History of Film "Midterm"

Eadweard Muybridge

Motion Studies: Use of a series of sequential photo stills to show the movement of the human figure and animals such as cats, birds, and horses 

1878 “Horse Galloping”:

• Sequence of stills to show its running pattern of horses

• Proved all four of a horses hooves come off the ground at once and tuck under horses belly during trot/run

Lumiere Brothers

Cinematographe: An invention by the Lumiere brothers that combined the camera and projector into a single device. It had 16 lenses and was portable.

“Workers Leaving Factory”: A very short film picturing factory workers leaving work at the end of the day

Thomas Edison

Black Maria: he Black Maria was Thomas Edison's film production studio. It allowed Edison to control lighting based on the placement of the sun

Also created films like Boxing Cats and The Kiss

Georges Melies

“A Trip to the Moon”

• Credited as the first sci-fi

• Narrative, multiple settings, use of special effects

• Follows a set of astronomers trip to the moon and their encounter with aliens 

• Reflects European colonialism with invasion of Alien territory by people and humans being shown as the protagonist 

• Reflects gender roles of women’s purpose being to support and celebrate work of men

Alice Guy Blache

Inventory of narrative film. Her film “Cabbage Fairy” is considered first narrative film. It is a brief fantasy tale involving a strange fairy who can produce and deliver babies coming out of cabbages

Louis Weber

Suspense: A man steals a car and races home to save his wife from a dangerous vagrant who has broken into their remote home, with police in pursuit

• First suspense film 

• Showcase of Weber invention of clever camera angles and techniques

• Cutting between two different scenes 

Germain Dulac

A pioneering film avant-garde film maker. Her work often captured feminist and queer themes. 

The Smiling Madame Veudet: One of Dulac’s most famous films depicting the interior psychology of a housewife as she wishes to escape from her husband. 

Define Mise-en-scene. What are some of the elements this term includes

Mise-en-scène refers to everything in front of the camera, including the set design, lighting, and actors, and the ultimate way that this influences how the scene comes together for the audience.

Relationship between the innovation of “close ups” and the rise of movie starts like Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickford, and Keaton

Close-ups allowed the audience to really see the actor portraying the character allowing audiences to gravitate towards specific actors. Also Close-ups allow for better development of individual character. This allowed the rise of movie stars as audiences became attracted to specific actors and their signature characters.  

Contrast between Chaplin’s comedy and Buster Keaton’s (performance, persona, and directing style)

Sergei Eisenstein

Kuleshov Effect: How the order of shots impacts the meaning of the shots (relationship between surrounding frames) 

“Odessa Steps” sequence from Battleship Potemkin (1925): Sequence showing the Odessa people and their encounter with the evil Czar soldiers

• wide shots show the mass number of odessa people

• Showcases violence against children

• Use of close up to show terror in citizens 

• Constant flipping between wide shots of large number of people fleeing and emotional closeups 

• Use of long overcast shadows 

Kulshov Effect

Kuleshov Effect: How the order of shots impacts the meaning of the shots (relationship between surrounding frames) 

Camera Techniques: Pan

swivelling a still or video camera horizontally from a fixed positio

Camera Techniques: Tilt

technique in which the camera stays in a fixed position but rotates up/down in a vertical plane

Camera Techniques: Truck

Trucking is like dollying, but it involves motion left or right. Truck left means "move the camera physically to the left while maintaining its perpendicular relationship." This is not to be confused with a pan, where the camera remains firmly on its axis while the lens turns to one side

Camera Techniques: Dolly

Motion towards or motion from. The name comes from the old dolly tracks that used to be laid down for the heavy camera to move along - very much like railroad tracks - in the days before Steadicam. The phrase dolly-in means step towards the subject with the camera, while dolly-out means to step backwards with the camera, keeping the zoom the same. Zooming the camera changes the focal length of the lens, which can introduce wide-angle distortion or changes in the apparent depth of field

Camera Techniques: Pedestal 

Moving the camera up or down without changing its vertical or horizontal axis. A camera operator can do two types of pedestals: pedestal up means "move the camera up;" pedestal down means "move the camera down." You are not tilting the lens up, rather you are moving the entire camera up. Imagine your camera is on a tripod and you're raising or lowering the tripod head, which is exactly where the term comes from

Camera Techniques: Jib-arm crane

A crane can be used to lift a camera (and operator, if it’s big enough) from low to high shooting positions.Less expensive jibs can support the weight of a camera lift it several feet off of the ground. A jib mechanism is occasionally called a boom, but the boom term usually applies to the device that holds a microphone aloft.

