Chapter 1 Notes

Film as Art: Creativity Technology and Business (p.2-3)

- Films communicate information and ideas and show us places/ways of life that we
might not otherwise know.
- Films take us through experiences that are driven by stories centering on characters
we want to care about.
- Films are designed to create experiences for viewers.
- Filmmakers constantly ask that if I make a choice, how will it affect the viewer?
- 19th century - films = public amusement
- People discovered they could use cinema to give viewers experiences they cant get
from other media.
- Two basic areas of choice and control in film:
1. Form - the overall patterning of a film and the way its parts work together to
create specific effects.
2. Style - involves the films use of cinematic techniques.
- Cinematic Techniques
1. mise-en-scene - the arrangement of people, places and objects to be filmed.
2. editing - the piecing together of individual shots.
3. cinematography - the use of cameras and other machines to record images and
sounds.
4. sound - the voices, effects and music that blend on a films audio track.
Art vs. Entertainment? Art vs. Business? (p.3-4)
- The art/entertainment split rests on a value judgement.
- Art is serious and worthy / Entertainment is superficial.
- Many filmmakers working for the general public discovered many of the artistic
resources of filmmaking.
- Many filmmakers (especially during the 1910s and 1920s) pioneered new possibilities
for film editing because they wanted to be entertaining.
- Cinema is an art because it offers filmmakers ways to design experiences for viewers.
- The split between art and business is related to the issue of entertainment. This is
because it is sold to a mass audience.
- No art floats free from economic ties.
- Any art form offers a vast range of creative possibilities.
- Movies come from:
1. The imagination and hard work of the filmmakers who create them.
2. The complex set of machines that capture and transform images and sounds.
3. Companies or individuals that pay for the filmmakers and the technology.
Creative Decisions in Filmmaking (p.4-9)
Creative Decisions - To See into the Night in Collateral
- Truffaut - What is a director? A director is someone who is asked questions about
everything.
- Many of thousands of decisions were made on the film.

- Collateral - Michael Mann (2004) - psychological thriller.

- As soon as Mann got on board, he changed the plot (NYC -> LA). This change
affected the style of the movie.
- The films look was created because they only filmed at night - where they could get
the haze and cloud cover. The night became another character.
- Refrained from using as much artificial light as possible.
Digital Cinematography
- Cameras used photographic film and night scenes were shot using large banks of
specialized spot-lights and floodlights.
- Shot with recently developed HD digital. It allowed the viewer to see more of the
natural look of LA at night.
- Suspense is increased because its hard to see the figures.
Custom-Made Lights
- Created a soft, diffused light using ELD (electroluminescent display) panels. Used in
digital watches and cell phones.
- Used velcro to stick to the ceilings of the car. Creates unobtrusive, helpful light.
- LED lights are now centrally used in productions.
Seamless Editing
- Big car crash scene. Didnt put the camera in one place on the sight of the road
because it would like someone was observing the crash, but no one was there.
- Showed several angles of the car rolling, each taken at a different point along the
trajectory of the crash.
- Stationed multiple cameras along the same path, and the economic benefits of doing
the crash again and again were eliminated.
Music in Movements
- Music should serve the film so well that the audience doesnt notice it.
- Climax took place in three movements - parts of a symphony, concertos or sonatas.
- James Newton Howard (composer) - creates a dynamic accompaniment without it
being exciting in certain scenes. (First movement)
Mechanics of the Movies (p.9-16)
Illusion Machines
- Filmmaking relies on technology and financing.
- Moving-image media such as film and video cant exist if human eyes are perfect.
- A film consists of a series of frames - still pictures. We dont perceive frames but
continuous movement.
- Its possible this happens because of persistence of vision - the tendency of an
image to linger briefly on our retina.
- If this were the cause, though, wed see a blur of superimposed stills instead of
smooth action.
Two Psychological Processes involved in Cinematic Motion:

