Art 199 - Final

Number of takes in typical Hollywood movie today

*An average Hollywood film today typically consists of between 1000 and 2000 shots and action films or a film with rapid action can have over 3000. This can be hundreds of hours of footage for a film that will be 2 hours.

African-Americans in US Cinema and evolution over time

Early Cinema and Representations of Blackness •Negative depictions of blackness are common in early American cinema and reinforced stereotypes and white hegemony. •D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) as one of the first full-length feature films ever made, an epic drama lasting more than three hours. It was and is a landmark achievement in cinema, employing formal techniques that were years ahead of their time, and playing across the country to sold out, enraptured crowds. *Horribly racist •The film is set during and after the Civil War and depicts the "horrific" results of giving freed slaves and African Americans the right to vote and hold political office. •Black men, played by white actors in blackface, are portrayed as power-hungry rapists and murderers, unfit for freedom. •And when it seems all hope is lost for the white Southerners suffering under the "savagery" of reconstruction, who rides to the rescue? That's right: The Ku Klux Klan. They are the hooded heroes who save the day, protecting whites from the menace of African Americans who have the audacity to want to... vote. •And almost worse than the film itself, is the fact that it was so hugely popular. •And it was so because it reaffirmed the contemporary, hegemonic idea of race in America. •It presented the subjugation of Black people to white people as the "natural order of things" by showing audiences the danger of upending that order. •The Jazz Singer—first film with synchronized sound—featured Al Jolson playing the son of Jewish immigrants performing in blackface in front of a sold-out crowd of white people. In fact, he spends a solid 1/3 of the film in blackface. •White performers wearing blackface was a common form of popular entertainment at the time, a caricature of African Americans satirizing African American culture. •Interestingly, by the 1930s, blackface began to fall out of favor, partly because enough African Americans protested its use in popular entertainment. And partly because even reasonable white people began to see it as offensive and racist. Black Stereotypes in Early Cinema 1.Black man/woman colluding with white hegemony. These are referred to as Uncle Tom and Mammy roles. These characters upheld and even celebrated the idea of white superiority. •Actor Hattie McDaniel played the most famous version of the Mammy character as Scarlet O'Hara's loyal slave in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The first African American to win an Oscar (she wasn't allowed to sit at same table as other actors because of segregation) 2. Black man as an ineffectual and lazy simpleton. These characters were slow-witted and easily fooled, often used as comic relief and as a foil for white protagonists to ridicule. •Lincoln Perry played the most famous version of this stereotype as the recurring character, Stepin Fetchit. It will be so popular, Perry will earn the distinction of being first African American actor to earn a million dollars. But Perry would eventually step away from acting, frustrated that he could not get equal billing and pay as his white co-stars. 3. The "tragic mulatto", that is, a character of mixed-race ancestry who was inevitably doomed. •Not quite as prevalent as the others, the tragic mulatto would appear now and again, almost always as a female character. 4. The hypermasculine and dangerous black male•Black men as violent, unpredictable and overtly sexualized. It was a thinly veiled projection of white fear, a subconscious awareness of their own vulnerability. The Rise and Fall of Early Black Cinema •There was an important counternarrative produced within the African American community to these stereotypes produced by a few enterprising African American artists (and yes, they were mostly men), who understood there were plenty of African American theatergoers who didn't want to pay their hard-earned nickels to see themselves denigrated and mocked. •There was an alternate film industry, a Black Cinema produced by African American filmmakers for African American audiences. •Known as "race films", they had their own movie stars, their own luminary directors, and their own movie houses scattered throughout the United States. •By the 1940s, there were 100s of theaters in cities from New York to Los Angeles screening films with Black characters portrayed by Black actors that were nuanced, heroic, tragic, comic and human. •Oscar Micheaux produce more than 40 films over his career, spanning the transition to sound, and challenging the prevailing stereotypes with every one of them. •His first film, The Homesteader (1918) directly confronts the tragic mulatto stereotype by having the protagonist, an African American, fall in love and marry a woman who "passes" as white but is discovered to be of mixed race. •He formed his own production company in 1919 and produced Within Our Gates (1920) as a direct response to D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation. a white landowner attempts to rape a Black tenant until he realizes she is his own biological daughter. The revelation actually causes him to repent and turn away from his racist ideas! •Micheaux was as bound up in the white hegemony as everyone else at the time, internalizing some of the very inequalities he resisted in his work. For example, many of his films depicted lighter-skinned African Americans as more heroic, enlightened and intelligent than darker-skinned characters. •And after World War II, when African American involvement in the war effort began to turn public opinion against the enduring racism of the Jim Crow Era, Hollywood studios began incorporating more Black characters played by actual Black actors in an attempt to share in the profits of this untapped market •MGM produced Cabin in the Sky in 1943, the first musical with an all-Black cast by a major studio. •The characters themselves relied less and less on the tired, old stereotypes, but they were replaced by a new narrative that emphasized a passive acceptance of the status quo. •Soon those niche movie-houses showing lower-budget "race films" in African American communities could not compete with the grand studio-owned movie palaces screening big-budget spectacles featuring at least a few true-to-life African American characters Blaxploitation and the Post-Civil Rights Era •The shift in cultural attitudes toward race that began in the wake of World War II would take another 20 years to come to fruition in the Civil Rights Movement and, eventually, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. •By that time, many African Americans were frustrated by the lack of real change in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and by the persistent image of African Americans as passive, often secondary characters in Hollywood cinema. •African American filmmakers, like Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks, started making their own, often independently financed films that reclaimed an image of Black culture, and Black masculinity in particular, as powerful, pro-active, anti-establishment, and even dangerous. It was, in a way, a reappropriation of the Hollywood stereotype of the aggressive, violent Black man, meant as a provocation to the cultural complacency of the post-Civil Rights era. •Melvin Van Peebles's 1971 Sweet, Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The film stars Van Peebles as a successful gigolo in Los Angeles who finds himself on the wrong side of the law after stopping two white police officers from beating a defenseless young activist. On the run, he finds protection and support within the Black community as the (mostly white) authorities terrorize the city looking for him. It was low-budget and rough around the edges, but it depicted a strong Black male lead struggling against the forces of white power. https://youtu.be/SPHWcXNUFho•Other films in this same spirit would follow, including Shaft (1971) and Super Fly (1972), both directed by Gordon Parks, along with dozens of others in the first half of the 1970s. •They were hugely popular, both inside and outside of African American communities. But not so much with NAACP, who coined Blaxploitation.•But they were successful and Hollywood noticed. By the late 1970s, the films had become a parody of themselves, often backed by white producers and directed by white directors. Suddenly, "blaxploitation" took on a new meaning, with white filmmakers reducing the characters intended to resist hegemony to the same tired, old stereotypes. By the end of the 70s, the short-lived resurrection of Black Cinema in the form of blaxploitation was over. •Just as Hollywood reacted to Second Wave Feminism, so too did they react to Civil Rights Movement. •Hollywood produced cinema that resisted real cultural change in terms of racial equality by emphasizing an anti-reactionary, assimilationist narrative. •This narrative shows up in buddy comedies, like Stir Crazy (1980) and action comedies, like 48 Hrs (1982) and the Lethal Weapon franchise, which began in 1992. •In each of these films, two characters, one Black and one white, must overcome their differences and work together. •But they often ignored the deep disparities in power and opportunity between the two characters. Or if they paid any attention to such issues, played them as a joke. •And new stereotypes are created. •The "Magical Negro" is a recurring character, usually male, often with mysterious, supernatural powers, whose only role is help the white protagonist achieve their goal and/or avoid some terrible predicament. •Examples: Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile (1999); Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000); Djimon Hounsou in In America (2002); Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty (2003); Samuel L. Jackson in The Unicorn Store (2019). •The white corollary is the White Savior •The Thug, which is really just an updated version of the old "dangerous Black male" stereotype of early cinema. •The Domestic, which is really just a retooling of the Mammy role •The Angry Black woman is characterized by unmotivated aggression and little else. •The Sassy Best Friend•What all of these modern stereotypes have in common is their role in shaping a shared cultural narrative about race in America. A narrative that constantly reaffirms whiteness as normative, and the implied value in any non-white "Other" submitting (or "assimilating") to that norm. Modern Hollywood Cinema and Representations of Blackness Modern Black Cinema and the Politics of Representation •Beginning with the Independent film movement of the 1980s, more and more Black filmmakers had access to cheaper and cheaper equipment and were able to take control over the creative process outside of the Hollywood system. •Spike Lee's first feature film, She's Gotta Have it (1986), was shot in 12 days for just $175,000. Julie Dash, who made Daughters of the Dust (1991) with financing from PBS after struggling more than 15 years to get it made. •These films offered alternatives to the stereotypes favored by Hollywood. •Spike Lee, in particular, who paved the way for other African American filmmakers.•His third film, Do the Right Thing (1989), unapologetically takes on the cultural politics of race and directly comments on the issue of representation, racial inequality, gentrification and police brutality. In fact, the film's challenge to white hegemony was so on point that critics suggested the film might actually inspire race riots, as if simply calling attention to inequality would lead to violence. •The result of this fertile decade in Black Cinema was a new generation of African American filmmakers who started outside of the Hollywood system, and then stormed the gates to helm some of most acclaimed films of the past decade and some of the largest studio productions in history. •Barry Jenkins' first film Medicine for Melancholy (2008) was a small, intimate romantic drama. His second film, Moonlight (2016), won the Academy Award for Best Picture. •Ava DuVernay Middle of Nowhere (2012) dramatized the toll of unequal incarceration rates among Black men. Two years later, she made Selma (2014), a historical drama about the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, for Paramount Pictures. A few years later, she helmed the $200 million Disney film A Wrinkle in Time (2018). She also directed 13thfor Netflix. •Or Ryan Coogler whose first film in 2013 was Fruitvale Station, a searing portrait of the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, the young, unarmed Black man shot dead by police in Oakland in 2009. His second film was Creed (2015) a $40 million re-boot of the Rocky franchise, this time with an African American in the lead role. His third film was Black Panther (2018). The grossed $1.3 billion worldwide (It also happened to feature a Black superhero protagonist and push a not-so-subtle critique of white hegemony).

