FMS 100 Final Exam
Vertical Integration
*Studios that followed a top-down hierarchy of control, vesting ultimate managerial authority in their corporate officers and board of directors.* -The early studios relied on a system dominated by a central producer, a person in charge of the well organized mass production system that was necessary for producing feature films. This began in 1912 and was dominant by 1914. Central producers controlled the overall and day to day operations of their studios. They supervised a team of associate supervisors, each with an area of specialization, who handled the day to day operations of production but the central producer retained total control. -By the late 1920s= central producer systems encouraged quantity over quality.
French New Wave and Auteur Theory
-*1959-1964* -After WWII: everywhere calls for change were coming from students, artists, intellectuals, and philosophers, particularly the existentialists. -The originators were influenced by several movements: French cinema including the 1930s cinematic style known as *poetic realism*; the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre who believed that contemporary artists should rebel against the constraints of society, traditional morality, and religious faith; critic and director Alexandre Astruc who inspired the idea of the movie director as auteur (author); Italian Neorealism; British Free Cinema; contemporary developments in the French documentary film. -Stylistically, the films had a rough, intimate look that often reflected the informality of the filmmaking process. -*Father of the New Wave*: Andre Bazin. -Traits: rapid action, use of handheld cameras, unusual camera angles, elliptical editing, direct address to the camera, acting that borders on the improvisational, anarchic politics, and emphasis on the importance of sound, especially words.
Analog vs. Digital
-*Analog*: Film is an analog medium in which the camera creates an image by recording through a camera lens the original light given off by the subject, and stores this image on a roll of negative film stock. We call it analog because the image is analogous, or proportional, to the input. Requires: camera, processor, and a projector. -*Digital*: Involves an electronic process that creates its images through a numbered system of pixels. Digital images do not have a physical relationship to the original. They are not exactly images but rather thousands of digits stored on a flash card or a computer hard drive. *The essential difference comes down to how the light is captured as an image. Digital uses a sensor, which transfers light as data onto a memory chip; film uses silver nitrate particles embedded on celluloid*.
Diegetic vs. Nondiegetic
-*Diegetic*: The total world of the story- the events, characters, objects, settings, and sounds that form the world in which the story occurs. -*Non-diegetic*: The things we see and hear on the screen that come from outside the world of the story, such as musical score and voice over comments from a third person voice over narrator.
Financing, Marketing, Distribution
-*Financing*: no rules govern the arranging of financing. Money can come from the studio, the producer, the investment community, or a combination of these. In the old studio system, the general manager determined the budget. Today, usually the producer or a member of the producer's team prepares the budget with the assistant director. -*Marketing*: Preview screenings, focus groups, final changes to the film, media coverage, festival screenings and awards, and audience word of mouth. Determination of the release date, number of theaters, etc. -*Distribution*: exclusive and limited releases, key-city releases, and wide and saturated releases. Hollywood is planning to bring movies to homes at the same time, or close to it, that they are released in theaters.
Focalization vs. Focalizers
-*Focalization*: Degree of correspondence of narrative information with character point of view—roughly how subjective the information is. External focalization: Information about external world apparent to everyone but from one point of view. Internal focalization: Information about a character's thoughts, feelings, memories. Zero focalization: Completely objective, from no point of view. -*Focalizer*: a character on whose point of view the narrative is focalized. We know or perceive what they know or perceive—roughly corresponds to restricted narration in your book. A text can switch among multiple focalizers—often but not always signalled by shifts in visual POV or lone presence of character in scene.
Genres vs. Genre Films vs. Film Movements
-*Genres*: The categorization of narrative films by the stories they tell and the ways they tell them (Pg. 85). Genres: Content and form. Offer familiar formulas, conventions, themes, and visual icons. They tend to spring up organically, inspired by shifts in history, politics, and society. -Not all films reflect particular genres *("Genre films")*. The study of genre reveals patterns, attitudes, and ideologies influencing how films were/are made. -*Film Movements*: a group a like minded filmmakers consciously conspire to create a particular approach to film style and story. Examples: French New Wave, Dogme 95, Italian Neorealism.
Narrative/Narration/Narrator
-*Narrative*: The story and how it is told. -*Narration*: the act of telling the story. -*Narrator*: Who/what tells the story. Narrative entails narration and implies a narrator. No such thing as third-person narration—there is always a subject, even if it never says "I". No objective point of view. If the narrator never refers to her-/himself as a character, then s/he may be considered an external narrator. An internal or character-bound narrator is identified with a character in the text. In the case of a frame narrative (story within a story) character-bound internal narrator at one level may be external to the other level.
