Showing posts with label film class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film class. Show all posts

Film History - Origins Of The Motion Picture

Battleship Potemkin (1925)



A Russian propaganda film directed by Sergei Eisenstein

I don't think I will ever get bored looking at this film... it's rich in disturbing imagery, particularly the Odessa Steps sequence, and the music works very well to establish the mood and tension. My friend pointed out how, if the Odessa sequence was shot today the use of slow-mo would have been used instead (In the film the many cuts make it seem like the number of people running down the steps keeps increasing. It still works quite well though, to emote the chaos and terror of the massacre (which never happened.)

SPOILER ALERT 

Film Class Summary

 Sailors on board the Battleship Potemkin are disgusted that they are being made to eat rotten meat. Later in defiance, some reject the soup given. The captain orders everyone onto the deck and threatens to shoot those who did not eat the soup.  A squad readies to fire on the group but steps down when Vakulinchuk implores them to see reason. A riot breaks out and the sailors overthrow the officers and captain, and Vakulinchuk is killed in the process.  Potemkin calls at the port of Odessa, and the story of Vakulinchuk spreads. People gather on the steps near the port but are gunned down ruthlessly by  Tsarist troops who appear suddenly. In retaliation the sailors aboard Potemkin shoot back, leaving the harbour. Other battleships close in on Battleship Potemkin but at the last second they give their brothers safe passage, and allow them to pass.








Mise-En-Scene

Mise-en-scène ( "placing on stage") is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction. Mise-en-scène has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term".

When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting. Mise-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking.These are all the areas overseen by the director, and thus, in French film credits, the director's title is metteur en scène, "placer on scene."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_sc%C3%A8ne

 

Hilarious 4 minute explanation by Indy Mogul

Metropolis (1927) Special Effects


Even with limited technology they managed to pull off convincing special effects. The  shot of the Tower of Babel being actually erased and drawn frame by frame is just mindblowing.

Schüfftan process


Before the invention of the blue screen and travelling matte, a special effect known as the Schüfftan process helped in combining miniatures and actors/scenery in shots.

Eugen Schüfftan created the Schüfftan process during the production of Metropolis (1927), directed by Fritz Lang. Metropolis is set in the dystopian future, and the director wanted to add actors into shots involving miniature sets of buildings and skyscrapers. Schüfftan placed a piece of partial mirror 45 degrees to the miniature set/drawing and the camera. Part of the mirror is left for the camera to shoot through to the actual shot of the actors and scenery.




See also: Pepper's Ghost!

more info on the Schüfftan process here: http://fxtuto.blogspot.sg/2009/06/schufftan-process-turorial.html

Metropolis (1927)



directed by Frtiz Lang

No words can describe how amazing this movie is! A true masterpiece of science fiction cinema. It is mind blowing how all this was achieved in 1927.


"The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!"


Synopsis for Film Class: 
SPOILER ALERT

The dystopian society in Metropolis is split into the privileged Upper Class and the poor working Lower Class. Freder, the son of the Master of the city Joh Fredersen, meets the mysterious Maria, and follows her underground where he discovers the inhumane conditions of the workers that run the machines. Appalled, Freder tells his father, who finds out his workers have secret underground meetings run by Maria. Joh instructs the scientist Rotwang to give a robot he made the face of Maria, so as to use her as a tool to incite unrest amongst the workers. The false Maria inspires the workers to destroy the machines, but eventually they turn on her and burn her at stake. Freder then battles a crazed Rotwang to save the real Maria. Balance is finally restored when Freder becomes the mediator between the Upper and Lower classes, the “heart” between “the head and hands.”


I thought Brigitte Helm was so very beautiful in her role of Maschinenmensch (machine-human).


source

Lilo and Stitch (2002)


created and directed by the very talented Chris Sanders





City Lights (1931)


Directed and starring Charlie Chaplin

A tramp falls in love with a blind flower girl. She in turn mistakes him for a kind, wealthy gentleman. 

SPOILER ALERT.

The tramp later prevents a drunken millionaire from committing suicide and is rewarded handsomely. When the millionaire wakes up sober, he rejects the tramp. 

 The tramp soon finds out the flower girl is ill, and takes on jobs to earn money to pay her rent and cure her blindness. When he meets the millionaire again, the tramp gets mixed up in a burglary attempt. Accused of theft, he narrowly escapes. He gives the flower girl some money before being caught and thrown in jail. 

 The tramp is a shadow of his former self when released from prison. In a twist of fate he meets the flower girl, now cured of her blindness. The movie ends with the girl recognizing the tramp as her suitor through the touch of his hand.