Film Exam 2

Wanda

1970 American independent drama film written and directed by Barbara Loden, Wanda (Barbara Loden) is a wanderer in a dreary Rust Belt town, drifting from bars to motels, jobs to jobs and men to men. She's directionless and futureless, an aging beauty seen by men as usable and disposable. She hands over custody of her children because she knows they're better with their father. She eventually tags along with Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a petty criminal on the run. He's desperate, disreputable and abusive, but Wanda, meekly accepting her fate, still sleeps with him.

13th

2016 American documentary by director Ava DuVernay. The film explores the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;" it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.

Referential (Types of meaning)

Bare bones plot summary of a movie Ex. Sharknado: Sharks and Tornados

Un Chien andalou

Bunuel, 1929 No plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing. Has the eye cutting scene, experimental use of visual effects

Genre conventions

Cinematic conventions can also refer to the distinct acting, directing and storytelling process of film

Formal expectations

Could be based on cues ( narrative or stylistic) Could be based on narrative conventions Could be based on genre convention Could be based on real life -However, " all stylized art.. depends on the audiences willing to suspend the laws of ordinary experience and to accept particular conventions" -Our expectations are shaped by all different things , helps us figure out structure

Compositing

Cutting and pasting, layering

Genre conventions of the horror film and its evolution

Defined mostly by intended audience response Distinct iconography Monster, breach of nature -Usually supernatural, not the province of science or technology Historically shift from external monster (from another world) to internal monster (human killer,in the family) -Movie psycho, shower scene Social commentary Often, Low budget -More accessible to film maker

Definition and basic procedure behind animation

Definition: the technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the movie is shown as a sequence.

Cycles

Different periods where a particular genre is popular

Digital backlot

Digital sets rather than making real sets

Ubiquity of digital visual effects since 2000

Digital/special effects are apart of all aspects of filmmaking: editing, filmmaking, apart of every movie now in some way

Motion capture

Dots on suit, performers actions drive the character ( avatar movies, lord of the rings)

Kinds of animation

Drawn (e.g Gertie the Dinosaur) Cel (e.g Disney) Puppet/stop-motion (e.g Nightmare before Christmas, 1993, Isles of Dogs, 2018) Claymation/Plasticine ( e.g Gumby, Wallace and Gromit) Cut-out (e.g Mothy Python, 1969, South Park 1992) Pixilation (e.g PES, "Her Morning Elegance") Rotoscope (e.g "Take on Me", Waking Life, 2001) Computer Generated (e.g Toy Story, Pixar) Anime

Surrealism

European movement in literature/painting, 1920s on Sur-realism = above/beyond reality Interested in dreams, the unconscious of consciousness Film Movement late 1920s through Luis Bunuel Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog), directed by Luis Bunuel (film maker, poet, writer) -Shocking part in the beginning (the eye being sliced) Persistence of Memory (1930) painted by Salvador Dali Meshes of the Afternoon directed by Deren (1943)

Film Form vs. Film Content

Film Form is anything that is involved in making and producing the finished product (lighting, mise-en-scene, acting, camera movement, editing). So, that would include all of those things that are in your definition. Film form is the technical and logistical stuff Film Content include plot, character analysis, etc.

Narrative/aesthetic qualities in experimental films

Focus on form and ideas rather than a distinct narrative. There is sometimes no narrative at all, like in Mothlight Experimental films also tend to focus more on aesthetic qualities like visual effects more than a narrative focus like there is in classical Hollywood Theater

Archival footage (Raw material for Documentary Filmmaking)

Footage that the directors of film your watching didn't make themselves but got from somewhere else. Stock footage

Causal factors for genre evolution/history

Genres were adapted from earlier forms ( theater, literature, vaudeville, etc) Technological influences (Western, musical, horror/ science fiction) Cultural / historical influences ( war, science, fiction)

Zorn's Lemma

Hollis Frampton, 1970 Weird one that had words flashing on screen

Visual effects as part of contemporary Hollywood business model

Hollywood is incentivized financially to make elaborate films (100M) in visual effects in hopes of making billions worldwide, will speak to all audiences worldwide

Meshes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren, 1943 Narrative is circular and repeats several motifs, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film depicts a world in which it is more and more difficult to catch reality.

Influence on mainstream cinema

More formal experimentation (aka style)form not content More experimentation with narrative (not as linear, irrational, fantastic, unexplained) Emphasis on visuals, rather than plot Intentionally confusing the spectator -Allows discomfort than a classical Hollywood film Ambiguity and open endings/plotlines -Don't add up logically but a lot of creepy aspects Credit sequences, fantasy and montage sequence Non-feature films:music videos, commercials

MASSIVE

Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment Software developed for Lord of the Rings to create Hordes, masses, background characters without having a person go in and animate it

Bluescreen/Greenscreen

No definition needed

Combination of practical effects and CGI in Sharknado

No definition needed

Facial/head replacement

No definition needed

Begone Dull Care

Norman McLaren, 1949 Uses drawn-on-film animation, paint and scratch directly onto film stock to create a visual representation of Oscar Peterson's jazz music.

