Film as Art: Chapters 1 - 3
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76 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 persistence of vision | A phenomenon of the human eye that causes it to continue to percieve an image for a fraction of a second after it disappears. When a sequence of still images is successively displayed , our eyes retain a brief afterimage of each frame that fills the small gap of time between the display of the previous and next frame on the display device. As a result the adjacent frames appear to flow seamlessly together in one fluid motion. Without persistence of vision we couldn't see film or video as continuous motion. |
| fade-outs | A transitional device consisting of a gradual change in the intensity of an image or sound, such as from a normally-lit scene to darkness (fade out, fade-to-black) or vice versa, from complete black to full exposure (fade in), or from silence to sound or vice versa; a 'fade in' is often at the beginning of a sequence, and a 'fade out' at the end of a sequence. |
| dissolves | Generally associated with earlier cinema but still used on occasion. In a dissolve a first image gradually dissolves or fades out and is replaced by another which fades in over it. This type of transition, which is known also as a soft transition (as opposed to the cut), suggests a longer passage of time than a cut. |
| double exposures | To expose a single frame twice so that elements of both images are visible in the finished product; produces an effect similar to superimposition and is often used to produce 'ghostly' effects |
| iris in/out | An old technique of punctuation that utilises a diaphragm in front of the lens, which is opened (iris in) or closed (iris out) to begin or end a scene. The iris can also be used to focus attention on a detail of the scene. |
| cross cut | Literally, cutting between different sets of action that can be occuring simultaneously or at different times, (this term is used synonomously but somewhat incorrectly with parallel editing.) Cross-cutting is used to build suspense, or to show the relationship between the different sets of action. |
| pans | (abbreviation of panorma) Movement of the camera from left to right or right to left around the imaginary vertical axis that runs through the camera. A panning shot is sometimes confused with a tracking shot. |
| closeup | The subject framed by the camera fills the screen. Connotation can be of intimacy, of having access to the mind or thought processes (including the subconscious) of the character. These shots can be used to stress the importance of a particular character at a particular moment in a film or place her or him as central to the narrative by singling out the character in CU at the beginning of the film. It can signify the star exclusively (as in many Hollywood productions of the 1930s and 1940s). CUs can also be used on objects and parts of the body other than the face. In this instance they can designate imminent action (a hand picking up a knife, for example), and thereby create suspense. Or they can signify that an object will have an important role to play in the development of the narrative. Often these shots have a symbolic value, usually due to their recurrence during the film. How and where they recur is revealing not only of their importance but also of the direction or meaning of the narrative. |
| matte shot | In filmmaking, a visual effect that is achieved by masking out part of an image using a matte and superimposing another image so that it combines with the rest of the original. |
| soft focus | Blurring of image: a deliberate slight blurring of a photograph or a filmed image, giving it a hazy appearance, in order to achieve a special effect such as romance or nostalgia ( hyphenated before a noun ). |
| masking | 1. a piece of cloth, silk, or plastic material covering the face of an actor to symbolize the character being represented: used in Greek and Roman drama and in some modern plays. 2. When a device is placed in front of a lens to reduce the horizontal or vertical size of the frame or to create a particular shape (for example, periscope eyepiece, binoculars, or gun-sight). |
| mise en scene | 1.The aura emanating from details of setting, scenery, and staging. 2. The term usually used to denote that part of the cinematic process that takes place on the set, as opposed to editing, which takes place afterwards. Literally, the "putting-in-the-scene": >the direction of actors >placement of cameras >choice of lenses etc... |
| reaction shot | A shot showing one or more characters reacting to an action or statement. Rear Projection (back projection) The process of projecting an image onto a translucent screen from the back side rather than over the heads of the viewers as is usually done. Filmmakers use rear projection to film an action against a projected background, thus recording on film both the stage action and the rear-projected image. |
| surrealism | A 20th century movement of artists and writers (developing out of Dadaism) who used fantastic images and incongruous juxtapositions in order to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams. |