Kuleshov effect

Kuleshov effect means that even without the establishing shot, use of the shot/reverse shot, eyeliner matches, etc. can create a sense of space

LGBTQ in US Cinema and evolution over time

LGBTQ Representation in Cinema •In over a 100 years of movies, homosexuality has been only rarely acknowledged. And when it was, it mostly as something to get laughs, or inspire fear or pity, conditioning straight people's ideas about gay people and gay people's ideas about themselves. •One of the definitive books on this topic is Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet, which analyzes the representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood films from the 1890s to the 1980s and argues that Hollywood's portrayal of lesbians and gay men has often been cruel and homophobic. •During that period, gay and lesbian characters were defined by their sexual orientation and lacked any complex character development. LGBTQ Representation in Cinema •In Early Cinema, there developed the stereotype of the effeminate, flamboyant sissy. Homosexuality was often presented as an object of ridicule and laughter. There were also cross-dressing characters played for amusement as well. •With the development of the Hays Code in the 1930s, most gay themes disappeared. Those that existed were more reserved and buried within subtext. There was also a stereotype that developed of queer characters as villains or victims who commit crimes due to their homosexuality. •Example: The Maltese Falcon character Joel Cairo is clearly homosexual in the book, but in the movie his homosexuality is made vague. •From the late 1940s through the 1960s, queer characters were increasingly dangerous, sadists, psychopaths, and nefarious, anti-social villains or suicidal because of their sexuality .•These depictions were driven by fact code allowed "sexual perversion" to be depicted if it was in a negative manner, as well as the fact that homosexuality was classified as a mental illness and gay men and women were often harassed by the police. LGBTQ Representation in Cinema •The 1960s and 1970s, the gay rights movements brought greater visibility to the queer community. •During the 1970s, some Hollywood films still depicted homosexuality as an insult or a joke or as dangerous misfits who needed to be cured or killed. Anti-gay derogatory comments, often made by the protagonist, were not uncommon. •However, Hollywood also saw the potential for marketing to queer audiences and did produce some more nuanced depictions of queer characters, such as Fortune and Men's Eyes •With the organized religious opposition to LGBTQ rights in the 1980s, LGBTQ characters became a liability for studios. If represented, and not primarily for a queer audience, homosexuality was often depicted as something to laugh at, pity or fear. •In the 1990s, Hollywood began slowly to improve its portrayal of gay and lesbian characters, in part because the cultural and political backlash that had occurred against LGBTQ community began to decline in the late 1980s. •In the 1990s, initially, most of these Hollywood depictions were in the context of campy, funny characters, often in drag on some sort of adventure or farce, while teaching a lesson in tolerance, if not equality. •Examples: The Birdcage and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar •TV played also played a role normalizing queerness for mainstream audiences. Queer Cinema in the 1990s •Queer filmmakers have succeeded in creating a vibrant underground and alternative film scene. •In the '90s, New Queer Cinema challenged established notions that queer legitimacy could only come through assimilation into mainstream heterosexual society. •Filmmakers such as Gregg Araki, Alexis Arquette, Todd Haynes, Jennie Livingston, Cheryl Dunye, Gus Van Sant, John Waters and John Cameron Mitchell achieved this through the use of heavy irony and an antagonism towards the naturalistic style that dominated cinema at that time. •For instance, in Hedwig and the Angry Inch the realism of the story is broken through the use of music, meta-narrative (where characters acknowledge that they're in a movie), animation, and identities that are in constant flux. (In particular, the title character is a post-op transsexual who has suffered a botched sex-change operation and who performs a destabilized gender identity that is always hybrid.) •New Queer Cinema faded as a movement when queerness became more acceptable within the mainstream. The movement has, however, left behind a legacy in the form of queer film festivals that exist all over the world. LGBTQ Representation in Cinema •In the 21st century, LBGTQ themes have been given more prominence and characters have been given more nuanced and variety. •A shift in queer representation trends can be linked to Brokeback Mountain (2005), which grossed over $178 million proving that movies portraying queer people could be lucrative for large studios. •It was one of the first major motion pictures to feature a love story with two leading homosexual roles. Also, it didn't repeat stereotypes of effeminate, evil or comedic gay characters. •Some members of the queer community, however, have criticized it as a movie about "straight-acting" gay men ,who barely have sex, and who cannot even accept their own desires. •And just FYI—director is Ang Lee, who is Taiwanese, and is based on a book by a female write, Annie Prouix. •Despite these advances, however, the industry is still cautious in its portrayals of gay themes, characters, and experiences. LGBTQ Representation in Cinema •In the 21st century, LBGTQ themes have been given more prominence and characters have been given more nuanced and variety. •A shift in queer representation trends can be linked to Brokeback Mountain (2005), which grossed over $178 million proving that movies portraying queer people could be lucrative for large studios. •It was one of the first major motion pictures to feature a love story with two leading homosexual roles. Also, it didn't repeat stereotypes of effeminate, evil or comedic gay characters. •Some members of the queer community, however, have criticized it as a movie about "straight-acting" gay men ,who barely have sex, and who cannot even accept their own desires. •And just FYI—director is Ang Lee, who is Taiwanese, and is based on a book by a female write, Annie Prouix. •Despite these advances, however, the ind

Computer Generate Imagery (CGI)

CGI, or Computer-generated imagery, uses digital software systems to create figures, settings, or other material in the frame. Originally used for occasional special effects in 1970s and 1980s, by the 1990s it was being used to create feature length animated films.

Male gaze

Second Wave Feminism and the Male Gaze •In 1975, film theorist Laura Mulvey wrote "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," a pivotal essay that helped clarify how hegemonic patriarchy worked, specifically in cinema. And she did it by giving it a name: The Male Gaze. •The Male Gaze: •First, she suggests we're all inherently narcissistic. •Second, she suggests we are also all inherently voyeuristic. •Put those two together, and you get two mutually re-enforcing phenomena: We identify with a male hero in his objectification of female characters (as Madonnas or whores), and we identify with the camera as it mirrors that objectification. •According to the theory of the Male Gaze, the camera is never a neutral observer, but rather it forces all viewers to assume a heterosexual male point of view.

Just as Hollywood reacted to Second Wave Feminism, so too did they react to Civil Rights Movement producing movies that resisted real cultural change in terms of racial equality by emphasizing anti-reactionary, assimilationist narratives.

True

Special effects

Special Effects, i.e. various photographic manipulations that create fictitious spatial relations in the shot. •Most of these effects have been replaced by digital effects. •Superimposition—images are laid over one another, creating multiple perspectives within the frame. •Often used for dreams, visions, or memories in older films. •Composites—when combine separately photographed images in one image. •Rear projection is when project footage onto screen behind actors (poor depth of field to our eyes today) •Matte process is when a portion of the setting was photographed on a strip of film, usually with a part of the frame empty. Through laboratory printing, the matte is joined with another strip of film containing the actors.

Density of today's soundtrack vs. older movies? Which is denser?

*Todays soundtracks are much denser than they were 50 years ago

Analytical vs Constructive editing

(and which one use establishing shot, which one Kuleshov effect)

Editing and what it allows filmmaker to do

*Editing lets filmmakers decide which shots to include and how they will be arranged. Once the material is selected, the editor joins the shots, the end of one to the beginning of another. *Editing allows for control of timing and impact.

Framing and its importance

*Framing creates a vantagepoint and defines the image for us •Onscreen and offscreen space •Filmmakers can use both onscreen and offscreen space.

