Cinematography is the art of motion photography, and in film; it relates to the composition of the scene. Cinematographers compose the lighting of the scene, and how the camera is used from the model chosen to the perfect angle a shot is taken from
Most notable cinematographers:
Leon Shamroy – won four academy awards, most famously from his cinematography on the Henry King films The Black Swan (1942) and Wilson (1944)
Roger Deakins – recipient of the 2011 American Society of Cinematographers (A.S.C.) Lifetime Achievement Award, and won an academy award for his cinematography on the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 (By Denis Villeneuve)
Editing within film is the composition of shots into a coherent scenes then form these scenes into a sequence. This used to be done manually before the digital age, but nowadays computers are used instead
Most notable editors:
Michael Kahn – won three academy awards for the following films directed by Steven Spielburg: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler’s List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Thelma Achoonmaker – won three academy awards for her work as editor for the following films directed by Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull (1981), The Aviator (2005) and The Departed (2007)
Sound editing involves the assembly and sometimes creation of sound recording to produce a final sound mix for a film.
A sound editor is different to a designer because they focus more on assembling the sounds together rather than initially creating original sound.
Notable sound editors include:
Richard King – won Academy awards for his work on Dunkirk (2017) Inception (2010) directed by Christopher Nolan
Paul N.J Ottosson – won two academy awards for his sound editing on The Hurt Locker (2008) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012) both directed by Kathryn Bigelow
A film director is the person who has the vision for the film and plans to recreate that vision for the screenplay for the final cut of the film. To do this they guide the cast and crew to perform their certain roles while also choosing what goes into the film. Directors can be also screenplay writers.
Notable directors are:
James Cameron, Terminator 1/2, Aliens, Titanic, Avatar
Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography. In cinematography various styles are used by different cinematographers to differentiate films/or make films more memorable. Different film techniques can be seen in motion picture from a Point of View shot to zooming in.
A cinematographer/director of photography is the person in charge of the camera and light crews on sets.
Notable recent cinematographers in film are:
Emmanuel Lubezki, 3 time Academy award winner for Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant.
Janusz Kaminski, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s list and War Horse.
Alien was released in 1979, a time where feminism was needed and had gradually grew over time. There was arguably more of a need for a strong female character back in the 1970’s, where feminism had began to pick up speed, most notably in the form of second wave feminism. Alien was a unique film, not entirely being classed a as horror, sci-fi, or thriller but rather a combination of the three. It had jump scares, gore, but it also toyed with our emotions since we felt emotionally engaged with the character of Ripley. As the majority of her crew were killed off, we followed our heroine through till the end, admiring the brave traits which set her aside form other female leads.
It is difficult to actually define what inspired Alien, since it is such a unique and individual film. Some basic ideas and principles from the film were based off old classics, scriptwriter O’Bannon drew inspiration of the alien pursuing a group from the hit 1951 horror ‘The Thing: (Christian Nyby). He also cited ‘Planet of the Vampires’ (1965, by Mario Bava) for the idea of the heroes discovering the alien
Other fiction also influenced some of the ideas and visual style of Alien, in particular the 1953 short story ‘Junkyard’ where the characters discover some eggs after landing on an asteroid. ‘Strange Relations’ (1960, by Philip José Farmer) also influenced the aliens as a whole, and O’Bannon claimed that many comics served as influence for the aliens as well.
The Maltese Falcon was released in 1941 during the second world war and it is part of the original film noir movement which became popular due to the pessimism and darkness of the war years. The film contains many narrative devices that would later become hallmarks of the film noir movement, like the private eye protagonist having voiceovers and the presence of a woman who tries to lead him down the path of crime.
This film fits into the stereotype of film noir because it contains most of the established tropes that the movement is known for, like the femme fatale. The film taps into the anxiety that many Americans would have been feeling during the war and Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) represents the ideal of masculinity at the time – he is smart, strong and independent and this is the ideal that men at the time strove for. The film is concerned with themes of morality and many of the characters are morally ambiguous, and this is a trait that it shares with Blade Runner. The mise en scene in classic film noir is high contrast due to the black and white cinematography.
Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor
One of the things that film noir and neo – noir is known for is the sharp, no – nonsense dialogue and this is a feature that both films share and this links to the themes of cynicism and bitterness that are typically associated with the genre of film noir.
Blade runner was released in 1982, 41 years after The Maltese Falcon, and it blends elements of film noir with elements of sci – fi and the film was released during the Cold War , there is a subtext that links to the anxiety about nuclear annihilation which was not present in The Maltese Falcon and the film is a lot more explicit because it talked about the disastrous effects of environmental destruction.
