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- The Art of Film
- Authors and the Art of Film
- Filmmaking
- preproduction
- planning and preparation of the film
- production
- photography and sound recording of the film
- post-production
- editing, mixing, and enhancing sound and image
- Filmmakers
- Director
- supervises the creative aspects of a film
- instructs the actors and crew
- present during preproduction, production, and post production
- sometimes considered the author of the film
- Auteurs
- term applied by French film critics in the 1940s
- referring to the director as the author of the film
- published in Cahiers du Cinema
- French film journal, “notes on film,” beginning April 1951
- Alexandre Astruc: “camera stylo” (1948), “film pen”
- Francois Truffaut: “politiques des auteurs” (1955), film criticism based on a filmmaker’s work
- celebrated the work of Jean Renoir
- contrast to “metteurs en scène,” filmmakers who merely stage the setting (“mise-en-scène”)
- Hollywood Auteurs
- French critics noticed certain directors, across most of their films
- had a personal style
- expressed a worldview
- across a variety of genres
- despite the assembly line production system of the Hollywood studio system
- Alfred Hitchcock
- British-born filmmaker best known for his use of suspense
- The 39 Steps (1935)
- The Lady Vanishes (1938)
- Notorious (1946)
- Rear Window (1954)
- Vertigo (1958)
- North by Northwest (1959)
- Psycho (1960)
- Marnie (1964)
- characters are often guilty, questioning the nature of innocence
- Hitchcokian Film
- Climactic plot twist.
- The cool platinum blonde.
- An innocent man accused.
- Restricting the action to a single setting to increase tension
- Lifeboat
- Rope
- Rear Window
- Characters who switch sides and/or who cannot be trusted.
- Tension building through suspense to the point where the audience enjoys seeing the character in a life-threatening situation
- Average people thrust into strange or dangerous situations
- Psycho
- North by Northwest
- The Man Who Knew Too Much
- Use of darkness to symbolize impending doom
- dark clothing
- shadows
- smoke
- Mistaken identity
- North by Northwest
- Frenzy
- The use of a staircase as a motif for impending danger or suspense
- Use of a MacGuffin plot device
- Referring to crime for mystery rather than presenting it explicitly
- Samuel Fuller
- American film writer and director, 1945–1989
- raw, tabloid-style storytelling
- examination of american morality
- visual style
- dynamic camera movements
- extreme close-ups and dramatic framing
- jarring editing techniques
- violence and shock value
- emphasis on psychological and physical brutality
- journalistic influence
- Fuller was a newspaper reporter
- documentary-like elements
- Producer
- supervises the business aspects of a film
- scheduling
- fundraising
- budgeting
- packaging
- historically, until 1960s: studio heads
- recently, since 1960s, talent agents
- Irving Thalberg
- head of production MGM, 1921–1936
- regarded as an innovator
- holding preproduction meetings between writers, directors, and production crew
- ordering retakes—redoing scenes to improve the film
- distinctive high quality “look” to MGM films
- “luxurious,” “glossy,” “technically flawless”
- actresses: “cool, classy and beautiful”
- actors: “worldly and in control”
- Studio System
- assembly line system of film production, established around 1915
- filmmaking by contract employees
- creative personnel: directors, cinematographers, editors, screenwriters, actors
- production crew: production designers, costumers, prop masters, and grips
- filmmaking decisions rested with studio heads (“moguls”), as executive producers
- studio system ended around 1960
- Preproduction
- developing, planning, and visualizing the idea
- preparing the budget
- hiring crew members
- making a schedule
- Packaging
- gathering creative personnel for a production
- directors
- screenwriters
- actors
- talent agents create packages using persons they represent, gathering commissions for each role
- Screenwriters
- writes the screenplays
- screenplay, written document including
- scene descriptions
- dialogue
- action
- Production
- photographing scenes
- working with cast
- securing locations
- reviewing footage
- Cinematography
- director of photography
- cinematographer; in charge of photography department
- camera assistants
- first: focus puller
- second: clapper
- Production Crew
- Production Design
- production designer, art director
- designing and executing the look of the film
- set decorator
- property master
- carpenters
- painters
- Sound
- sound recordist
- manages sound recorders and crew
- sound mixer
- responsible for recording all sound
- boom operators
- microphones with long arms, placed above the camera’s field of vision
- Post Production
- editing the film
- adding titles
- adding music and Foley effects
- compositing special effects
- Editing
- editors
- selecting and assembling filmed images for the final cut
- colorists
- adjusts tint, exposure, saturation, and white balance of the image
- Sound Editing
- sound editors
- selecting and assembling sound recordings for the final soundtrack
- Foley artists
- creates sound effects to be used in soundtrack
- automated dialogue replacement
- recording of lip-synced and “mixed” dialogue with original production sounds
- Special Effects
- computer graphics artists
- matte artists
- model makers
- rotoscope artists
- animating over motion picture footage
- Authorship and the Art of Film
- pay attention to the style and thematic patterns of a filmmaker
- narrative
- mise-en-scène
- cinematography
- editing
- sound design
- form
- Sean Baker
- American independent film director, writer, editor, and producer
- Four Letter Words (2000)
- Take Out (2004, released 2008)
- Prince of Broadway (2008)
- Starlet (2012)
- Tangerine (2015)
- The Florida Project (2017)
- Red Rocket (2021)
- Anora (2024)
- Sean Baker Themes
- stories about underrepresented and marginalized groups
- sex workers, immigrants, and people living in poverty
- non-professional or lesser-known actors
- films on location
- handheld, mobile camera
- slice-of-life narratives
- addresses contemporary social issues
- commentary on American society