Aesthetics

·      The study of sensory values-how we understand our perception of the world

·     

        Perhaps the aesthetics of cinema= mise-en-scene+ editing+ sound design

Mise-en-scene

      Elements of a movie scene that are put into position before the filming actually begins and are employed in certain ways once the filming does begin. French for “places in a scene” or “onstage.”

Naturalistic mise-en-scene- 

·      recognizable, familiar, natural, logical

·      Follows the natural laws of lived reality 

·      Defines Characters

·      Characters usually don’t point out naturalistic mise-en-scence

Theatrical Mise-en-scene

·      Denaturalized, exaggerated, transformed, fantastic

·      Characters can often interact wit theatrical mise-en-scene

     The manner in which mise-en-scene is recorded onto film- primarily concerning two elements

o  Camera (lenses and film)

o   Lighting Design

·      The basic unit of cinematography is the shot. Yet within each shot a myriad of choices being made regarding:

o   1) The distance the camera is from the subject

o   2) The angle from which the image is shot

o   3) The focal point within that image

Camera Distance and Screen Space

·      Close-up, extreme close up-What does a close up tend to signify?

·      Medium shot and medium long shot

·      Long shot, extreme long shot-What do long shots do?

Camera Angles

·      1)High (looking down at the subject)(look shorter and less power)

     2)  Low (looking up at the subject) (makes them look taller and gives them power)

·    

        3)Overhead (take power away, showing minuscule nature, god looking down at the little people)

4) P.O.V. (point of view) (can identify with the character)

·      

5)Canted (Take a straight forward shot and tilt it left or right) (gives the audience an unconscious feeling of confusion or that something is wrong)

Focal Points

·      Deep Focus

·      Shallow Focus

·      Aspect ration and image width

Color

·      Color Palette

·      Tone

Camera Movements

     1)Pan (horizontal movement left to right, right to left)

 2)  Tilt

 3) Track (Tracking Shot) (camera physically moves to track it’s subject) (keeps the background the same size and shows they are thinking about something)

     4) Zoom (lenses change to change the scope to move in or widen out) (subject is the same size and the background gets bigger)

Editing

·      The Capacity of film to transcend space, time, and perspective. To rephrase this, editing is what allows a film to move in space and time in order guide viewers’ perspectives on it subject. 

Transitions

• ·      Cut
• ·     Fade in/out
• ·      Dissolve (take 2 shots and transition literally by fading between the 2 images, or shows that is time passing)
• ·      Iris in/iris out (Looney Toon effect)
• ·      Wipe (Star Wars)
• ·      Crosscuting (cutting back in forth between 2 scenes and shows simultaneous action)
• ·      Parallel editing
• ·      Montage

Sound Design

·      Film is largely considered a visual medium, thanks to the hierarchical privileging of vision over sound.

·      In reality it is largely an audiovisual medium

Types of Film Sound

• ·      Dialog
• ·      Sound Effects
• ·      Music
• ·      Synchronous sound- sound that has a visible onscreen source (onscreen sound)
• ·      Asynchronous sound- sound that does not have a visible onscreen source (off-screen sound)
• ·      Diegetic Sound- sound whose source exists within the narrative world of film also called the diegesis
• ·      Non-diegeitc sound- sound without a clear source within the narrative world

What is the cinema visually

images captured on strips of celluloid coated on one side with photochemical emulsion. 

     what film are most commercial films shot on

·      The negative print is then used to create positive copies in a lab-light shines through the transparent areas to darken another strip of film

Three major developments occurred during the 19^th century that influenced the design and creation of motion picture camera and projectors

·      Research into the notion of “persistence of vision”

·      Increased public interest in mechanical entertainments

·      The invention of still photography 

What is Persistence of Vision

What was the Thaumatrope

what was the science behind still photography

the discovery of camera obscura

·      a dark space with a small pinhole in one wall through which light projects onto the opposite wall 

·      The light projects-upside down- an image of whatever scene or object is outside the space, facing the pinhole

what did  Joseph Niepce do

·      Joseph Niepce began to place metal plates within a camera obscura box to retain the fuzzy images of the projection 

Loiuse Daguerre 

·      used paper prints which helped to reduce exposure times to around 3 minutes by the 1840s

