Notes for the Second Lecture.
These should not be taken as "complete, but rather a way to reind you of things we spoke about
In communications theory a message is sent from a "sender" to a "receiver" through a "channel" in a "code".
In everyday speech, the "sende" is the speaker, the "receiver" is the hearer; the channel is vocal-auditory and the code is the language used.
Each code has a number of variables in it and the choice of variable becomes potentially significant. Consider Paul Revere and his historic ride to announce by what route the British were coming:
"One if by land; two if by sea"
It could just as easily have been:
"A red light by land a green light by sea"br>
It could NOT be
"One if by land and one if by sea" - no contrast.
In film the sender is the film maker, the receiver is the audience, the channel is visual (and auditory) and the "code" is "the language of film.
For film there are many aspects to the "language" Each area of domain contains a set of variables
The idea of "variables" in communication theory
Messages are encoded by choice of variable
SILENT FILMS ARE THE PART OF FILM HISTORY WHERE FILMS DEVELOP THE VARIABLES AS IT BREAKS NEW GROUND OFTEN FROM STAGE PRODUCTIONS
Silent films struggle to discover just what motion pictures can do
Films and theater are very similar but also very different.
Stage: Fixed viewer, action on stage
Film: Possible to have fixed object with moving "viewer" (camera) or both camera and object in motion.
3. Close up - a face, a hand stroking a cat - a pot boiling
TYPES OF SHOTS BY SIZE
OTHER KINDS OF Camera work and editing
For each scene, some variables in these "domains" has to be selected - and for a reason.
Special effect (in and out of the camera) Early examples are
Other possible "variables"
Cuts. Once films begin to make cuts within the same scene, there is always the problem of the dreaded continuity error. Because films are shot out of sequence or edited out of sequence it is possible for Vmagical" things to happen. Pencils come and go phones move from one side of the table to another. A somewhat famous one occurs in the Tim Burton Batman (1989) in which the Joker and friends put paint all over a museum. The handprints made with paint, set appear and disappear in alternate shots as one set of shots without the handprints, gets intercut with a set of shots with the handprints. Finding continuity errors is a favorite pastime of some film goers.
Films:
Scene vs. shot.
Ellipsis: the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues:
Great Train Robbery 1903 (Porter) 11 minutes
The Great Train Robbery added a new wrinkle to editing. It no longer followed a sequence of events but cut into it. While the film proceeds in a fairly typiclal way - Train ribbers come into the office, go and take the train, blow up the money box; shoot the guarf; rob the people, take off in the train.... all of this is following the robbers in perfectly good temporal order. when suddenly the film moves back to the offie where the lttle girl revives and releaases the unconscious agent. Then the film cuts to a group of cowwboys and women dancing. A "tenderfoot" is made to dance while the cowboys shoot as his feet. The agent suddenly rushes in and apparently announces the train has been robbed. The cowboys leeeave in pursuit. The film then cuts back to the robbers ecaping in the woods.
These cuts in the middle of things to other places wihtout some connection was new. When there was a causal connection it might be expected the audience would follow. In Life of an American Fireman cuts jumped distances, but were "causal" A hand pulls a fire alarm and the cut is to the firemen jumping out ofbed in the fire house and sliding down the pole. In the recut version, the images switch from inside the house to outside the house ging a continuity of action from 2 viewpoits. In The Great Train Robbery
Use of color possibly to indicate sudden noises or sounds – occurs with dance music, explosions and gun shots.
In Sherlock Jr. (1924) some 21 years after The Great Train Ribbery film has undergone many is doubtless the epitome of special effects of the kind where some sort of transformation happens. In Melies, it is the person or object that comes abd goes but in Sherlock Jr. the person stays and the world around him changes, The characters in The Great Train Robbery are not really 2 dimension they are virtually without dimension. In Sherlock Jr. they have personalities. Sherlock Jr. also raises some questions about the relationship between life and film and is in this respect reflexive. That is it is a film that looks at film (among other things).
While all the technology is changing in the film business other aspects of the business are changing too.
We said at the outset of the course that there were many aspects to the history of film which interact with one another:
FILM COMPANIES
Now while all of this is going on in the production end of the business, things the movie BUSINESS is also happening in the distribution and exhibition of the films
The Early Major Studios
One of the differences of opinion that exosted between some of thee studios and the independents was the concept of the "performer" as "star". The normal technique was to use the character's name in the crediits "Little Maggie's ....." with the implication that the person was actually "Maggie". The studios as opposed to the independents wanteed to keep the actuaal stars anonymous because they feared it would raise their salaries and hence the cost of productiom. They were right. The independents, however, felt that the star's names would attract more people and hence there would be a greater profit even if the film costs more. They were also right, and won the battle. Some stars were asking million dollar contracts and studios were fighting to sign them