16. Write A Cinematography Review

1. Select any film sequence that is critically, aesthetically and historically note worthy.
2. Review the film in regards to the elements of cinematography.
3. Investigate the cinematography in the film sequence to discuss the aesthetics and technical aspects.

15. Historical film / film history Research When using film to examine and discuss history and historical events, it is useful to look at the following areas in detail:

The film as 'history' - What is the event, how is it portrayed, how 'accurate' is it, what source is it based on, from whose point of view is it from?

The Birth of A Nation is a one film that was made reflecting a real American history.  It contained a fictional narrative and historical events that happened in America.  The story line can be considered accurate since it depicted a few historical event that were actually occurred such as the death of the president Lincoln, the Civil War, the birth of KKK and the suppression of black people.  The film was based on The Clansman depicted from a novel written by Thomas Dixon Jr. that was published in 1905.  It was the second released of a trilogy on Ku Klux Klan or KKK.


The film as 'film' - What from is used (e.g documentary, fictional narrative), what techniques are used to tell the story, how is film language used (i.e editing, framing, costume, cast, music and sound)?

The Birth of A Nation uses fictional narrative.  The film portrays historical events covering the Pre-Civil War and the Reconstruction Period.  The film story line was aligned chronologically based on factual events that happened in the past.  There are couple main techniques being used by Griffith.  He uses continuity editing to ensure the story line is placed accordingly to the factual events and parallel editing concept where he shows two different events simultaneously.to portray that the events were occurred at the same time to the viewer.  Couple shot techniques such as Continuity Editing, Parallel Editing, Establishing Shots, Closeup Shots, Color Tinting, and Matte being used throughout the film by Griffith to take audience to feel the movie as real possible.  The film had employed hundreds of extras to establish the war scenes and other scene that require many extras.  All costumes, houses, uniforms and furniture were made for the cast to resemble the life and atmosphere of the film.  When the movie was released to public, it sparked all sort of attentions (goods and bad).  In theater  the movie was shown along with life orchestral performance to create more dramatic experience for the viewer.


The film in context - When was it made, who is it made for, how was it marketed, what was the social and cultural background to its creation and how did that affect the film?


This approach is helpful to both historians and film academics as not only is the film examined as a method of showing a historical event or figure, but the text itself becomes an area of historical study, a piece of social and cultural history.


Historical film / film history Research each film to be analysed  should cover the following areas:
1. A brief historical background to the events portrayed.
2. How the film represents that history and the filmic technique used to explore themes and story.
3. The films own historical context.

14. Citizen Kane (1941) is widely regarded as "one of the best films ever made". Analyze some of the factors which may be responsible for this and the extent to which contemporary viewers might agree.

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. It was Welles's first feature film.  The fresh, sophisticated, and classic masterpiece of the movie is probably regarded as the world's most famous and highly-rated film, with its many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations (in photography, editing, and sound) has become few factors that contribute to its being famous.

Most importantly, the innovative in the development of cinematic technique portrayed in the film where it uses film as an art form to energetically communicate and display a non-static view of life. Its components brought together the following factors:

• use of a subjective camera
• unconventional lighting, including chiaroscuro, backlighting and high-contrast lighting, prefiguring the darkness and low-key lighting of future film noirs
• inventive use of shadows and strange camera angles similar in the tradition of German Expressionists
• deep-focus shots with incredible depth-of field and focus from extreme foreground to extreme background (also found in Toland's earlier work in Dead End (1937), John Ford's The Long Voyage Home (1940), and Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940)) that emphasize mise-en-scene; also in-camera matte shots
• low-angled shots revealing ceilings in sets (a technique possibly borrowed from John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) which Welles screened numerous times)
• sparse use of revealing facial close-ups
• elaborate camera movements
• over-lapping, talk-over dialogue (exhibited earlier in Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940)) and layered sound
• the sound technique termed "lightning-mix" in which a complex montage sequence is linked by related sounds
• a cast of characters that ages throughout the film
• flashbacks, flashforwards and non-linear story-telling (used in earlier films, including another rags-to-riches tale starring Spencer Tracy titled The Power and the Glory (1933) with a screenplay by Preston Sturges, and RKO's A Man to Remember (1938) from director Garson Kanin and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo)
• the frequent use of transitionary dissolves or curtain wipes, as in the scene in which the camera ascended in the opera house into the rafters to show the workmen's disapproval of Mrs. Kane's operatic performance; also the famous 'breakfast' montage scene illustrating the disintegration of Kane's marriage in a brief time 
• long, uninterrupted shots or lengthy takes of sequences

Furthermore, the he cinematic style of Citizen Kane use of extreme deep-focus photography and it was considered a groundbreaking and innovative as the film’s narrative technique. At the time, the prevailing Hollywood style was characterized by diffuse lighting and shots with a very shallow depth of field.  It was Welles’ cinematographer, Gregg Toland, who pioneered this use of deep-focus.

