December 10, 2010

Film History again? Yes! Exam? Yes! Love

Thomas Edison

The Lumiere Bros.

Georges Melies

Post 1900

Things get more interesting

Edison’s company was making some movies and who was showing the movies?

Many people who owned shops and wanted to maximize the amount of use they got out of the buildings they were renting – many of these shopkeepers were Jewish immigrants – they were almost all from Europe, specifically Germany, Russia, Hungary, etc

These movies were low class in appearance, in exhibition, and in the way people thought about them – were they low class? No – it was just a public attitude held by upper class, white, Anglos

-     these Jewish men started needing more and more movies

-     because they wanted more audience, and more money, so they needed more product – what happened? They started focusing more on movies and less on their shops – why? Movies were making big money – lots and lots of nickels (their “theatres” were eventually called nickelodeons)

We start to see a group of people who ONLY make movies – professional filmmakers – what does this mean? It means movies get better and better after 1900

One of the early filmmakers in the US who was really important was Edwin S. Porter

Directed Life of An American Fireman 1903

-     one of the first North American movies to tell a story

-     had parallel action (two stories going on at the same time)

-     action, a rescue, drama

-     smoke effects, outdoor shot, etc

-     this was a real big step towards modern movies

-     NOTE: the acting in these old original movies is very much exaggerated because they had to really push their feelings because the movies were silent and didn’t yet have close ups

-     This is also before movie stars, which is funny – the actors were just people who were around or related to the filmmakers

The Great Train Robbery – 1903

-     also Edwin Porter

-     first Western, first action/crime movie

-     gunplay, explosion effects, fight scenes,

-     he had some moving camera (pan, tilt)

-     he coloured on the film to show colour in the B&W movie, which is creative

-     KEY – he was thinking about the audience’s response – he was going to impact on the viewer, which is very American to this day – the last shot is really interesting – a bad guy shoots into the camera – it is there ONLY to effect the viewer – to scare those early audience members

-      

After these years, movies get more and more popular with common folk – cheap, you can watch all day off one ticket price, and the movies were new, so they were really exciting

Problem – Edison is still taking his cut off every single movie made – he owns the patent for everything and he is strongarming everyone – remember, he is also anti-Semitic – he’s not a big fan of the Jewish guys and doesn’t care if they don’t like his greedy ways

A Strange Situation

-     a few filmmakers start to move away from Edison and his thugs and they end up about as far away as you can get and still be in the US – they end up in Los Angeles

-     at this time, LA is a small city, a rural area, farms, orange trees, cowboys, Latinos, and old school ranchers.

-     The film people show up there for a few different reasons, BUT they stay and gather there for other reasons

1. Diverse terrain and landscapes for all kinds of different movies and locations – ocean, beach, desert, foothills, woods, mountains, snow

2. Temperature is always nice – cool at night, warm in the day ALL THE TIME – they made those old movies outside or in roofless sets, so they NEEDED sunlight and nice weather – LA is always sunny and nice (almost)

3. Escape from Edison Thugs – Edison literally hired thugs and private detectives to shake down rogue moviemakers who weren’t paying his group – this is pretty rough and people didn’t want to pay this owly old racist

4. Land was cheap and available and everywhere – when these New York area people get to LA, they say “Wow!” it is so open and roomy and you can get a house and land and a yard and a garden and a quality of life –you can also get space and land for a movie set or a little studio

Interesting Tidbit – the first studio in LA was a barn rented to hold the gear while a Western movie was being made

It was out at Hollywood Farm.

5. The Jewish men who were now making big bucks showing movies were trapped in a situation in New York where they were being judged by people who expected them to live the way they were “supposed to” – ie Jews lived in X part of New York and had X and Y for their jobs and that’s the way it is

- out in LA these men could start fresh and be whatever they wanted – they had money now and could buy land (which they couldn’t in NY) and they could literally run their own towns

EG – a man named Carl Laemmle set up his family and his workers in an area, and built a town called Universal City

The Three Things That We Will Study on Film

1. History of (much of this for exam)

2. How are movies made? (exam stuff)

3. Evaluating and Reviewing

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb – so what?

