KPB109: Film, Screen and Animation Histories

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Week 9 - Extra What Makes a Video Essay Great?

Interesting insight from Fandor Keyframe on how to make a great video essay today. It is not about packing it full with information, references and scholar articles, but creating it with your own voice, style and technique. Greta video essay might be short with supercut of common theme of pattern scenes (singing, dancing), but also with no commentary showing only the compilation of specific scenes. Video essay becomes a new tool of commercial for movie.

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Week 9 - The essay film – some thoughts of discontent Activity 2

In the article Kevin B. Lee wonders if the video essays become a new form of media consumption and if does this type of production herald an exciting new era for media literacy? Self-appointed practitioners create supercuts, list-based montages and fan videos with less critical insight into their source material and offer a new way for the pop culture to express themselves. Video essay give people opportunity to show what we thing on what we see – films, movies, Tv shows, etc.

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Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent | Sight & Sound

I cannot recall how the term ‘video essay’ came to be the adopted nomenclature for the ever-increasing output of online videos produced over the past few years by an ever-growing range of self-appointed practitioners (including myself). My own entrance into this field was an organic synthesis of my backgrounds as a film critic and a filmmaker, two modes that had competed with each other in my mind until I started to pursue the possibilities of critically exploring cinema through the medium itself. This practice is readily possible in an age when digital technology enables virtually anyone with a computer (not even a video camera, as images are overly abundant and accessible) to produce media with nearly as much ease as it is to consume it.

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Week 9 - Video essay example

Contains: - examples from the films - found archival footage - carefully planned narration - soundtrack from original films - carefully timed edits (vision and sound work together for impact)

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Week 9 - Creating a video essay. (Michael Dezuanni)

Lecture Notes Creating a video essay. (Michael Dezuanni) •   Selecting a topic •   Gathering moving and still images •   Writing a script •   Putting it together.

- 3 historical questions to be applied - what impact on style, on industry, audience expectations - understanding of screen history (industry) - industry difficult to predict in what’s is going to happen (in the future) Assessment 2 - type of analysis - video essay - screen analysis - still + moving images + voice over (explain what is going on) + 750 words script (6 valid sources) + referencing - academic video essay + high quality research Selecting Topic: 1. Changes in camera technology - eg digital camera 2. Changes in film technology - eg arrival of 16mm, black & white camera 3. Changes in camera rigs - GoPro in Tv industry 4. Changes in sound technology - different texts, examples from across the history 5. Changes in effects technology - special effects 6. Changes in computer technologies Essay Apply your example of technological change: - to several examples (6 minimum) to show breadth of impact - one primary example to show depth of impact - discuss the impact on industry and audiences as well  3 Types of resources: - research quotas and facts - examples of production you discuss - archival footage to weave in (can be still) How? 1. Write your script (750 words) 2. Time table (plan your essay)

Time (when in essay, script) | Sound (what you want to say) | Image (used image/ video) example 3. Sound recording - record good sound (quite place) Important! - provide resources (not for everything) - academic resources (yes) - CONTENT of video essay is the most important - RESEARCH - writing the SCRIPT - VISUALS

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The film industry today | Frank Smitch (TEDxChapmanU)

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Week 8 - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Activity 2 - video reading In 1954, two producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff and director Roger Corman created American International Pictures (AIP). They were creating action and horror B-class movies for specific targeted group and Arkoff first in industry used focused group research to identify who their audiences were and what they wanted to watch. AIP was producing movies for new emerging audiences, especially for youth at drive-in cinemas. There were no censorship and barriers. API produced movies about young criminals and renegades, car chases and ‘rock-and-roll’ movies, with new type of horror movies with teens as main characters. B-movies were making lots of money.  Major studios didn’t take an opportunity of producing low budget movies and totality ignored young audiences. Big mistake.   

‘OLD’ Hollywood - studio system collapsed - all stages were destroyed 60s - big movies were not making money - American films became meaningless ‘NEW’ Hollywood - strong sense of revolution - foreign films were finding new emerging audience - art theaters (to see foreign movies) - French New Wave - Mickey One – new style of movie (Warren Beatty) - King of The B’s movies - Roger Corman (Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola) - drive-in audiences watched and liked more action and horror movies more than the films from major studios - Corman allows people to experiment with camera - time of Vietnam war protests - youth oriented B-movies (boom time) - Monkeys (American copy of The Beatles) - ‘Freedom Man’ Movies: 
- Alphaville (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) - Bonnie and Clyde (dir.Arthur Penn, 1967) - The Wide Angels (dir.Roger Corman, 1966) - Roman Rosemary's Baby (dir.Polanski, 1968) - Easy Rider (dir.Dennis Hooper, 1969) - Midnight Cowboy (dir. John Schlesinger,1969) In 1954, two producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff and director Roger Corman created American International Pictures (AIP). They were creating action and horror B-class movies for specific targeted group and Arkoff first in industry used focused group research to identify who their audiences were and what they wanted to watch. AIP was producing movies for new emerging audiences, especially for youth at drive-in cinemas. There were no censorship and barriers. API produced movies about young criminals and renegades, car chases and ‘rock-and-roll’ movies, with new type of horror movies with teens as main characters. B-movies were making lots of money.  Major studios didn’t take an opportunity of producing low budget movies and totality ignored young audiences. Big mistake.  