Welles’ discards the usual cinematic approach of shot/reverse-shot during this scene, instead using a mobile camera with deep focus that keeps us continually aware of everyone. This technique, couples with Welles’ use of long takes, permits that “our eyes have the same freedom to wander around the screen image as we have in the theater. We can focus on the actor who is speaking or instead watch the actor who is listening.

Additionally, Welles’ ever-changing camera angles, and his constant use of hard light and strong shadows, have a strong effect on our emotional approach to characters and scenes. According to film critic Andre Bazin, this stretching of the image in depth, along with its pronounced camera angles, “produces throughout the film an impression of tension and conflict, as if the image might be torn apart.

8. In some films, the characters have very clear roles to play and are easy for audiences to identify. List 5 characters 'types' you are familiar with from film and describe sample actions in a film for the characters 'types'.

Firstly, I picked Harrison Ford in his film Indiana Jones.  His whip, hat, gun, satchel and brown jacket resemble his character appearance as Indiana Jones.  His sense of humor, deep knowledge of many ancient civilizations and languages, and fear of snakes make what we know best Indiana Jones.

Secondly, I chose Don Vito Corleone portrayed by Marlon Brando in The God Father movie.  The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest gangster genre of all time.  Marlon Brando voice, appearance, over weight with jowls appearing in what is often classified as the mafia boss.  His calmness and patient resemble part of mafia boss character.  Vito Corleone listed as the greatest movie character in history and ranked 10th greatest movie character by Empire Magazine.

Thirdly, the T-800 Terminator portrayed by Arnold Schwarznegger marked my choice.  The appealing characters are daunting, cool and careless as being a machine that covered with flesh.  His word "I'll be back" becomes the mark for the later appearance of Arnold in the next Terminator sequence.  Big guns and masculine resemble the character strength and robotic energetic element.

John Rambo portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in the First Blood aka Rambo (1982) marked my forth picked of the day.  The character resembles a hero born out of the Vietnam war.  Rambo good with traps and weapons, mostly shirtless to portray power and strength.  The red bandana has become a trademark in the Rambo sequence movie.  The movie has high death counts (except the first sequence).

Thomas A. Anderson "Neo" portrayed by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (1999) gave my last piece of character choice.  Neo character as someone who has the ability to dodge and stop bullets.  His trenchcoat and sunglasses marked an icon of the character being cool, smart, challenging, determine, and focus.

9. How do filmmakers present characters in films?

In film, character introductions are extremely important. Filmmakers present characters in their film in various ways, styles and creativity.  The first push will be looking at the ability of the filmmaker to invoke some of the most powerful emotions in the world such as joy, anger, fear, and envy.  Not only can this moment inspire an intense audience reaction, but it can also offer a unique opportunity to understand the character insight and perhaps provide more explanation reflecting the character emotions being portrayed.  This is one of the basic step that many filmmakers will usually eye at.

Another, filmmakers will groom characters in film by creating phenomenon that will cause viewer to  learn by what the characters do and say.  The twist from the filmmaker mindset will also cause viewer to learn by what other characters say about them and how they react to those characters.  This whole set of learning between the audience and the character that the filmmakers are bringing into the film will derive the quality of the movie and set a standard that either can bring a good name to the filmmaker or otherwise.

Filmmakers create the best character in film not only use the above-mentioned means, but they also do it in a concise and creative way.  If done correctly, the character introduction can begin the transformation of a character into an icon.  This icon can then give high influence to the viewer in various ways; spiritually or physically.  One good example is the Star Wars epic movie that was first released in 1977 is one example of successful film portraying various characters into iconic element into society of all levels and generations.

12. How the coming of sound affected the making of motion pictures? List 5.

The birth of sound in film affected the making of motion pictures in various ways.  In brief, we can list at least 5 as follow:

1. Birth of musical film came into the picture.  One good example is the Bollywood film industry that is still keeping its film signature by incorporating musical element inside every film production since its inception in 1930s.


2. The production cost of making a motion pictures have increased compare to the early 1920s.  It has caused theater owners to spend and house new sound equipment to fit with the new demand in sound film birth.  It also gave a new form of stage where it demands a soundproofed type to incorporate realtime audio recording.  It caused some studios went into debt.


3. In order to record sound at best, many filmmakers during the 1930s to 1940s use a soundproof booth where the camera is placed inside the booth motionless and become static throughout the filming process.


4. Staging limited by the placement of the microphones.  During the early stage, this has become a known phenomenon and dilemma to many filmmakers.


5. Since sounds recording technology and technique into film were basically still primitive, the film takes were longer and without cuts.

11. The invention of the Vitaphone (BellaLabs/Western Electric, 1925) sound on disc system contributed to some major technological cinema development. List 5.