Defining characteristics of German Expressionism

heavy use of shadows, high contrast lighting, flat and artificial-looking

sets, expressionistic acting style that attempts to externalize the internal anxieties and emotions, often in really exaggerated ways.

German Expressionism: why filmmakers like Wiene, Murnau and Lang might have chosen these qualities and to what effect?

• Robert Wiene’s flat, artificial studio sets were used partly out of economic necessity in post-WWI Germany and partly to create eerie ambience and dreamlike states where the mise-en-scene appears familiar yet distorted.

• expressionistic acting style that attempts to externalize the internal anxieties: showcases the German fixation of the unconscious mind and the prescience of PTSD among people post WWI

• Artificial looking sets effect: Ex in the Cabinet of Dr Caligari the sets adds to the uncanny story line as nothing in the environment is at a right angle, everything is twisted or bent

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and architectural innovations: how does architecture effect the ways in which we watch film, or how do architectural choices contribute (often heavily) to the storytelling? Which films—from this semester or from your lifetime of viewing--strike you as having “architecture as a character and not merely as a background set.”

In Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (about a dystopian city of the future where the working masses live underground, enslaved by the wealthy few) architecture visually represents the social hierarchy portrayed in the film. The uniform dystopian architecture below ground contrasts greatly with the grand architecture above ground. 

Projection of psychology/interiority/subjectivity, but how? Consider rewatching YouTube clip

from Abel Gance’s La Roue (1922)

Film has been used to showcase character’s psychological states through pure visuals and is enchanced through editing.

Abel Gance’s La Roue:

• Cuts quickly between shots represtative of life flashing before eyes

• Use of vignette (capturing scene in a circular compostion parts outside circle blacked out) to focus attention on the life and death situation

• Close ups of faces to focus on terror expression of character’s face

Two dominant film Genres USA 1930s and what might this suggest about film’s relationship to culture in any particular era 

Fantasy/Horror and Musicals. These genres relate to the culture of the 1930s as these genres provided people with a form of escapism from the hardships of the Great Depression

Citizen Kane: In what ways does Orson Welles borrow from the previous history of film

German Expressionism: Dramatic lighting

What types of new camera angles and

cinematic techniques do we notice as of 1941? Be able to describe at least one such angle or experiment in terms of the effect(s) it has on storytelling or characterization

Citizen Kane: Deep Focus Composition - What is it and what does it do

Experimentation with focal length of camera which keeps foreground, mid ground, and background all in focus. This provides the opportunity of story telling across all three parts

Characteristics of Film Noir

Classic era of noir (1941-1958): dark in visual style (chiaroscuro lighting, stylized use of shadows) and dark in tone (post-war pessimism)

What are ways in which contemporary noir (neo-noir, retro-noir, future noir) preserves and expands upon the legacy of classic film noir?

Film noir’s challenges to post-WWII gender roles in film: Is it newly empowered? Misogynistic?

In film noir woman are routinely devalued by male protagonists who feel threatened by them. Thus women tended to be framed as the Femme Fatals, intent on destroying the male protagonist. This is reflective of the post WWII misogyny due to the expansion of women in the workforce during the war. Women were often demoted or kicked out of their orginally male dominated jobs, as the men returned from war. The gender roles of women in domestic roles was highly enacted. 

Studio System heyday of 1930s-1950s: how all facets of production collaborate and achieve on such a high level with Singin’ In The Rain (1952). Singin’ In The Rain is also major turning point in film studies as movies are now meta-aware of—and attempt to recreate—cinematic history

• Studio stystem provide film makers with resources (big studio budgets) but also the studio system gives large amounts of control to the studios limiting a film makers freedom of choice

• Singin’ in the Rain uses its plot to showcase the history of film by portraying characters dealing with the transition from the silent age to the sound age of film

Characteristics of Italian Neorealism

Non actors, location shooting, social protest, simple plots showcase humanistic themes

1950s-60s Teen Angst Film: Method Acting and Rebel Without a Cause

Method Acting: Refers to when actors fully emmerse themselves into the role by living their life like the character they are to portray. They channel their own experiences in service to fully embody character’s psychology and emotional interior.

Rebel Without a Cause: A film exploring the conflicts and differences between the younger and older generations. 

• Use of character’s appearances (like color of clothing) to showcase the activeness and rebelliousness of the younger generation vs the dull and traditional older generation

Distinction between realism, classicism, and formalism in categorizing films. Descriptions for each category and movie examples for each category

Qualities and terms associated with the calssic Hollywood Romantic style of filmmaking

“invisible” editing, chronological storytelling, three-point lighting, how all technique serves to showcase story, action, and character