4 Types of Actors (Persona, Anti-Persona, Chameleon, Nonprofessional)
-*Persona*: actors who take their personae from role to role. -*Anti-persona*: actors who deliberately play against our expectations of their personae. -*Chameleon*: actors who seem to be different in every role. -*Nonprofessional*: actors who are often nonprofessional or people who are cast to bring verisimilitude to a part.
3 Phases of Moviemaking
-*Preproduction*: Consists of planning and preparation. It takes as long as necessary to get the job done, on average a year or two. Initially, filmmakers develop an idea or obtain a script they wish to produce. Once the rights to produce are contracted and purchased, producers spend months arranging and financing for production. Another two or three months may be spent rewriting the script. They estimate and reestimate budgets. -*Production*: the actual shooting, can last up to six weeks to several months or more. -*Postproduction*: Consists of three phases: editing, preparing the final print, and bringing the film to the public (marketing and distribution). In brief, editing consists of assembling the visual images and sound recordings, adding musical score and sound effects, adding special effects, dubbing. Preparing the final print consists of timing the color print, which involves inspecting each shot of a film and assigning color corrections and printer light values to maintain consistency of brightness and color. Bringing the film to the market consists of determining the marketing and advertising strategies and budgets, setting the release date and number of theaters, finalizing distribution rights, and exhibiting the film.
Round vs. Flat Characters
-*Round*: Complex characters; possess numerous, subtle, repressed, or even contradictory traits that can change over the course of the story. More life-like. -*Flat*: Uncomplicated characters that exhibit few distinct traits and do not change significantly as the story progresses. *One is not more legitimate than the other*
Story vs. Plot (Fabula vs. Syuzhet)
-*Story*: the story. Capital S Story (Fabula). Sum total of events plus character backstories and relevant events in the storyworld. Ex. In any post-apocalyptic narrative, the apocalypse and its causes are part of the story, even if they are not depicted in the film. -*Plot*: how it is told= Syuzhet = Roughly, "plot"; The order and manner in which the Story events occur. May be linear or shuffled by flashbacks or flash forwards. Cross-cutting- shows Story events that occur simultaneously but reorders them in plot sequence.
Studio System vs. Independent System
-*Studio System*: practiced vertical integration up until 1931, then the film industry adopted the producer unit system (an organizational structure that included a general manager, executive manager, production manager, studio manager, and individual production supervisors. Each studio had its own configuration. This system valued profitability above all else. The studio system established an industrial model of production through which american filmmaking became one of the most prolific and lucrative enterprises in the world. By the mid 1930s, Hollywood was divided into four kinds of film production companies: majors, minors, "B" studios, and independent producers. -*Independent System*: Sometimes called the package unit system coexisted within the studio system through the 1930s and 40s. The package unit system, controlled by a producer unaffiliated with a studio is a personalized concept of film production that differs significantly from the industrial model of the studio system. It governs the creation, distribution, and exhibition of a movie. An independent producer makes one film at a time, relying on rented facilities and equipment and a creative staff assembled for that one film.
Four Approaches to Film History
-*Technological*: Of all of the arts, cinema seems to rely the most heavily on technology. Historians examine the circumstances as well as the subsequent improvements surrounding the development of each technological advance. -*Social*: The movies serve as primary sources for studying society. Historians ask to what extent, if any, a particular movie was produced to sway public opinion or effect social change. -*Aesthetic*: sometimes called the masterpiece approach or great man approach. Seeks to evaluate individual movies and or directors using criteria that assess their artistic significance and influence. Historians who take this approach do not necessarily ignore the economic, technological, and cultural aspects of film history, but their primary interest = movies that are not only works of art but also widely acknowledged masterpieces. Other studies on the auteur theory. -*Economic*: the motion picture industry is a major part of the global economy. Historians help us understand how and why the studio system was founded, how it adapted to changing conditions, and how and why different studios took different approaches to producing different movies, how these movies were distributed and exhibited, and what effect this had on film history.
Types of Narration
-*Voice over narration*: when we hear a character's voice over the picture without actually seeing the character speak the words. -*Direct Address narration*: the narrator interrupts the narrative to speak directly to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. -*Omniscient* knows all and can tell us whatever it wants us to know. -*Restricted Narration*: limits the info it provides the audience to things known only to a single character.
Meshes of the Afternoon
-1943 experimental short -Directed by and starring Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid -"Psychodrama" genre -Deren: A "personalized psychoanalytical interpretation could impede the understanding of the film". -"Meshes of the Afternoon" repeats the same cycle of actions six times (uncanny structure). -Introduces variations gradually to both familiarize and defamiliarize the setting, objects, characters, and events. -Distortions of space and time grab attention and semantically simulate a dream, but the structure of repetition aims at the uncanny effect.
