames minus the lines that divide them

for the eye cannot perceive separate images or frames that move faster than 1/30

of a second

Context of Film History•All meanings in film, linguistic or nonlinguistic, exist within some kind of context.•Really good films have more than 1 context•To understand the content of a work of art, we must understand something about the subject matter; and the subject matter is always embedded in some external context•Historical•The viewer can better understand the context in movies like Pearl Harbor, Gladiator or Titanic because they are all films about actual events that took place.

VIDEO: #11 - Titanic

Film and The Participative Experience

Our Participation…• Our Participation with film is often

virtually involuntary.• Most people lose their sense of place

and time in a movie – BEING CAPTIVATED–Ex: Black Orpheus (1958) shot in Rio,

the intense colors, Latin music and the dynamics of the carnival produce an imaginary or virtual reality so intense and vital that actual reality seems dull by comparison–VIDEO: #12 – Black Orpheus – Carnival

Dance

Our Participation…• Cinematic realism makes it easy for

us to identify with actors who represent our values.

– Ex: In Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks plays what seems to be a mentally defective person, but he is good at heart and positive in his thinking

– He is trusting, innocent, and good hearted which makes him a likeable character that the viewer can relate to.

Audience Experience…• When watching a movie, the

audience experiences self-indulgence that depends upon self-justifying fantasies.–We imagine ourselves as

James Bond or swept of our feet in a romance film or happily ever after in a relationship.

• This is also known as escapism films

Escapism Films:• HIGHLY ENGAGING - Participation

with film is involuntary

• IMITATES LIFE - Audience identifies with actors in film

• FILMS OF VALUE – “classics” - humanize us through their structural excellence

Escapism Films:• HIGHLY ENGAGING, IMITATES

LIFE, FILM OF VALUE:

• VIDEO: #13 & 14 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)