Studied by 45 Peoplezoetrope
Tags & Description
zoetrope
optical toy created by William George Horner
early motion picture projector that produced illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs
The Lumiere Brothers
invented the Cinematographe
created "Arrival of a Train at the Station"
shocked audiences because it looked like the train was going to come out of the screen
George Melies
one of the first fictional narratives
inventor of special effects in movies
created "The Man with the Rubber Head" and "A Trip to the Moon"
Cinema of Attractions
1895-1906
emphasis on performative spectacle
aim is to show and exhibit
direct stimulation
incite visual curiosity
Classical Hollywood Cinema
1907-present
emphasis on construction of a story; to narrate
creation of digests
encourage voyeurism
action for the sake of narrative continuity
shot / counter shot
sometimes referred to as shot / reverse shot
prime example in the film Pulp Fiction and The Wolf of Wall Street
when a filmmaker places a camera on a subject (usually a person looking at something) and then shows the reverse view of that subject (usually what the subject was looking at)
long take
used in film without any cuts or reverse shots
the camera remains stationary and follows the characters continuously without any editing or interruptions
example: Godard's "Breathless"
Edwin Porter
worked as a Vitascope projectionist which led him to the practice of continuity editing
pioneered crosscutting/intercutting across simultaneous actions in different spots
created "Life of an American Fireman", "The Great Train Robbery", and "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest"
Kinetograph
the first true motion picture camera
Diegesis
a Greek term
literally means the fictional world of the film
may be a world that resembles ours
outer space environment in Star Wars, Middle Earth from LOTR
Tom Gunning "Cinema of Attractions"
defined attractions as "directly soliciting spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity, and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle"
D. W. Griffith
established the narrative language of cinema through a combination of his own analogies with those of others (modeled the narrative we call "film")
directed for Biograph films and innovated alternate shots of different spectacle lengths
begins to use close ups and more cuts in "The Greaser's Gauntlet"
Directed "The Lonely Villa", "Corner Wheat", "The Birth of a Nation", and "Way Down East"
had a role in Edwin Porter's "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest"
interframe Narrative
meaning is created within the shot
multiple camera setups within the use of close ups, full shots, long shots, cross cuts, POVs, etc
ex: "Way Down East", main character looks up and sees a beautiful chandelier. she is in awe because she comes from a low income background and has never seen anything like it
intraframe narrative
meaning is created within the shot
dramatic lighting and use of probs, costumes, makeup, performance, screen space
long takes with camera movement and angle
Buster Keaton
American film director and comedian during silent film
known for his deadpan expression and elaborate visual comedy
"Our Hospitality", "Cops", and "The General"
Thomas Ince
worked with Griffith
introduced the continuity script to the filmmaking process
pioneered the studio system of production
Charlie Chaplin
transformed cinema from a novelty into a living art form
films addressed the real issues with dimensional characters
"Our Hospitality" dir. Buster Keaton and John Blystone, 1923
silent comedy that used a specific narrative style which ranged from broad to subtle
tells the story of a Southern family feud between the Canfields and McKays
French Film d'art Movement
brought great stage plays and artists o the movie screen
stunted advances in narrative techniques
UFA
main German production company during 1920s
became the core of the Nazi film industry
became largest studio in the world behind Hollywood
German Expressionism
artistic movement that seeks to express that artist's emotional state while offering a depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect
utilizes highly stylized decor and lighting
Fritz Lang
made films that were often Expressionist in theme
used lighting to emphasize architectural space and line
director of "Metropolis"
Karl Freund
cinematographer of many silent German classics
emigrated to Hollywood and was D. P. for "Dracula"
developed the 3 camera setup for "I Love Lucy"
Kammerspielfilm
German films from the 1920s that offered an intimate, cinematic portrait of lower - middle class life
Alfred Hugenberg
bought out UFA and forced the studio to push his extreme beliefs
began producing newsreels containing Nazi propaganda and films pushing German Nationalism
chiaroscuro lighting
technique of arranging light and dark elements in pictorial composition
unchained camera
continuous camera movement
subjective camera
POV of the character allowing us into their emotional state
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" dr Robert Wiene, 1920
the first and most influential German Expressionist Film
critical to the weakness of the new German Government
Moscow Film School
created by the Cinema Committee (aka VGIK)
Kuleshov studied editing and helped establish it as the first film school
Dziga Vertov
co founder of Soviet cinema and newsreel editor
experimented with more expressive editing
Kinoki
young group of documentary filmmakers founded by Vertov
influential on Soviet montage editing
their filmmaking doctrine was kino-gaze (cinema eye)
"Man with a Movie Camera" 1929
Vertov's masterpiece showing Moscow life
used techniques such as trick photography, multiple exposure, candid camera, and montage
Kuleshov Workshop
focused on editing
goal was to discover the laws by which film communicates meaning to the audience
discovered "Kuleshov effect" - a blank face interchanged with different pictures can change emotion
Soviet Montage
cutting film as an expressive or symbolic process by where logically or empirically dissimilar images can be linked together synthetically to produce metaphors
Sergei Eisenstein
student of Kuleshov
filmmaker and film theorist
directed "Battleship Potemkin"
main focus was "attraction"
Montage of Attractions
structuring films around "attractions" to implant emotions and ideas in working class viewers
"units of impression combined into one whole" that could be used to produce "a new level of tension"
dialectical montage (theory)
human experience is a personal conflict where one force (thesis) collides with another force (antithesis) to produce a new phenomenon (synthesis)
5 types of montage
metric
rhythmic
tonal
overtonal / associational
intellectual
"Battleship Potemkin" dir Sergei Eisenstein
one of the most important and influential films in the history of cinema
chronicles the revolt of Potemkin during the failed Bolshevik revolution
famed Odessa step massacre: one of the most influential in the history of cinema
Eisenstein uses emphasis on montage (rhythmic) along with stress of intellectual contact
Thomas Edison
invented Phonograph
his Cinephongraph and Kinetophone did achieve sound on disc synchronization
Eugene Augustin Lauste
first achieved adding sound directly onto the filmstrip (1910)
converted sound into light beams to be recorded on the film strip photographically
Tri-Ergon
system invented by 3 Germans that converted sound waves into light waves
recorded photographically on film strip
The Audin
vacuum tube invented by Lee de Forest that allowed for amplification of radio signals and later for the amplification of sound in movie theaters
Vitaphone
sound-on-disc system developed by the Western Electric and Bell Telephone laboratories (under AT&T)
"The Jazz Singer"
first feature length film with running dialogue
end of silent film era
Fox Movietone
sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures which guarantees synchronization between the sound and picture
Talkies
nickname for early sound films due to their inclusion of dialogue
The "Big Five"
Mero-Goldwyn-Mayer
Warner Bros
Paramount
Fox
RKO