Vitaphone

Vitaphone was the last sound-on-disc system and the only one which was widely used and commercially successful.  The Vitaphone records dialogue and music separately on phonographs to be played as the film ran. The vitaphone was linked to the projection system to keep the sound and pictures matched up, and the marriage of the two elements proved tremendously successful.  The invention of Vitaphone had led to 5 technological cinema development as follow:

1. Stereo Sound - in 1931 at Columbia's Studios in Hayes, Middlesex. Alan Blumlein began using a twin microphone technique he had developed to record a stereo signal on to film in the same area taken up by the standard mono optical track.


2. 3D Sound & Film - Warner Brothers, after putting the Vitaphone in bed due to popularity of Sound-on-film, were experimenting with stereo images in the form of 3-D which they called NaturalVision, again to try and offer audiences that extra something that television could not. Their first 3-D film being 'Bwana Devil' in November 1952.


3. Projectors - more and more sophisticated projection being designed and built commercially to fit inside cinemas to adopt various new technological sound-film production as well as give more compelling experience to the audience.  From 70mm projection to 35mm projection format has been built throughout the 1950s. 


4. Dolby Stereo - Although there had been several attempts to improve optical sound quality in cinemas it was not until Dolby Laboratories, working out of Clapham at the time, looked to apply their already successful 'noise reduction' system to film sound. The first experiments were only mono and it soon became obvious to the engineers at Dolby that what the industry really wanted was high quality optical stereo. 


5. Digital Theater Sound (DTS) - A birth of digitalize sound-on-disc technology for cinema digital sound experience as how it started.  The invention begin 4 years after Dolby Lab produces Dolby Stereo in the 1990s.

These 5 items have contributed a wide array of technological advancement in cinema audio and projection after the invention of Vitaphone.  The vitaphone phenomenon and legacy in sound-on-disc had brought the birth of these 5 items into the world of cinema that we know today.

13. List 3 notable early sound filmmakers

There are many names to list to be honest.  However, in my opinion, these 3 filmmakers were credited due to the film that they premiered combining sound that was successfully commercialized throughout in the 1930s.

1. Rouben Mamoulian - The director of "Applause" is a 1929 black-and-white backstage musical film, shot during the early years of sound films. It is very notable as one of the few films of its time to break free from the restrictions of sound technology.  The movie was named on of the ten best films in 1929 by The National Board of Review.


2. Ernst Lubitsch - The director of "The Love Parade" is a 1929 musical comedy film.  This film is notable for being the first "talkie" film by Ernst Lubitsch.


3. Walt Disney - The director of "Steamboat Willie" is a 1928 American animated short film thirdly produced in black and white and firstly distributed.  The film is also notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound. In fact, it was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons such as Inkwell Studios' Song Car-Tunes (1924–1927) and Van Beuren Studios' Dinner Time (1928).

    

    

10. Describe 3 major problems on why did it take so long to put sound on films. What were the technical problems?

The problem to put sound on films started as early as the invention of the motion picture itself.  There were many inventors that worked to penetrate the barrier between film and sound.  There were three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation.

Image from the Dickson Experimental Sound Film
(1894 or 1895), produced by W.K.L. Dickson
as a test of the early version of the Edison Kinetophone,
combining the Kinetoscope and phonograph.

The first issue was synchronization between pictures or projectors and sound recorded machine, where sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, which were difficult to start and maintain in tandem. One example is the gramophone records, known as sound-on-disc technology invented by Emile Berliner, a German-American born, in 1887.  With having a separation between film and sound, it makes filmmaker and inventor to face huge challenge in synchronizing the two into one bowl.

Another problem faced by filmmakers and sound inventors was the sufficient playback volume that was hard to achieve. In other words, the intermittent motion (stop & start) of projector versus the continuous, even-rolling motion required for sound playback had caused the playback audio to hardly justified.  While motion picture projectors soon allowed film to be shown to large theatre audiences, audio technology before the development of electric amplification could not project to satisfactory level.

Lee De Forest (1873-1961)

Finally, there was the challenge of recording reliability. The sound technology achievement back then considered primitive and the sound produced was very low in quality unless the performers were stationed directly in front of the bulky recording devices (acoustical horns, for the most part).  This eventually imposed several limitations on the type of films that could be created with live-recorded sound.  The sound amplification was no way to fill up
a theater with acoustic sound.

All these three issues faced in developing sound-on-film beginning to wash away when Eugene Lauste who had worked at Edison’s lab invented a sound-on-film that was photographically recorded directly on celluloid in 1907.  His invention had led to an invention developed by Lee De Forest in 1919 in which his sound recording technology was photographically recorded on to the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or "married", print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, Theodore Case.