1. Critical Flicker Fusion - (with the 24 fps) a project shutter breaks a light beam
once as a new image is slid
into place and once while it is held in place. Each frame
is projected on the screen twice, so 48 flashes.
- Some silent films were shot at a lower rate (16 or 20 fps) and projects broke
the beam only once per
image. Creates flicker.
2. Apparent Motion - if a visual display is changed rapidly enough, our eye can be
fooled into seeing movement.
- These two processes are quirks in our visual systems.
Making Films with Photographic Film
- A photographically based film is a ribbon of still images, each one slightly different from
its mates. It starts as unexposed film stock in the camera.
- A projector is an inverted camera.
- Most common shooting rate is 24fps. In 35mm, film goes through projector at 90ft/
min. (2 mi feature = 2 mi of film).
- Film strip emerges from camera as a negative. To be projected, a positive print must
be made (done on a printer).
- One side of film is shinier than the other. Film consists of a transparent plastic base
(shiny), which supports an emulsion.
- A film strip is perforated with holes on each side, and is grabbed by sprockets when
being shown in a projector.
- Width of film strip = gauge and most commercial theaters use 35mm.
- Bigger gauge = better quality. Best quality is IMAX.
- Most films today have an optical sound track, which encodes sonic information in form
of patches of light and dark running down the frames.
- During production, electrical impulses from a mic are translated into pulses of
light which are photographically inscribed on the filmstrip.
- The sound is encoded as variable-are - a wavy contour of black and white along the
filmstrip.
Soundtrack Types
1. monophonic (16mm & 35mm)
2. stereophonic
Films as Digital Media
Digital Filming
- A 35mm camera is very similar to a digital camera.
- Instead of a filmstrip, a digital camera has a fixed sensor and is covered with millions
of microscopic diodes (photo sites). Each diode captures light and create pixels in the
final image. These are then converted into electrical signals. (Similar process with
sound - sampling and digital conversion occurs).
- First wave of digital chimera used DV (low res). An experienced cinematographer
used DV to enhance the film.
- Most professional cameras have two advantages over lower-end models.
- They have minimal data compression.
- They have larger sensors (about the size of 35mm).
- Both contribute to better image quality.

Digital Projection
- Digital projectors are becoming main-stream.
- Running speeds either 24fps or 48fps.
- Film is encoded as DCP (Digital Cinema Package) and delivered on heavily encrypted
hard drive.
Making the Movie: Film Production (p.16-29)
- A movie goes through three phases: production, distribution and exhibition.
- 4 stages: Scriptwriting/funding, Preparation for Filming, Shooting, Assembly
The Scriptwriting and Funding Stage
- Producer - financial and organizational. A producer nurses the project through the
scriptwriting process, obtains financial support and arranges to hire the personnel who
will work on the film.
- During production, he will act as the liaison between the writer or director and the
company financing the film.
- In postproduction, a producer will arrange the distribution, promotion and
marketing the film. He also pays back the money invested in the film.
- Executive Producer - Financing
- Line Producer - sees day-to-day activities of director, cast and crew during production.
- Associate Producer - assists Line Producer who acts as a liaison with laboratories or
tech personnel.
- When the screenplay is prepared, a producer will get a director and stars. The
producer prepares a budget spelling above-the-line costs (literary property, scriptwriter,
director, major cast) and below-the-line costs (crew, secondary cast, shooting/assembly,
insurance and publicity).
- Sum of above and below line costs is the negative cost (total cost of producing films
master negative).
The Preparation Phase
- In large-scale production, the director orchestrates the contributions of specialists in
several units.
- Set Unit/Production Design Unit - headed by the production designer. Creates
drawings and plans that determine the architecture and color schemes of the sets.
- Production Designer - in charge of visualizing the films settings.
- Art Director - under production designers supervision. Oversees the construction and
painting of the sets.
- Set decorator - (usually major in interior design), modifies sets for filming purposes.
Supervises workers who find props and set dressers.
- Set dressers - arranges things on set while shooting.
- Costume designer - in charge of planning and executing the wardrobe for the
production.
- Graphic artist - creates the storyboards.
- Storyboards include notations about costume, lighting and camerawork.
- Storyboard images may be filmed, cut together and played with sound to help
visualize the scene - form of animatics.
- Previsualization (previs) - reworks storyboards into 3D-animation.

- mainly used to plan complicated action scenes or special effects.

