In what way did Godard consciously challenge the established conventions of cinematography and editing in ‘Breathless’?

Jean-Luc Godard broke many traditional conventions or rules of cinematography with the 1960’s film ‘Breathless’. This film was a relatively low budget film with not a lot of high end equipment. Probably the most visible feature of this film that makes it different from most cinematic films of its time, was that the whole film was filmed on the streets of Paris, there were no constructed sets or soundstages, in fact they did not even get permits to film it in any of the locations. Godard opted for a much cheaper approach by shooting in real locations with ordinary people walking in the background (you can often see people staring into the camera in some scenes). Because of the low budget Godard also used less equipment and sets, for example they uses smaller lightweight cameras rather than big production camera, natural light, places they already had access to and all the audio was dubbed in in post. They didn’t use artificial lights but instead tried to work solely with the natural light of the surroundings, they also shot most of the film handheld as they Godard wanted to make the film look more like a documentary style film or like how a news report would be. In shots where they wanted to do use a dolly effect, the cinematographer would sit in a wheelchair and be pushed forward or back with the camera. This helped to prove that a good film does not need to be really expensive.

One of the most famous techniques Godard used was Jump cuts. A jump cut is when there is multiple cuts (or just one) made to a single clip to make it appear that the scene is jumping forward in time. This can help to show a travel in time or speed up the movement and pace of a scene. In Breathless, Godard uses jump cuts to give the film a jagged and edgy rhythm. However, this type of cut was not Godard’s original plan. A lot of the shots were very long which was partly down to the heavy use of improvisation from the actors. So instead of cutting out big sections of film, Godard decided to do lots of small cuts to speed up the shots to make the film shorter.

Another technique used by Godard was ‘breaking the 4th wall’. This is where the actors look directly down the lens and therefore at the audience. This technique along with jump cuts and the abrupt stop of music made is obvious to the audience that they were watching a film rather than being immersed in it. Godard did these things to force the audience to step back from the film and think deeper about what they were watching. This links back to the idea of the film being shot in a style that looked more like a documentary. Godard was heavily influenced by playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht would emphasise things in the movies that were traditionally not supposed to be noticed like cuts like the jump cuts and actors looking into the camera. He wanted to emphasise to the audience that they were not watching a reality but rather something that is supposed to resemble a reality. He wanted the audience to realise that they are watching fictional characters develop throught the film but also realise that they express things about the world that we actually live in.

In 1946, just after the end of the 2nd world war, foreign films began to be allowed to be shown in French cinemas. Also previously banned French films were allowed to be viewed. Hollywood films were now able to be watched again and popular directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and John Ford were inspiring French filmmakers. French film magazines began to write about how filmakers were artists in their own rights and used to camera to tell storys. They believed that films were more unique to the directors and represented their style for example an a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock was a ‘Hitchcock film’ rather than a ‘Paramount Pictures film’.

An early essay written by Alexandre Astruc included the phrase ‘ Caméra au Stylo’ which mean ‘Camera Pen’. He wrote this to say that filmmakers used the camera as a tool, like an artists uses a paint brush or a writer uses a typewriter.

Popular techniques of the French New Wave era included, Jump cuts and breaking the 4th wall. These techniques aimed to distance the audience from the film and make them feel like they are watching a film. This was almost a forbidden practice in traditional filmmaking.

Which Techniques from Citizen Kane are being used

Impossible track and Chiaroscuro Lighting

Location

Dark Corridor

Subject (Who is in the scene)

Will Syvret as he walks into the harsh light

What specific meaning are we trying to achieve as a part of storytelling

To use some of the techniques used in ‘Citizen Kane’ to create a certain meaning. In this case, the use of the impossible track and chiaroscuro lighting can be used to make the audience focus on the subjects expression and their movement.

Why was DW Griffith’s film ‘Birth of a Nation so successful when it was released in 1915 an why is it so controversial now?

Birth of a Nation was so successful because it was the first 12 real silent film, each reel was around 11 minutes bringing this film to around 3 hours long. This was the longest film available at the time. The film would have been accompanied by a theatre organ because it was able to make a large range of different sounds. However, this film is considered quite controversial now because the film is racists and about american supremacy especially white supremacy. slavery had just been abolished but southern states wanted to keep their slaves on their plantations making cotton and sugar. The now free slaves are now being represented as a threat to the economy and to society. Some actors would paint their faces black for the film and are represented in the film as rapists, drunks and criminals. The KKK had died out before the making of this film but was inspired after and the KKK grew to around 4 million after the film.

Who were Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and are they considered to be great cinematic practitioners? Nema at least one film made by each director.

Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were both film directors, producers and actors of the genres Slapstick comedy and Physical Comedy. They would do their own stunts which were dangerous and had to be timed perfectly. They performed in their own films which was why they were considered cinematic practitioners.

‘The General’ by Buster Keaton is a very famous film and expensive film which features a real train breaking through and falling off a bridge. Buster Keaton was well known for using Deadpan in his films which is the action of not making a face when getting hit by a pan or other object.

The soviet union liked charlie chaplin because he is representing the poor in a sympathetic way. Some accused him of being a communist. ‘The Great Dictator’ was made in 1940 by Charlie Chaplin. It feature talkies which meant that that there was dialogue in the film.