Eadweard Muybridge 

·      used a series of individual cameras spaces at equal distances down a race track to capture all the points of an animal’s stride 

never could get pictures into full motion

Etienne-Jules Marey

the first man to shot multiple pictures with a single camera

Marey later patented the “Chronophotographic Camera” 

among the first cameras to shoot multiple stills on a strip of paper which held many more frames than a disc

replaces paper film with celluloid a major step towards modern filmmaking

Augustin Le Prince

Who formed Vitagraph

·      Formed by J. Stuart Blackton

Pathe

·      Unlike their American counterparts the Pathe company worked within all areas of the film industry production, distribution, exhibition- a strategy known as vertical integration

Gaumont

     In 1896 Gaumont allowed his secretary Alice Guy to direct her own film (and later run his production team). Guy was the fist major female director, and would produce hundreds of films in both France and the US

George Melies

• he directed The Moon at One Meter a narrative film with 3 distinct sequences
• Directed A Trip to the Moon in 1902 (most famous work)
•    He was the first filmmaker to understand that natural time and cinematic time are very different and many of his techniques rely on tricks only possible in the cinema

Thomas Alva Edison

·      After meeting Marey 9 Edison returned to the states with a new goal: to create a motion picture recording device that could rival Marey’s

·      Edison assigned his assistant WLK Dickson to invent a motion picture camera and viewer 

William Heise

shot several of Edison’s most popular shorts, including The Kiss

·      He also went on to create the first film with 2 shorts The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1985

The Black Maria

The Kinetoscope

·      The Kinetoscope had a small viewing window through which a single viewer watched a short, looping film strip, all the small price of one nickel 

The Lathams

·      Woodville Latham and his 2 sons, Gray and Otway, created their own amateur camera and with the help of family friend Dickson created a projector as well

·      Pulldown claw is a little hook that grabs the piece of film pulls it and down and lets go and every time it lets go the film stops moving (much like the sewing machine)

Flicker

·      Early experiments revealed that film projected at any rate below 40 fps or so displayed a noticeable flicker. Yet modern film contains 24 fps why do we not notice the flicker

·      technicians at Biograph films solved the problem of flicker by projection film at 48 fps- each frame is projected 2

The Lumiere Brothers

·      The brothers reworked the machine to create the Cinematographe a small portable camera that could be converted in a projector. In addition they standardized the film gauge at 35 mm

·     

       Their first film Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory represented a new type of film subject

D.W. Griffith

 took an adaptation to Edison’s studios to sell as a screenplay

turned down and was offered an acting job

left for biograph

Griffith at Biograph

Griffith would direct hundreds of one-reel films

innovations of Porter, Griffith successfully added camera and editing techniques to the language of cinema- films no longer “presented” narratives, they “told” them 

·      

Multiple-Reel Films

Birth of a Nation

Post Birth

Post Birth (United Artists) 

Griffith made his own production company with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks

A Trip to the Moon

Life of an American Fireman

The Great Train Robbery(introduced crime as a genre)

·      The camera that Paul built was hand-cranked- again like the Lumieres- and thus could run film in reverse. He later sold a version to Melies who would use it to perfect super imposition sequences

whose Rescued by Rover made in 1904 contained strong continuity editing

the most influential British filmmaker 

Saw the potential of film as tool for comedy

Left Biograph to start his own independent company- Keystone

·     

  Keystone Kops, bumbling police shot at 8 to 12 fps to emphasize their comedic pratfalls and crashes

hired chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

·      In Chaplin’s fist few films he was often cast a suave but disloyal gentleman who would get his comeuppance through physical gags and acrobatic stunts

·      Chaplin’s cinema took the time to develop sympathetic characters and sentimental value

·      In 1917 Chaplin and Mary Pickford star of Griffith’s major films each negotiated the first million dollar Hollywood contracts

the ultimate outsider- a poor man, a vagrant, an immigrant, a criminal, or a lowly worker- modeled on Chaplin’s own persona as a youth

Buster Keaton

·      Keaton was known as the “Great Stone Face” for his deapan delivery but his playfulness coupled with the technical brilliance of his direction made him a star

·      Like Chaplin, Keaton directed all of his own films and maintained his own studio but with the coming of sound he signed with MGM and his movies dropped in popularity

·      In 1952 Chaplin directed his last major hit Limelight which appropriately contains a scene in which Chaplin and Keaton play competing stage musicians

December 28,1895 

Lumiere Bros had the first commerical screening in Paris