Script Reading Project

HOMEWORK: Please read the article on Documentaries for Friday. You will be starting a documentary film project next week. In addition, please read your chosen script (see below):


As potential writers and makers of films, it is important that you get to know the proper format for creating a film script. Since the Golden Age of Film is so heavily dependent on sound, and therefore dialogue, these film scripts are a good example of tightly written, albeit talky, stories. Please choose one of the following scripts to read by next week. You will be required to write an analysis paper examining material that will be covered next class regarding the script you choose. Use the time in lab to read after you have completed your viewing of the film clips from the 1930's below.

Scripts:

Duck Soup (Marx Brothers), written by Bert Kelmer, Harry Ruby, Grover Jones (formatted correctly)

Grand Hotel, written by Bela Belazs (formatted correctly)

The Wizard of Oz, written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allen Woolf (formatted correctly)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, written by Robert Riskin & Clarence Kelland (dialogue formatted incorrectly)

It Happened One Night, written by Robert Riskin (formatted incorrectly from a transcript)

Early 1930's film clips

The 1930's is considered the Golden Age of Film. Please review and take notes on these following film clips. You should note who is starring in which roles and how certain actors and directors helped shape the genres we now recognize in film today. You will be tested on the material found here, so please watch attentively and make some observations about film in the 1930's.

As for camera work, there are few tricks being used with cameras. Angles are mostly eye-level, with medium, long, and close up shots being used with transitions such as the wipe, the iris, fade to black to indicate scene changes. There is still rear projection, tracking shots, dolly shots, and elaborate sets (particularly for war and epic films), but overall, the feel of 1930's film is like watching a play. With the invention of sound, movies rely on written dialogue to move the plot and develop character (as opposed to using solely a visual medium). Famous directors and writers such as Frank Capra, Walt Disney and writer George S. Kaufman to name only a few make their appearance in this era. Since sound is a new invention, the use of music is an important element. See what other details you can observe as you watch the clips:

Hell's Angels (1930) Premiere clip (not the film, but the hubbub about the film)
Hell's Angels (1930) clip with Jean Harlow

Anna Christie (1930) With Greta Garbo

Tarzan, The Ape Man (1932) Johnny Weissmuller

Morocco (1930) with Marlene Dietrich


Grand Hotel (1932) with Joan Crawford & John Barrymore

King Kong (1933) starring a large gorilla, Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray
King Kong (2nd clip)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) Clark Gable & Charles Laughton

Captain Blood (1935) with Errol Flynn & Basil Rathbone (documentary clip)

Universal Horror Films:
Dracula (1931) Bela Lugosi (Tod Browning's version)
Dracula (clip 2)
Frankenstein (1931) with Boris Karloff
Frankenstein (2nd clip)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1932) with Boris Karloff
Bride of Frankenstein (2nd clip)
Freaks (1932) Tod Browning director
The White Zombie (1932) Bela Lugosi
The Mummy (1932) Boris Karloff
The Invisible Man (1933) with Claude Rains
The Black Cat (1934) Karloff & Lugosi

Screwball & Marx Brothers Comedies:
Animal Crackers (1930) with the Marx Brothers
Duck Soup (1934)
A Night At the Opera (cabin scene) (1935)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn & Cary Grant
The Thin Man (1934) with Myrna Loy & William Powell
The Thin Man (2nd clip)

Frank Capra films:
It Happened One Night (1934) Claudette Colbert & Clark Gable
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Gary Cooper
Lost Horizon (1937) and clips from the film...
You Can't Take it With You (1938) with a very young Jimmy Stewart
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) with Jimmy Stewart

Gangster Films:
The Public Enemy (1931)
Scarface (1932)

Westerns:
Cimarron (1930)
Stagecoach (1939) John Wayne (John Ford directing)

War Films:
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Musicals:
The Gay Divorcee (1934) Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Top Hat (1935) Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Swing Time (1936) Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire (again)
42 Street (1933)

Animation:
Flowers and Trees (1932) Walt Disney, but starring no one important
Disney's The Three Little Pigs (1933)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Disney
Another selection from Snow White.

Popeye the Sailor (1933) with Betty Boop (and Popeye, of course)

Blockbuster Technicolor films:
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn

The Golden Age of Film & The Music Box

Check the Oscar results here.