| expressionism | An art movement early in the 20th century, emphasizes the life of the mind and feelings rather than the realistic external details of everyday life. |
| melodrama | An extravagant comedy in which action is more salient than characterization. |
| kineticism | 1. Of, relating to, or produced by motion. 2. Relating to or exhibiting kinesis. 3. The theory or practice of kinetic art. |
| frame | A single photographic image imprinted on a length of film; also the perimeter of an image as seen when projected on a screen (a filmmaker sees the frame as the boundaries of his camera's view-finder). Freeze Frame A single frame repeated for an extended time, consequently looking like a still photograph. |
| epic | Any work of literature, film, etc., having heroic deeds for its subject matter or having other qualities associated with the epic a; Hollywood epic. |
| kammerspiel | Cinematographer. Movement German film that meant a reaction in favor of naturalness in front of the ration exaggerated expressionism. |
| Dadaism | A European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that flouted conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by nonsense, travesty, and incongruity. |
| realism | The representation in art or literature of objects, actions, or social conditions as they actually are, without idealization or presentation in abstract form. |
| montage | A method of putting shots together in such a way that dissimilar materials are juxtaposed to make a statement. A shot of a man followed by a shot of a peacock, for example, declares that the man is pompous. (dynamic editing, expressive montage, conditional montage) |
| Eadward Muybridge | He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip. |
| Jean Louis Meissonier | Was a French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and manoeuvres and was the teacher of Édouard Detaille. |
| Thomas Edison | Was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. |
| George Eastman | United States inventor of a dry-plate process of developing photographic film and of flexible film (his firm introduced roll film) and of the box camera and of a process for color photography (1854-1932). |
| William Dickson | Tomas Edison's assistant; convinced him to switch to celluloid film process by the Eastman Company; reportedly made a motion picture using the machine with the awkward name of Kinetophonograph to demonstrate synchronized motion with sound on celluloid film in 1889 but no record of the movie exists. |
| Thomas Armat | (25 October 1866 - September 30, 1948) was an American mechanic and inventor, a pioneer of cinema best known through the co-invention of the Edison Vitascope. |
| Louis and Auguste Lumiere | Brothers who invented the first movie theatre where you have to pay money to watch a movie. |
| Georges Melies | magician; first master of mise-en-scene; made fantasy & trick films; directed "A Trip to the Moon"; first linear editing film. |
| Edwin S. Porter | Employee of Edison who began making early films for the Edison Company. Director of "The Great Train Robbery". This film is considered by many to be the first narrative film (1903). |
| D.W. Griffith | Carried the motion picture into the new era with his silent epics (The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, etc.) which introduced serious plots and elaborate productions to filmmaking. Motion pictures were the first truly mass entertainment medium. |
| Cecil B. DeMille | Director that introduced a new style of flimmaking, marked by epic plots and complex characters; set up his studio in a rented barn, which he shared with horses and a carriage; The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show on Earth, Samson and Delilah. |
| Mack Sennett | United States filmmaker (born in Canada) noted for slapstick movies (1880-1960); slapstick comedies noted for frantic automobile chases, custard pie battles, and women. |
| Buster Keaton | United States comedian and actor in silent films noted for his acrobatic skills and deadpan face (1895-1966) |
| Charlie Chaplin | English comedian and film maker. First film was "Making a Living". Acted like a drunk. |
| Harold Lloyd | Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. Best known for his "Glasses Character", a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s era America. |
| Erich von Stroheim | United States film actor (born in Austria) (1885-1957). As director was responsible for shifting the balance of power from the creative to the business end.Films went way over budget and were very lengthy. |
| F.W. Murnau | German director, Nosferatu. |
| Joseph von Sternburg | Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich. Know for films like "The Blue Angel," "The Last Command," "Underworld," and "The Docks of New York". |
| Sergei Eisenstein | Russian film maker who pioneered the use of montage and is considered among the most influential film makers in the history of motion pictures (1898-1948). Fond of kineticism. |
| Fritz Lang | "Metropolis" 1927 German expressionist (only one left in Germany '27) |
| Jean Vigo | Films primary theme was freedom. Surrealist. Thought the French government was confining so he tried to find freedom in films. Used slow motion and disjunctive compositions.Known for "Zero for Conduct" that inspired the New Wave movement. |
