film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

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Film Production-- Making the Movie The Process Preproduction Research, Scriptwriting, Storyboards, Shooting Scripts, Funding, Locations, Auditions Production Capturing images & sounds; working with actors-- lighting, sets, costumes, movement, music, sound effects Post-production Editing, motion graphics, color correction, sound mix, score, Foley, etc Distribution and Marketing Film festivals, Markets, Theatrical, Online, DIY, Transmedia

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Loyola's Intro to Cinema course. PPT1--Early cinema, meaning, narration

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Page 1: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Production--Making the Movie The Process

PreproductionResearch, Scriptwriting, Storyboards, Shooting Scripts, Funding, Locations, Auditions

Production Capturing images & sounds; working with actors--

lighting, sets, costumes, movement, music, sound effects

Post-productionEditing, motion graphics, color correction, sound mix, score, Foley, etc

Distribution and MarketingFilm festivals, Markets, Theatrical, Online, DIY, Transmedia

The ProcessPreproduction

Research, Scriptwriting, Storyboards, Shooting Scripts, Funding, Locations, Auditions

Production Capturing images & sounds; working with actors--

lighting, sets, costumes, movement, music, sound effects

Post-productionEditing, motion graphics, color correction, sound mix, score, Foley, etc

Distribution and MarketingFilm festivals, Markets, Theatrical, Online, DIY, Transmedia

Page 2: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Transmedia

“Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment

experience.” Henry Jenkins

» Hope is Missing -- a social media driven ARG

“Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment

experience.” Henry Jenkins

» Hope is Missing -- a social media driven ARG

Page 3: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Style

Ways that a film uses filmmaking techniques:

• Mise-en-scene

• Cinematography

• Editing (Montage)

• Sound

• Narration

Page 4: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Movements

• Films that are produced within a particular period and/or nation and that share significant traits of style and form.E.g. German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, Italian Neo-realism, etc…

• Filmmakers who operate within a common production structure and who share certain assumptions about filmmaking.

Page 5: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Criticism

Film criticism is connected to the cultural criticism that developed in the 20th century and relates to the study of photography, art, media, linguistics and criticism.

Names we’ll cover:De Saussure, Peirce, Eisenstein, Kracauer,

Benjamin, Bazin, Mulvey, Jenkins, etc..

Page 6: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Eadweard Muybridge 1878

• Stanford, governor of CA, wanted to see if all four hooves of horse came off the ground at same time. EM set up series of cameras with trip wires across the track.

Page 7: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Women in Motion

• Muybridge studied the body (particularly the woman’s body) in motion… Was it science? Was it art? Something else?

Page 8: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Early Cinema Names1893-1903

• Etienne-Jules Marey--camera, projector parts• George Eastman--celluloid• Thomas Edison/Dickson--kinetoscope, Black Maria• Lumiere brothers--Project onto screen• George Melies--magician, first special effects

Page 9: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation

• Crosscutting (last minute rescues)

• Close-ups• Directing emotions,

more subtly• Appealing to politics

Page 10: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Classical Hollywood Cinema1908-1927

• Motion Picture Patents Co. (MPPC), Edison monopoly

• Independents in CA by 20s--Famous Players Lasky (Paramount), MGM, Fox, Warner Bros, Universal

• Development of continuity system

Page 11: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Continuity system

• Eyeline Matches

• Shot/Reverse shot

• Axis-of-action (180 degree rule)

• Match on action

• Establishing shots

Ex: Record a conversation at table

Page 12: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

German Expressionism1919-1926

Emphasis on mise-en- scene--distorted shapes, heavy makeup, exaggerated movements.

“The film image must become graphic art.” Hermann Warm, designer of “Caligari” “Film must be drawings brought to life.”

Page 13: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Kracauer--symbolic power

• “The revolutionary meaning of the story reveals itself unmistakably at the end, with the disclosure of the psychiatrist as Caligari: reason overpowers unreasonable power, insane authority is symbolically abolished.” Siegfried Kracauer, 1947

Page 14: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Soviet Montage1924-1930

Vertov, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein

“Of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.” Lenin 1922

Emphasis on editing and action

Eisenstein’s intellectual montage--juxtaposing images to create a concept--often a revolutionary “collision” between a “collective hero”--the proletariat--and the enemy--the bourgeoisie

Watch “Strike”

Page 15: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

French Impressionism & Surrealism1918-1930

Emphasis on internal psychology, dreams, flashbacks, emotion.

Point of view shots, distorted images, new lenses, cameras on roller skates--mobile frames.

Surrealist Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel--anti-narrative, anti-rational. (“Un Chien Andalou,” 1928)

Page 16: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Walter Benjamin Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction

• “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art.”

• “Dadaism attempted to create by pictorial--and literary--means the effects which the public seeks in the film.” See Duchamp

• ““I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.” Duhamel

Page 17: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Walter Benjamin Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction

• All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war..”

• “Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system….”

• “…through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.”

Page 18: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Form

The sum of all the parts of the film, shaped by patterns:

• Repetition and Variation

• Story Lines

• Character Traits

Page 19: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Ferdinand de Saussure (1907)Linguistics and Meaning

Sign=Signifier + SignifiedRelationship is learned or arbitrary

• Signifier--Form that the sign takes• Signified--Concept it represents

Ex: Stop signSignifier=?Signified=?

Page 20: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

C.S. Peirce (1894)-- Semiotics--How signs denote objects

• Iconic--Signifier has resemblance to object it represents. E.g. photograph, portrait, sound effects on radio

• Indexical--Factual connection to object, indicator. E.g. Smoke indicates fire, shadow indicates presence, film=?.

• Symbolic--Abstract relation to signified. E.g. Stop sign, language, burkas

Page 21: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Classical narrative structure--Aristotelian

• "A chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space.”

• Protagonist/Antagonist--conflicting goals and motivations

• CHC--Cause/effect structure with closure?

Page 22: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Film Narration

• “The process by which the plot presents story information to the spectator.”

Forms of narration and terms to know:Restricted; Unrestricted degrees of knowledge;

Objectivity/Subjectivity; Omniscient/3rd Person

Point of view shot; hierarchy of knowledge; character or noncharacter narrators.

Page 23: Film form -early cinema, meaning,narration

Bordwell-- Forms of Cinematic MeaningStory and Plot

• Referential--constructed world of film• Explicit--abstract, thematic meaning, stated• Implicit--thematic meaning, not stated overtly• Symptomatic--meaning unknown to filmmaker

Other terms to know:• Diegesis; Non/extra-diegesis (Look them up…)