Despite this film’s genre hybridity, it contains many of the classic stock characters of film noir, like the private eye protagonist and the femme fatal – the inclusion of these characters is intended to be a reference to the classic film noir of the 1940’s and 50’s and much of the film’s aesthetic is derived from the films of this era and it is combined with futuristic visuals. Blade Runner is not part of the classic noir movement and many of the tropes that appear in this movie do so in a manner that is self – referential.
Harrison Ford and Sean Young
The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by the German expressionist films from the 1920’s and 30’s and this influence is evident in the black and white visuals of the Maltese falcon; this influence is not as evident in Blade Runner as it uses colour cinematography. Blade Rummer also talks about the humanity’s destruction of the environment which links to the Cold War anxiety about nuclear war. Both films are bitterly cynical about what is happening in the world and both protagonists are hardened and bitter detectives.
Blade runner is intended to be a direct homage to the film noir of the 1940’s and this film consciously references the tropes and conventions that are present in films like The Maltese Falcon.
Archetypes
There are several archetypes that are associated with film noir, these are:
The private eye – he is often bitter and cynical. Spade and Deckard fit neatly into this archetype. They are often anti – heroes with a dubious sense of morality. He is often the narrator of the film
The femme fatale. A beautiful woman who uses her charm and sexual allure to attempt (sometimes successfully) to destroy the man. Pris, Rachel and Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O’Shaughnessy all fit into this archetype.
The corrupt cop – could possibly be symbolized by Blatty.
The aesthetic for film noir is sharply defined and immediately recognizable with the black and white cinematography and films with the established conventions of classic film noir e.g. The Maltese Falcon. Blade Runner conforms to some of the tropes of film noir, but this is done in a self-aware way and it does not have the immediate association with the film noir genre for audiences due to the sci – fi elements of the story and the colour cinematography which is one of the major things that differentiates neo – noir films from classic noir films.
The term film noir was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank. in his article “Un nouveau genre ‘policier’: L’aventure criminelle” (“A new police genre: the criminal adventure”) he said that “filmmakers express their own reality and many of them were from Germany” and as film noir was first popularized around the time of the rise of the Nazis and during this time they had limited resources i.e black and white film was less expensive and the filmmakers did not make much money and they used their medium in order to portray their struggle to the world.
Film noir is such a resonant genre of film due to the fact that it is often true to life and and the films do not seek to conceal the cruelty that human beings are capable of , instead the film makers seek to tell a story about how people struggle to survive in a hostile world and the reason that film noir became popular in the first place was the political tension leading up to world war two and the destruction that the war brought and neo -noir was successful because of the constant danger of nuclear annihilation that was posed to the Cold War world
The Maltese Falcon does use some stereotypes that could be considered to be offensive – for example , Joel Cairo exhibits feminine characteristics and there is an implication that he is gay. In the film he is one of the primary villains , due to the fact that he works with the Fat Man , but he is not simply a villain – he helps Spade at various point , this is emblematic of the moral duality that the characters in film noir are known for. Due to the Hays Code , which was a strict set of guidelines that filmmakers had to adhere to , the filmmakers could only hint at the characters homosexuality.
Blade Runner has more modern themes : the environment has been completely destroyed and the officers of the law are corrupt – these are more blatant allusions to the current political landscape than are present in the Maltese Falcon.
Feminist theory was influenced mainly by women studies, and second wave feminism. The latter movement was revolutionary, mainly with the concept of women taking center lead rather than just being considered an ‘other’ to men. French writer Simone de Beauvoir looked into this concept during the late 1940’s, citing in her 1949 book ‘The Second Sex’: male centered sociology was accepted as the norm. This reinforced the idea that the society was socialized into believing men were superior because society had centered around them at the time.
Inspired by the work of Beauvoir, feminist Betty Friedan objected to the depiction of women in the media and argued that women who just stayed at home were typically unhappy. This popular view spread the movement faster, leading to the need for strong, inspirational female characters to backup the popular ideas
I will be filming my first 30 second film at German road because there are some caves/bunkers. the road will not be in the film but the woods next to the road will be. My film will be focused on one character who is a young girl who has been held captive and has escaped one of the caves in the woods. She has escaped the cave but the being which has held her is coming after her. My focus for this film is cinematography and so i will try and use different angles and movements. i would like to use close ups to emphasize the girls emotion and a long shot of the scenery to set the scene.