- can help director test options for staging scenes, moving cameras and timing
sequences.
The Shooting Phase
- Shooting is also known as principal photography.
Units and Personnel
- Directors Crew:
- script supervisor - in charge of all details of continuity from shot to shot.
Checks details of performers appearances, props, lighting, movement, camera
position and running time of each shot.
- First AD - plans each days shooting schedule. (jack-of-all-trades) and works
with the director. He sets up each shot for the directors approval while keeping
track of actors, monitoring safety conditions and keeping morale high.
- 2nd AD - liaison among first AD, camera crew and electricians crew.
- 3rd AD - messenger for director and staff.
- Dialogue Coach - feeds performers lines and speaks lines of offscreen
characters
- Second Unit Director - films stunts, location footage, action scenes from a
distance while principal shooting is taking place.
- Minor players = extras
- Specialized Roles
- Stunt Artists - supervised by stunt coordinator
- Professional dancers work with a choreographer
- Wrangler - handles animals.
- Photography Unit - leader is cinematographer (DP).
- DP - expert on photographic processes, lighting and camera techniques.
- supervises camera operator (runs machine).
- Key Grip - supervises grips - workers carry and arrange equipment,
props, and elements of the setting and lighting.
- Gaffer - head electrician - placement and rigging of lights.
- Sound Unit - leader is production recordist/sound mixer.
- Production Recordist - record dialogue during shooting. Uses tape/
digital recorder, microphones and a console to balance and combine
sound inputs. Also captures ambient sound.
- Boom operator - controls boom mic and conceals radio microphones on
actors.
- Third man - places microphones, lays sound cables and controls
ambient sound.
- Sound Designer - (sometimes) enters during preparation phase and
plans sonic style appropriate for entire film.
- Visual-effects Unit - visual-effects supervisor in charge
- Prepares and executes process shots, miniatures, matte work, CG and
technical shots.
- In charge of hundreds of jobs - i.e. sculpting
- Miscellaneous Unit

- Makeup staff, costume staff, hairdressers and drivers (transport crew/

cast).
- Producer is represented by producers crew during shooting.
- Line producer - manages daily organizational business - arranges
for meals and accommodations.
- Production accountant (production auditor) - monitors
expenditures.
- Production secretary - coordinates telephone comm. among units
and w/ the producers.
- Production Assistants (PAs) - run errands.
Scenes and Takes
- Slates have production name, scene, shot and take #s.
- Clapboard allows recordist to synchronize sound track with footage in assembly
phase.
- Master shots - records the entire action and dialogue of a scene - can be several
takes.
- Portions of scene are then restaged and shot from other angles/distances - coverage.
- Most scenes in film history were shot with one camera.
- Shooting phase must carefully plan for special effects.
- A specialized unit will use motion capture if a moving person or animal needs to be
created by a computer.
The Assembly Phase
Picture Editing
- Editor also known as Supervising Editor - catalogues and assembles the takes
produced during shooting.
- Dailies/Rushes - when editors receive filmed material as quickly as possible.
- Editor inspects dailies, assistant editor synchronizes image and sound and
sorts takes by scene.
- Editor meets with director to examine dailies.
- If they are far from each other, he will inform the director of how the footage
looks.
- Constant checking is important because the editor needs to spot problems with
focus, exposure, framing, etc.
- Director selects best takes of dailies and editor takes the choices.
- While a final cut is prepared, a second unit shoots inserts (footage to fill).
- Until mid-1980s, editors cut and spliced the work print (footage printed from the
camera negative).
- As editing team puts footage in order, other members manipulate the shots.
- If shot on film, usually scanned in frame by frame to create digital files and a digital
intermediate (DI).
- Changes light levels and alters colors. Handled by digital color grading (the
colorist).
- The colorist takes over tasks that a DP and traditional grader would have done
in a lab. The two may work together on the DI.
- If a problem happens on set, usually well fix it in post!

