University of Constantine the Philosopher

Lucia Sámelová presents

• Cinematography (from Greek: kinema - κίνημα "movement" and graphein - γράφειν  "to record")

• is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography. Many additional issues arise when both the camera and elements of the scene may be in motion, though this also greatly increases the creative possibilities of the process.

Cinematography

• Modern cinema is generally regarded as descending from the work of the French Lumière brothers in 1892, and their show first came to London in 1896.

• However, the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890.

• The film is the first known instance of a projected moving image. At the end of the 19th Friese-Green started to experiment in how to get a moving image onto a screen on a commercial basis.

• The first people to build and run a working 35 mm camera in Britain were Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres. They made the first British film ‘Incident at Clovelly Cottage’ in February 1895, shortly before falling out over the camera's patent.

• The early films were often melodramatic in tone, and there was a distinct preference for storylines which were already known to the audience - in particular adaptations of Shakespeare plays and Dickens' novels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk

Early British cinema

• By the mid-twenties the British film industry was losing out to heavy competition from Hollywood 25% of films shown in the UK were British

• By 1926 this had fallen to 5%.• The Cinematograph Films Act 1927 was

passed in order to boost local production• In the silent era, is English actor Charlie

Chaplin the biggest star.• First all-talking British feature, The Clue

of the New Pin (1929) was released.• Documentary movements were founded in

1929 by John Grierson (Drifters )but they didnt have mass following

• First british movies with international commercial success :Korda,The private life of Henry VIII

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYtNMDFyXQ

The 1920s ,1930s boom

• Sound increased the influence of already popular American films. Alfred Hitchcock's 

• Blackmail (1929) is regarded as the first British sound feature.

• Several other new talents emerged during this period, and Alfred Hitchcock would confirm his status as one of the UK's leading young directors with his influential thrillers The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)or  The Lady Vanishes (1938), before moving to Hollywood.

Alfred Hitchcock

• The confusions imposed by World War II seemed to ive new energy to the British film industry and British films began to make increasing use of documentary techniques and formed more realistic films, many of which helped to shape the popular image of the nation at war. Among the best known of these films are In Which We Serve (1942), Went the Day Well? (1942), We Dive at Dawn (1943), ).

• In the later war years GainsboroughStudios produced a series of popular period melodramas including The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945).

•  Stewart Granger, Margaret Lockwood and James Mason.

• The war years also saw the flowering of the Powell and Pressburger partnership with films set in a wartime and were very much about the people affected by war rather than battles : 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and A Canterbury Tale(1944)

World War II

• British cinema's growing international reputation was enhanced by the success of The Red Shoes, the most commercially successful film of its year in the U.S., and by Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture

• In the 1950s the war films were often based on true stories

• They helped to make stars of actors like John Mills or Jack Hawkins and some of the most successful included The Cruel Sea (1953), The Dam busters (1954), 

• Popular comedy series by the St Trinians: Doctor in the House in 1954.

• Also twin brothers John and Roy Boulting produced a series of successful satires on British life (Private's Progress)

• Among the most significant films produced during this period were David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and his Dickens adaptations Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948),

• At the end of the 1950s producer Hammer Films made influential and wildly successful horror films.

•  Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy.

Post-war cinema

• The term British New Wave, or "Kitchen Sink Realism", is used to describe a group of commercial feature films made between 1955 and 1963 which portrayed a more gritty form of social realism than had been seen in British cinema previously.

• The British New Wave feature films are often associated with a new openness about working class life , and previously taboo issues such as abortion and homosexuality (e.g. The Leather Boys, 1964).

• A group of key filmmakers was established around the film magazine Sequence which was founded by Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson who had all made documentary films (Momma Don't Allow.)

• Together with future James Bond producer Harry Saltzman, John Osborne and Tony Richardson established the company Woodfall Films.

• These included adaptations of Richardson's stage productions of Look Back in Anger  and The Entertainer 

• Other significant films in this movement include Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), A Kind of Loving (1962), and This Sporting Life (1963).

• After Richardson's film of Tom Jones became a big hit the group broke up to pursue different interests.

British new wave

• In the 1960s British studios began to enjoy major success in the international market with a string of films that displayed a more liberated attitude to sex, capitalising on the "swinging London" image propagated by Time magazine. Films like Darling, Alfie, Georgy Girl, and The Knack …Women in Love, broke taboos around the portrayal of sex and nudity on screen.

• At the same time, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli combined sex with exotic locations, casual violence and self-referential humour in the phenomenally successful James Bond series with Sean Connery in the leading role.

• The series success led to a spy film boom, with The Liquidator (1965),   The Deadly Affair (1966).

• Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey had a significant influence on British cinema in the 60s, particularly with his collaborations with playwright Harold Pinter and leading man Dirk Bogarde,

• The success of these films : Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Tom Jones (1963), Zulu (1964) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) encouraged American studios to invest significantly in British film production.

• Four of the decade's Academy Award winners for best picture were British productions, including six Oscars for the film musical Oliver! (1968), based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist.

The 1960s Boom

• Major films were still being made at this time, including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Battle of Britain (1969) or Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

• Among the more successful were adaptations of the Agatha Christie stories Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978).

• The British horror boom of the 1960s also finally came to an end by the mid-1970s, with the leading producers Hammer and Amicus leaving the genre altogether in the face of competition from independents in the United States.