Cuts and how done

*Instantaneous change from one shot to another - Transition *Provides more gradual change form one shot to another *Fade out - screen gradually darkens *Fade in - screen gradually lightens from a black image *Dissolve - briefly superimposes end of shot A and beginning of shot B *Wipe - shot B replaces shot A by means of boundary (no blending) *Before the rise of digital editing in the 1990s, a cut was usually made by splicing two shots together with film cement or tape. Fades, dissolves, and wipes were executed with optical printers or in the laboratory. In computer editing, all types of edits are created with the software.

Types of Camera Movements

*Pans-movement swivels the camera on a veritcal axis (visually seen as horizontal movement) *Titls-movement rotates the camera on a horizontal axis tracking (viusally seen as vertical movement) *Tracking or doll shot-camera as whole changes position, traveling in any direction along the ground *Crane shots-move above ground level *Different ways can be moved-on dolly, tracks, cranes, body-mounted, hend-held, etc.

What are 3 major factors involved in cinematography?

*Photographic aspects of the shot *The framing of the shot *The duration of the shot

Rhythm (duration of shots) and Editing

*The goal of continuity editing is to create smooth flow from shot to shot. *This type of editing doesn't call attention to itself. *Continuity style aims to transmit narrative information smoothly and clearly over a series of shots. This makes the editing play a role in narration, the moment-by-moment flow of story information. *Everything should be smooth, continuity, color, and light, etc. First, filmmakers usually keep graphic qualities roughly continuous from shot to shot. The figures ar ebalanced and symetrically deployed in the frame; the overall lighting tonality remains constant; the action occupies the central zones of the screen *Second, filmmakers usually adjust the rhythm of the cutting to the scale of the shots. Long shots are left on screen longer than medium shots, and medium shots are left on longer than close-ups. The gives the spectator more time to take in the broader views, which contains more details. *Most common type of editing in Hollywood.

What is the range of tonalities and what affects it during shooting and in post-production?

*Tonality is a matter of considering how the light registers on the film. *The Cinematographer along with the directory will control lighting to determine the tonality of the shot. •During shooting: •Contrast refers to the comparative difference between the darkest and lightest areas of the frame. •Middle ranges are most common as give a greater depth of color tonalities. High contrast will highlight the blacks and whites, but minimize the range of color in between. Low contrast will have more in between colors but no true blacks or whites. •Many factors are used to control contrast, including lighting, filters, choice of film stock, laboratory processing, and postproduction work. •Exposure—regulates how much light passes through the camera lens •Typically, filmmakers try for balanced exposure unless they are purposefully unbalancing it for effect. •Filters—slices of glass or gelatin put in front of the lens to reduce certain frequencies of light reaching the film. •Different film stocks can achieve different tonalities. •Changing tonality after filming: •Tinting and toning—during the silent-film era could add color to black and white film through tinting, i.e. dipping the developed film into dye (lighter areas colored) and toning, i.e. when the dye was added during development (darker areas colored) •Postproduction can affect tonality in many ways. Digital filmmaking gives the filmmaker much more control and precision in changing the tonality of an image.

Establishing Shot

*establishing shot - delineate the area of the action *reestabishing shot - reestablishes the overall space. The pattern establishment/breakdown/reestablishment is one of the most common patterns of spatial editing in the classical continuity style (analytical editing)

Documentary

A documentary presents factual information about the world. •Typically, they are labeled as documentaries to signal to viewer that this is true. •Documentaries can use a variety of sources and techniques. •They can used existing material, material filmed for the documentary—but not staged—or can stage reenactments of events they do not have footage of but are still supposed to be taken as truthful retellings of the events depicted. •While relating facts, documentaries do not have to be neutral. They can be persuasive, have agendas. •But to make argument, they need to have evidence to support it. •Some documentaries have been challenged for being inaccurate, but even if discredited it's still a documentary, just a inaccurate or misleading documentaries. •Example in textbook: An Inconvenient Truth, Vice-President Al Gore's film about global warming, was accused in some quarters of presenting weak arguments and skewed data. •I should add, that this characterization by your book seems to imply this documentary is accepted as inaccurate, when actually the factchecking by the Associated Press at the time found that climate scientists agreed that movie conveyed accurate information with few errors. •Documentaries on controversial subjects are more likely to be seen by at least some as misleading and/or inaccurate as there isn't consensus among experts.

Be able to identify the 4 areas of control and choice in editing

Areas of Choice and control 1. Graphic relations between shot a and shot b *This I surely pictorial in nature. It involves recognizing the patterns of light and dark, line and shape, volumes and depths, movements and space. *Graphic matches or a Match cuts - two successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (e.g., color, shape). *Precise graphic matching is rare *Looser graphic continuity id typical of most narrative cinema *usually strive to keep the main point of interest roughly constant across the cut, to maintain the overall lighting level, and to avoid strong color clashes from shot to shot *Graphic Contrasts Cuts - graphically discontinuous editing 2. Rhythmic relations between shot A and shot B *Each shot has its own duration. Controlling the duration creates a rhythm and association. *Flash framers - filmmakers will use shot duration to stress a single moment. 3. Spatial relations between shot A and shot B *Editing can construct a link space. Filmmakers juxtapose any two points in space and suggest some kind of relationship between them *Establishing shot - a shot or sequence of shots serves to situate the audience within a particular environment or setting and/or to introduce an important character or characters *Analytical editing breaks an establishing shot into closer views. *The Kuleshov effect: In the absence of an establishing shot, the spectator will infer a spatial whole. *Also called constructive editing *Not typically noticeable 4. Temporal relations between shot A and shot B *Editing can control the chronology *flashback, flash-forwards *Editing to condense time *Elliptical Editing: Presents an action in such a way that it consumes less time on the screen than it does in the story. *Punctuation devices like dissolves, fades, and wipes conventionally signaled an ellipsis in the action. *Can also use empty frames *Can also use a cut away or insert: a shot to another action elsewhere that does not last as long as the elided action *Montage:shots of things that represent the passage of time. Can compress time, like in Rocky. *editing to expand time *Overlapping editing: If the action from the end of one shot is partly repeated at the beginning of the next. *Russian filmmakers of the 1920s made frequent use of temporal expansion through overlapping editing and no one mastered it more thoroughly than Sergei Eisenstein *also used in action films *Editing can repeat story actions

Framing and Camera Positions, especially different types of shots.

Camera Position Angle •The frame positions us at some angle on the subject. •Three basic categories: Straight on, high and low Level •Level (parallel to the horizon) or canted (tipped to one side or the other) •Canted is often used to convey that something is off in the scene. Height •Height is related to camera angle but it can still affect the framing. •If the angle is kept straight on, crouching to take a snapshot creates a different composition than taking it from eye level. Distance •Framing of the image stations us relatively close to the subject or farther away. •Extreme long shot—humans tiny •Long shot—humans more prominent than in extreme long shot, but background dominates •Medium long shot—human figure framed from knees up (fairly balanced between figure and background) •Medium shot—waist up (gestures more prominent) •Medium close-up—chest up •Close-up--traditionally the shot showing just the head, hands, feet, or a small object (creates emphasis) •Extreme close-up—part of face or isolates and magnifies •Note that the size of the photographed material within the frame is as important as any real camera distance.

Camera Positions in terms of objective vs. subjective positioning

Camera Position •Objective and subjective perspectives •Can position the camera to create a sense of perceptual subjectivity, the attempt to render what a character sees or hears. •Point-of-view (POV) shot--seen through a character's eyes

Categorical form

Categorial •Organizing your film by subject/ groupings (like looking at every part of something separately as part of the whole. •Categories are sometimes scientific and exhaustive (animals into genus, species, etc.) but typically less neat and more rough (like pets, wild animals, farm animals, zoo animals) Olympia, Part II—games are the categories •Categorical documentaries tend to start by introducing the subject. •Because the fairly simple patterns of development, to keep from being boring from too much repetition, filmmaker needs to introduce variations to make us adjust our expectations. They can also exploit film patterns to engage interest (i.e. camera angels, editing, sound, etc.) And they can also mix in other forms.

