Film studies

Independent Cinema: Crash Course Film

1. According to the Crash Course video,Why do cinema audiences end up with "only reboots and dystopian fantasies"?

- Hollywood is driven by trends. The success of one film or genre is inspires others to jump on the bandwagon.

2. According to the Crash Course video, what is Classical Hollywood Cinema?

- This is a particular stye of film making between the 1930s and 1950s. Their stories were chaste, formulaic and mostly upbeat.

3. What is high key lighting and who uses it?

- Most films use high key lighting and this ensures that the entire image was clearly visible

4. What happened in the European Film Industry after WW2?

- Cinecitta was nearly destroyed during the war, equipment was often damaged or missing and film stock was hard to come by.

5. Who was Roberto Rosellini and what did he do?

- He was filmmaker and was a working director before the war.

6. Which film movement was he associated with?

- The first Italian Neo-Realist film => Rome: Open City

7. What happened in the late 1950s in France?

- A group of opinionated young film lovers started writing for a movie magazine called Cahiers du cinema.

8. What did critics of the Studio System accuse them of?

- Bad camera movements, worthless dialogue and they do not know how to create cinema.

9. Who was Jean-Luc Godard?

- One of the prominent writers/critics.

10. Did Jean-luc Godard admire any Hollywood directors? Elaborate.

- I think he did admire any hollywood directors because he wrote a scratching attack on 21 major film directors.

11. What is the French New Wave? Describe and name 3 directors and films.-

- This is the style which involves making films swiftly with minimal crews and lightweight equipments. ( Jean-Luc Godard shot "Breathless," Jacques Rivette made "Paris Belongs to Us," Claude Chabrol made "Les Cousins."
12. What happened in the US in 1948 and what effect did it have on their film industry?

- 1948 the antitrust lawsuit: United States vs Paramount Pictures Inc. - forced the major studios to give up their theatre chains. Therefore the marketplace were theoretically open to all kinds of films.
13. What happened in the US in the 1970s? Describe.

- The Baby Boom generation was coming of age, the war in Vietnam was in full swing, American politics was at its most violent since the civil war and studio films seemed to be increasingly out of touch. Ticket sales were decreasing and studio executives were in an outright panic.

14. What do studio executives like?

- Money.
15. Why was Bonnie and Clyde a watershed moment in US film history?

- After winning some influential critics, it became a sensation. With its unapologetic sexuality, casual humour and surprisingly brutal violence, Bonnie and Clyde was a watershed moment in the history of American films.

16. Which other films were made in this period?

- "The Graduate" and "Midnight Cowboy"

17. What is New Hollywood Cinema? When was it? Name 3 directors and films.

- This window of creative control and experimentation came to be called New Hollywood Cinema. Directors: Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma. Films: "Jaws," "Star Wars" and " Raiders of the lost Ark."

18. What were Summer Blockbusters? When did they arise? Give 2 examples of directors and films.

- Summer Blockbusters were films offered a chance to escape, a more pure from of entertainment which appealed to a wider audience in 1980s. Directors: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Films: "Jaws" and "Star Wars."
19. What happened to Hollywood Studios at this time?

- The studios were being purchased by large, multinational corporations which changed the way the studios worked.
20. What happened to US Cinema in the 1990s? Describe with examples.

- The 1990s saw the arrival of the new set of independent filmmakers and mini-studios. Directors like Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino made films for independent companies like Miramax and New Line Cinema.

David Oyelowo Article

'Selma' (2014) star David Oyelowo talks about the long pashto becoming Martin Luther King Jr.

Portraying Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 'Selma' has been a 7 year journey for British actor David Oyelowo.
The project had several directors being passed over by everyone but Daniels, Oyelowo and the project finally converged with director Ava DuVernay, who only had 2 small independent films to her name.
When he read the script, he had this very visceral reaction and the only way to describe it was "deeply spiritual" and he felt that God told him that he was going to play this role.
At first he was confused because he was a British actor who recently moved to America and he felt strongly that he was going to play the most significant African-American figure of the 20th century.
Oyelowo spent 7 years preparing mentally and physically to become Martin luther King Jr. in 'Selma.'
Oyelowo's was surprised to discover that the weight of guilt MLK felt in relation to the harm hat was being meted out upon people who were protesting and campaigning at his behest.
He admires Ava DuVernay as the ethnicity of the people in her script was undeniable, the fact that she was a publicist for 10-15 years means that she comes at films with a very unique point of view and she always has the audience in mind but she doesn't take the fact that she's been given the opportunity to be a story teller for granted.
Oyelowo found the speeches easy as everyone knows what the beat needs ro feel like as they have several pieces of footage that shows you what MLK sounds like, the space he was in hen he was doing that mentally, physically and spiritually.
But he also found it difficult due to the high expectation.

Lighting: Extract from Oxford Film Studies

The lamps and light sources are used for illuminating a film scene.

The key light is the main source for illumination.
The fill light alleviates shadows cast by the key light.
In studio shooting in classical Hollywood cinema, the tree point lighting was customary: in addition to key, fill and back lights.
Back light illuminated the subject from above or behind, calling for rearrangement of lights for almost every new framing of a scene.
High key lighting designates a brilliantly lit scene with minimal shadows and a bright and dominant key light.
In high contrast lighting, there is a considerable contrast between bright lightened shadow.
Low key lighting involves illumination towards the darker end of the scale and a less bright key light, producing a scene with a good deal of shadows.
Arc lights which was provided a strong and intense light created by an electrical current jumping between two carbon rods- hence the term 'arc'.
Alongside development in film stock and to match filmmakers' ambitions to work in location, the use of tungsten halogen lighting became established.
Fay lights: set of four, eight or even sixteen lights built into a single high-power light panel.
Cold lighting is based on florescent light sources. the original barrier to the use of this type of light was twofold: cold lighting as not powerful enough for illuminating and more significantly, its colour spectrum is biased towards the green or violet and produces images with a green or purple tint.

Selma

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m5MzczcSINhF7b_5tPyOHz1Ot6jkUrq8/view?usp=sharing

Blade Runner: Memory and Identity

Blade Runner - Memory and Identity 2: Someone else's memories

1. What is Rachael's opening question?

- ' You think I'm a replicant don't you? '

2. How does Rachael try to persuade Deckard that she's a human?

- She brought photographs of her mother as an evidence.

3. How does Deckard prove she's not human?

- Deckard already knew Rachael's childhood memories and told her that it belonged to Tyrell's niece. Then, Rachael started crying which was unusual because replicants lacks experience of emotions.

4. What is the significance of the spider story?

- It reflects the Tyrell Corporation and it also shows that Rachael's life was a whole lie.

5. Describe the music that starts playing in the spider story? What meaning does it convey?

The music was emotional reflecting Rachael's emotion as she found out the truth about herself.

6. Who do Rachael's memories belong to? How does that make her feel?

- it belonged to Tyrell's niece and she probably felt betrayed because she realised just now that she spent her life living in lies.

7. How does Deckard respond to this? What meaning does that convey?

- He tries to comfort her and told her that he ' made a bad joke. ' This shows that he has empathy toward a replicant which he has to kill.

8. Make notes on: Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, Lighting

- Mise-en-scène:

Bar and blinds => classic film noir

- Cinematography:

Different types of shots such as close up, mid shot, 2 shot.

Camera angles/tilts

- Lighting:

Used a low-key lighting