| Abel Gance | Impressionist. Poet, actor, scriptwriter. Greatly influenced by intolerance. Known for "Napoleon" and called the cinema's Walt Whitman. |
| Luis Bunuel | Spanish surrealist filmmaker; directed "Un Chien Andalou" Regarded as the greatest of all surrealist. Worked with Salvador Dali. |
| zoetrope | spins images on paper in rotating drum; 1834; early motion-picture machine |
| kinetoscope | a device invented by Edison that gave an impression of movement as an endless loop of film moved continuously over a light source with a rapid shutter |
| mutoscope | Biograph's peephole viewer; each frame was printed on paper and mounted on a card, and the cards flipped by as the viewer turned a crank. The individual image frames were conventional black-and-white, silver-based photographic prints on tough, flexible opaque cards. Rather than being bound into a booklet, the cards were attached to a circular core, |
| Vitascope | Edison's first projector, invented by Thomas Armat (with C. Francis Jenkins) and incorporating the Latham loop. Armat had originally called it the Phantoscope. |
| Cinematographe | film camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. It was invented in the 1890s. Lumiere brothers bought patent...kinda controversial. |
| nickelodeons | the first movie houses; admission was one nickel |
| parallel editing | A technique of cutting back and forth between action occurring in two different locations, which often creates the illusion that they are happening simultaneously. Also called "cross cutting." |
| Vitaphone | The sound-on-disc process first used by Warner Bros.; eventually made obsolete by the sound-on-film process. |
| Synchronous sound | sound that is matched temporally with the movements occurring in the images, as when dialogue corresponds to lip movements |
| The Great Train Robbery | Edwin Porter's film where the bandit turns his gun on the audience. The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. |
| The Adventures of Dolly | D.W. Griffith's first film. Shot cleanly and within budget. |
| The Birth of a Nation | One of the first classic full-length "moving-pictures," it glorified the KKK and defamed blacks and carpetbaggers. Longest movie in US at the time. |
| Intolerance | Griffith film. Cross cuts used from one story to another. |
| The Cheat | CECIL B. DEMILLE film - Known for the touches of psychosexual realism. |
| The General | Buster Keaton silent film considered one of the greatest films in history. Use of a reaction shot after spectacular train wreak off of a collapsing bridge. |
| The Gold Rush | Chaplin film. Deftly alternates between shots of comedy and drama, acceptance and rejection, cold and warmth, effectively simulating the ebb and flow, the pleasures and pains of life itself. |
| City Lights | Chaplin film. Effective use of closeup. |
| The Kid Brother | Harold Lloyd film. Known for its poetic moment. Use of camera angle and craning. Camera hoisted high for these shots. |
| Greed | A Erich von Stroheim film. Based on Fank Norris's novel McTeague and was an attempt to film the entire novel. Made for a long film. |
| Sunrise | Murnau film. Illusion of perspective with the set and use of midgets in the background. Produces an amazing sense of depth. |
| The Blue Angel | Another full-length feature film that was shown IN AMERICA. It starred Marlene Dietrich and was one of the first films with sound. A Sternberg film. |
| Don Juan | a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue (the number of kisses in the film set a record). |
| The Jazz Singer | 1927 - The first movie with sound; this "talkie" was about the life of famous jazz singer; Al Jolson. |
| Potemkin | 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. The Battleship Potemkin has been called one of the most influential propaganda films of all time,[1] and was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. Eisenstein portrayed the working class itself as the hero of both the flim and history itself. |
| The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Style: German Expressionism. This movie is cited as having introduced the twist ending in cinema. |
| Metropolis | 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. The most expensive silent film ever made, it cost approximately 5 million Reichsmark. |
| Nosferatu | German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. Copyright infringement of Stoker's Dracula. |
| Zero for Conduct | a 1933 film by French film director Jean Vigo. It was first shown on April 7, 1933, and was subsequently banned in France until February 15, 1946. Poetic realism. |
| Un Chien Andalou | Andalusian Dog - 1929, Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali, sixteen minute silent surrealist short film, opens with a woman's eye cut by a razor. |
| L'Age d'Or | a 1930 surrealist film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and written by him and Salvador Dalí; Buñuel's first feature film. It has generally been seen as a scathing attack on the Roman Catholic Church. |
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