Disadvantages of acting in film vs. stage

Challenges For Actors During Production •Tom DiCillo's film about indie filmmaking, Living in Oblivion (1995) •Limited time for rehearsals•In live theater, actors might have 4 to 6 weeks to rehearse their roles. In cinema, they're lucky if they get a day or two for a scene. •Often that means "rehearsals" are really just the first few takes of every shot, working out how to deliver the lines, how to move in the space (known as blocking), how to play off the other actors. •Shot out of sequence •Scenes shot each day do not follow the linear narrative of the script unlike the theater where actors play the narrative through all at once, allowing their journey as a character to play out in real time. •Interruptions between shots•In cinema, each shot is a complex, collaborative choreography of set design, lighting, sound recording and cinematography. To shoot one simple scene using the master shot and coverage technique requires at least three set-ups, often many more. And each set-up requires adjustments to lighting, set decoration, camera placement, all of which can sometimes take hours *Multiple takes •A 5 minutes scene can be have dozens or even hundreds of takes •This scene took 99 takes over two days: https://youtu.be/yfe2fe4aovY •Influence of new technology •Think about when sound was introduced, actors suddenly had to worry not just about cameras but also about where microphones were. •Computer generated imagery and characters •Motion and performance capture

Discontinuos Editing

Discontinuous Editing: the filmmaker will deliberately use an arrangement of shots that seem out of place or confusing relative to a traditional narrative. This type of editing very much calls attention to itself. •Exploited for Graphic and Rhythmic Possibilities•Spatial and Temporal Disunity •Instead of joining shot 1 to shot 2 to present a story, you could join them on the basis of purely graphic or rhythmic qualities, independent of the time and space they represent. •Break the 180 degree rule•Jump-cut—When you cut together two shots of the same subject, if the shots differ only slightly in angle or composition, there will be a noticeable jump on the screen. Instead of appearing as two shots of the subject, the result looks as if some frames have been cut out of a single shot. •A jump cut, however, shows the action from one angle or two very similar ones. •Many filmmakers believe that jump cuts can be avoided by shifting the camera at least 30° from shot to shot (the so-called 30° rule). •Non-diegetic inserts

Traditional vs. digital cinematography?

Film *35mm is most common *Range from as small as 8mm all the way up to 70mm •Highly sensitive, or "fast" film stock, that is film that reacts quickly to relatively low levels of light, contains relatively large silver halide crystals. The benefit is the ability to film at night or other low-light situations. The drawback is a loss in resolution, or detail in the image, due to an increase in the crystals, or grain. Less sensitive, or "slower" film stock produces a crisper image (due to the smaller crystals), but requires more light. •Upside: More true blacks, better detail/picture •Down sides: Expensive, don't know what you have until you develop it, have to physically edit it, will eventually •Digital cinematography gives a bit more flexibility to the cinematographer. •Remember digital image sensor in camera uses software to analyze and convert the light bouncing off its surface into a series of still images (just like film stock) that are recorded onto an external hard drive. •Need to pick resolution: "high definition" is an image measuring 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, also known as 1080p; 4K is at least 4,096 pixels by 2,160 pixels.•Upside: It's cheaper, less limitations on how much you can record, greater ability to control light sensitivity, etc. •Cinematographers are particular about the digital camera they pick as they can see difference between the software.

Loudness

Filmmakers make decisions about the types and density of sounds as well as their properties, including loudness and pitch. •Loudness—the amplitude, or breadth, of the vibrations produces our sense of loudness, or volume. •While can be measured, our experience is relative. •Loudness can also help suggest distance. •Sudden changes in loudness can have great effect on the viewer/listener.

Focal lengths and their different effects on image

Focal length: Different lenses can change depth and perspective. •Short-focal-length or wide-angle lens (less than 35mm) will give some distortion at the edges and exaggerates depth. •Middle-focal-length (35-50mm) lens will reduce distortion, and foreground and background seem relatively normal. •Long-focal-length or telephoto (typically 100mm or more) lens flatten space, squashing things together without many depth cues, and have a narrower field of vision. •Zoom lenses are not the same as moving the camera. They transform scale and depth. Zoom combines the wide-angle, medium, and telephoto options. Sometimes been used to substitute for moving the camera forward or backward.

Cels

In 1910, started using cels, or clear rectangular celluloid sheets, to draw figures and objects on. These were then layered on top of a painted setting. Cel animation was used in the 1990s.

Match Cut

Match on action cuts - this is simply a matter of carrying a single movement across a cute. Keeping the 180 degree system helps conceal the match.

Why do scholars think genre movies are satisfying?

Many film scholars believe that genres are like holidays—they are satisfying because they reaffirm cultural values in a predictable way.

Pitch

Pitch—the frequency of sound vibrations affects pitch, or the perceived highness or lowness of the sound. •Very low-pitched sounds suggest rumbling, whereas very high-pitched ones suggest tinkling. •Pitch helps our ear sort out and distinguish sounds and can play with our expectations. •Example: Violin music in Psycho shower scene sounds like screams but aren't. Just really highly pitched.

Rhetorical form and what goes with it and types of arguments

Rhetorical •Presents an argument and then supports it (like in your English papers). •Although tends to presents arguments as observations or factual conclusions. •Tend to be one-sided, not giving full weight to the other side •Goes beyond the categorial type as it makes an explicit argument (i.e. humans cause global warming is not just suggested but stated in Inconvenient Truth) or Sicko •Four aspects of rhetorical form: •Address viewer openly •Usually a matter of opinion, not scientific truth (unless under debate still) •Appeals to our emotions •Tries to persuade the viewer to make a choice•Three kinds of arguments: •Arguments from Source: Using reliable sources of information. Often includes interviews with people deemed knowledgeable about the subject. Will often use narration that makes you seem like you're well-informed and trustworthy (the Michael Moore/Al Gore technique). •Subject-centered Arguments: Using examples, evidence, to support the point, appealing to common beliefs. •Often focus on dramatic examples that may or may not be typical of wider trends •Appeals to easily accepted argumentative patterns, i.e. enthymemes, arguments that rely on widespread opinion and usually conceal some crucial assumptions. Example: Problem-Solution pattern. •Viewer-centered Arguments: Arguments that appeal to emotion. For instance, very patriotic scenes. Very graphic scenes.

The conventions, plot patterns, themes, and iconography of Science Fiction

Science Fiction •Dates back to the beginning of cinema. •Central subject/themes:•Themes: Conflict of good and evil, affects of technology on society •Often set in future, alternative timeline or historical time that contradicts historical records. •Common plot patterns: development of new technology, (i.e. robots, spaceships), new scientific principles (i.e. time-travel), new political systems (i.e. dystopian or utopian societies)•Iconographic elements such as futuristic props, costumes and settings (often set in outer space, other planets, alternative or futuristic Earths)•Special effects and makeup often essential aspects of these films. •As with other genres, science fiction conventions change as society changes. •Early sci fi tended to focus on individual rather than global conflicts. •After the threat of nuclear holocaust and war became widespread in the 1940s, the conflict changes. Science and technology were seen as being able to affect the destiny of the entire human race. The conflict tends to change to world-threatening conflict. •In 1950s and beyond world threatening invasions or mutations and monsters caused by nuclear radiation common. Examples: The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers •Particularly popular in Japan, where nuclear war and radiation was not just something to be imagined. •By 1960s, the genre gains respectability. By 1970s and 80s, subgenres are clearly defined and exploited. •Aliens (1986) nominated for Best Actress, Best Art Direction (Set), Best Editing, Best Music, Best Sound and won Best Effects (Sound Effect Editing), Best Effects (Visuals)•Parody: Spaceballs, Punk: Repo Man

The Stanislavski Method School of Acting

Stanislavski Method, or just The Method for short, calls for a more naturalistic acting style. •It began in Russia at the end of the 19th century with a theater director, Konstantin Stanislavski, upending centuries of classical technique by encouraging his actors to let go of their grip on the text and trust their own emotional experience to guide their performance. •More inward-looking, internal, often improvisational approach to acting, not to mention a more naturalistic style. •Stanislavski's ideas were published in English for the first time in 1936 in the book, An Actor Prepares, and it quickly gained influence among young acting students and teachers, especially in New York in the 1940s and 50s. •One of the strongest proponents of the new "method" was Lee Strasberg and his Group Theater, founded in the 1930s (inspired by Russian performances he saw in the 20s) •This type of acting became popular in Hollywood around the time the Golden Age gave way to the New Hollywood in the 1960s. The young, energetic actors, writers and directors who took over cinema in the United States, at least until the blockbusters of JAWS (1975) and Star Wars (1977), favored it. •Marlon Brando was one of the most famous of these new method actors to hit the screen, although today we may see his acting as stylized and not that naturalistic. •His performances were marked by a riveting intensity as well as a tendency to mumble, even chew gum while delivering his lines. It was all in service of his pursuit of an emotional truth, an embodiment of character, that relied less and less on the actual words on the page and more and more on a commitment to naturalism. •Some actors famously take that pursuit to the extreme, losing an unhealthy amount of weight for a role, or never breaking character on or off the set during production. •Character actors in contrast build careers playing secondary, often eccentric characters that we remember far more readily than we do the actors who play them.•Remains a popular approach to training and performance.

The conventions, plot patterns, themes and iconography of the Horror genre

The Horror •Established in the 1920s. •Horror genre is most recognizable by the emotional effect it tries to arouse, i.e. to shock, disgust, repel...to horrify. •Monster movies defined by character convention of a menacing, unnatural monster. •Monster movies typically have plot point where monster attacks normal way of life and other characters react to this by trying to destroy it. •Monster movies iconography often include places where monsters might lurk (haunted house, cemeteries, scientific laboratories), heavy makeup or now CGI •Typically less expensive to make, so budget film makers favor them.•Remained popular since the 1960s.

