writing about film.

Formal analysis: formal analysis is breaking down the entire film into its separate parts and talking aout how each part contributes to the whole of the film. By breaking down the film you would talk about how lighting, casting, sound design, cuts, cinematography all individually effect the film as a whole and how they all collectedly effect the film. To be well in formal analysis you must understand each part of the film, you kmust understand the concepts of editing and cinematography and how they can effect a film then you must say how they do effect the film that your are writing about.

Film history: there are three types of writing in film history. The production history, in the production history you can see the planning that went into the film, you can look at the production of the film, the screenings the directors did before they shot, how they shot the film and so on. It focus on the history of how the film was made, the steps and process of producing the film. You can alsow rite about hte release histories of the film. who they were released to where they were released to and why they were banned in certain places. You can look at the history of the audience and their accptance or refusal of that type of film. THen there is film history, or the history of film. Here you would write about how the film lies in the large context of the history of film, where it lies in the evolution of its genre how succesful it was during that time period why it is a famous film and so on.

Ideological writing: ideological writing focus on the ideas and themes within the film. Writing about this means you need to take the overall message from the film and talk about that. Even films that are made soley to entertain have themes and messages in them. Ideological writing focus on bringing out the themes and talking about how they effect the film and how the time period effects the theme and film itself.

cultural studies: this writing talks about the culture in which the film was produced. The writing will examply the values and ideas of the nation from which it was produced. Looking at an American made film, one could see the need for action and testosterone pumping along with the need for good to triumph over evil, but watching films were are foreign to might confuse us as we will not know there values as a nation or understand all of the techniques they use.

Discussion of auteur: writing about this looks as the finished product as the work of a single person. mainly the diector. Here it will show the orginaial vison that the director had versus the product that they produced. problems that come up during this writing are that a movie is not the work of a single person, it is the work of a collaboration of people and studying one person will not give a full insight towards the finished product of the film.

Anotating a film sequence: this means to take short abreviated notes of the camera movements. To note that it starts in an establishing shot, to a close up then reverse shot. Taking notes about the shots will help to notice patterns  in the film and note how they move the camera and find the meaning behind these camera movements.

Think beyond the frame: when she says think beyond the frame she wants you to think not only about what is happening in the shot now, but rather what went into making that shot. What is the production of the set. what do critics say about this film and why. What were the makers of the films vision. what happened to be able to make the shot what it was. The movie was not jsut what is on the screen it has many more elements that went into its production, those are the most important things to note.

silent to studios

sound was first brought into films by the Warner brothers company. Before they decided to use sound the idea of making films with sounds appalled many other studious. It did so because adding sound would for one mean the production of movies would become more expenisive and that the studios would need to build sound rooms. Also many of the major stars were not strong speakers and their voices would not fit the film aliases that audience were used to. Warner brothers added sound to their movies because they were not doing well money wise and needed something that would keep them afloat and sound might just do that. When they added sound people lined up around blocks to buy tickets for a film with sound. Seeing the success of Warner Brothers the other studios had no choice but to add sound as well. Because sound was added many of the famous stars had to go to voice and diction lessons if they wanted to keep there jobs as actors. Many actors left the bussiness as they couldnt make the transitions. Also thousadns of musicians were laid off because they no longer needed to play the background music for films as the music only had to be recorded once. Sound also affected the production and style of music. Movies became boring and unimaginative because simply having sound was enough to have audience buy tickets. Also shots lost their old creativity as the Cameras couldn't move as they were incased in sound proof boxes to stop the microphone from picking up the noise of the camera. shots were static and not as detailed as actors had to be close to the microphone and there was only one microphone.

Many studios during the 1930-1950's adopted a factory sytme in which they produced films. From this sytem they had all mempers of production under contract for however many films they were to produce and those members were not allowed to work for any other studio without their original studios permission. This factory system allowed for studios to produce quality films in a well organized factory like system. However the factory system did have some dark sides. Many studios adopted a policy called block booking. This policy had theaters taken in many low quality films in order to be able to show the few high quality films. It was one of the ways the Studios tried to gain control over the  film empire. Another way was Blind bidding, where smaller chains would bid on unfinished products from the major studios.