Abstract form

Organized around colors, shapes, movements, patterns -Themes and variation -Push us to use our senses in a new way -Examples: --Begone Dull Care (Norman McLaren, 1949) --Mothlight (Stan Brakhage, 1963) --Zorn's Lemma (Hollis Frampton, 1970)

Definition of film form

Overall system of relations that we can perceive among the elements in the whole film

Practical and special effects vs. visual effects

Practical effects and special effects are effects you can make, ex: (throwing water to create rain) visual effects come later during editing

Direct cinema / cinéma vérité

Recording things as they occur Only possible because they had small cameras that were light weight and smaller recorders Recorded with minimal interference Direct cinema is predominantly more neutral than Cinema Verite. Directly capture reality and represent it truthfully, and to question the relationship of reality with cinema. It is a method used to create a film without subjectivity within the production, with little interference or manipulation as possible Cinema verite - Cinema Verite essentially is a subjective method with the interviewer giving biased opinions and asking subjective questions on the subject at hand.

"voice of God"

Rhetorical documentary with a narrator telling you to think things or explaining things. Often sounds like the voice is coming from nowhere, like God (is never seen)

Previsualization (previz)

Rough animation of the whole film before the film is made / describing animation -Isle of dogs

How genres are defined

Setting/time period,Effect on audience ,Film conventions , Intended audience

Iconography

Shared images and motifs throughout a genre ( visual convention) What you expect to see.... ( blood, spaceships, cowboy hat) based on genre

Difficulties in defining the category of documentary

Staging events Opinion, skewed information Fictional films "based on a true story"- biopics, etc. Mockumentaries The issue of diegesis -Story world is the real world the issue of style Follow people around or use interviews

Mothlight

Stan Brakhage, 1963

Rhetorical (Documentary Film Forms)

Structured to convince you, make an argument Often addresses the audience openly ("voice of God") Examples: The Battle of Midway (John ford 1943) Roger and me (1989) or any other Michael Moore film, An inconvenient Truth (2006)

Categorical (Documentary Film Forms)

Structured to explore a category Themes and variation Meaning is not explicit (but still may be implicit) examples (2006), Bronie

Associational form

Suggests ideas and emotions, suggests associations between seemingly unrelated things Poetic cinema, metaphors -Poems can be abstract -Make you associate and gives you feelings and emotions -Symbols Invites interpretations Sexual puns

Definitions of documentary film

Textbook - "Claims to present factual information about the world" Critics/Scholars - John Grierson (British filmmaker & leader of the Documentary Film Movement in the 1930s): "creative treatment of reality" Filmmakers - Making film because you care a lot because there's no money in film. Had a message you want to get across As a genre - Film scholars think of documentaries as a mode of filmmaking rather than just a genre

The Breadwinner

The Breadwinner is a 2017 animated drama film by Nora Twomey

Symptomatic/ideological (Types of meaning)

The interpretation of connections to current events

Implicit (Types of meaning)

The more abstract underlying meaning of a film/the symbolic meaning constructed by the audience Ex. Sharknado: Importance of teamwork/ family/ forgiveness/ necessity of altruism/ gendering reading of a film

Explicit (Types of meaning)

The point of the film/what the film is trying to teach or tell the audience Ex. Sharknado: Importance of family

Genre's diegetic "rules" (such as singing in a musical)

What one would expect to see in films of a certain genre Ex. singing in a musical, supernaturalism in a horror movie, etc.

Social functions of genres

Why do we go see the same movie over and over? Rituals that confirm cultural values Raise societal anxieties, but usually resolve the problem Reflection of contemporary cultural concerns, values Appealing to greatest population Use fear to get to people (example end of the world 2012)

How does experimental film differ from conventional cinema? (be able to discuss various ways, different motivations)

Willfully nonconformist; breaks the rules of classical Hollywood cinema Often considered 'difficult' -They make you think -Don't give you a guide, more like a puzzle that you have to solve Why make an experimental film? -"Realism" --Personal expression -Explore cinematic medium -Represent something non-realistic (a dream, a trance, optimal experience) -To create associations, ideas -To transfigure reality

CGI

computer-generated imagery (special visual effects created using computer software).

Sharknado

is a 2013 American sci-fi disaster film about a waterspout that lifts sharks out of the ocean and deposits them in Los Angeles. Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

is a 2014 Persian-language American vampire western film (Romantic/ Thriller) directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. Residents of a worn-down Iranian city encounter a skateboarding vampire (Sheila Vand) who preys on men who disrespect women.

Dual-plot structure

personal story and societal story, one solved by the other