Week 1 mini-presentation an overview/introduction

 1.7 LECTURE/MINI-PRESENTATION -A Taste of What is to Come

To-Do Date: Aug 30 at 12:00pm

Please see the following presentation....the purpose of which is to give you both a general introduction or an overview of the class and chapter 1. Please do not consider this a substitute for the reading, but an introduction to what we will study this semester.

1)There's a lot of vocabulary in this class 

2)Conventions of cinema - how the styles themselves - affect genre 

1)Define Hollywood Cinema (Classicism) because most films are in this style today. 
Define "Classic Hollywood Cinema" known as classicism.
I will probably say the word Classicism more frequently - than  "Classic Hollywood Cinema".
which our text uses. 

2)Define the terminology used to describe classicism. and what we'll see in the future is that every chapter wulo.... couldn't hear. 

3)Begin to introduce the terminology as an overview - for the rest of the class. 

4) Discuss the conventions of film form - the beginning 
Both cinematic conventions and narrative content. 

5)Will discuss the impact of genre and style and the concept of invisibility. 

Hollywood classicism is the film style that we in the US are most familiar with. 
Most of our films are in this style today. 
And when we think about films and filmmaking, 
We tend to think of Hollywood Classicism .

Films in this style (share traits) are : 

1)FICTION

2)Tell a Story -(The story is the narrative) Are Narrative
3)Employ a Cinematic Language to do so
4)Reflect a cultural milieu. (the culture from which they come, both the values and
shared belief systems of the belief systems of the times they were created. 

((old notes...We still share traits for conventions. We have come to expect  ... can't hear. ))

Reflect the culture and the times from which the film was from 

New Notes: Films in this style, create an illusion of reality or Verisimilitude. 
Which is a long word and some people have a problem with it - but think of similar

veracity. In other words, it's not that you're actually depicting a real event. 
Classicism and Hollywood films create the illusion of an event. And a possible reality
We'll discuss it more in chapter 2 and you'll see that in creating this illusion of reality
this style is considered invisible, you don't notice the style itself.
you don't think about the fact - there probably isn't a giant bunny or that as you can
see that this young woman is not drinking the blood of the person on the floor. 

But within the constraints of the story itself. 

Your willing to follow the protagonist - no matter what happens. 
End of new notes

 

Old Notes: In chapter two we study Verisimilitude

Films in this style are considered invisible and utilize the idea of verisimilitude in other words, you as an audience member, are willing to suspend your disbelief or in other words you don't question the believability of the plot, the circumstances that you're witnessing it appears real. It's a plausible recreation of a world. 

So, zombie movies and sci-fi movies are really good examples of that verisimilar. You don't worry about the fact that they exist. 

Verisimilitude: it means that what you see in the constraints of the genre in the film itself is pure believable?? What we seeing is  an illusion of one no one ever really dies but you're willing to watch it and believe it. Vampires and Zombies don't exist but here we see a young woman eating on an old man. 

Old notes: Films in this manner, that of Hollywood cinema or classic cinema create an illusion of reality that the style is considered invisible. What you've seen from the film is you don't really notice for instance, leaps in time you don't really notice the editing and that something that could take years to happen is only taking two hours. 

It's created in a way that the transitions are smooth you don't see the microphone, you don't see the means of production at all. The lighting helps create the mood adds the costume design everything, set dressing, all help create the mood and the presents a reality even if it is an alternate reality. 

New Film Notes: 4.41

Old film notes: Everything in the film is there for a reason. It's there to help you become connected to the protagonist. to feel empathy for the protagonist and feel their despair if they are crying and you will follow them no matter what. If they jump off a cliff and survive, you don't question that, You are there to follow their story whatever it is. 

Cinematic language is what is called invisible because you don't notice it. We just talked about that a little bit movies move quickly as the chapter points out so you don't really have time to think about you know what time of the year it is or what people are wearing or consider whether their dialogue is the way people would normally talk or whatever. The narrative is seamless through the editing. In other words, editing and sound especially the soundtrack help the movie and the story move forward and include the concept of cultural invisibility in other words the film itself reflects the culture of the creator and the system of beliefs of the dominant culture. 
So for instance, in American cinema we don't see a lot of leads that are older women or people of color. We don't see films that are about the Pilipino experience because that's not the dominant culture. Unless it's a film to challenge classicism itself. 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2016

Click Here for Trailer

Think about the cinematic and cultural invisibility of this clip. Films are dialog driven, and the dialog in this clip at the end of it, the young man says, her face is rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. He is forced to acknowledge her figure as both light and pleasing and her arms are surprisingly muscular yet not so much to be unfeminine. 
So, how, that is a really good example of representing the culture it came from and a specific perspective within that culture. 

Cinematic language has a number of conventions itself, techniques that through time have been developed and we come to expect. Chapter 1 talks about our expectations as an audience and what you expect when you go to a film, and especially a film of a genre, if you go to a romance film - what do you expect? If you go to an action film, if you're watching action films you're probably not expecting a slow moving story for instance. 
So there are both conventions of both CONTENT and FORM the technical conventions that are specific to Hollywood film and reflect a history. 