The Long Take

The Long Take •A shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time before the transition to the next shot. •It's an alternative to a series of shots. •In past, lengths of film reels were a constraint on how long a long take could be. Digital cameras eliminate this constraint to a great degree. •It doesn't control your attention like an edited shot does (rely on mise-en-scene and narration for that) •It can also present the sense of a film unfolding in real time and doesn't condense space through editing. •Rope in 11 takes •Birdman and 1917 are modern examples

The conventions, plot patterns, themes, and iconography of Musicals

The Musical •Unlike previous genres, the musical came into being in response to a technological innovation of sound in the 1920s. •Began as revues, programs of numbers with little or no narrative linkage between them. •When dubbing and subtitles invented, then musicals could have more complicated plots. •In 1930s, two subgenres developed. •Backstage musical where focus is on singers and dancers who are performing in the story world (more popular today than straight musicals) •Straight musical are where characters sing and dance in everyday life for no apparent reason (not as popular today). •Often associated with romance (where singing together is plot device to show they are meant to be) and kid's movies. •Singin' in the Rain: •Tend to be about more positive aspects of human nature, although conventions can be rejected (La La Land). •Iconography and other characteristics often vary widely as not subject matter driven genre. •On typically technique though is lip-synching to pre-recorded songs.

The conventions, plot patterns, themes, and iconography of the Sports film

The Sports Film •Sports films display their own plot patterns, iconography, and themes. •Plot Patterns: •Rely on competitions and tournaments, climactic big games, etc. to drive plot and create suspense •Cinderella Story plot pattern (i.e. successful underdogs) •Rudy: •The Athlete brought down by injury or disease•The Comeback •Rocky Balboa: •Character Conventions •The tough coach, dedicated athlete, unscrupulous adversary, etc. •As with all genres, conventions can be subverted, changed and/or reflect societal ideology. •Non-lovable main winners, focusing on the fans, etc. •Example: Offside (focuses on women fans in Iran sneaking into a

The conventions, plot patterns, themes and iconography of the western?

The Western •Established in 1910s. •The Western is most clearly defined by its subject, theme, and iconographic conventions. •Subject: Partly based on historical reality (for short period there were cowboys, outlaws, settlers, and tribes of Native Americans in the West) but also derived from songs, popular fiction, and Wild West shows. •Standardized Conventions: the Native American attack on forts or wagon trains, the shy courting of a woman by the rough-hewn hero, the outlaws' robbery of a bank or stagecoach, the climactic gunfight on dusty town streets. •Central Theme: Conflict between civilized order and the lawless frontier. •Cowboy hero between the two poles.•Iconography reinforces this basic duality (wagons vs horses, settlers dresses and suits vs Native American tribal garb and cowboys jeans and Stetsons) •Social Ideology and Change: •Racist depictions of Native Americans part of the culture at the time. This can change as society changes. •1950s—liberal Westerns , like Broken Arrow (1950), started treating Native American characters with more respect. •Conventions can also change with times, i.e. Natives as civilized and the whites as the uncivilized and lawless, or playing up the uncivilized aspect of the so-called hero or making his character more complex.

Continuity editing

The goal of continuity editing is to create smooth flow from shot to shot. •This type of editing doesn't call attention to itself. •Continuity style aims to transmit narrative information smoothly and clearly over a series of shots. This makes the editing play a role in narration, the moment-by-moment flow of story information. •Everything should be smooth, continuity, color and light, etc. •First, filmmakers usually keep graphic qualities roughly continuous from shot to shot. The figures are balanced and symmetrically deployed in the frame; the overall lighting tonality remains constant; the action occupies the central zones of the screen. •Second, filmmakers usually adjust the rhythm of the cutting to the scale of the shots. Long shots are left on the screen longer than medium shots, and medium shots are left on longer than close-ups. This gives the spectator more time to take in the broader views, which contain more details. •Most common type of editing in Hollywood tradition Continuity in Space: 180-Degree System•The space of the scene is constructed along the axis of action (aka center line or 180 degree line). The action takes place on one side of line and the camera set is on the other side of the line. •Any action—a person walking, two people conversing, a car racing along a road—can be thought of as occurring along a line or vector. This axis of action determines a half-circle, or 180° area, where the camera can be placed to present the action. The filmmaker will plan, stage, shoot, and edit the shots so as to maintain the axis of action from shot to shot. •The camera set does not cross the 180 degree line. •The 180° line may shift as the characters move around the setting•Along with other techniques, this ensures: •Common space from shot to shot •Constant eyelines •Constant screen direction •Kuleshov effect, which omits an establishing shot, works best when it respects a consistent axis of action.

Traditional Animation vs Computer Animation (which one is more labor intensive, etc.)

Traditional Animation: Two-Dimensional Types •Drawn animation is where the images are drawn and then photographed. •In 1910, started using cels, or clear rectangular celluloid sheets, to draw figures and objects on. These were then layered on top of a painted setting. This saved considerable time and allowed for a more assembly line style of production. •Disney used this process to make its first feature-length animated films, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Cel animation was used into the 1990s. •Full animation renders figures in fine detail and supplies them with tiny, nonrepetitive movements. •Limited animation only has small sections of the image moving from frame to frame. Common in television and Japanese theatrical animation. •Can also produce drawn animation without photography by drawing, engraving or attaching something directly onto the film •Cutoutsuse flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials ,such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets. •Traditional animation is extremely labor intensive, which is why only Disney Studios could regular put out feature length movies. •In the 1930s to the 1950s, Disney and Warner Bros. were rival animators. Disney tended to have more elaborate and detailed animation than Warner Bros. But Warner Bros. made up for that with exploiting the comedic fantasy possible in animation and using the form imaginatively. •Example of Warner Bros. innovations: Duck Amuck (plays with the form of cel animation, having paintbrush and eraser show up to add backgrounds or erase them). Traditional Animation: Three-Dimensional Types •Three-dimensional objects can also be manipulated frame by frame to create apparent movement. Animation of objects falls into three closely related categories: clay, model, and pixillation. •Claymation uses clay, or more often, flexible Plasticine, which is sculpted into objects and characters and then bent, twisted or stretched slightly between exposure. Gained in popularity in the 1970s. Example: Gumby •Model/Puppet animation employs figures with bendable wires or joints. Example: TheFantastic Mr. Fox •Pixillation is a term applied to frame-by-frame manipulation of people and ordinary objects. Computer Animation •CGI, or Computer-generated imagery, uses digital software systems to create figures, settings, or other material in the frame. Originally used for occasional special effects in 1970s and 1980s, by the 1990s it was being used to create feature length animated films. •In 1995, Pixar's Toy Story became first film first animated feature created entirely via computer. •It presented a compelling three-dimensional world peopled by figures thatresembled Plasticine models. This type of CGI animation is called 3D Computer Animation. When CGI is used to create the look of two-dimensional traditional animation, it is called 2D Computer Animation. Once the basic visual material is digitized, you would create the most important bits of the figures' movements (called "keyframing"). The software fills in the frames between those poses, saving you the effort of creating every frame yourself. Other programs add color, texture, and lighting. •CGI reduces labor and therefore costs, which is why there has been an increase in animated movies since it started being widely used for animation. *Traditional Animation is more labor intensive.

Titles of the first animated full-length movie and first computer generated animated movie

Trivia—First feature-length animated movie in the world was actually Argentinian artist, animator, and filmmaker Quirino Cristiani's El Apóstol in 1917. He employed a cutout/silhouette style. He alsomade the first feature-length animated film with synchronized sound, Peludópolis. •In 1995, Pixar's Toy Story became first film first animated feature created entirely via computer.

Bechdel Test and what it entails

Women and Contemporary Cinema •Obviously, the Male Gaze is alive and well in contemporary cinema. As is its corollary, the Madonna-***** Complex. But, fortunately, there has been more resistance and critique in the years since Mulvey's essay •The Bechdel Test •A kind of basic test to see if a piece of filmed entertainment could muster even the absolute bare minimum of equal representation. •In a 1985 LGBTQ comic strip in Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel, she shows two women contemplating a trip to the theater. One of them explains that she has a rule about going to the movies. Basically, it has to satisfy three requirements. •1) It has to have at least two women in it •2) Those two women have to actually talk to each other •3) They have to talk about something besides a man.