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Week 8 - Martin Scorsese & Stephen Soderbergh (15 min. mini lecture)

Martin Scorsese - cinema tragic - in love with the medium of film - Italian noerealism - uses knew technologies (old process) - great filmmaker - Born NYC (1942) - married 5 times - over 50 over years as a director - received many reward - he’s collaborator ( with other creative parties) - Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio actors to work with many times -  The Irishman (2018) Roger Corman “school” - Boxcar Bertha (1971) - always be well prepared - most important filmmaker New Hollywood - exposed to French New Wave - new ideas, new blood Martin Scorsese & Stephen Soderbergh - born 1963 - Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) success - independent filmmaking - Ocean’s Trilogy - he doesn’t want to be a brand - versatility - moral consequences of lying - inspired by Scorsese

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Week 8 - Activity 1

In my opinion, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) is one of the greatest movies of all time.  It’s a masterpiece of sci-fi genre. Kubrick set up new horizon for popular science movies and re-identified movie borders in terms of contemplation on human nature. The movie gave audiences an experience of space travel and futuristic vision on how our life may look in the distant future. But the most important aspect of the film is the way of how Kubrick created the movie. He used long shoots to maximized visual impact. Lighting to create more dramatic with high-tension sequences. The famous one-point perspective, where the frame is very symmetric and precise, with horizontal lines and vanishing point. And one of my favorite experimental shooting tricks is a long hallway shot or rather hallway shot stabilizer. Kubrick defiantly set up the bar high for sci-fi movie production in terms of the vision, aesthetics, attention to details, special effects, and the atmosphere.  We can see Kubrick influence in movies like Solaris (1972), Dark Star (1974), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), The Abyss (1980) or Prometheus (2012).

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Week 8 - History of screen texts, industries and audiences 1977 – 2016 
(Ruari Elkington)

Lecture Notes

Hollywood 
- physical location
 - multi-dollar industry 
- it’s a brand
 - global entertainment industry 

Blockbusters
- “Jaw”, “Star Wars” movies

 Today
 - massive chooses to navigate through 
- fragmented audiences (gone) 

How audiences connect with text? (film, tv, etc.) 
- Cinema theatres 
- TV 
- VHS (Format Wars) 
- Cable TV 
- Laserdisc
 - DVD 
- Blu-ray (FW)
 - Digital download & Streaming (FW?)

 --- - audiences could record movies, tv shows at home
 - each format is a progression in screen history 
- video stores are dying (Blockbuster video store) 
- rise of VOD - video on demand (streaming & subscribing)
 - iTunes are a storefront 
- Netflix as a rental storefront, 80+M subscribers in 190 countries --- 

Netflix 
- investment in own content (original) up to 50% by 2020
 - consumer data insight 

Social Media & Transmedia
 - how much sharing (FB,etc.) of the movie trailer 
- algorithm (customer data provided)  

“Jaws” & “Star Wars” Blockbusters 
Industry:
 - financial success
 - huge impact on industry 
- huge event
 - pressure on sequels 
 - intellectual property 
- merchandising and franchising idea
 - ‘New Hollywood’
 Audiences:
 - cultural phenomenon 
- continuous engagement 
- less movies in cinemas 
- people moving to the suburbs - rise of the multiplex
 - driving theatres 
- home entertainment (watching at home)

   

 New Hollywood 
- auteur theory 
 - European appreciation of American 1950s films and history 
- liberal film education 
- Roger Corman “school” B films
 - actors and directors has more freedom (negotiations, contracts, agents, etc.) 



Superhero mega-franchise blockbusters
 - key holidays release dates
 - explosion of choice
- consumer attention 

 Hollywood 2016
 - very good at every change 
- has a deep understanding of its product
 - film as a commodity and cultural work
 - they know what to do in terms of films
 - always adapt to the changing market
- spreading the risk that they hav

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Week 8 - Lecture

History of screen texts, industries and audiences 1977 – 2016 
(Ruari Elkington)

-    Legacy of the Blockbuster mentality, multiplex cinemas

-    Home video – the Blockbuster chain

-    The rise (again) of special effects cinema

-    The rise of independents, the film school generation, low budget production

-    Subscription, VOD services

-    Transmedia and social media



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EnVyUs at ESL One Cologne 2015: The Movie

Our fresh EnVy CS team gave us all thrills at ESL One Cologne. This short documentary movie gives you a closer look at the team's run to the Grand Final thro...

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Half-Life (1998) - Assessment Research Visuals, Graphics, Characters, Plot