Film 101

tells its story using characters that express themselves with song.

• was not born out of any specific political or cultural movement (traditions of
• religion)

1.) Early film industry had to create a system for recording and project sound

2.)Audience perceptions – people wanted naturalism and people jumping into sound in the middle of a film was not natural.

The Jazz Singer – this was a backstage musical

musicals that placed the story in a performance setting; character were singers and dancers

Integrated musicals-assimilated music and dancing with the action; characters could now bust into random song

Traditions of relgions

Preproduction - 2years - planning and preparation/ making a budget 

Production - months- shooting of movie

Postproduction - after shooting is done; preparing final print

• 1.) Editing
• 2.) Preparing the final print
• 3.) Bringing the film to the public

Producer - guides the entire process of making the movie

Director - determine and realize on the screen an artistic vision

• Studio system -controlled by a studio of people
• Independent system - controlled by a producers who is unaffiliated with a studio

African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement

Ava DuVernay

Their goal is simple: to eventually release two films a year; quality independent movies from black filmmakers and aimed at black audiences t

-Filmmakers need them to circulate their work

--Exhibitors need them to supply there screens

• -Warner Bros
• -Paramount
• -Walt Disney
• -Sony/Columbia
• -20th Centurty fox
•  -Universital

• -Large companies can best
• endure the risks of theatrical movie making

--Films are costly and most movies dont earn profits in theatrical release garner

• Films usually dont break even or show a profit
• until it has been released on cable,satellite, and home video(PPV, on
• demands,DVD)

they try to pre-sell distribution rights in order to finance then they put their flms in festivals to attract distribution attention so their films can be marketed

Not seen as profitable because imagined not to be successful internationally

DuVernay funded the films herself

• CatFish - documentary 
• Upstream color - movie with pigs
• Girl fight - movie about boxer
• I will follow - black movie 
• Spring breakers - party movie

Views are encourages to see indie films as more socially engaged and formally experimental than Hollywood

• not necessarily a narrational mode like are
• cinema or CHC but a film culture

• 1.) inferences on realism
• 2.) Authorship I.e personal cinema
• 3.) Animated by intellectual context of the era
• (postmodernism;)

• 1.) Ic is hardly as ambiguous as art cinema
• 2.) Ic style is not nearly as challenging
• 3.)IC can seem fairly classical in its  narrational approach

Originated in television and studio industries 

1) As a form of differentiated product within the mainstream film industry

2)  As a narrative that is straightforward, easily communicated and easily comprehended but ALSO marketed through

• 1)Emphasis on style post-Classical Hollywood Cinema style (reflected after WWII and rise of television)
• A.) Simplification of character and narrative        B.) Strong march between image and music soundtrack

• 2.) Integration of marketing and merchandising
• a.Star Power
• b.Star Persona
• c.Timeliness of the subject matter

• 1.) Idea was actually "low" because the idea is so low it can be summarized in a single sentence.
•   
• 2.) Speaks to a potential bankruptcy of creativity in Hollywood

3.) The films rely heavily on the replication and combination of previously successful Hollywood films

• 1) Production practices in film industry are influenced by shifts in
• Hollywood's industrial structure  such
• as:
• a.Conglomeration of the industry, the rise of television, the new marketing
• methods, changing distribution strategies

• 2)As the forces forming the mode of production change over time, so
• too do the look and sound of the film product

• 3)High concept film is designed to maximize marketability and
• consequently, the economic potential at the box office

4)"The look, the hook, and the book"

high-concept films marketing guidelines

• 1.) individual owners of small production companies to med. firms
• 2.)From med. companies to large

When the government broke up the monopoly the independents had access to movie theaters

There are none

• Direct cost - everything from art direction to cinematography
• Indirect cost -  releasing prints,marketing.

cost are categorized; producer or member of his team prepares the budget

• -Determine the release date
• -Determine the number of screens the film will be on

• Exclusive and limited releases - first run showing in major cities
• Key city release - a secondtire release that measure public response

• 1.) a studio system 
• 2.)independent production companies

Past : a group of vertically integrated, with large numbers of contract employees. 

Today: there is no system and the studio exist to make and release movies