Women in US Cinema and evolution over time

Women in Early Cinema •Alice Guy-Blaché was the first to produce a narrative film. Lois Weber the first feature-length narrative filmmaker in the US. They are among a handful of successful, female directors, writers, editors and producers. •They often featured women in principal roles or gave women at least equal weight to men. •Blaché established her own studio, Solax Pictures, in the United States in 1910, and make as many as 1,000 films over the course of her lifetime. She experimented with synchronized sound, color cinematography, and pushed the boundaries of what was possible in cinematic storytelling. Patriarchy and Early Cinema •The movie industry was (and unfortunately still is) dominated by men and the films they produced reflect that patriarchal system (cultural system in which men hold the primary power). •The net result of this lopsided control over one of the most influential forms of mass media in the 20th century was a seemingly infinite loop of images crafted by men and re-enforcing the idea that women were the "weaker sex". •Madonna-***** Complex: the virginal, saintly Madonna in need of saving; or the debased, fallen "loose" woman who must be cast out if not eliminated. •For the men in that audience (and behind the camera), that has meant decades of objectifying of women as either virginal or villainous. For the women, it has meant decades of internalizing that same paradox. Representation of Women in Golden Age of Hollywood •The Madonna-***** Complex continued into the Golden Age of Hollywood. But remember that cinema and society exist in a kind of ongoing feedback loop, where cinema both reflects and influences societal values. •During WWII women entered the work force in great numbers, transgressing accepted social mores to keep economy and war effort going. And films at this time reflected the anxiety over this development. •During this period, one of the most popular genres was Film Noir (the hardboiled detective story, gritty, urban and full of morally ambiguous characters), which typically featured a righteous, yet flawed, detective and and a beautiful but typically emotionally damaged temptress, the Femme Fatale. •The Femme Fatale ended up behind bars/dead or redeemed and live happily ever after. You never quite knew if you could trust them, they were mysterious, morally ambiguous, and didn't seem to know their place. •At a time when thousands of women were forced to cross an invisible but sacrosanct line and engage in public, manual "men's" work, Hollywood was filling movie houses with images of unpredictable, dangerous women pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior, reflecting society's anxiety over the moral ambiguity of women leaving the home for the factory. •But more than merely reflecting a contemporary reality, these films also seemed to have strong opinions about these women, and thus exerted a certain influence over movie-goers. Echoing that tried and true Madonna-***** Complex, these films (and their male filmmakers) suggest that these women would eventually need to be redeemed by a good man or end up in jail (or worse) •After the end of WWII, men came back and reclaimed their jobs...and yet couldn't undo the developments of women entering the workforce. •With the 1950s came the end of Film Noir (though it would survive in various forms and at various periods throughout the century), and the rise of the domestic comedy and the Blonde Bombshell, portrayed most famously and consistently by Marilyn Monroe. •These Blonde Bombshell's often portrayed as naïve innocents (and sometimes willfully unintelligent) who were either blissfully happy housewives or desperately wanted to be. •The unifying theme of all of these films was that a woman's place was in the home, preferably with a wealthy, successful husband. •Cinema in that historical moment reflected a kind of nostalgia for the gender dynamics of pre-war America, but it also presented that image as an ideal for women to internalize and ultimately pursue. Second Wave Feminism and the Cinema •By the 1960s, enough women had had enough of the status quo, and they didn't care what society had to say about it. They wanted to usher in the Second Wave of feminism (they saw first wave as the Suffragist movement) that would fundamentally alter the way women engaged with politics, the economy and society in general. •Second wave feminists wanted to change the fundamental values of society, but they had little or no access to the mechanisms that controlled and manipulated meaning. •The result was wave after wave of cinematic responses to the Women's Movement that echoed the earlier responses from Film Noir to the Blonde Bombshell. •First up was the late 60s trend toward sexploitation films. embraced one small part of the movement, the sexual liberation of women. These films managed to both undermine the movement by using sexual freedom as an excuse to further objectify women's bodies, and conveniently ignore every other issue important to second wave feminists. •By the late 1960s and into the 1970s, this tactic shifted into ignoring women altogether in favor of male buddy comedies like The Odd Couple (1968) and The Sting (1973), films that seemed to suggest that men could get along quite well without any women at all. Representation of Women and 1980s Films •By the 1980s, Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze had exposed cinema as a tool of hegemonic patriarchy (at least for those who had bothered to read her work). But instead of opening up the process to more voices, allowing the machine of meaning production to evolve with changing times, the industry doubled down on resisting the revolution of second wave feminism. •Whether it was role reversal comedies, like Three Men and a Baby (1987), that affirmed a woman's place in the home by showing us the comedic anarchy of men trying to change a diaper or do the shopping, or the trend toward blockbuster action movies, like Rambo (1985), starring hypermasculine men capable of saving the world without a woman in sight, Hollywood did its best to reproduce images of a woman's place (or complete absence) in line with traditional patriarchal ideals. •But the most interesting and enduring of these trends was the 80s slasher movie. •In each, a familiar pattern develops. A group of young men and women gathers and test the boundaries of moral purity through drinking, drugs, and most often, sex. One by one they are brutally killed by a faceless killer, as if being punished for their transgressions. Until the last victim. Almost always a woman. And almost always the one character who remained pure, who didn't drink or engage in sex. And it's that character that either escapes with her life or overcomes the faceless killer. Madonna-***** Complex anyone? The trope became so common we gave the character a name: The Final Girl. Women and Contemporary Cinema •In the 21st century, more and more women have had the opportunity to take control of the cinematic narrative. •Example: Wonder Woman (female directed and female lead) breaking down the barriers of hypermasculinity in Superhero movies. •However, there is still very lopsided. •A 2018 study showed that out of 1,335 entertainment professionals surveyed, only 14.4% of the writers were women, 21.1% of the producers were women, and most startling, only 4.5% of the directors were women. And even when a woman finds herself in a position of power or influence in the entertainment industry, they are often paid much less than men in the same position. •And in 2019 survey of top 100 grossing movies: 66% of speaking or named characters were male and 34% were female. This is a gender ratio of 1.9 males to every 1 female. •These statistics get even more abysmal the more intersecting categories of difference a person belongs to (i.e. a black woman or a differently abled woman or queer Native American woman)

Mobile Framing

Zoom •Zoom lens provides a continuous range of focal lengths. When the camera operator zooms during filming, the result is a mobile framing—even though the camera stays in one spot. •In the genuine camera movement, static objects in different planes pass one another at different rates. We see different sides of objects, and backgrounds gain volume and depth. Zoom enlargement doesn't alter the aspects or positions of the objects we see. Our vantage point is the same at the end of the shot as at the beginning.Reframing •Short panning or tilting movements to adjust for the figures' movements, keeping them onscreen or centered.Filmmakers frequently combine different movements within a single shot. Mobile framing (camera movement) •Mobile framing and space •Onscreen and offscreen space is manipulated. •Have to consider if movement is motivated or not (i.e. does our perception of space change because a character is moving? Or is it moving to show us something important to the narrative?) •Mobile frame and time •A moving camera takes time onscreen (duration). •The speed of mobile framing is also important. •A camera movement can be fluid, staccato, hesitant, and so forth. •Patterns •A movement can become a motif.

Importance of discussing Representation in film

•According to many theorists, mass media - newspapers, magazines, television, radio, film, and now the Internet and the World Wide Web—has more influence on cultural ideas and ideologies today than do schools, religions, and families combined, which is why discussing representation in film is so important.

The role of mass media on ideology and its importance

•According to many theorists, mass media - newspapers, magazines, television, radio, film, and now the Internet and the World Wide Web—has more influence on cultural ideas and ideologies today than do schools, religions, and families combined, which is why discussing representation in film is so important. •Think for example about the Western. Rarely have Western been written by, directed or produced by Native Americans, and thus the genre represent a white perspective of how we should view such events.

When did acting begin as profession?

•Acting, as a profession, has been around a while. The Greeks were doing it as early as 534 BCE when Thespis, the world's first "actor", stepped onto a stage in Athens (and likely many other cultures before them).

Genre and advertisements

•Advertisements and trailers tend to quickly highlight, which audience the film might appeal to. •Aliens trailer: •When a genre is popular, more likely for a project to get funding (today think superhero) and larger budgets. When a genre is less popular (think musical), less likely to get funding or if they do to get funding, it will be lower budget.

Does film style affect representation (i.e. lighting, costuming, staging, etc.)

•All aspects of film form and style can affect these representations.

What do we mean by representation in film?

•Analyzes how films represent race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, history, etc. •All aspects of film form and style can affect these representations. •Images of people on film actively contribute to the ways in which people are understood and experienced in the "real world."

Who has typically controlled Hollywood?

•And historically, the group with the most control over American cinema, has been white, heterosexual males, so it is no surprise that the films they produced favored their cultural attitudes and helped spread those ideas throughout the rest of the society.

Do the same genres exist everywhere? Or do cultures have particular genres?

•As genres gain and lose popularity, it reminds us that genres are bound to cultural factors. •Rituals and Ambivalence•Many film scholars believe that genres are like holidays—they are satisfying because they reaffirm cultural values in a predictable way. •Such movies can also distract from social realities •They even exploit ambivalent social values and attitudes. •Think about movies like Goodfellas, where you get to enjoy the gangster life but reassured in the end that it doesn't pay. •Can also quickly respond to social changes. •Genres as Social Reflection (Reflectionist)•Reflectionist: At different points in history, the stories, themes, values, or imagery of the genre harmonize with public attitudes in a more involuntary fashion. •Yet such responses to social context can be both unconscious (or unexamined), i.e. women treated as props in James Bond movies, and conscious reaffirmations or challenges to social situations, i.e. Get Out as conscious reflection on social debates on racial prejudice. (BTW-if you haven't seen Get Out, I highly recommend it. I tried to get rights to it for this semester but wasn't able to.)