Wikipedia was usedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures

1895-1918: The World Discovers A New Art form or Birth of the Cinema

• What was the name of the first film made by the Lumiere Brother and when was this? – ‘Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory’ – 6th June 1948

• What is the “Phantom Ride”? – This was a camera movement whereby the camera is typically put on the front of a train or a moving vehicle to create the perspective of floating.

• What was ground-breaking about the silent films “The Sick Kitten” and “Life of an American Fireman”? – ‘The Sick Kitten’ was ground breaking because it introduced multiple shot types to narrate the story. The ‘Life of an American Fireman’ including the first example of cross cutting between scenes.

• What was the name of the first “film star” in Hollywood? – Florence Lawrence is known as the first movie star as she was the first actor or actress to promote her films with her name.

1903-1918: The Thrill Becomes Story or The Hollywood Dream

• According to Cousins, why did the hub of film production in the USA move from the East Coast of America to Hollywood? – To avoid the patents Thomas Edison had on the filming equipment. Also the light and weather was better in Hollywood for filming.

• Which nation’s film industry does Cousin’s describe as “the best in the world” in the 1910’s and why?

• Give an example of two films and two directors from this place and time cited by Cousin’s as remarkable.

Pre-Production: 

My original Screenplay of choice was the fight scene between Superman and Zod. I wanted to do this section of screenplay because I like the concept of showing fighting and their emotions and expression in the film. However, we chose the screen play of the high school fight scene from Spiderman over that one because of logistical reasons. The Spiderman screenplay is was much easier to film within the school environment. This is because the scene of choice was from inside a school where the school bully ‘Flash’ is abusing Mary Jane. We filmed this scene by the lockers as this is often the typical place for fights in a school in a film. The people in my group were Harvey who played Flash; Morgan who played MJ and helped directing, James who filmed the scene and I who was Spiderman. Before filming we spoke about as a team, what we wanted to do and what kind of shots we wanted to incorporate. We discussed things like how Harvey was going to enter the frame and how long after I would enter, what fighting actions would be used and other important things that would be featured in the film. 

Production: 

The production time was longer than expected because of certain problems we encountered. For one, we didn’t want to make too much noise because we were conscious that there were still lessons going on. Also, we had to retake some shots more than one because of laughing in the shot. 

Post production: 

We all took copies of the unedited footage so we could all edit our own versions on our own. This was interesting because we could see the different styles of editing that each member of the team has and see where element of their video looks and sounds better or worse. I focused on editing the shots to be short and have the same bit of screen play from different angles. One of the things that I did in the postproduction process was to overlay the audio from one clip onto another because the first take with the line ‘how do you like it’ had better audio but the action was not as good so I overlay it onto the third take which was missing some of the dialogue but had better action. I used an equaliser to edit the audio of the dialogue and the background noise. Because the quality of the mic is not the best, a significant hissing sound could be heard on all the audio. Therefore, I created a low pass filter to cut out the top end frequencies which is where the hissing noise was. I could clearly hear the result as the hissing was almost completely gone. I then boosted the mid frequencies which was around where the dialogue was. 

Peter is walking out of the school with Mary Jane when
they are ambushed by Flash.  He starts to ridicule Peter,
then threatens him.  Peter just clenches his jaw and backs
away.  Peter does not believe in violence... and he has
never thrown a punch in his life.  It just wouldn't occur
to him.

Through a row of bushes he sees Flash grab Mary Jane by
the arm and spin her around.  They are arguing.  Flash
slaps her across the face.  Peter is so enraged his hands
snap a four inch tree limb without him realizing it.

Flash is walking to his car after gymnastics practice.  It
is dark.  A figure drops silently down from behind him.
Flash spins and sees a guy in a black fishnet mask.
Thinking it is a robbery, Flash swings... only to grab his
own fist in pain.  It was like hitting oak.

Peter holds Flash with one hand and slaps him hard.

                          SPIDER MAN
          How do you like it?  Huh?

He slaps him again, backhand.  Then he cocks back his fist
and BLAM!

Punches Flash so hard he flies ten feet.  He picks him up,
gets him in a painful armlock... marches him to his
beloved Porsche and slams him brutally against it.  He
pounds Flash into the car until the jock collapses, semi-
conscious.  Peter then rips a signpost out of the ground
and pounds the car into junk.  Glass flies everywhere.

Peter leans close to Flash and tells him to stay away from
Mary Jane... or else.

Cut to Peter running.  He stops around a corner, out of
sight.  In darkness he stands panting... looking down at
his hands.  He rubs his knuckles.

Reflection: 

Looking back on the task, I think the main things that we should have changed or done differently would have included: planning more about the flow of the scene, also think carefully about the shot type, angle and movement.  I we were to redo this task, I think we should have chosen a scene with more dialogue as our one only had 1 line. 

	Production role 1	PR 1	Production role 2	PR 2	Production role 3
Role	Sound Design	Sound Design	Cinematography	Cinematography	Editing
Genre (Sub Genere)	MTB video	Horror	Action	Horror	Action
Movement influences	Brandon Semenuk Raw 100. Out of Mind		Baby Driver
Practitioner influencers	Fabio Wibmer				Peter McKinnon
Target Audience	Mountain bikers
Production scale	Small audience	large audience
Key themes/issues	n/a

FILM	Preference ?/10	Memorable Scene	Film Element Focus
Dunkirk	9/10	When the Spitfire at the end shoots down the enemy plane.	Sound