The same guy invented the first movie camera in North America

He called it the Kinetoscope –

He was doing something that people had been messing with for years

Praxinoscope

Zooetrope

Phenakistascope

Etc

These are rely on a weird thing in our brains – persistence of vision

-     when you see a picture, your brain holds it in a spot like a loading doc and waits to see what the next picture is, then it tries to match them up

-     PS – you do this with everything – our brains are always trying to link and join and combine everything – that’s how we learn, grow, survive, etc

Eadweard Muybridge – an animal movement photographer

-     he was called in to settle a bet between some rich guys

-     Guy 1 said “horse’s feet hit the ground one at a time in galloping – one foot is always on the ground

-     Guy 2 said “they all come off the ground”

-     He set up a series of cameras along a racetrack and got a whole bunch of photos of a horse galloping

-     And then people said “WHAT THE HECK!?” because the photos were animation! And this idea started people going

Edison needed a couple things to make his idea work:

1. film (old cameras used plates instead of fillm strip) – George Eastman invented celluloid, which was film

2. he needed a way of moving the film through a box that would expose one frame after another (record)

3. he needed that box to also work the OTHER way, shoot light through the film onto a screen or something (project)

4. the ideas that made him shoot things – concepts and plans for what to shoot (content)

The weird thing about Edison is that he didn’t think of the movie camera as anything but a clever business idea to make money

The first thing he thought to do was to make it into a little arcade attraction – he started shooting film of strange little scenes or events that people would then pay a penny to see in a device in an arcade – it was an amusement

Edison was foremost a money grubbing monster!

So he started shooting a bunch of strange little bits that people would pay to see – a muscleman, a dancer, a guy kissing a woman, a naughty scene of getting dressed, etc

He was making money, so that was good enough

He shot the scenes in a little tar paper building called the Black Maria on a little stage – which gave him the idea that these little movies were maybe like a stage show or a play

What might this lead him into doing? Shooting a little story or sequence that was like a play.

The lighting was from a removable roof – they used sunlight to light the stage

The real idea of shooting an actual movie, didn’t come from Edison, it came from across the ocean

In France

-     at the same time, these two brothers were messing around with the same ideas as Edison

-     they owned a factory that made photographic plates and they loved experimenting with photography

-     they invented their own movie camera – it was called the cinematographe – at the SAME TIME 

-     these brothers were called the Lumiere Brothers

-     they used their camera in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY

-     they took it outside and shot movies of the world

-     they shot little scenes that were of real life and were much more documentary – they didn’t care about making money or pleasing an audience, they were doing it for science

-     they made movies like “Train Entering the Station” “Workers Leaving the Factory” “Feedng the Baby”

-     people were terrified of the train arriving at the station because they thought it would hit them – their brains weren’t trained to disbelieve yet

-     also, the Lumieres were the first to show movies in a theatre

-     they had in their theatre a young magician who saw their movies and freaked out

-     his name was Georges Melies – this guy says to himself, HEY! I could make my magic with this movie camera! I could make little movies and show them in my magic show! Hey! Sell me a camera!

-     The brothers say, NO! This is for science! Not for stupid.

-     Melies says, dang. I have to buy one from someone in England.

-     And then, he invents modern movies and special effects and makeup effects and sets and miniatures and the first science fiction and the first stories in film and everything

-     He is the Father of Motion Pictures as we know them in many ways (along with many others)

-     A List of What Melies Invented

-     Superimposition

-     Turning off the camera and changing something, and turning the camera back on – looked like magic

-     Used miniatures, models, props

-     Used costumes, makeup, backdrops and perspective paintings

-     Moved set pieces to get a sense of motion

-     Used fade outs and fade ins for pother magic effects

-     Had storylines, had a sense of audience and drama

Back in the US

-     Edison hired people to make movies using his tech – he licensed out his tech and he RAN the whole idea of movies in the US – everyone who wanted to make movies HAD to pay him

-     He created some stuff and got patents, but also bought other people’s inventions and patented them too – plus he hired thugs to enforce his patents

The idea of watching movies for fun was catching on around the early 1900s – Edison started working with people who were making movies like Melies – story based scenes that were designed to interest an audience

Who Do You Think the Audience Would Be?