Aspect Ratio

•Aspect ratio is the ratio of frame width to frame height •Early cinema typically had a 1.33:1 ratio •Academy Ratio: In 1930s, the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts standardized ratio to work with the addition of sound to 1.37:1•1950s, widescreen became popular with a 1.85:1 became popular ratio in US, in Europe 1.66:1 and 1.75:1 were norms. •Today, 1.78:1 is standard in US•Anamorphic process for widescreen uses a special lens to squeeze the image horizontally, either during filming or in printing. The projectionist uses a comparable lens to unsqueeze the image during projection. Cinemascope was popular in 1950s. Panavision is todays most common anamorphic process •While at first film tried to compete with TV by offering a wider format, the importance of video releases which would be seen on a smaller screen caused most directors to not use the whole screen. This is changing today as TVs have changed their rations. Masks and Multiple Images •Masks and irses use different shapes within the rectangular frame. •Multiple-frame (split-screen) is when two or more images, each with its own frame dimensions and shape, appear within the larger frame

How does sound get used in film to effect our experience?

•Audio-visual blending means we tend to perceive sound and image together. •Sergei Eisenstein called this "synchronization of senses"—i.e. making a single rhythm or expressive quality bind together image and sound. •Sound (or lack thereof) shapes how we perceive and interpret images. •Sound (or lack thereof) can direct our attention. •Example: Dialogue can draw our attention to figures or objects in the scene. •Often use a half-second of silence before explosions and other loud noises to better draw our attention.•Can make us anticipate action. •Example: Offscreen noise can create anticipation of something about to happen, etc. •Can be manipulated creatively by editing to join shots and events.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences new rules for representation in 2020

•Beginning in 2015, the #OscarsSoWhite campaign called on the Motion Picture Academy to redress this disparity after all 20 acting nominations went to white actors that year (and the year after that). •The winner of the Best Director category was Mexican director, Alejandro Iñárritu, whose nomination was often ignored when discussing #OscarSoWhite—which may indeed be linked to perceptions of whiteness. Also, can be seen as the exception that proves the rule, i.e. one POC nominated out of all the major acting and directing awards is a ridiculous low number. •Also, it's important to note that when African American actors have won major awards, it is often for playing the very roles that affirm white hegemony. And it was Greenbook not BlacKkKlansman that won Best Picture in 2019. •In response to criticism and due to the social justice protests and BLM in 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility in the Best Picture category. •The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience. •A film must meet two out of four of the following standards to be deemed eligible: 1.STANDARD A: ON-SCREEN REPRESENTATION, THEMES AND NARRATIVES •One lead must be from an underrepresented racial group or 30% of the secondary actors must come from underrepresented groups (women, LGBTQ, racial or ethnic group, differently abled) or a storyline focused on an underrepresented group. 2.STANDARD B: CREATIVE LEADERSHIP AND PROJECT TEAM •At least two of the following creative leadership positions and department heads are from underrepresented groups or at least one of those positions must belong to the following underrepresented racial or ethnic group or at least six other crew/team and technical positions 3.STANDARD C: INDUSTRY ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITIES •Paid apprenticeship and internship opportunities for underrepresented groups or training opportunities and skills development (crew) for underrepresented groups 4.STANDARD D: AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT •Studio has underrepresented figures as senior executives in marketing, publicity, and distribution

Characters actors

•Character actors in contrast build careers playing secondary, often eccentric characters that we remember far more readily than we do the actors who play them.

Classical School of Acting

•Classical School emphasizes the text and the precision of performance. •While this school has been around since the beginning of acting, the modern classical approach is rooted in the British tradition of Shakespearean performance. •Relies heavily on the text, the script itself, rather than the actor's own emotional history. •Classical actor's performance is action-oriented, caring more about what they are doing in the scene than what they are feeling, and precise, with little room for improvisation. •But that doesn't mean that actor can't breathe emotional life into the role, but rather they rely on the words.

Advantages acting in film vs. stage

•Collaborative Process •Director, who has bigger picture of how film will unfold, can guide performances. •Multiple takes means multiple opportunities to get it right. •Editing means that best delivery/performances can be combined. •The Close-up •The most important relationship in a scene is not between the actor and the other actors, it's between the actor and the camera. The camera is the audience, that's who they're playing to. •Builds a sense of intimacy •The eyes: Normally, we don't stare intently at the people we talk with. We glance away about half the time to gather our thoughts, and we blink 10 to 12 times a minute. But actors must learn to look directly at each other, locking eyes and seldom blinking. •Example: Nicole Kidman in Birth

What do we refer to when discussing a genres conventions? Iconography?

•Conventions of Story and Style •Plot driven (investigating a crime in a detective film) •Thematic (gangster films show the price of criminal success) •Stylistic patterns (low key lighting standard in a horror movie) •Emotional effect (comedies make you laugh) •Genre Iconography •Recurring symbolic images that carry meaning from film to film (Tommy gun help identify 1920s gangster movie; space ships a sci-fi) •Even actors can be iconographic. John Wayne (Stagecoach) was synonymous with Westerns and War movies. Eddie Murphy and Seth Rogan for Comedies, etc.

Can documentaries use narrative form?

•Documentaries are often organized as narratives, just as fictional films, emphasizing cause-and-effect developments. •But they can also use non-narrative types of forms as well. •Because of the effectiveness of stories, narrative principles can sometimes mix with non-narrative forms. •Whether narrative or non-narrative, they can also operate on the four levels of meaning that we discussed back in chapter 2, i.e. referential, explicit, implicit, symptomatic meaning.

Common shot types in continuity editing (be able to identify by definition)

•Establishing shot--delineate the area of the action •Reestablishing shot-- reestablishes the overall space. The pattern establishment/breakdown/reestablishment is one of the most common patterns of spatial editing in the classical continuity style (analytical editing) •Shot/reverse shot -shots from reverse sides of the action along the 180 degree line. •Eyeline matches—shows someone looking at something off screen and then a shot of what they are looking at•Directional quality of the eyeline creates a strong spatial continuity. •Match on action cuts—this is simply a matter of carrying a single movement across a cut. Keeping the 180 degree system helps conceal the match. •Kuleshov effect means that even without the establishing shot, use of the shot/reverse shot, eyeline matches, etc. can create a sense of space. •Cheat cuts -If we're paying attention to the unfolding action and the 180° relations are kept reasonably constant, the director has some freedom to "cheat"—that is, to slightly mismatch the positions of characters or objects. Narrative flow overrides the cheat cut •Crosscutting—alternates shots of story events in one place with shots of another event elsewhere. It introduces some spatial discontinuity by shuttling us from place to place (or storyline to storyline); but by giving us unrestricted knowledge of a situation, it can clarify conflict and build tension.

Mokumentaries

•Fiction films can look just like documentaries •Like What We Do In The Shadows—but that doesn't make it a documentary. We call them mockumentaries.

Sound fidelity--what does it mean?

•Fidelity •Here, fidelity refers to the extent to which the sound is faithful to the source as we conceive it, i.e. does it meet your expectations? Dog barking has fidelity, a cat barking would not. •Fidelity is thus purely a matter of expectation.

What is included in film sound

•Film sound can include any mixture of speech, music, and noise. •In a film, the soundtrack is constructed separately from the images, and it can be manipulated independently. This makes sound as flexible and wide-ranging as other techniques. •But as vision tends to dominate our experience, this allows sound engineers to create a world without our really paying attention.

Are biopics documentaries? Films about real events?

•Films about historical personages, biopics, aren't documentaries because of how they are made (i.e. staged and scripted) and because they typically take liberties with the events and addcharacters for dramatic effect.

Genre and conventions and the evolution of genres overtime

•Genre means kind or type. For film genres, we are referring to films that revolve around the same theme or purpose, such as: •For example: Western, Action, Science Fiction, Musical, etc. •These definitions do not have scientific precision, but rather are convenient terms that develop informally. Instead, it's the idea that certain films resemble one another in significant ways. Genres are popular ways to analyze and categorize films. •Often have shared subjects or themes, presentation •Example: A fantasy film typically involves magical powers and supernatural creatures. •Genres can change over time.•Genres can vary from culture to culture. •As American movies tend to be widely seen in other countries, our genres tend to be everywhere.•But other countries might have genres we don't like in India, there are devotionals (lives of saints and holy figures) and mythological (legends and literary classics). Mexican cinema has the cabaretera (melodrama around prostitutes). For more on the cabaretera, •Genres may also have lots of subgenres.•Subgenres refer to distinct and fairly long-lasting types within a genre •Example: Comedy genre has subgenres, such as slapstick, rom com, parody, etc. •Genres can also mix.