Bertolt Brecht and the Distancing Effect
-Audience members should be keenly aware of the construction of performance. -Psychological distance stresses the artificiality of theatrical performance. -Direct-address (breaking the fourth wall) and multiple roles are byproducts of distancing.
Iranian Cinema
-Between 1931-1979, Iran produced 1,100 motion pictures. -1979 Revolution: Muslim fundamentalist theocracy, censorship imposed, filmmakers flee. -1990s-present: Steady regrowth, some relaxation of depictions of social issues and taboos. -Like in postwar Italy, Iranian filmmakers tend to shoot on location with nonprofessionals telling "everyday stories." -Cultural specificity: Hejab (veiling, modesty), chador (overscarf), Sharia law. -Must walk a tightrope between artistic & social expression and the moral demands of a fundamentalist Islamic state.
A Separation
-Directed by Asghar Farhadi. -Winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (first Iranian film ever to win). -Uses the Rashomon Effect, but instead of four different accounts, each character agrees that the same event has occurred - but for different reasons. -"The main issue, to me, is not the separation between a woman and a man. This is just an excuse for me so I can talk about something else. I need the characters to be put in a situation of crisis so we can find the layers behind the characters. In regular situations it's difficult to find these layers behind the people. But divorce and separation present me with this crisis. I'll give you an example: Imagine that a few of us are in an elevator, and the elevator is going down, and everything goes well. Nothing happens, so we don't get to know each other. But if the elevator is stopped between two floors, we can get to know each other more, even if we're stopped for a short time. To me, divorce is like getting stuck on an elevator between two floors."
Maya Deren
-Director of "Meshes of the Afternoon" -First major American experimental filmmaker. -She used the cinematic equivalent of "stream of consciousness"
Genre Transformation (Subgenres, Hybrids, Revisionism, Parody)
-Genres are adapted to meet the expectations of a changing society (and audience). -Genre transformations reflect audience's pleasures, fears, and doubts. Ex.: Transformation of women in sci-fi/action movies. -*Subgenres and Hybrids*: Horror Teen Slasher Zombie Exploitation Revisionist Horror Camp Mystery Fantasy Supernatural Erotic Thriller Psychological Thriller -*Revisionism*: Generic transformation which questions the ideals and style of a genre. May include the same major visual icons, motifs, settings. Tends to be more realistic than romantic, drawing attention to moral ambiguity and complexity rather than absolute truth. Draws attention to the underrepresented. -*Parody*: When the recognizable manifestations of genre have been copied or imitated. Can be done for the purposes of mocking, satire, or self-conscious invoking.
House Style
-Genres are cultivated by studios. -Studios become associated with the genres they are known for.
Semantic and Syntactic Approaches to Genre
-Genres are defined by the combination of form and content. Form is the visual, iconographic signifiers. Altman calls these "semantic" approach. -Content is the relationships and conflicts within the narrative. Altman calls these "syntactic" approach (based on "syntax.") -*Semantic*: Setting (history and place), Character types, Actors and directors, Iconography, Formal elements (camera, music, mise-en-scene). -*Syntactic*: Narrative structure (plot), Conflicts, Relationships, Meanings (explicit and implicit).
Social Functions of Genre
-Genres satisfy audiences because they reaffirm cultural/ideological values. -Genres also exploit ambivalent social values and attitudes. -Because genre films promise something new based on something familiar, they can respond to broad social trends.
Stanislavsky System
-Konstantin Stanislavky: Founder of the Moscow Art Theater. -Stanislavsky System: "One must be the character in order to successfully play the character." -Pioneered in the 1910s and 20s -Actors must be re-taught to move, behave, speak, and inhabit in the ways of their character.
Method Acting
-Lee Strasberg credited with this. -Popularized in the U.S. in the 1950s. Encourages actors to speak, move and gesture not in a stage manner, but just as they would normally. Permits improvisation, creativity, and extremely rigorous preparation off-set. Ushers in new levels of realism (naturalism) and subtlety.
6 Documentary Modes
-Poetic: Focus on visual and acoustic rhythms, patterns, and the overall form of the film. This mode stresses mood, tone, and affect much more than displays of factual knowledge. -Expository: Speaks directly to the viewer with voice over. -Observational: Looks on as social actors go about their lives as if the camera were not present. -Participatory: The filmmaker interacts with his or her social actors, participates in shaping what happens before the camera; interviews are a prime example. -Performative: Emphasizes the expressive quality of the filmmaker's engagement with the film's subject; addresses the audience in a vivid way. -The Reflexive Mode: Calls attention to the conventions of documentary filmmaking and sometimes of methodologies such as fieldwork or the interview.