-     Sideline – what entertainment did wealthier people enjoy? – theatre, concerts, opera, dance, etc – these were considered “high art” and cost money and you had to dress up to go

-     Eg – Lion King musical- Jenna and Robin dressed a little nicer and it was an event

-     The people going to see the movies, which were cheap and usually in lower end places (like the back room of a fur shop or something), were low end people – often immigrants and people considered to be “the wrong people” to those higher class snobs

-     Funny thing of History – Jewish shopkeepers got into the movie industry this way

-     They were renting buildings and rooms for their shops and wanted to try and make some extra money by showing movies in them after hours

-     These few Jewish businessmen got into the movies because it was NOT considered a desirable industry by the ruling elite and higher class people

-      

Dec 2, 2010 - Details on TV Project

Today's TV Project Labours – 

You do realize that this HAS to be IN before we get too much further, right?
Format:
1. Title of Show
2. Logline (one sentence sum up of the show)
3. Paragraph of description – details, maybe story reference, etc)
4. Paragraph describing the Target Audience
(Rinse and repeat X 3)
Next Step:
Once you get a show okayed by me, Mr. the Lobb, then go on to the do the pattern I give you later



How I Level 4?

- surprise me by combining ideas that don't make an immediate connection - JerseyTracker - the two horsemen from Mantracker will be hunting the cast of Jersey Shore (with paintball guns)
- going for a harder type of show (sitcom or a one hour drama)
- giving more details that will go into your final when you choose one
- describing characters, settings, storyline ideas

Nov 30, 2010 - Mr. Lobb is not here this period! Help!

EMS30 Stuff to do today! (CCLab is booked for first half)

1. Finish your quiz questions for Mr. the Lobb and email, post to blog or set on the desk.
2. Prepare for that quiz, which will be tomorrow (Wednesday)
3. If you had short answers only on your quiz questions, add a few longer answer questions and answers to upgrade your mark from 3-
4. If you are one of those people who OWES ME WORK, DO IT NOW AND GET IT DONE! You know who you are. I will start pulling people from class to do work in the office starting tomorrow. Then, I start calling home, etc. DON'T MAKE ME DO THAT.
5. If you are finished your test material, and don’t owe me anything, then you should move on to the following:
a) Spend some time coming up with 3 pitches for a new TV show.
They can be reality shows, sitcoms, one-hour dramas or whatever, but I am looking for three concepts that you think would work and be original, interesting shows. Briefly describe the concept for each, and any other important info about each – main character, setting, etc
b) Come up with a good LOGLINE for each.
The following are examples of could-be loglines for current television shows:

"Aspiring singers will compete in a nationwide talent search on live television where they will face the often unfair scrutiny and sarcasm of a panel of judges before one is finally branded the "American Idol", receiving a recording contract." - American Idol



"A likeable husband's tolerance and marriage is tested by the constant intrusion of his overbearing parents and dim-witted brother" - Everybody Loves Raymond

b) For each, briefly describe the target audience you would be hitting.
c) At least ONE of the shows you come up with should be a fictional show (a sitcom or one-hour drama) and for those, you should consider:
• Location: Work? Home? School? Jail? Some combination?
• Social structure: One star (e.g., Chuck, The Mentalist, ), more stars (e.g., The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Gossip Girl )?
• Personalities: A rich, snotty society girl? A struggling smartass student? You need to create a fine balance of having people that are realistic enough for the audience to identify with, yet are different enough from each other to allow for interesting dramatic encounters.
• Situations: What kind of things do the characters go through? Seinfeld dealt with the stupid little things in daily life, The Walking Dead is about fighting the zombie apocalypse and The Simpsons goes for pure laughs.

How Do I get a Level Four?