• Some British producers, including Hammer, turned to television series for inspiration, and the big screen versions of shows like Steptoe and Son 

• More relaxed censorship in the 1970s also brought several controversial films, including Ken Russell's The Devils (1970), Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971),  James Bond series with The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. However, the next film, Moonraker (1979), broke with tradition by filming at studios in France.

• Some American productions did return to the major British studios in 1977-79, including Star Wars at Elstree Studios, Superman at Pinewood, and Alien at Shepperton.

The 1970s

• Although major American production, continued to be filmed at British studios in the 1980s, the decade began with the worst recession the British film industry had ever seen. in 1980 only 31 British films were made, down 50% on the previous year, and the lowest output since 1914.

• Puttnam-produced Chariots of Fire (1981) won 4 Academy Awards in 1982, including best picture,

• However, further attempts to make 'big' productions for the US market ended in failure, with Goldcrest losing independence after a trio of commercial flops. However, by this stage the rest of the new talent had moved on to Hollywood.

• Handmade Films produced series of comedies and gritty dramas such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and Withnail and I and it had proven popular international success.

• With the involvement of Channel 4 in film production a number of new talents were developed in Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette) and Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger. 

• Company Palace Pictures also enjoyed some notable successes, including Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984) and Mona Lisa (1986),Lewis Gilbert's Educating Rita (1983), Bill Forsyth's Gregory's Girl (1981) and Peter Yate's The Dresser (1983).

The 1980s: Renaissance and Recession

• While cinema audiences were climbing in the UK in the early 1990s, few British films were enjoying significant commercial success, even in the home market. The same company also enjoyed some success releasing the BBC period drama Enchanted April (1992). Kenneth Branagh to The Madness of King George (1994) proved there was still a market for the traditional

• British costume dramas : Sense and Sensibility (1995),  Restoration (1995), Emma (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998) by Miramax Films, who also took over Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996) when the production ran into difficulties during filming. Although technically an American production, the success of this film, including its 9 Academy Award wins would bring further prestige to British film-makers.

• The surprise success of the comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) introduced Hugh Grant to global fame, led to renewed interest and investment in British films, and set a pattern for British-set romantic comedies, including Sliding Doors (1998) and Notting Hill (1999).

•  Working Title Films, quickly became one of the most successful British production companies .• After a six year hiatus for legal reasons the James Bond films returned to production with the 17th

Bond film, GoldenEye. With.• American productions also began to return to British studios in the mid-1990s, including Interview with

the Vampire (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and The Mummy (1999), as well as the French production The Fifth Element (1997), at the time claimed to be the most expensive film made in the UK.

BRITISH CINEMA IN THE 1990S

• The new century has so far been a relatively successful one for the British film industry. Many British films have found a wide international audience due to funding from BBC Films, Film 4 and the UK Film Council Working Title

• Their three major international successes, all starring Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, with the romantic comedies Bridget Jones's Diary (2001),the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,  Love Actually (2003). But the most successful of all was, Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia! (2008)

• The new decade saw a major new film series in the US-backed but British made Harry Potter films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2001. David Heyman's company Heyday Films has produced seven sequels, with the final two titles – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - released in two-parts in 2010 and 2011. All were filmed in England.

• In 2004, Mike Leigh directed Vera Drake, an account of a housewife who leads a double life as an abortionist in 1950s London. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.  

• The Queen(2006) by Stephen Frears  based on the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana won the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival and Academy Awards and the BAFTA for Best Film. 

•  Slumdog Millionaire - an Indian story that was filmed in Mumbai with a mostly Indian cast, though with a British director (Danny Boyle), producer (Christian Colson), screenwriter and star . It has won four Golden Globes, seven BAFTA Awards and eight Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Film

• The King's Speech tells the story of King George VI's attempts to overcome his speech impediment. It received four Academy Awards (including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay) in 2011.

British cinema since 2000

BAFTA (British academy of film and television art ) Awards for Best British Film• At the 1993 British Academy Awards the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film was introduced.

The BAFTAs had included a Best British Film category since 1948, although the idea was dropped in the 1960s. Since 1993 the winners have been:

• 1993 - The Crying Game• 1994 - Shadowlands• 1995 - Shallow Grave• 1996 - The Madness of King George• 1997 - Secrets & Lies• 1998 - Nil by Mouth• 1999 - Elizabeth• 2000 - East is East• 2001 - Billy Elliot• 2002 - Gosford Park• 2003 - The Warrior• 2004 - Touching the Void• 2005 - My Summer of Love• 2006 - Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit• 2007 - The Last King of Scotland• 2008 - This Is England• 2009 - Man On Wire• 2010 - Fish Tank• 2011 - The King's Speech

• Many Hollywood films with a British dimension (based on British people, stories or events) have had enormous worldwide commercial success.

• Six of the top seven highest-grossing films worldwide of all time have some British historical, cultural or creative dimensions: Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Harry Potter movies. The second culturally American film on the list, Star Wars at number 9, was filmed principally in the UK. Adding four more Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films, plus three about a Scottish ogre in British fairy tale setting (Shrek), and about two-thirds of the top twenty most commercial films, with combined cinema revenues of about $13 billion, had a substantial British dimension.

• British influence can also be seen with the 'English Cycle' of Disney animated films, which include Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Rescuers and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOtnSnVUouM&feature=relmfu

Thank you for your attention and Have a nice day