7. What is surrealism in cinema? Discuss the early surrealist movement, with examples. Is "surrealist cinema" possible today? Discuss one (1) / 2 films which might be considered contemporary examples, with reasons

Cover of the first issue of 
La Révolution surréaliste,
December 1924.

Surrealism begins in France.  The word surreal was sparked by a guy named Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) in his work that was played in 1917 known as Parade and Les Mamelles de Tirésias.  However, Apollinaire died six years before André Breton published his "Manifesto of Surrealism" (1924), and therefore his use of the word surreal may not be exactly the same as Breton's.  World War I scattered the writers and artists who had been based in Paris, and in the interim many became involved with Dada, believing that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had brought the conflict of the war upon the world. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works.

Breton joined the Dada activities and produces some journals such as The Magnetic Fields (1920).  Breton works in Paris have invited many writers to be a part of his believe and became Surrealist group.  Breton expressed the use of dream analysis, he emphasized that "one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects." Breton included the idea of the startling juxtapositions in his 1924 manifesto, taking it in turn from a 1918 essay by poet Pierre Reverdy, which said: "a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be – the greater its emotional power and poetic reality."

Since then it has become a movement of visual artworks and writings that reflects a cultural form.  This cultural form comprises of visual arts, literature, film, music and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact.

Surrealism was the first literary and artistic movement to become seriously associated with cinema, though it has also been a movement largely neglected by film critics and historians. The foundations of the movement coincided with the birth of motion pictures, and the Surrealists who participated in the movement were among the first generation to have grown up with film as a part of daily life.

Screenshot of the eyeball 

(actually that of a dead calf) 

being slit by Buñuel in the 

film Un Chien Andalou.

It has long been recognized as having made a major contribution to film theory and practice, and many contemporary film-makers acknowledge its influence. Most of the critical literature, however, focuses either on the 1920s or the work of Luis Bunuel (22^nd February 1900-29^th July 1983) for example.  He was a Spanish filmmaker in which his movie Un Chien Andalou (1929) was considered among the earliest Surrealist film produced.  The movie received by the French Surrealist movement of the time and continues to be shown regularly in film societies to this day.  Surrealist filmmakers like Bunuel played with narrative conventions, spacial and temporal relations, and the social relations between characters that defied convention and logic.

In today’s film, we can still get some surreal element being portrayed however, it may not be as extreme during the 1920s.  one example we can use is the movie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet known as Amelie (2001).  In this movie, Jeunet playfulness and inventiveness may at times recall Surrealist motifs often deployed to poetic effect.  For instance, the on-screen non-diegetic information overlaid on the image with red arrows is an unconventional intervention into the picture and narrative as present in Surrealist art.  The movie Amelie also resorts to literal visual representations of linguistic idioms.  The metaphorical expressions of being love-struck, melting into tears and seeing the light are graphically illustrated on screen.  For example, in the movie, Amelie melts into a water puddle in the café after Nino’s departure and her bright throbbing heart is graphically visualized when she first meets him in the station.  Using special effects, Juenet creates spectacular images that can be considered Surrealist in spirit.

Another way Juenet portray Surrealism involved in Amelie movie is visualizing the characters’ thoughts or dreams by showing few elements in the movie such as animation of objects (the bedside lamp), painting (the animal in the bedroom picture) and photographs (the man on the photographs telling Nino about Amelie).  This is similar to a strategy used in Bunuel film L’Age d’or (1930).

Based on this movie, we can now see that the Surrealism movement is still existed in today’s film.  However, the bizarre content that usually portray Surrealism movie in most dramatic ways will be portray in the most sophisticated way combining today’s technology using special effects as how Juenet did in his movie Amelie after his exposure in directing Alien Resurrection (1997).

6. "Metropolis" (1927) by German director Fritz Lang was cited as the most influential science fiction film of all time. Describe the film.

The film Metropolis was born during the era of German expressionism during the 1920s.  The film was united by highly stylized visuals, strange asymmetrical camera angles, atmospheric lighting and harsh contrasts between dark and light. Shadows and silhouettes were an important feature of expressionism, to the extent that they were actually painted on to the sets.

The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou.   Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city's ruler, and Maria to overcome the vast gulf separating the classist nature of their city.

The movie was filmed in 1925, at a cost of approximately five million Reichsmarks. The film was met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements while deriding its simplistic and naive storyline.

The movie portrays the luxurious, futuristic, Art Deco city of 2026 - an industrial world with skyscrapers and bridges, was divided into an upper, elite, privileged class of powerful industrialists and a subterranean, nameless, oppressed and exploited, ant-like worker class. It has been cited that the film had caused thousands of extras employed, and crude but effective cinematographic special effects achieved many of the film's unique hallucinatory imagery and dreamlike visions.