- be original – come up with something that isn’t exactly like everything else – combine two or more show ideas that are already happening into something new and crazy, for example
- be thorough – give details that show that you’ve really thought this through – I don’t NEED to see a lot on settings, possible episode storylines, character relationships or comparisons with existing TV shows, but these kinds of details take your work further
- presentation – putting this on your blog instead of handing it in written on paper in pencil would make it look much more pro – ESPECIALLY if you included some pics of possible cast members and other kinds of multimedia examples

This is a good opportunity to come up with the dream show that you’ve always wanted to see. Go nuts and be rewarded. I can’t promise that I will make that show, but I will say “good job!” and how awesome is that?

Nov 25, 2010 -More on TV

4. Game Shows – one of the oldest types of TV shows- the game show is a very cheap and very simple kind of show, you involve the audience, which is always exciting
- the thrill of winning and competing even if YOU aren’t – humans like to root/cheer for someone and game shows play on that
- even if they are the same, they are different in the way it plays out
Funny enough, sports on TV fits all these same things
5. Sporting Events (again, some of the first shows) – same as game shows
- these aren’t cheap – first shows to use a large number of cameras
6. Variety show (or a talk show)
- these are also cheap to make, also the same only different – the structure is the same, but the elements of that structure change – ie guests, conversation, “acts”, etc
- modern talk shows and “one name” shows – eg Oprah, Tyra, Ellen, Conan, etc fill this kind of gap now
- even American Idol and SYTYCD are kind of like this – we watch old school entertainment, music, dancing, etc
- CLASSIC TV
7. For years, one type of show was the dominant, most lucrative (makes the most money) and highest rated kind of TV show –
- SITCOMS
- nowadays they are in decline
- a sitcom gets its own note:
SITCOMS
- the sitcom means situation comedy and is a 22 minute/ half hour time slot show
- eg – the highest rated one right now is Two and a Half Men (which sucks, everyone agrees, but some population must watch it – we call that population Middle America – “normal people”
- a sitcom is a show based upon a simple concept, usually a place that is like a family center – office, bar, apartment, diner, etc
- there is a core group that “stars” and uses that center place
- they have problems that get solved in 22 minutes, and are usually exaggerations of normal human problems
- the first sitcoms were live on a stage, and many are still shot live on a stage with a live studio audience (Two and a Half Men is done this way
- in the old days, these began with The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy, for example
- these shows started the family side of sitcoms – a goofy center character who gets into problems with a sidekick and then a family crisis each episode
- Lucy was the original goofy character – the physical comedy she did and the crazy situations were the pattern being set for sitcoms for years – we still see the kinds of things she did
- However, in the early 60s, sitcoms started to change – people were getting tired of the same family pattern, and producers started going into a new pattern
- HIGH CONCEPT
- These are sitcoms based on one crazy concept that makes the whole show work – every story, ever character, every set all fits into the concept
- Examples – Bewitched (a normal guy marries a witch), Gilligan’s Island (different people forced into companionship, stuck on an island), My Mother, The Car (a guy’s mother is reincarnated as his car), Mr. Ed (a guy has a talking horse), My Favourite Martian (a guy finds a Martian/alien), The Beverly Hillbillies
- These kinds of shows lasted for EVER
- 80s – Alf, AirWolf, Knight Rider, etc
- deal in the most ridiculous concepts and are essentially completely stupid
- over the years new patterns keep emerging that try to reinvigorate sitcoms and keep audiences coming back, but sitcoms are kind of dead now, thanks to cheap, easy to produce, ridiculous and stupid reality shows
Sitcom Structure
- 22 mins
- 8 mins of ads
- 3 ACTS – First Act is called setup – second act is called Complications and third act is called Resolution
- you have a problem, then it gets worse, then it gets sloved
- you have a problem that comes from the main character’s stupidity
- in sitcoms, you have a number of other patterns”
- - goofy neighbour or friend
- mistaken identities
- lies that get out of control
- the seven deadly sins out of control (gluttony – greedy. Eat too much, drink too much, wrath – anger, rage, lust – sex. Love hunger, avarice – want something you shouldn’t have, pride = , envy, sloth

Nov 24, 2010

History of TV

-     long and terrifying and disturbing record of the events that have led to you being so easily distracted

Where did TV come from?