Star Studies
-Richard Dyer -Cinema's mode of production manufactures the star image. -"Stars are involved in making themselves into commodities; they are both the labor and the thing that labor produces. They do not produce themselves alone." -Stars are constructed by their films, publicity, interviews, image. -Four categories of star-audience relationship: Emotional Affinity Self-Identification Imitation Projection
White Telephone Films
-Romantic melodramas. -Glossy, modern décor, with aristocratic characters. -Half of all Italian films between 1930-1945. -Launched the careers of many future filmmakers (De Sica, Fellini). -Distracted audiences during anxieties leading up to WWII.
Duration (Summary, Sketch, Real Time)
-Summary: screen duration is shorter than plot duration. -Sketch: screen duration is longer than plot duration. -Real Time: screen duration corresponds directly to plot duration.
Propaganda
-Systematically disseminate deceptive or distorted information. -Persuasive documentaries produced by governments which carry their messages. -Example: Triumph of the Will
Influence of Sound on Acting
-The coming of sound in 1927 began a period of several years in which the industry gradually converted to this new form of production. -Development of better microphones and the blimp. -Encouraged changes in actors' vocal performances. -Actors now had to limit their movements to the circumscribed sphere where recording took place. Eventually, technicians were able to eliminate this obstacle. -Ruined many acting careers while creating others.
Documentary Voice (Reproduction vs. Representation)
-The fact that documentaries are not a reproduction of reality gives them a voice of their own. They are, instead, a representation of the world. The voice of documentary makes us aware that someone is speaking to us from his or her own perspective about the world we hold in common with that person. -The voice of documentary can make claims, propose perspectives, and evoke feelings. Documentaries seek to persuade or convince us by their strength of their point of view and the power of their voice. -Documentary draws on evidence but are not themselves documents. They possess a voice and a perspective of their own with which they communicate to us.
6 Approaches to Writing About Film
-Timothy Corrigan 1. Film History 2. National Cinema 3. Genres 4. Auteurs 5. Formalism 6. Ideology
Rashomon Effect
-same Story events re-narrated in conflicting ways. -Truth is subjective and variable; versions of the truth are relative to the self-serving intentions of the individual witnesses. -Cinema has a unique capacity to call into question "objectivity." -No character is absolutely right or wrong; instead, it is up to the audience to select the most compelling version of events.
Triumph of the Will
1935 dir. by Leni Riefenstahl -The most accomplished and notorious propaganda film of all time. Much of the blocking of the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi rally was crafted specifically with the camera in mind. Emphasizes order, discipline, and magnitude.
Decline of the Studio System
By the mid 1930s, the system had reacher a turning point due to numerous factors: -The studios were victims of their own success -Several actions taken by the federal government signaled that the studio's old ways of doing business would have to change (labor unions, 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act). -The studios began to reorganize their management into the producer unit system. -A shift in relations between top management and creative personnel that loosened the studio's hold on the system. -WWII: severely restricted the studios' regular, for profit operations. -The rise of television.
6 Major American Genres
Gangster, Film Noir, Science Fiction, Horror, The Western, and The Musical.
Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep
Hoffman went to extremes in order to get the desired, natural performance out of Streep such as slapping her across the face without warning and reminding her of her dead ex husband.
Bechdel Test
In order to pass the test, the film must contain: At least two women (with names) in it Who talk to each other, about Something other than a man
Italian Neorealism (historical roots and audiences)
Italy After WWI: -Rise of totalitarianism/Fascism (Benito Mussolini). -Relatively few attempts to commandeer and propagandize media (unlike Soviet Union and Germany). -Government invests in film culture, but global economic depression hinters growth. -"Cinema of distraction" Italy During WWII: -Cinecitta bombarded in 1943; did not reopen until 1946. -Mussolini executed in 1945. -Axis powers fall; Italy, Germany, and Japan left in shambles. -Sparse and hostile conditions forge the beginning of postwar Neorealism. Key Factors of Neorealism: -On-location shooting. -Nonprofessional actors. -Story takes place in contemporary setting. -The drama is the everyday dilemmas of real people. -Reality is upheld at all costs, both in form and content, but not necessarily interpreted.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
No studio would finance the film, so Van Peebles funded the film himself, shooting it independently over a period of 19 days, performing all of his own stunts and appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. He received a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the project. The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were unique features in American cinema at the time. The picture was censored in some markets, and received mixed critical reviews. However, it has left a lasting impression on African-American cinema.
Suspense vs. Surprise
Suspense: a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. Surprise: an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing.
3 Act Narrative Structure
This three-act structure dominates Hollywood and Hollywood-style productions: *Exposition*, rising action, *climatic moment*, falling action, *resolution*. -Central character, external goal or internal goal signified by external symbol ("objective correlative"). -Overcomes obstacles and rising stakes to make final victory or defeat more impactful and satisfying.
Blaxpoitation
the exploitation of black people, especially with regard to stereotyped roles in movies.