The film message exhibits the influence of historical events occurring during its time frame of the Industrial Revolution, including a time of economic misery and the rise of fascism in a pre-Hitler Weimar Republic Germany following the war, the rise of the American labor movement and unions during the 1920s due to oppressive working conditions, muckraking journalists, the contrast of poverty with the upper-crust classes of the Roaring 20s, the rise of immigration into the US and exploitation of workers, labor strife (Capital or management vs. Labor), and the 1917 communist uprising in the Soviet Union. It also reflects the on-going struggle between light and dark, good and evil, and the dark ages versus modern science.

4. D.W Griffith's "Intolerance" (1916). In an attempt to make up for the accusations of being a racist that were levied against him after "The Birth of a Nation", Griffith set out to tell four parallel stories about man's inhumanity to man, each one taking place in a different time in history. He brings all four stories to a stimultaneous climax and ends them with a vision of religious rapture.

I.   What are the four (4) stories?

Intolerance is a grandiose composite epic, interweaving four separate morality plays from different eras and settings, from 20th-century America (the "Modern Story") to Old Testament times (the "Babylonian Story"). Rounding out the four are a brief survey of the life and death of Christ (the "Galilean Story") and events from the 16th-century persecution and massacre of Huguenot Protestants under the Medicis, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (the "French Story").

The four widely separate, yet paralleled stories are set in different ages - and in the original print, each story was tinted with a different color. Three of the four are based on factual history:

·         THE 'MODERN' STORY (A.D. 1914): (Amber Tint) In early 20th century America during a time of labor unrest, strikes, and social change in California and ruthless employers and reformers - a young Irish Catholic boy, an exploited worker, is wrongly imprisoned for murder and sentenced to be hung on a gallows. The boy is saved from execution in a last-minute rescue by his wife's arrival with the governor's pardon.

·         THE JUDAEAN STORY (A.D. 27): (Blue Tint) The Nazarene's (Christ's) Judaea at the time of his struggles with the Pharisees, his betrayal and crucifixion (told as a Passion Play in his last days) - it is the shortest of the four stories.

·         THE FRENCH STORY (A.D. 1572): (Sepia Tint) Renaissance, 16th century medieval France at the time of the persecution and slaughter of the Huguenots during the regime of Catholic Catherine de Medici and her son King Charles IX of France, and the notorious atrocities of St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (including its effects upon the planned wedding of a young innocent Huguenot couple - Brown Eyes and Prosper Latour).

·         THE BABYLONIAN STORY (539 B.C.): (Gray-Green Tint) peace-loving Prince Belshazzar's Babylon at the time of its Siege and Fall by King Cyrus the Persian, due to the treacherous High Priests - and the Mountain Girl's vain efforts to avert the tragedy. The outdoor set for the Babylonian sequences was the largest ever created for a Hollywood film up to its time, and its crowd shots with 16,000 extras were also some of the greatest in cinematic history.

II.   What is a story?

Provide definition and example with references to the film.

A story in its broadest sense is anything told or recounted; more narrowly, and more usually, something told or recounted in the form of a causally-linked set of events or account or tale: the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious.  In plain and simple way to understand it is by look it as a series of events recorded in their chronological order.

Referring to Intolerance, we have to look at a single storyline out of the four being portrayed.  In this example, the story underlying the American Modern Story (A.D. 1914) demonstrates the story of how crime, moral puritanism, and conflicts between ruthless capitalists and striking workers help ruin the lives of marginal Americans. Briefly, the story begins from a mill owner orders a 10% pay cut on his workers’ wages to get more money for his spinster sister's charities. A workers strike is crushed and The Boy and The Dear One make their way to another city; she lives in poverty and he turns to crime; after they marry he tries to break free of crime but is framed for theft by his ex boss. While he is in prison, his wife must endure their child being taken away by the same "moral uplift society" that instigated the strike. Upon his released from prison, he discovers his ex-boss attempting to rape his wife. A struggle begins and in the confusion the girlfriend of the boss shoots and kills the boss. She escapes and the boy is convicted and sentenced to the gallows. A kindly policeman helps the dear one find the real killer and together they try to reach the Governor in time so her reformed husband won't be hanged.

III.   What is a plot?

Provide definition and examples with reference to the film.

Plot can be referred as storyline in short.  It most commonly means an outline of events, a scenario, an articulation of the skeleton of narrative.  At an intermediate stage of abstraction, plot is seen as the arrangement of the incidents or as the relationship both among incidents and between each incident or element and the whole.  This also means the pattern or geometry of the narrative.  Plot is also used to refer to an underlying structure which is to be understood less in terms of the incidents or elements it organizes and more in terms of the mind that does the organizing.

As for the movie Intolerance plot, four separate stories are woven together, each one commenting on how "hatred and intolerance, through the ages, have battled against love and charity": a Modern story dealing with a workers strike and a man wrongly accused of murder, a Babylonian tale involving the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Persian (538 B.C.), the life and Crucifixion of Christ in Judea, and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Huguenots in France (1572 A.D.).

