Sunday, March 8, 2020

Documentary Project: Day 2; Minority Voices in Film History

Period 1:

Please use the first period to write and record your documentary script and work on your documentary project. Use your time to gather your researched notes (from last class) and write your voice over "script"--these should be a few paragraphs in length (your film should clock in about 1-3 minutes). See models from the previous post.

When you are done with your "script", please record your voice reading what you wrote. You may use your cell phones or the creative writing cameras to record your voice. You can also use your Chromebooks: (see instructions below...)

Directions for Submitting Video Files

So you created a video for your class and you want to submit it for a grade? 
Here are the steps you need to follow:
https://api.agilixbuzz.com/Resz/~EdcxAAAAAAQJKy2w-NB1AA.KThRnXRlcP9RKhv-yySbCA/48500091,EE,5,0/Assets/Images/MovieMakerMovie.pnghttps://api.agilixbuzz.com/Resz/~EdcxAAAAAAQJKy2w-NB1AA.KThRnXRlcP9RKhv-yySbCA/48500091,EE,5,0/Assets/Images/QuickTimeMovie%20.png
Using CHROME books: by Jack Wallen:
Filming short videos on a Chromebook is fast and easy. To do so, you need a Chromebook with a camera and your Chromebook must be associated with your Google Drive account.

Opening the Camera App
Before you can do anything, you'll need to log into your Chromebook.


Opening the Camera App
After you’ve logged on, follow these steps:

  1. Click the menu button located on the bottom left corner of the desktop.
  2. Type camera in the search bar.
  3. Make sure the camera icon is selected.
  4. Press Enter on your keyboard (or simply double-click the camera icon).
  5. Switching to Video Mode
By default, the camera app opens in camera mode. To switch it to video mode click on the icon that looks like video camera (directly to the left of the camera button at the bottom center of the app window). You are now in video mode and are ready to film your first Chromebook video.


Switching to camera mode.
Filming Your First Video

With the camera in video mode, click the oblong red button in the bottom center of the camera app window. You are now filming.


Filming your video.

While you are filming, the camera button will lightly pulse and the icon will change slightly to a more solid camera. When you’ve completed the filming session, click the oblong red button again and the session will stop.
Note: One thing you must know is that (especially for video) you’re going to need plenty of lighting. Natural lighting is your best option. If you cannot film outside, make sure you’re shooting your video in a room that is lit quite well. If your video looks grainy you don’t have enough light, regardless of which Chromebook you are using.

Saving Your Video
Saving your video.

After you’ve finished filming, you need to save the video. To do this:
  1. Select the Gallery icon (the double square in the bottom-right corner of the camera app).
  2. Inside the Gallery, select the video you want to save.
  3. Click Save (the downward-pointing arrow in the bottom right corner of the Gallery app).


The gallery app is now open.

After clicking the Save button, a new window will appear to help you determine where to save the file.


Saving your video to the local drive.

Since your Chromebook is associated with your Google Drive account, you have the option of saving it to the cloud. If you want to save it to the local drive, place it in the Downloads folder (under My Files).

Naming & Renaming Your Video
One rather odd thing about saving videos on a Chromebook: You cannot rename them in the saving process. The default name will be VID_DATE_TIME.webm (where DATE and TIME are the date and time you filmed the video).
Although you can't rename your video during the saving process, you can do it later.


Renaming your video.
If you want to rename your video, do the following:

  1. Click the menu button (bottom left corner of the desktop).
  2. Type the word files.
  3. Double-click on the Files app.
  4. Navigate to the folder housing your video.
  5. Two-finger tap the video file.
  6. Select Rename.
  7. Type a new name.
  8. Press Enter on your keyboard.
That’s all there is to renaming your video.

What To Do With Your Video
Fortunately, many services (such as YouTube) do support .webm files, so go ahead and upload that file to YouTube and share away.
If you find you need to convert your .webm video to a format like .mp4, there are online services (such as Video Converter) that do a good job of converting to almost any format.
Period 2: 
Minority Voices in Film History:

While most of the pioneers of early film were male Caucasians, the lack of minority voices in film was filled by two very important filmmakers: Alice Guy Blache and Oscar Micheux. While we will focus on these two primarily, they are far from the only minority voices around. Gay & Lesbian, Asian, Latino, and other influential filmmakers begin working in this time period.

Today, we will watch a few of their film clips and take notes of important details. By the end of the lesson you should begin to ask yourself the question: why is minority cinema important? What is the future of minority cinema? How does knowing a little history help minority artists?

