Blog Notes and Quiz Note

Blog Notes

Ok, so because Ive been getting some questions, and seeing some evidence that some people aren't quite on board, here is how the blog works:

- Please please, when you post, use your FULL NAME. I'm not looking up peoples last names. If you've been posting with just your first name then come up and see me during the break or after class.

- YOUR Blog is due on the day that the syllabus and the sidebar on the blog says that it is due, not the week after. I've started labeling the posts with who should respond, just in case it gets confusing, because sometimes we're watching a movie over two classes.

- I will post 2 discussion topics for films that take us two weeks to watch. One for the first week and one for the 2nd. Just because we haven't finished a film doesn't mean there's no assignment.

- Please make sure you are posting for the correct discussion topic. I have been letting this slide, especially because it has taken me until Thursdays sometimes to get topics up. From now on, if you post on the wrong topic, you will not be getting credit for that post. If a discussion topic is not up yet, then check back.

- Please respond to the discussion topics as they are posted. Do not give give me plot synopsis of the film. I've seen it.

- NO LATE POSTS: Your blog post is due BEFORE the next class, not after on the same day and not (for God's Sake) during. Your posts have a time and date stamp on them. I will not be giving credit for late posts.

- If you are not in class on a day that we screen a particular film you are responsible for posting about, it is YOUR responsibility to either rent the film, if this is possible, or watch it in the library at The Rosen Campus. On weeks where we do not finish a film, like this week with Psycho and with 2001, the films will not be on reserve until we have finished watching the entire thing.

Ok, I don't think these requirements should be that tough on you guys.

Quiz Note
Remember if you don't like the score you've received on a quiz, you have the option of doing a final paper at the end of the semester (an assignment TBD, that will be handed out in mid-late November) to replace the grade.


If there are any questions about any of this, please feel free to email me.

Thanks - Ryan

Psycho - Blog Q-Z

THE SHOWER SCENE



Here is something I found on the "inter-web" with some facts and info about the scene, proving once again that some people have too much time on their hands. (And that I am grateful for them as usual.)

Shower Scene Info


Speaking of people with too much time on their hands, here's another incidental piece of info that I found. This person should be found and arrested:

Alfred Hitchcock (and his cinematographer) may truly have put one over on the censors. If you watch the sequence of the hand clutching around the shower curtain, you will see the curtain on the left side of the frame, the hand comes in center frame and diverts you from what can just been seen out of focus in the background right of the frame. If you increase the contrast on your monitor (particularly effective by tilting the monitor of a portable DVD player) the background visual information clearly resolves itself into a pair of naked breasts. Janet Leigh claims that she was not nude during the filming of this scene and was actually wearing a moleskin suit for the shot where she falls forward over the side of the tub. This is not disputed, but there was a nude model used for overhead and insert shots; this would be the case for the breast shot in question. Leigh insisted to her death that no nude woman, herself or a stand-in, was used in the actual filming, but modern video technology, including frame-by-frame advance, reveals one, in profile so as to expose no "private parts" and with the top of the frame at shoulder level so as to prevent identification.

Discussion Topic:
According to different sources, the "shower scene" in Psycho is composed of somewhere between 70 and 85 different shots(I've never counted personally), which took weeks to shoot. What would be the difference in tone and feeling, had the sequence been shot using half as many, or how about simply one long shot, as Alfonso Cuaron chose to do for his action scenes?

2001: A Space Odyssey Blog G-P

So now that we've seen the whole film, I'd like to get your impressions of it. It's ok not to "get" the meaning of the film. I don't really get it either per say, and that really wasn't my purpose in showing it to you. Kubrick purposely left whatever meaning that could be derived from the images on screen open to the viewer, which is more common in our experience of viewing art (paintings, sculpture etc...), then it is of viewing "movies", in the way that people are used to.

Discussion Topic

2001 Animation
This is a link to an animation that was done trying to explain the meaning of the film. This is one interpretation. Many people would say that the monoliths were put there by God instead of aliens for instance, as this piece suggests. Anyhow, watch the animation and give me your views on the opinion it suggests, and then tell me what you thought of the film in general, whether you liked it or disliked it, and why.

Lecture Notes

So these are straight from the power points that I put together for class. Hopefully this will help you when studying for the quiz on Tuesday. Don't forget: Raspberry Scantrons



STORY
CINEMA SURVEY FALL ‘07
LECTURE #1
Points for Today
• Drama
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Conflict
• Plot Vs. Story

Drama
• A Greek word meaning “action”
• Drawn from the Greek word dran, meaning “to do”.
Drama relies on 2 important rules…
• There must be a PROTAGONIST who will take action to achieve something.
• This character will meet with CONFLICT.