The Modern story deals with various people forced into the same neigborhood because of a violently supressed workers' strike. A virtuous young woman referred to as The Dear One gets married to the boy, and they have a child. A group of reform women wrongly consider the dear one a bad mother and have her baby taken away. The boy is later incorrectly convicted of murdering his old crime boss and is scheduled to be hanged. Evidence turns up that he is innocent, and there is a successful last minute rescue to save his life. The couple are reunited with their child.

The Babylonian tale centers on a feisty Mountain Girl who becomes devoted to Prince Belshazzar, a powerful leader who promotes religious freedom. A rival sect plans to help the Persians overthrow Babylon, and there is a subsequent battle that the Babylonians win. They begin celebrating, but the Mountain Girl discovers another plot to destroy the city. She races back to warn Belshazzar, but they cannot mount a defence in time and are both killed as the city is conquered. The Judean story begins illustrating some self-rightous Pharisees. It then details some of Christ's deeds and miracles and ends with his Crucifixion.

The French story involves the doomed love of two Huguenots, Brown Eyes and Prosper Latour, who are both killed in the massacre at the end of the story. The stories are intercut among each other and linked by a transitional shot of a mother rocking a cradle that symbolizes man's continuous struggle. As each of the stories draws to a close, the intercutting becomes faster, and the transition is left out. An epilogue symbolically shows Good triumphing over Evil: a prison turns into a peaceful meadow, a battle site turns into a field with playing children, and fighting soldiers become peaceful as figures in Heaven descend towards Earth.

3. D.W Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (1915). Write the review on the film with relevant screen shots topic/area of review:

a. Editing continuity

The Birth of a Nation is a silent film from 1915 directed by D.W. Griffith depicting the Civil War and Reconstruction eras of American history. Widely regarded as the beginning of narrative film, The Birth of a Nation set standards that run to the core of the film industry today, from styles in film editing to the basics of cinematography.  The Birth of a Nation employs various filming techniques and editing styles that made the storyline flow seamlessly for audiences.  There are few techniques that Griffith is using such as Continuity Editing, Parallel Editing, Establishing Shots, Closeup Shots, Color Tinting, and Matte.  

The Continuity Editing that Griffith is using help to keep the storyline flowing easily. Cuts were not meant to jar the viewer's eye, but move naturally with the action of the scene.  He cut shots together in ways that will help audiences infer connections between events. This clip holds two different ways Griffith helped his audiences understand the scene or follow the action through multiple shots.

b. Titles

The title of the film was originally labelled as The Clansman depicted from a novel written by Thomas Dixon Jr. that was published in 1905.  It was the second released of a trilogy on Ku Klux Klan or KKK.

c. Settings

The settings cover both indoor and outdoor portraying the life style of the northern and southern of people in America covering Americans and African Americans.  Some scene was just taken in a studio.

d. Costumes

The costumes resemble the life of northern and southern Americans during the nineties. It also resembles the costumes of the African Americans or Negros as well as the KKK.

e. Props

The props in the movie portray house of the northern and southern Americans as well as the noble house where it is big and spacious as portrayed in the film reflecting the southern.  During the war epic event, there are many prop being used to make the war scene comes alive especially during the battle where both southern and northern troops were fought.  Guns, horses and flags are some of the prop being used during the war event in this film.

f. Story structure

The film covers the Civil war, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the reconstruction of the South and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. D W Griffith astounded audiences with the introduction of many new filmmaking techniques that laid the groundwork for the future of cinema. Without exaggerating, practically every film made afterward must give some credit to `The Birth of a Nation'. The film is constructed and put together seamlessly and still looks amazingly fresh.

g. Impact - Political, economic, social and technological.

The content the film depicts racism.  However, if we were to step out of the story and view the film for its composure then we would see it is a masterpiece. The film is indeed not appropriate for the viewing of children today as it portrays many conflicting agendas that can twist our children mind to fill with hatred and racism.  

Nonetheless, to others it is a piece of history in two senses, one, because of its film innovation and two, because of its controversial material. The government should give funding for this film to be preserved. First off, there are questions about whether or not the government should give funding to preserve this film. One alone cannot decide which films will be preserved, for it would be censorship, and if one were to censor film then a form of art would be attacked. Next, because the film is explicitly racist and is used for Ku Klux Klan recruitment one must question whether the film is suitable for today’s society. Many of these techniques are now standard features of films, but they were first used in this film. 