Film studies is about the analysis of that content. Not just the narrative and the story itself but how the form and technical conventions contribute and impact that story. 

There's a number of various types of film analysis. This class for the most part talks about formal analysis, but cultural analysis is also important and then the end of chapter 1 talks about for instance, comparative analysis. Where you might compare either from different cultures or from the same culture, different epics,  or different directors. What are some of the content and formal elements that are similar or different and why is that film similar? 
The end of chapter 1 when it discusses Juno it discusses how Juno is unique in some respects in regards to a story about a young woman who becomes pregnant but isn't unique in a number of other respects. 

Narrative analysis talks about what is the story about when you watch a film and you're trying to express it to someone else, that's the number one question. What's the story about? But narrative analysis goes further than that it talks about is implied, what is the meaning behind that story which can be slightly different from person to person and especially if you're from a different cultural background but it's important to think about what was the intent and what did you come away from the film understanding. Was it just completely entertainment? and if it was entertainment, what were the expectations of that film? Is there anything greater than just entertainment or not? and why? 

 Film Analysis comes in various forms

It is an analysis of content yet not merely the story - narrative.

A formal an analysis of the cinematic language utilized to portray that content.

As will see in greater detail in the upcoming chapters this language is comprised of conventions of both form and content. Chapter one gives us a few examples, expect each chapter to further develop an element of form or content. There are other types of analysis as well which are discussed later in chapter one and then in more detail in the final chapters our text.

		Anna Geyer

In this course we're going to talk about a number of the elements and this is a quick overview of cinematic conventions. So we'll be talking about character. How is a character developed? Who is a lead? Is it a white male or not. Is that character a well rounded character, in most cases Hollywood cinema builds characters that the leads are rounded and aren't just good or bad but have a greater depth to them but other characters don't necessarily have an arc or are not necessarily more than a stereotype either positive or negative and there are serial types that are considered 'the good' vs 'the villain' so then PLOT is the narrative structure how the story is told. 
In Hollywood cinema most stories are
3 ACT STORIES: they include cause and effect. So if, my car crashes into something, there's a reason for it and maybe it is that I'm about to meet my new flame or I get to adopt another cat or something like that and 
THE FIRST ACT is an introduction where each of the lead character is in almost scene or almost talked about in every scene in traditional Hollywood 

THE SECOND ACT the story builds and the conflict builds most frequently between a protagonist and an antagonist 
THE THIRD ACT is the resolution and all of the little major plot points and/or story elements and minor story elements all in the subplots are neatly tied up at the end and nothing is left loose. 
There are films that aren't like that, but they wouldn't necessarily in that manner be examples of the Hollywood paradigm or that specific structure of narrative. 

Mise-en-scene is a term some people have heard and some people haven't but we'll spend a number of weeks talking about it and after that - it's important in every chapter, mise-en-scene is both the organization and how a shot, scene, sequence, film is depicted and also how it's actually shot. The cinematography is an element of mise-en scene so what camera angle was used you know are they lengthy takes,  are they quick cuts, what's the lighting etc. etc. There are a number of points. How do the characters interact in regards to space and their relationship to each other in regards to space etc. 

Editing is the number one element that creates a seamless narrative through the editing that we don't see or hear the director call CUT or don't see the slate in every shot. Editing can be straight forward and linear or it can be something else. It can be nonlinear. Editing can be used to hide important elements.

So, in Film Noir, for instance, often there is a murder and you see the dead body but you know in the first scene you're not going to see who killed that person. Film Noir films are most often based on detective novels and therefore it's all about figuring out who killed that person. 

The Sound is really important both to help with transitions and to help mood through music. Sound effects create the larger world that is outside of the picture so you feel that your in a real location. and Hollywood films are dialog driven and some dialog is super duper important and if you can't understand the dialog in the film it's done on purpose and why is that? What kind of sense of anxiety or terror or whatever is created at that moment. 

There are cinematic elements that kind of overlap and cross the line between form and content and they are : Dialogue and Acting. 

They cross the line because DIALOGUE is written and then spoken so how the writer, what words are chosen,  is really important and dialogue is edited speech. In the traditional Hollywood film and this doesn't happen as much today but when we look at Casablanca, every line in Casablanca moves the story forward. There's nothing in there that doesn't give you some insight into the character or what's about to happen. 

And then HOW that dialogue is PERFORMED. How a line is said, whether it's whispered or shouted or you could say, i love you, and it could be completely ironic or you could be gushing and very credibly speaking that line. So how the acting portrays the story is both FORM and CONTENT. 

Dialogue and acting are examples. Classic Hollywood films are dialogue driven. How dialogue is written (what words are spoken by the characters, what’s not said, and how those words are delivered through acting imparts meaning.)