ESF 2 186 RESKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY HISTORY OF FILM

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY HISTORY OF FILM

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Edison's laboratory was responsible for the invention of the Kinetograph (a motion picture camera) and the Kinetoscope (a peep-hole motion picture viewer). Most of this work was performed by Edison's assistant, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, beginning in 1888. Motion pictures became a successful entertainment industry in less than a decade, with single-viewer Kinetoscopes giving way to films projected for mass audiences. The Edison Manufacturing Co. (later known as Thomas A. Edison, Inc. ) not only built the apparatus for filming and projecting motion pictures, but also produced films for public consumption. Most early examples were actualities showing famous people, news events, disasters, people at work, new modes of travel and technology, scenic views, expositions, and other leisure activities. As actualities declined in popularity, the company's production emphasis shifted to comedies and dramas.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY THE EDISON KINETOSCOPE

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY THE LUMIERE BROTHERS The moving images had an immediate and significant influence on popular culture with L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat (literally, "the arrival of a train at La Ciotat Station", but more commonly known as Arrival of a Train at a Station). Their actuality films, or actualités, are often cited as the first, primitive documentaries. They also made the first steps towards comedy film with the slapstick of L'Arroseur Arrosé.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY The brothers stated that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers such as Georges Méliès. Consequently, their role in the history of film was exceedingly brief. They turned their attentions to colour photography and in 1903 they patented a colour photography process, the "Autochrome Lumière", launched on the market in 1907. Throughout much of the 20 th century, the Lumière company was a major producer of photographic products in Europe, but the brand name, Lumière, disappeared from the marketplace following its merger with Ilford. The Lumières also developed other products such as a loudspeaker, "Lumière tulle gras" (a dressing to heal burns) and the homonoid forceps (a medical tool). They invented the cinematograph which worked as a camera, printer and projector all in one.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY 1903 western film by Edwin S. Porter. The film is only twelve minutes long, but is a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY The film used a number of innovative techniques including: cross cutting, (In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action. Because the shots occur one after another, cross-cutting is used to suggest simultaneity of action. ) double exposure composite editing, (technique in which a piece of film is exposed twice, to two different images. The resulting photographic image shows the second image superimposed over the first. The technique can be used to create ghostly images or to add people and objects to a scene that were not originally there. ) Camera movement on location shooting.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes. None of the techniques were original to The Great Train Robbery, and it is now considered that it was heavily influenced by Frank Mottershaw's earlier British film “A Daring Daylight Burglary”. The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length. It was quite successful in theaters and was imitated many times. National Film Registry.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY D. W. GRIFFITH D. W. Griffith has been called the father of film grammar. Few scholars still hold that his "innovations" really began with him, but Griffith was a key figure in establishing the set of codes (referring to different techniques such as cross cutting etc. ) that have become the universal backbone of film language.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY He was particularly influential in popularizing "cross-cutting"—using film editing to alternate between different events occurring at the same time—in order to build suspense. Some claim, too, that he "invented" the close-up shot. That being said, he still used many elements from the "primitive" style of movie -making that predated classical Hollywood's continuity system, such as frontal staging, exaggerated gestures, minimal camera movement, and an absence of point of view shots. Credit for Griffith's cinematic innovations must be shared with his cameraman of many years, Billy Bitzer. In addition, he himself credited the legendary silent star Lillian Gish, who appeared in several of his films, with creating a new style of acting for the cinema. Chaplin called him “The Teacher Of Us All”

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Soviet montage theory An approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing. Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920 s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema, " and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema. "

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Lev Kuleshov - shots of the face of Ivan Mozzhukhin (a Tsarist matinee idol) are alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl, an old woman's coffin). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mozzhukhin's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at"

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Eisenstein's theory of montage In formal terms, this style of editing offers: 1. discontinuity in graphic qualities, 2. violations of the 180 degree rule, 3. creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless. Eisenstein's montage theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism and Hegelian philosophy. His collisions of shots were based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class. Methods of montage Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basal and emotional of reactions in the audience.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Rhythmic - includes cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots -- along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts -- to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds). Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect. Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning. Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Settings are not real. . . they are contorted. These distorted scenes are consciously crafted in this way. These scenes, already from the begininning, make the viewer aware of the tragedy which will follow. There is also a crucial interpaly of light and shade – chiaroscuro. These artists believe that human beings are more of a fallen being genre, i. e. more of a dark shade. There is the use of slanted cameras, (oblique framing) so that the shadow becomes more important than the body which casts the shadow. German artists believe alot in the importance of shadows – to scrutinize the shadow. The shadow represent the dark alterego.

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Important films which reflected this: Nosferatu the vampyre(1922) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism were the horror film and film noir. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films)

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Horror films are films of the horror genre that are designed to elicit fright, fear, terror, or horror from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world. Horror film characters include vampires, zombies, monsters, serial killers, demons, ghosts and a range of other fear-inspiring characters. Early horror films often drew inspiration from characters and stories from classic literature, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Later horror films, in contrast, often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life after World War II, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, sub-genres: the horror-of-personality film, the horror-of-Armageddon film, and the horror-of-thedemonic film.

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ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Science fiction is defined more by setting than by other story elements. With a few exceptions, stories set out of Earth or in the future qualify as science fiction. Within these settings, the conventions of almost any other genre may be used. A subgenre of science fiction is alternate history where, for some specific reason, the history of the novel deviates from the history of our world. Pavane (1968) by Keith Roberts was an influential early alternate history, Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South is another popular example. Of late, alternate history has come into its own as a distinctive and independent outgrowth from general science fiction. According to Kawin in order for a film to be a science fiction film then it has to leave a sense of hope at the end. In Lucanio’s opinion in science fiction it is “either them or us”

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY

ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Western fiction is defined primarily by being set in the American West in the second half of the 19 th century, and secondarily by featuring heroes who are rugged, individualistic horsemen (cowboys). Other genres, such as romance, have subgenres that make use of the Western setting.

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ESF 2. 186 RE-SKILLING OF WORKERS FOR THE LOCAL FILM INDUSTRY Crime fiction stories, centered on criminal enterprise, are told from the point of view of the perpetrators. They range in tone from lighthearted "caper" stories to darker plots involving organized crime or incarcerated convicts.

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