1. English 12B
Film Notes

2. How many films do you watch a week?
A month?

3. Why Study Film? Significant component of our culture
Illuminates many contemporary issues
Our information age is dominated by visual images
Intelligent living in our society calls for perception, analysis, and judgment of visual data

4. Film as Literature 1/3 of all films ever made are based on novels
Adding other literary forms increases the figure to 65% or more

5. Film as Literature
Films are a form of narrative just like novels, plays, short stories, etc.
Uses setting, characterization, plot, symbolism, and tone (as does writing). It is just developed differently.

6. How do filmmaking techniques add to meaning?
Lighting helps to define character, plot, and setting.

7. Lighting Techniques
High-Key Lighting – scene is flooded with bright light, giving it a cheerful tone
Low-Key Lighting – low light with shadows, creates melancholy or ominous mood

8. Lighting Techniques
Bottom Lighting – makes the face look sinister by casting shadows on the face
Front Lighting – softens the face
Back Lighting – strong light from behind separates the subject from the background

9. Lighting Techniques
Eye light – placed near the camera to add sparkle to the eyes
Side light – adds solidity and depth, accentuates features that give a face its character

10. Camera Shots and Angles
Close-up – might show an actor’s head or hand
Medium shot – might show the actors body from the knees up
Long shot – might show the entire actor running through a field

11. Camera Shots and Angles
Low angle shot – taken from below the subject
High angle shot – taken from above the subject

12. Camera Movement Pan – camera pivots horizontally either left or right
Tilt – camera pivots up or down

13. Camera Movement
Tracking Shot (Dolly Shot) – camera moves along with the subject on a set of tracks
Boom Shot (Crane Shot) – camera moves vertically through space

14. Color
Specific colors used to develop characters, create specific moods,
Can sometimes be considered symbolic

15. Sound
Music and sound effects contribute to plot, character, mood, and symbolism
Diagetic – Characters and audience can hear it
Non-Diagetic – outside the story; only audience can hear it

16. Special Effects
Made up of visual effects and mechanical effects

17. Special Effects
Stop-motion photography – shooting interrupted while the scene is rearranged
Animation – drawing or clay object changed every time camera stops

18. Special Effects
Pixillation – live actors make one motion at a time, camera stops after each movement; takes 14,400 frames to shoot ten minutes of film
Miniatures (Model Shots) – small scale models filmed to look full size

19. Special Effects
Glass Shot – scenery painted on transparent glass; action photographed through the glass
Rear Projection – actors are stationary while a movie of the landscape plays behind them

20. Special Effects
Computer generated imagery combined with green screen technology
Rain and snow machines

21. How Films are Made
Every film goes through four stages

22. Development Idea starts from book, event, film, or imagination
A brief synopsis or outline is sketched out
Expanded into a treatment (short story)

23. Development
Scenario, or screenplay, fleshes out the action and dialogue
Shot by shot blueprint of the film is produced called the shooting script
Few ideas make it past this first stage

24. Preproduction Film is approved and planned Actors are cast
Locations are scouted
Research is conducted

25. Preproduction Sets, props, and costumes are designed
Shooting schedule is finalized
Production budget is finalized

26. Production
Director supervises the set and is responsible for turning screenplay into film
Numerous technical support crew

27. Production
Cinematographer (director of camera work) among most important
Production mixer responsible for all sound

28. Postproduction Editor takes over with the assistance of the director
All shots cut, spliced, and arranged to form continuous scenes

29. Postproduction Sounds are synchronized with images
Visual effects and musical tracks are created

30. Brief History of Film
August and Louis Lumiere credited with inventing the motion picture in 1895
A Trip to the Moon (1902) first feature film

31. Brief History of Film
The Jazz Singer (1927) starring Al Jolson was the first film with sound (talkies)
By 1931 the last silent feature length film was released

32. 1930s
Industry at its peak
By % of population attended movies weekly
In films produced in Hollywood
Compare to 1968 (10% attended movies weekly and 175 movies produced
Musical and screwball comedies – took people’s minds off depression

33. 1940s
Films more cynical and serious as a result of WWII

34. 1950s
Science fiction and Westerns emerged as popular forms

35. 1960s
Audience became younger, better educated, more affluent, and smaller
Violence, social protest, and counterculture developed in film

36. 1970s
Disaster film (Airport), gangster films (The Godfather), horror films ( The Exorcist), and space films (Star Wars) dominated
Emergence of high budget blockbuster films
Hollywood popularity began to revive

37. Contemporary Films More integrated to reflect the times
More minorities in films
More likely to be shot overseas, in several locations, with casts and crews of several nationalities