However, it still provokes conflicting views about its message. It should be used as a learning tool instead of an entertainment tool. grounds, the definitive usage of the still-shot, the technique of the camera "iris" effect (expanding or contracting circular masks to either reveal and open up a scene, or close down and conceal a part of an image, moving, panning camera tracking shots, the use of total-screen close-ups to reveal intimate expressions, the use of vignettes seen in or iris-shots in one portion of a darkened screen, high-angle shots and the abundant use of panoramic long shots, the dramatization of history in a moving story, an example of an early spectacle or epic film with historical costuming, staged battle scenes with hundreds of extras, extensive cross-cutting between two scenes to create excitement and suspense, and the cumulative building of the film to a dramatic climax.

5. By 1914, American films, which had trailed after French and British films, establish their dominance of the world's screens. What factors contributed to the American film dominance?

The Hollywood advantage is concentrated in one very particular kind of moviemaking: films that are entertaining, highly visible, and have broad global appeal. The typical European film has about 1% of the audience of the typical Hollywood film, and this differential has been growing. American movies have become increasingly popular in international markets, while European movies have become less so.  The turning point in this dynamic appears to have come in the 1970s. Before the 1970s, most national European cinemas still experienced a significant amount of export success, whatever problems the industry as a whole had. Since that time, European moviemakers have seen their export markets collapse.

The popularization of television, and the timing of this popularization, damaged European cinema. As television became widespread throughout Europe, movie audiences dwindled. In Germany, 800 million movie tickets were bought in 1956 but only 180 million were bought in 1962. At the same time, the number of television sets rose from 700,000 to 7.2 million. In the U.K., cinematic attendance fell from 292 million in 1967 to 73 million in 1986. In France, movie attendance dropped from 450 million in 1956 to 122 million in 1988. In Japan, the number of movie tickets sold in 1985 was only a sixth of what it had been 25 years earlier.

The geographical and weather condition of America, precisely Hollywood, where most filmmaker hometown is, has mild climate and reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film movies outdoors year-round, and by the varied scenery that was available.  In today’s technology weather plays less important role in contributing towards American film dominance.  However, back in the 1920s, when Griffith's controversial 1915 epic Birth of a Nation that pioneered the worldwide filming vocabulary that still dominates celluloid to this day, it has caused other filmmakers to produce more and more outdoor films.  It has become a phenomenon that sparks film industry to produce film with outdoor elements combined.  For French and British filmmakers, they were bound to weather and climate condition of four seasons that stop them from able to produce outdoor film as many as the American filmmakers.

One factor is to look at the market size.  Comparing French and British films where their homeland sizing is smaller than America.  American film domination gets support from its local large market size.  Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country.  In plain word, America geographical and demographical size contributes American film dominance.  The Demographics element has further worsened the European problem. In most European countries like French and British, individuals older than 35 no longer go to movies in significant numbers, preferring instead to watch television. Moviegoing is the province of the young. Most European countries suffer twice here. First, they have older populations than does the United States. Second, the traditional "art house" styles of European film are better suited to old audiences than to young ones. This makes them especially hard to export. The advent of the cinematic multiplex, which tends to attract the young to movies more than the old, has worsened these problems.

When The Jazz Singer, the first film with synchronized voices, was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begins to use Vitaphone sound.  The birth of sounds helps to further dominate the industry.  Although American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing. One of the solutions was creating parallel foreign-language versions of Hollywood films.  As example in 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont, France, where the same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews.  This is one example how American film managed to penetrate foreign market and maintain its dominance across the globe.

The birth of distributor of film in America also plays an important role in assisting American film dominance.  In this case, Miramax Films, founded in 1979, was an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films.  It serves more as a gatekeeper to the foreign films rather than distributing the foreign films inside American soil.  The market for foreign films has contracted in the US over the past thirty years, due to the rise of American independent film, the decline in independent theatres, and the restored vertical integration of the US film industry.  Due to the birth of distributor of film in America, more and more American films being showed largely in the home ground as well as international market.  The distributor plays important roles in controlling Americans exposure of films.  From YaleGlobal Online news, it is said that only 1% of international films being showed inside American soil and has become more structural rather than cultural.  This makes American to only be able to view their locally made movie and hardly to visual other international films that were probably as good as what being produced by the American filmmakers.  

2. What Were Edward Stanton Porter Contributions To The Invention of Motion Pictures?

Edwin Stanton Porter was born in April 21^st, 1870 in Connellsvile, Pennsylvania.  He is considered the American early film pioneer.  There were not many interesting facts to unveil his life and work before he began as a fulltime employee at Edison Manufacturing Company in 1899.  We can consider his triumph in the cinematography world began when he took charge of motion picture production at Edison’s New York studios where he mostly direct, operate camera and assemble the final print.

