People fled the east coats of America to make film so they could avoid Thomas Edison’s patents on film production.
The Scandinavian, specifically Danish film industry in the 1910’s was described as “The best in the world”.
Benjamin Christensen directed Häxan in 1920 and released it in 1922 which was so good because it was another film that cross a line that had never been crossed before with its horror.
Victor Sjöström directed The Phantom Carriage in 1921 which used double exposure to great effect to show what happened to one of the characters after they died.
Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd where all comedians of the silent film era during the 1920’s and 30’s in Hollywood, Keaton is best known for silent films such as The Cameraman (1928) and The General (1926). Chaplin is best known for films such as The Kid (1921) and The Gold Rush (1925). Lloyd is best known for the film Safety Last (1923) and as a stuntman.
These filmmakers influenced other notable filmmakers such as Jacques Tati and Antonio Griffo Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno Porfirogenito Gagliardi De Curtis di Bisanzio better known as Totò.
The first film by the Lumiere brothers was “Workers Leaving the Factory” In 1895.
The ghostly ride is when a camera is mounted on the front of a train of moving vehicle which gave a ghostly and unnatural effect.
“The Sick Kitten” was the first film that invented close ups.
Life of an American Fireman was the first film to cut and it was the first time that a film cut between two locations to see different bits of action.
The first film star in Hollywood was Florence Lawrence, a Canadian American actor and stage performer who set the stage for movie fame with stardom and tragedy.
In the golden age of cinema there where 4 cinema screens in Jersey with over 3000 seats but only 4 screens where needed as the whole audience would all watch the same film at the exact same time together.
There are 10 official cinema screens in Jersey and all of them are at the Waterfront.
Currently in Jersey there are only Howard Davis Park, The Jersey Arts Center and the Grand Hotel that remain as independent cinema spaces.
The number of cinema screens have not declined and have gone up because the market has become more fragmented so more screens with less seats where needed.
A Foley artist is someone who re-creates various sounds used or needed for filmmaking in post production, this is done for sounds that cannot properly be recorded on set or to improve audio quality as the original may not be of a high enough standard.
An example where a Foley artist has added sounds in post production is in The Hunger Games.
My favourite film soundtrack is almost any Star Wars soundtrack but most specifically Duel of the Fates from Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace composed by John Williams, this soundtrack features an orchestra and a choir which rise and fall in volume as we follow the fight between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. The choir builds in intensity as the three race around the palace while in the midst of an epic duel and then rapidly diminishes as the three get separated.
The sound editor is responsible for all of a film’s sound elements, including dialogue, sound effects, and automated dialogue replacement and more. Once this has been done the sound mixer can start to work.
The sound mixer decides how an audience hears everything in a film. The sound mixer must decide what elements to emphasize and which to tone down. Like for example the score getting louder to emphasis an emotion.
Donnie Darko is a 2001 psychological thriller by Richard Kelly in which a young boy called Donnie Darko who has mental problems befriends Frank who is a man in a bunny costume, Frank tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds and Danny has to try stop it.
The film opens with low key light which sets the dark tone for the film, and whenever Frank appears we have a very low key light and he is often lit by moonlight or a faint light source which gives him this eerie and unsettling aura especially when paired with his striking metallic bunny mask and furry costume. As we open the film Donnie is in his pyjamas far from home outside, this is unusual which again helps set the tone for this supernatural film, and Donnie’s lack of any sort of confusion shows how he is used to unnatural occurrences in his day to day life, also the fact that he is in his pyjamas away from home shows how he is out of place both geographically and in society as an outcast.