-     a fifteen year old boy named Phil T. Farnsworth is the inventor of the most common type of TV

-     he was working on the idea that radio could be done with images

-     radio was already invented in the early part of the 20^th Century by a guy named Marconi

-     signals go through the air and take a “message” that could be a voice

-     these signals get encoded and decoded at the source and at the end point

-     the interesting idea behind radio that we will carry on (aside from the science which led to TV) was the idea of PROGRAMMING

-     David Sarnoff – came up with the idea of using a radio as entertainment, with “shows” that come on at specific times and people would tune in and listen

-     He worked for a company that made and sold millions of radios and also made and gave out broadcasting (shows) – they paid for these shows with advertising

-     He thought if they could do the same thing with images, there would be a whole new business, a whole new thing to sell and a whole new place for selling ads

-     He had a team working on making TV as well (the company was RCA)

-     The boy genius came up with a few ideas at a one room school and his teacher sent the ideas to a university and Philo was off

-     He came up with some cool ideas, Sarnoff heard about him, he tried to buy him out, and Philo said no – Sarnoff’s head scientist (Vladimir Zworkin) visited Philo, saw his stuff and guess what? – he took the info and went ahead and invented his own TV

-     By the time WWII starts, TV is already invented, but there’s nothing on yet

-     The Depression and the war stop all forward progress

-     However, after the war, things go crazy

-     PAUSE FOR BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE CHECK

-     The Great Depression (1930s) – people had no jobs, no money, no food, tough times, difficult living NO LEISURE THAT COST MONEY – no new development of tech and entertainment

-     World War II (1939 – 1945)

-     Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan) VS Allies (France, UK, Canada) and then later, the US

-     The US got attacked by the Japanese in 1941 and went ballistic – they turned their whole country into a war factory, pounding out tanks, guns, planes, everything – they made more stuff that every other country put together – giant war factories full of women, black men and others who wouldn’t have been able to get such good jobs before the war

-     The factories started hiring like crazy, started making big money and the Depression was all gone and suddenly, technology was back in the picture

-     After the way is over in 1945, those factories and those companies don’t want to stop working at that high level – they want to keep making the big money – so the 1950s had a HUGE tech and economic boom

-     After the war, people start getting pulled into shopping like crazy and one of the KEY items everybody buys is a TV

-     And TV becomes a HUGE important part of American culture

The TV of the 1950s

-     the patterns and structures we have in TV now were started then

-     types of shows

-     1. Soap Operas –

-     called this because they were shows about high emotion, aimed at women, aired in the day and sponsored by soap companies

-     are these gone? No – still happening

2. News

- news was one of the first and most obvious kinds of shows

- had been on radio and even at the movies – they just combined newsreels with radio style super serious tone of voice and a very serious looking man sitting at a desk to impress us – very serious in every way – pure information

- nowadays – TOTALLY different – eg Fox News – all opinion, big emotion, very little info and fact – it’s all about entertainment and feeling and passion and inspiring ratings and rage in equal measure

3. Cartoons

- cartoons actually have been around since film was invented

- TV was a good place for cartoons – because of the Baby Boomers – the number of kids was at an all time high – a certain few companies JUMPED on this

- Warner Bros (Bugs Bunny), and mostly Disney –

- tons of cheap cartoons came out to sell junk to these kids

- a weird trend – cartoons aimed at adults – especially into the 60s

Nov 25, 2010

Things We Owe:

1. Ad Campaign (NOW)

2. 3 Rock Performer Profiles - blog them plz

3. Music Quiz Made By YOU. On Thursday you will come up with 10 questions and Friday we will enquizzify you with my choices from your questions. I will mark your questions and then we will mark the quizzes together

TV

1. List three shows that you like.

2. Explain one reason each why you like each show.

3. List three shows you do not like or watch.

4. Explain one reason each why you do not like or watch each show.

5. Estimate how much you watch TV in a regular weekday and then a weekend day.

6. Quickly do the same for your parents. (1 each)

7. WHY do you like the shows you chose? Be very specific and try to think about what attracts you to the shows you like.

BLOG THIS PLEASE