Types of focus and their effects on image

•Has to do with the range of distances from the lens in which objects will be in focus. •Depending on what lens you choose and the exposure and film stock, it can change the plane of what is in focus. •Selective focus is choosing to focus on only one plane and letting the other planes blur. •Deep focus is the use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps objects in both close and distant planes in sharp focus.•Racking focus is when focus is altered with the shot. •Typically, the longer the lens, the shorter the depth of field.

Ideology (definition and unquestioning aspect of it)

•Ideology is a term that refers to a system of beliefs that groups of people share and believe are inherently true and acceptable. Ideology often reinforce stereotypes. •Most ideological beliefs are rarely questioned by those who hold them; the beliefs are naturalized because of their constant and unquestioned usage even though they may contain contradictions and/or gaps or even negatively affect oneself. •While women, LGBTQ, BIPOC and the differently abled have made tremendous gains in social power during the last few decades in America, white heterosexual men still dominate the corridors of power and problematic stereotypes still linger as part of our cultural ideology.

Avant-garde films

•If mainstream cinema is governed by the idea of entertainment, the avant-garde aims to challenge and subvert. •Experimental filmmakers work outside traditional commercial production, distribution and exhibition. •Such films play with film form and conventions in ways that challenge audience expectations and provide unusual emotional and intellectual experiences. •Avant-garde and experimental film challenges us to re-think our preconceptions about what film is.•It does not guarantee that it will be pleasurable or beautiful in a conventional way. •Avant-garde filmmaking has always provided opportunities for people denied many opportunities in mainstream cinema. •Women and LGTBQ community have always been important contributors to this movement.•Interestingly, many avant-garde filmmakers pioneered early music videos. •As with documentaries, experimental films may be narrative or non-narrative in form. •In addition to potentially using narrative form and non-narrative categorical form, experimental films often use abstract form and associational form. •Abstract Form •Whole film will be determined by the visual and sonic qualities to unite film. •Pattern of theme and variations often used to organize the film. •Art for Art's Sake? They teach in to notice shape, color, sound, texture, etc. more. •Ballet mécanique was hugely influential for this type. It was a collaboration between an American journalist, Dudley Murphy, and a Cubist painter, Fernand Léger. •It uses film techniques to stress the geometric qualities of ordinary things. Ballet mécanique uses the theme-and-variations approach in a complex way. Léger and Murphy introduce many individual motifs in rapid succession, then bring them back at intervals and in different combinations. •Associational Form •Loosely connected images suggest an emotion or concept. Films tend to defy the continuity of space and time, dream and reality. Think of it as the cinematic version of a poetry. •By placing them together, it asks us to look for a connection--association—that brings them together. •As the imaginative links in associational thinking are unpredictable, it's impossible to generalize about formal patterns. •But you would likely gather your images into distinct sections, then create variation from part to part, and then use repeated motifs to reinforce associations. •Tends to shy away from explicit statement of meaning, like you might get in a rhetorical documentary. •Typically, tend to be shorter as they demand more from the audience. •Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon is a prime example of an associational film.

Why use popular music of film score

•Music can influence how we understand a scene. •Music can be specifically written for the film—film score—or can use already existing music. •Music helps to create a mood for the scene, to direct our attention, to shape our expectations. •Music can be used in film as an alternative mode of communication. •Use of popular music in film can draw the audience further into the film world. •Moment of recognition as audiences hear a song, audience can bring their own associative meaning to the film. It can add to processes of identification as part of the film viewing experience.

ADR and dialogue in film

•Recording •Dialogue is usually recorded during filming, but that isn't the version we will hear. •Automated dialogue recording (ADR) is where actors repeat their lines while watching the footage in "looped playback." The dialogue recorded during shooting guides the ADR process. •Music typically is not recorded during filming but added in postproduction. •Sound effects are typically added in postproduction as well. •Foley process creates noises tailored to each scene.

How should we judge acting?

•Remember to judge the acting based on how it fits with the overall mise-en-scene, not on whether or not you find it naturalistic, as that may not be the aim of the performance.

Sound selection--include everything recorded or simplify?

•Selection •The filmmaker was make a simpler world than everyday life to help guide our attention. •Can also use sound unrealistically to guide our attention. •While typically dialogue is privileged, not all filmmakers agree. Christopher Nolan is notorious for muffled dialogue, Tenet (2020) is just most current example of this.

Noel Burch's theory of Six Zones of Offscreen Space

•Six zones of offscreen space: (Noel Burch's theory) four areas of beyond the sides of the frame plus there is the space behind the set and space behind the camera.

What do we call a documentary that contains inaccurate information?

•Some documentaries have been challenged for being inaccurate, but even if discredited it's still a documentary, just a inaccurate or misleading documentaries.

Sound mixing--what does it involve?

•Sound Mixing •Combining two or more sound tracks by recording them onto a single one. •Dialogue overlap is when continues a line of dialogue across a cut, smoothing over the change of shot. Can be used with noise as well.

Sound and space

•Space •Is sound diegetic or non-diegetic? •Is it onscreen or offscreen? •Offscreen sound implies space, shapes our expectations, etc. •Is it internal or external diegetic sound? •Think of internal dialogues in Psycho •Perspective suggests the placement of the sound in the story world •Sonic point of view •Unrealistic perspectives (i.e. close-up not louder than before, nor in dialogue do the volumes shift as we move from one cut to the other) •Theaters using multichannel playback can help with sound perspective by mimicking the fact that sound reaches one ear slightly before the other

What is speed of motion in cinematography?

•Speed of motion •Two factors: the rate at which the film was shot and the rate of projection•Standard rate of speed is 24 frames per second. •To look normal, the rate of the shot and projection should correspond•Fast-motion (fewer frames per second) and slow-motion (more frames per second). •Ramping is when the frame rate is altered during a shot. (24 to 800 fps) •Time-lapse (very few frames over a long period of time) vs high-speed (hundred or even thousands of frames per second) •In post-production, can alter the duration by speed up, slow down motion, skip frames, show action over and over, reverse action, etc.

Timbre

•Timbre—the harmonic components of sound give it a certain color, or tone quality. •It creates texture or feel of the sound, whether nasal or mellow, etc.

Sound and time

•Time •Is the sound synchronized? Or synchronized? ( •Is it simultaneous or nonsimultaneous sound? •Hear something from a previous scene echoing? i.e. Is it a sonic flashforward (sound earlier than the story image) of flashback (sound after event happened) •Is there a sound bridge? (Connecting one visual scene to another through sound)

Hegemony and how it is supported

•When a single group has hegemony (political or social dominance of one group over another), they will assert their ideology over the other. •While overt suppression and social control are ways in which hegemony can enforce ideology, there are more subtle means in which such ideology is disseminated and propagated. •Schools, family, church, and media- including film and television - shape and represent our culture in certain ways. They spread ideology not through intimidation and oppression, but by example and education. And as ideology is typically naturalized and unquestioned, this doesn't require conscious or malicious decision making.

How do we judge genre movies? Are they good films?

•While genre films are sometimes dismissed by critics as formulaic, as genre films are central to most filmmaking, a genre picture can still be excellent and well made. •Examples of Excellent Genre Movies: The Godfather (Gangster), Singing in the Rain (Musicals), Psycho(Thriller), Aliens (Science Fiction)•Therefore we should use genre not to evaluate them (good/bad) but to describe and analyze them

Rising popularity in recent years with streaming and cable

•While recently documentaries have been successful in theaters, streaming services, like Netflix, have given documentaries a much larger audience pool than they often received in the past and reduced the stigma that documentaries are boring.

Do documentaries have to be neutral?

•While relating facts, documentaries do not have to be neutral. They can be persuasive, have agendas.

stereotype

•While we typically acknowledging that everyone is unique, most of us also recognize that people are often grouped together by shared traits. •This categorizing can relate to a variety of different aspects of identity: racial or ethnic heritage, gender, socio-economic status, education, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, etc. •Such groupings often become a type of "shorthand" and are typically accompanied by assumed traits that supposedly people belonging to the group have in common. •When such oversimplified and overgeneralized assumptions become standardized they become stereotypes. •Stereotypes are often justified as having a "kernel of truth." But they often contain unsupported leaps in logic that assume that everyone of a certain group is "naturally inclined" to exhibit these traits. •Through oversimplification, stereotypes inevitably create false perceptions about people. •Such stereotypes also often favor one group over another, reinforcing societal and power norms.

What do reflectionist scholars believe?

•Yet such responses to social context can be both unconscious (or unexamined), i.e. women treated as props in James Bond movies, and conscious reaffirmations or challenges to social situations, i.e. Get Out as conscious reflection on social debates on racial prejudice.