Encountering FilmFrom Preproduction to Exhibition

Preproduction & Major PositionsScreenwriter: The individual who generates the idea for a narrative film called a "treatment."

Screenplay/Script: A complete plan for the film, including scene descriptions, dialogue, and other directions (temporary screenplay, final shooting script).

Producer: Oversees all of the different operations in putting a film together. Producers were particularly powerful in the Hollywood studio system era.

Executive Producer: Producer who arranges financing and commissioning.

Line Producer: Responsible for the daily business of tracking costs and maintaining the production schedule for a film.

Unit Production Manager: Responsible for reporting and managing the details of receipts and purchases.

Above-the-Line Expenses: Initial costs of contracting major personnel (directors and stars) as well as administrative expenses for setting up film production.

Below-the-Line Expenses: Technical and material costs, such as costumes, sets, transportation, etc. involved in the making of a film.

Production Values: How the quality of a film's images and sounds reflects the extent of the film's above-the-line and below-the-line expenses.

Casting, Locations & Visuals

Casting Directors have gained power within the film & TV industries as the Star System gained prestige and value.

Package-Unit Casting Approach: A popular production technique by the 1950s, whereby the agent, producer, and casting director determine the script, stars and other major personnel as a key first step in production.

Location Scouting: Determines places that provide the most suitable environment for different movie scenes.

Art Directors: Individuals responsible for supervising the conception and construction of movie sets, and collaborate with Set Designers.

Production Designer: The person in charge of a film's overall look.

Costume Designers: Those who plan and prepare how actors will be dressed for parts.

Production: The Film ShootThe Director: Commonly regarded as the chief creative presence or the primary manager of film production. Responsible for overseeing virtually all the work of making a movie, including coaching actors, positioning the camera, and the selection of images in the film's final version.

Cinematographer: The director of photography who selects the cameras, film stock, lighting, and lenses to be used, and is responsible for camera setup & position.

Camera Operator: Person who operates the camera (overseen by the Cinematographer).

Other Production Positions: Production Sound Mixer, Boom Operator, Grips (install lighting & dollies), Special Effects Coordinator, Hair/Makeup Personnel, Catering Staff.

Production Coordinator: Helps the complex operations of production run smoothly each day of shooting.

Dailies: Compiled footage shot each day for directors & production team to view.

PostproductionPostproduction: The stage in filmmaking when the principle photography (shooting) is complete, and the point where editing, sound, and visual effects can be added and manipulated.

Editing: The process of selecting, trimming, assembling shots into a finished film with a distinctive style and rhythm.

“Locked”: A term describing when the editing process is complete.

Sound Mix: The score and all of the film's soundtracks combined and adjusted to their final levels.

Special Effects: Techniques that enhance a film's realism or surpass assumptions about realism with spectacle. These effects may include visual effects, like the use of a green screen or Computer Generated Imaging (CGI).

DistributionDistribution: The process by which a completed film reaches its audience, which involves determining the venues where a film may be screened.

Distributor: The company or agency that acquires the rights to a movie from the filmmakers or producers, and then makes the movie available to audiences by renting, selling , or licensing theaters or other exhibition outlets.

Feature Film: (Origins 1911-1915) Expansion of the narrative film from an average of around 15 minutes to around 100 minutes. Feature films became the dominant viewing experience, replacing continuous programs with numerous short films.

Block Booking: A Studio-Era practice whereby studios would only show their films in theaters owned by the studio, or sell films to theaters in packages, so that each exhibitor was required to show cheaper, less desirable pictures as well as "A" pictures. This practice ended with the 1948 Paramount Decision, which forced studios to sell off their theater chains and license films individually.

Saturation Booking: When a film's release is screened in as many locations as possible; Limited Release: Initially distributes film only in major or particular cities, and then expand distribution depending on the film's success.

Platforming: Involves releasing a film in gradually widening markets and theaters so that it slowly builds a reputation and momentum through reviews, word of mouth.

Exclusive Release: When a film premieres in only one or two places.

Target Audiences & DistributionTarget Audiences: The intended market for a film. By controlling a film's distribution, etc., filmmakers can determine the quality of an audience's interactions with the film, and lead viewers to read certain films in certain ways. The target audience can also demarcate primary, intended responses to the film, as well as unintended responses.

Television Distribution: Provides a way for filmmakers to distribute films after they are shown in theaters, often lessening the risk of production costs.

Video, DVD and Internet Distribution

Piracy: The unauthorized duplication and circulation of copyrighted material.

Consequences of Video Distribution Patterns:

1. Video distribution controls and directs local responses, tastes, and expectations.

2. Video stores become part of the social fabric of a neighborhood, and can become social forums for sharing the interests of community viewers.

Decline of Video Store with the rise of DVD, Netflix and Internet distribution.

Distribution Continued

Distribution Timing: When a movie is released for public viewing in certain locations or on certain platforms. Timing can take advantage of the social atmosphere, cultural connotations, or critical scrutiny associated with particular seasons or dates.

Multiple Releases (first, second, directors' cuts, bonus footage/features)

Theatrical Release Window: The period of time before a film's broadcast or cable premiere, or distribution on Video or DVD (traditionally 3-6 months to guarantee box office revenue).

MarketingFilm Marketing: Involves identifying an audience in order to bring a product (the movie) to the attention of buyers (viewers) so that they will consume (watch) that product for financial return.

Film Promotion: The specific ways a movie can be made an object that an audience will want to see. The Star System is one important component of marketing and promotion.

Tie-Ins: Ancillary products like T-Shirts, CD soundtracks, toys, and other gimmicks made to advertise/promote a movie.

Stars are booked to appear on talk shows and other venues in conjunction with a film's release. Stars may also bring unofficial publicity with their personal lives or public behavior.

Cultural Promotion: Academic or journalistic accounts that discuss and value films in terms of film history or aesthetics.

-Advertising -Trailer: A series of images that condenses the progress of the film. -Remix: Mainstream media content that is re-edited and distributed by fans as tribute, satire, or commentary on the text.

Marketing ContinuedMedia Convergence: The coordinating and merging of media across a variety of platforms, such as print, television, and the Internet.

Viral Marketing: A process of advertising that relies on existing social networks such as word of mouth, Internet links, or sites like Facebook or Twitter.

A Picture/B Picture

Exploitation Film: Made to "exploit" certain subject matter or genre conventions for profit.

Blockbuster: Usually high-budget films that feature action, stars, and special effects.

Art Film: A visually subtle, perhaps slower-paced or more intellectually demanding movie.

Ratings System: In the U.S. the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) determines ratings classifications and rates individual films.

Fanzines, Fan Culture, Fanfic (often intersects with promotion).

ExhibitionExhibition: Where and when we see films. It is closely tied to ...

Reception: The process through which individual viewers or groups make sense of a film. Encompasses spatial frameworks and temporal frameworks.

Nickelodeons: Storefront theaters where films were shown continuously to audiences passing in and out, or in carnival settings using films as amusements/attractions.

Movie Palaces: Ornate, urban theaters originating in the 1920s to drive moviegoing (Radio City Music Hall).

Multiplexes: Theaters that integrate choice as part of the moviegoing experiences by having many screens/films showing at any given time. Many are attached to malls to capitalize on links with other leisure activities.

Movie Palaces 1920s-1940s