Life of an American Fireman

His past experience as touring projectionist makes him aware what would please the crowd.  Porter than began to produce trick and comedy films for Edison that sparked his name in the industry as one of the most influential filmmaker in the United States.  One of his technique inventions in film making is the dissolve technique, gradual transitions from one image to another.  This technique was embedded into his film Life of an American Fireman where the technique helps his audiences to follow complex outdoor movement.  The Great Train Robbery is another film where Porter uses cross cutting technique to show simultaneous actions in different places.  The movie was assembled in twenty separate shots covering both indoors and outdoors that gave a sweet twelve minutes remarkable movie watching experience.  The film was a huge financial success and its mythic power has yet to dim.

The Great Train Robbery

Throughout his carrier with Edison’s company (1899-1909), Porter portrayed side lighting, close-ups, and changed shots within a scene technique in his movie called The Seven Ages (1905).  Porter had developed the modern concept of continuity editing, and is often credited with discovering that the basic unit of structure in film

The Seven Ages

 was the shot rather than the scene which is labeled by many as the basic unit on the stage.  Between 1903 and 1905 he successfully demonstrated most of the techniques that were to become the basic modes of visual communication through film.

He died in 1941 at the Hotel Taft in New York at an aged 71.  Although his innovation in film technique is undeniable, he had never repeated or maintained a consistent directorial style. To many of his industry friends, they regarded Porter as artistic mechanic rather than dramatic artist due to his fond deals with machine better than people.

1. What Were Georges Méliès Contributions To The Invention Of Motion Picture?

Marie-Georges-Jean-Méliès or in short as Georges Méliès, was born in December 8^th, 1861 in Paris.  He is the third siblings to Jean-Louis-Stanislas Méliès (father) and Johannah-Catherine Schuering (mother).  His parents owned a shoemaking business and were considered one of the wealthy families in town at the time.  His self-motivation and passion in arts kicked off at early stage.  When he was ten years of age, he was busily constructing cardboard sets for his marionette shows that he would enthusiastically perform before an audience.  In 1871, Méliès theatrical passion was further fuelled by his first visit to the theatre where he saw the famous magician Robert-Houdin perform.  

The Impossible Voyage

In 1884, he went to London to further his studies where he had exposed and developed an interest in stage trick after witnessing the work of John Nevil Maskelyne and George Alfred Cooke (Maskelyne & Cooke), a British stage magician performer who completely transformed the art of conjuring into a dramatic performance of wizardry and an entirely new concept in the performing arts.  George Méliès was a frequent visitor who was vastly influenced and amazed by the work of Maskelyne and Cooke. 

A Trip To The Moon

When Méliès returned to Paris in 1885, his father had refused to support his intention to be an artist and had made him worked at the family shoemaking factory.  After his father passed away in 1888, Méliès sold his shares to his two brothers and with the money he purchased the Théâtre Robert-Houdin.  This has been the starting point where later he discovered many technical and narrative developments that influent today’s film-maker generation and drive the perspective of today’s movie.

Le Manoir Du Diable

George Méliès accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, and was one of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician".  Two of his most well-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).  Both stories involve strange, surreal voyages, somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.  Méliès was also an early pioneer of horror cinema, which can be traced back to his Le Manoir du diable (1896).

Interest:

• Traveling & Sight Seeing
• Watching Movies
• Playing Sports - Badminton & Bowling

Dreams: Produce movie that shall give high impact and influence in the film industry locally and  internationally.

Aspirations: One of Malaysia's Finest Film Director and Producer

I Came From: A decent nuclear family with parents, one elder brother and 3 sisters who live in Alor Star, Kedah. By the way, I'm the youngest in the family.

My Childhood: Filled with colorful memories. I was born in Selangor as I was told but I spent most of my life in Alor Star, Kedah. I was very much raised there.

Family Conditions: My Father was in an army and my Mom is very much a house wife. They are running a small retail business in Kepala Batas. Despite of their busy life, they still make time for the kids. All in all, I am living in a happy and lively environment.

Three Experiences Making The Most Lasting Impression on Me were:

• Graduated from Unisel and got my first diploma.
• Married to my lovely husband.
• Gave birth to two beautiful daughters.

Ten Most Important Given Circumstances are:

• Complete my assignments in timely manner.
• Help others and give guidance to those who needs.
• Be ready for every classes attend.
• Memorize important notes.
• Score all classes in flying colors.
• Get my new Mac this semester.
• Firm up my silat knowledge & skill.
• Get to know my lecturers.
• Understand all subject matters in deep.
• Master my knowledge & skill as film director.

What Films Have You Watched Recently:

• Ice Age 4: Continental Drift
• The Avangers
• Battleship

Share Some Thoughts on Your Most Favorite And Least Favorite Films:

• Most Favorite:  Battleship (2012)
• Why:
1. The CGI effects make all the alien characters and ships look very realistic.
2. It manages to deliver a human-alien combat experience.
3. It makes you feel like you are playing the board game.

• Least Favorite:  Mars Attack (1996)
• Why:
1. It gives you unsure of what to think.
2. In the end, I only know that I hate the movie.