Bert Williams' films: Fish (1916) and A Natural Born Gambler (1916) predate Oscar Michaeux as the first African American comedic actor to also write, direct, and star in his own films. Learn more about him here at this link.

Oscar Michaeux is credited as the first black film director. Within Our Gates (1919) (music underscore added recently) and his film in its entirety for those interested Within Our Gates (full film). Evelyn Preer was one of the early black actresses. She was also a popular singer. Here's one of her songs: It Takes a Good Woman to Keep a Good Man at Home. You can hear the rhythms of the jazz age (late 1920's). Think of the book Ragtime.

Zora Neale Hurston, writer and folklorist, made several film documentaries in the 1920's. Here's an example of some of her fieldwork (1928).

Sadly, in American film, the early work of female directors/writers is hard to find (or no longer exists). You can read about African American women's contribution to the film industry here. There's just not much to view. It is, also sadly, not until 1991 that the first African-American female director (Julie Dash) is allowed to make the first studio-produced and widely distributed film Daughters of the Dust. However, since then, more black female directors have joined the ranks.

The first female director is:
Alice Guy Blache
The Cabbage Fairy (1896)
The Life of Christ (1906) (our first religious epic depicted in film, predating Cecil B. DeMille)
The Consequences of Feminism (1906)
Falling Leaves (1912)
Algie The Miner (1912)

Lois Weber, an American female, was also a silent film actress and then director. She invented the first use of the split screen technique in her film Suspense (1913).
Other films include the Blot (1921) and Hypocrites (the first full frontal nudity depicted in film outside of "art film" like Edweard Muybridge's work.) She, too, is important.

As for gay and lesbian films of the early silent film era, there are a few. Apart from two men dancing in the film by Edison, the first depiction of one of the sissy stereotype characters is Algie the Miner (1912, sound track added). The first butch male-to-male kissing scene is the fall of Babylon sequence in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916). It also features a pretty kick-ass heroine: mountain girl.

A little gender bending: Vitagraph's A Florida Enchantment (1914); Here's Sidney Drew's full film: A Florida Enchantment (full film, 1914). This is considered the first lesbian film in the U.S.

German film was one of the first to tackle gay subjects head-on. Here's the film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919) by Richard Oswald. Here's a little about the significance of the film. It stars Conrad Veidt (more on him soon).

The lesbian film Madchen in Uniform was made in 1931 (and is a talky, so we won't but mention it here). If you're interested in this film, you may also like the 1933 film Anna und Elisabeth. (This is only a clip, sound is not original, of course.)

Recently, Barry Jenkins' film Moonlight (2016) won best picture and best-adapted screenplay in the Academy Awards.

Latino silent film information can be found here. There is little on line to watch (sorry about that). Bronco Billy and the Greaser (1914), directed by Gilbert Anderson (Bronco Billy). By far one of the most famous Latin actors was Antonio Moreno,  a Spanish-born actor/director, who often played the now stereotypical "Latin lover" role. Ramon Navarro (gay Mexican-American actor) was also popular during the 1920's was rumored to be Rudolph Valentino's secret lover. He ended up tragically murdered in 1968. Here's a link to a short amateur biography of the actor. He starred as Ben Hur in MGM's 1925 historical epic.

And Asian film star Sessue Hayakawa starred in such films as The Typhoon (1914) and The Dragon Painter (1919). He signed on with Paramount Pictures (Famous Players Lasky) where he worked with Cecil B. DeMille in such movies as The Cheat (1915). The first Japanese feature film was made in 1912, the Life Story of Tasuke Shiobara. Here is the Japanese film Jiraiya the Hero (20 min) in 1921.

Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) is one of the most important early documentary films ever filmed. It follows the life and times of the Inuit hunter Nanook and his family. It is considered the first feature-length ethnographic documentary. Flaherty shot over 50k feet of film to make the film--which he shot on location in the cold north of Hudson Bay, Canada over the period of 55 days, traveling with the Inuit over 600 miles.

The director Dadasaheb Phalke is considered the father of Indian film, although Asian film begins in the late 1890's. Here's his 1914 film Raja Harishchandra. It is interesting to note that the first optical toy (a primitive zoetrope) was invented by Ting Huan in 180 AD in China.

By the end of the silent film era, most countries have begun to make films. Of particular note are the directors we will look at next class: Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Wiene and F.W. Murnau (German Expression films).

HOMEWORK: Please read the chapter handout on Nanook of the North and the handout on the history of Blackface. You may watch any of the full films listed here for extra credit. See the previous post for details. 

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