Special Effects
- Turn to CGI.
- Can delete distracting backgrounds or building crowds out of a few spectators.
- CGI creates imagery that is impossible through normal means.
Sound Editing
- Sound Editor builds up the sound track.
- The director, composer, picture editor and sound editor view the film and agree where
the music and sfx should be placed (spotting).
- On-set recording of audio serves as a guide track for ADR.
- Babble of the crowd = walla
- While composer compiles cue sheets that mark where the music will go and how long
it should run and writes the score, a rough cut is synchronized with a temp dub - an
accompaniment pulled from recorded songs or classical pieces.
- Musicians record score with aid of a click track - a taped series of metronome beats
synchronized with the final cut.
- A camera negative (source of dailies and work print) is taken to a lab, and the lab
draws an interpositive, which is then turned into an internegative. The internegative is
assembled in accordance with the final cut and serves as the primary source of future
prints.
- You can also create a DI that can be recorded back to film as an internegative.
- Recording mixer manages equalization, filtering and other adjustments.
- First positive print complete with picture and sound is the answer print.
- When director, producer and DP approve an answer print, release prints are made for
distribution.
- DIs make it possible to generate addl internegatives as old ones wear out,
without any wear on the original materials.
Modes of Production (p.29-34)
Large-Scale Production
- A studio is a company in the business of creating films. Most famous studios existed
between 1920s and 1960s.
- Studios own equipment and extensive physical plants and retained most workers on
long-term contracts.
- Studios central management planned all projects and delegated authority to
supervising producers who assembled casts/crews from studios pool of workers.
- Very careful with tracking process through paper records. Tracked everything in all
phases of prod. Now a big part of large-scale productions, but mostly done digitally.
- Each film in a studio didnt copy each other.
- Centralized production system has virtually disappeared.
- Mainly have become distribution companies.
- Studio can provide soundstages, sets, offices, but the producer mainly arranges with
outside firms for cameras, catering, locations, etc.
Exploitation, Independent Production, and DIY
- Exploitation - tailored to a specific market.
- Troma Films very famous - horror movies and teen sex comedies for under
$100K.

Exploitation filmmakers usually divide the labor along studio lines.

Exploitation production often forces people to double up on jobs.
Most exploitation films dont enter the theatrical market.
Independent films might enter theatrical market - made for the market, but dont have
major distribution financing.
- Financing often comes from TV firms with major U.S. distributors buying the
rights if the project seems to have good prospects.
Small-Scale Production
- Single filmmaker assuming a lot of roles.
- Small-scale production is common with documentaries.
- Sometimes becomes collective production - several workers participate equally. The
group shares common goals and makes production decisions democratically.
Production and Authorship
- 1950s - young french critics applied the word auteur (author) to Hollywood directors
who they felt had created a distinctive approach to filmmaker while working within the
Hollywood studio system - auteur theory.
Bringing the Film to the Audience: Distribution and Exhibition (p.34-47)
Distribution: The Center of Power
- Distribution companies form the core of economic power in the commercial film
industry.
- Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney/Buena Vista, Universal, Sony/Columbia, 20th
Century Fox = major 6 world distributors.
- Account for 95% of movie sales in U.S. & Canada, 50% worldwide
- In world capitals, the majors maintain branch offices that advertise films,
schedule releases and arrange for prints in local languages (dubbing/subtitling).
- Theatre owners bid for each film a distributor releases, and they must be allowed to
see the film before bidding in U.S.
- Distributors in other parts of the world may not be able to see it (blind booking),
sometimes before the movie is completed.
- Exhibitors may also be pressured to rent a package of films in order to get a few
desirable items (block booking).
- Gross - total box office receipts. Theatre keeps only small %.
- Standard arrangement: distributor keeps minimum 90% of first weeks gross,
gradually to 30% after several weeks.
- A long-running success will likely yield no more than 50% to the theatre.
- The distributor, however, allows the exhibitor to deduct from the gross the
expenses of running the theatre (house nut).
- Exhibitor gets all cash from concession stand (up to 70% of theatres profits
normally).
- The distribution company receives its share (rentals) and divides. Distributor usually
takes 35% of rentals as distribution fee. If the distributor helped finance the film, it
takes another %. Cost of prints and advertising are deducted. Remains go to
filmmakers.
- The producer must pay all profit participants (directors, actors, executives, investors)
who have negotiated a share of the rental returns.

Exhibition: Theatrical and Nontheatrical

- Theatrical - screening to a public that pays admission - commercial movie houses, city
art centers, museums, film-festivals and cinema clubs.
- Nontheatrical - all other - home video, cable transmissions, Internet downloads,
screenings in schools/colleges.
- U.S. - 30% of global receipts
- Japan - 25%
- Western Europe (UK and Nordic countries) - most important regional market outside
N.A.