• In today’s usage the protagonist is the central figure of a story, and is often referred to as a story's main character.

Protagonist cont’d…
• In movies, the story is usually told from the protagonist's point of view, even when not in first-person narrative.



Antagonist
• That character, group, or force which provides the chief obstruction to the protagonist.

• Note that the antagonist is not necessarily human; often, the forces of nature or psychological elements provide this element of opposition.


Conflict
• Man vs. Himself
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Society
• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. God

Conflict cont’d…
• Conflict casts doubt on the character's ultimate success and increases our interest. Conflict creates stress and trouble we want to see resolved.


• In movies, the final battle between the protagonist and the antagonist usually resolves the CONFLICT that has been brewing for the past 80 or so minutes.

Conflict cont’d…
• On the most superficial level, every story is about the quest to attain a goal and whether a character will achieve it or not.

• Anyone who has ever directed a scene will tell you the first thing the director and actors must find in the material are what each actor wants (in the scene and overall) and the source of the conflict
Children of Men
• What does Theo want?
• Who is the antagonist?
• What is the conflict?


Plot and Story cont’d
• STORY and PLOT overlap because each includes events seen onscreen, but they are not the same.
• STORY exists as a precondition for PLOT. Filmmakers have to understand a STORY very well in order to pick and choose which elements will be included within the PLOT and how those elements will be ordered and presented.


Plot and Story cont’d…
• The STORIES are basically the same.
• But how the story is told (THE PLOTS) are very different.


• (e.g. Fairy Godmother vs. Hector Elizondo)



TIME & SPACE
CINEMA SURVEY FALL ‘07
LECTURE #2
Points for Today…
1. Difference between stage and film
2. Film can manipulate time and space
3. Difference between photography and motion pictures
4. Persistence of Vision


Film Has Its Roots In…
Oral Storytelling
Theater
Painting
Photography
Film Vs. Theater
• Moviemaking draws on many ancient art forms, but in particular the live theater paved the way for movies.

• To study movies, we’ll need to understand the similarities and differences between plays and cinema.


PROSCENIUM ARCH
Film Vs. Theater cont’d…
• Relationship between The PROSCENIUM ARCH and the movie FRAME.
Film Vs. Theater cont’d…
• Live performance takes place in a three-dimensional space, divided into a performance area and a spectator area.

Theater Experience
• What happens on the stage is designed by the stage director, placing actors and scenery and props where they will have the most effect within the frame of the proscenium arch.

Cinematic Experience
• You still sit in a fixed seat but the screen images move constantly, based on what a director want you to see – either close-ups, wide shots, flashbacks, etc.

• Each shot is carefully planned and executed and put in a certain order (edited) to achieve the desired impact that the director intends.


• Movies can move seamlessly from one space to another (an interior room to an exterior landscape to outer space)

• Film can change spatial relationships (when a camera turns from the subject, changing the relationship between viewer and subject).


Time
• Manipulation of Time
– “Montage Sequences”
• Rocky
• The Right Stuff

Film Techniques For Manipulating Time
• Slow motion
• Sped up action
• Reverse motion


• Flashback
• Freeze frame
• Replay




PHOTOGRAPHY
• With the invention of the camera, we could now show “reality” - it was no longer strictly the artists’ interpretation
Movies
• “Moving Pictures”
• Even more “real” in terms of what we see with our eyes.
How Motion Pictures Work
In a motion picture camera, the camera is actually taking a whole bunch of still photographs one right after the other.


Persistence of Vision
• In between these pictures is – nothing.
• We spend time in the theater watching darkness on the screen but we don’t realize it because of something called persistence of vision…

…the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it.



Persistence of Vision
• A movie projector shows 24 fps (frames per second) and tricks use into believing that separate images are one continuous moving image. We perceive apparent motion rather than jerky movements.




The Director/Visual Storytelling Elements
Points for Today…
• The Role of the Director
• Mise-en-scene
• Design Principles
– Balance
– Rhythm
THE ROLE OF THE DIRECTOR
Film Director
• The Director is the driving creative force in a film's production, and acts as the crucial link between the production, technical and creative teams
• Responsible for bringing together visual elements to make a cohesive finished piece.
• Works with Heads of all departments to put vision onto the screen.

Directors' main duties include

Casting
Script editing
Shot composition
Shot selection
Editing
Mise En Scene
• Pronounced ‘mees on sen’
• From French literally meaning "putting into the scene”
• Everything in front of the camera.
• Involving every dept. on a film shoot…
Mis-En-Scene
• There is nothing in a film frame that is not meant to be there, that is not planned.

• Mise-en-scene is a strategy the filmmaker uses to create a world of space, time and narrative.
Director sets the mis-en-scene
• The director creates and alters the mood and ambience of the film through mis-en-sene

• The director's use of mise-en-scene creates systems that not only guide our perception from moment to moment but also help to create the overall form of the film.
Mise-En-Scene includes
1. Setting
2. Costume and make-up
3. Lighting
4. Actor's expression and movement
5. Screen space
6. Time
Design Principles
Balance
Positive and Negative Space
Symmetrical Balance
Asymmetrical Balance
Radial Balance
Rhythm
• Rhythm - In context of film, can be used to describe reocurring elements in a composed frame.
• Repetition of visual elements such as shapes or colors create a rhythm and pattern in an artwork.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Stanley Kubrick from 1969, where he talks about his goals in using the formal aesthetic style he ended up with in 2001, and why he feels the ambiguity of the film is an important aspect of the experience.








Dr. Strangelove was a particularly word-oriented film, whereas 2001 seemed to be a total breakaway from what you'd done before.

Yes, I feel it was. Strangelove was a film where much of its impact hinged on the dialogue, the mode of expression, the euphemisms employed. As a result, it's a picture that is largely destroyed in translation or dubbing. 2001, on the other hand, is basically a visual, nonverbal experience. It avoids intellectual verbalization and reaches the viewer's subconscious in a way that is essentially poetic and philosophic. The film thus becomes a subjective experience which hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting.

Actually, film operates on a level much closer to music and to painting than to the printed word, and, of course, movies present the opportunity to convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditional reliance on words. I think that 2001, like music, succeeds in short-circuiting the rigid surface cultural blocks that shackle our consciousness to narrowly limited areas of experience and is able to cut directly through to areas of emotional comprehension. In two hours and forty minutes of film there are only forty minutes of dialogue.

I think one of the areas where 2001 succeeds is in stimulating thoughts about man's destiny and role in the universe in the minds of people who in the normal course of their lives would never have considered such matters. Here again, you've got the resemblance to music; an Alabama truck driver, whose views in every other respect would be extremely narrow, is able to listen to a Beatles record on the same level of appreciation and perception as a young Cambridge intellectual, because their emotions and subconscious are far more similar than their intellects. The common bond is their subconscious emotional reaction; and I think that a film which can communicate on this level can have a more profound spectrum of impact than any form of traditional verbal communication.

The problem with movies is that since the talkies the film industry has historically been conservative and word-oriented. The three-act play has been the model. It's time to abandon the conventional view of the movie as an extension of the three-act play. Too many people over thirty are still word-oriented rather than picture-oriented.

For example, at one point in 2001 Dr. Floyd is asked where he's going and he replies, "I'm going to Clavius," which is a lunar crater. Following that statement you have more than fifteen shots of Floyd's spacecraft approaching and landing on the moon, but one critic expressed confusion because she thought Floyd's destination was a planet named Clavius. Young people, on the other hand, who are more visually oriented due to their new television environment, had no such problems. Kids all know we went to the moon. When you ask how they know they say, "Because we saw it."

So you have the problem that some people are only listening and not really paying attention with their eyes. Film is not theater -- and until that basic lesson is learned I'm afraid we're going to be shackled to the past and miss some of the greatest potentialities of the medium.

Did you deliberately try for ambiguity as opposed to a specific meaning for any scene or image?

No, I didn't have to try for ambiguity; it was inevitable. And I think in a film like 2001, where each viewer brings his own emotions and perceptions to bear on the subject matter, a certain degree of ambiguity is valuable, because it allows the audience to "fill in" the visual experience themselves. In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting -- you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to "explain" them. "Explaining" them contributes nothing but a superficial "cultural" value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living. Reactions to art are always different because they are always deeply personal.

Discussion Topic:
Ignoring the fact that Stanley Kubrick apparently has much contempt for people from Alabama, how do you think the aesthetic choices he makes (i.e. use of balance, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, rhythm, and timing) add to the overall tone and atmosphere of the film?

Elephant

An interview with Gus Van Sant (The Director) and Diane Keaton (Executive Producer), that I think gives a good idea of where he's coming from in the film:




Discussion Topic:
Talk about the use of "Time & Space" in Elephant. Many of the shots go on for a long time, and take us through many different rooms of the school. What do you think the intended feeling for the audience is supposed to be when we're following a character for a long period of time in the film? What is the feeling you walk away with after some of these shots? Also, there are certain moments in the film where Gus Van Sant uses slow motion. What effect do these moments have on the viewer?

Persistence of Vision

Awesome 1950's Educational Film that Talks about Persistance of Vision

Lumieres Bros.