Please answer the following ?'s using Tim Dirk's website:

1. What time period is considered Hollywood's Golden Age? Why was it considered thus?
2. Name a few "firsts" in the 1930's film industry.
3. Who was Josef von Sternberg & Marlene Dietrich?
4. Describe early talkies. What sorts of movies and quality were these?
5. What innovations in color film occurred in Hollywood's Golden Age?
6. Which 5 major film studios dominated the Golden Age?
7. What film was the top grossing film of the 1930's? Who produced it?
8. What was the star system? How did this affect filmmakers and studios?
9. Who were some of the biggest stars of this time period?
10. Who were some of the biggest directors? (and give a sample of their films: genre & title)

Due at the end of period 1.

Please research Laurel & Hardy & Hal Roach. Who were these people? What did they do to influence the film industry?

Then, as a class, we will be watching the short film: The Music Box (1932)

Unit Test, Early Film Stars & The Academy Awards

Today please take a minute or two to review your notes. I will answer any questions you may have, then we will take the exam.

After completing the exam, please do both of the following:

1. Please review the wallwisher entries. Look under COMMENTS, copy and paste the URL for various wallwisher projects. You should be familiar with every entry, so please take notes about who the actor/artist was and what is most important about them. You will be quizzed on these actors in the future.

2. Go to the website: Predict the Oscars (link here). Predict the Oscar winners. Information about the films is also included, so even if you don't know the film or haven't seen it, you can get some information about it.

The Academy Awards will be viewed Sunday, March 7th. Please watch.

Eisenstein & Battleship Potemkin (Montage)

Please read the handout about Eisenstein and the creation of the montage. Click here for a very famous scene from the movie: Battleship Potemkin called the Odessa Steps.

Review for Unit Exam in Film

Styles of film: realism, classicism, formalism
Early film invention: Magic Lantern Daguerreotype Celluloid Kinetoscope Mutoscope
Praxinoscope
Edweard Muybridge
The Lumiere Brothers
Pathe Frere Manufacturing Company
Thomas Edison and the Edison Manufacturing Company
The Black Maria
Hepworth Manufacturing Company
George Melies
Persistence of Vision
Etinnene-Jules Marey
George Eastman
Edwin S. Porter
Hepworth's films:Rescued by Rover ; How It Feels to be Run Over;
Explosion of a Motor Car
Actualities & Blue Movies
Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp
Edwin S. Porter's films: The Great Train Robbery ; Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Melies' A Trip to the Moon
D.W. Griffith and his contribution to film (also his Intolerance, Way Down East, and Birth of a Nation)
Lillian Gish
Early film comedy and comedians
Charlie Chaplin (The Rink, various films)
Buster Keaton (The Paleface, The General, various films)
Other important film stars: Douglas Fairbanks sr., Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Janet Gaynor, Clara Bow, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, Conrad Viedt, etc.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle & his scandal (Hays Code chapter)
Hollywood (the origin and development of)
The Academy Awards
Eisenstein & Montage & Battleship Potemkin (Odessa Step sequence)
Types of Shots (close up, medium shot, full shot, deep focus shot, long shot, extreme close up and long shots, panning, dolly/tracking shot, etc.)
Types of Angles (high, low, bird's eye, oblique, etc.)
Early independent film studios/the Hollywood Studio System
Early major film studios (1920-1930)
Sid Grauman
MPPDA & AMPAS
Early sound in film & The Jazz Singer
The Hays Code
Film Reviews and how to write them
Coming up with Ideas for a Film (articles)

Sound in Film

Joseph P. Maxfield (AT&T’s Bell Laboratories) invented the first phonograph linked to film (licensed by Victor as the Orthophonic Victrola) which became the basis for the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system.

The Vitaphone allowed actors to lipsync their performance while the sound was recorded after; (This helped to popularize animation!)

The first sound film was Don Juan in 1926. The Jazz Singer (1927), directed by Alan Crosland, starring famous vaudeville actor, Al Jolson is popularly given this award. Really both films were songs or music in Don Juan's case, that were played along and synched with the film.
The Jazz Singer gave birth to the Hollywood musical genre.

Warner Bros. and Fox Film began wiring their theatres for sound as early as 1926. By 1928, Western Electric developed a sound-on-film system, which later developed a new competitive major studio: Radio-Keith-Orpheum or RKO.

The conversion to sound created both positive and negative effects for Film:

Positive:
A. Led to a revival of national film elsewhere in the world
B. Cinema owners did not have to hire musicians for an in-house orchestra
C. Silent films were easier to distribute across the world (no need to translate) which later creates the need for dubbing (1932 -- ex. Paramount studios); before this, multi-lingual films make stars like Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Bela Lugosi, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, and Peter Lore more important--since they can speak different languages (and therefore sync their voices to film).
D. Film became a single media event
E. Films came to the theatres as final products, whole and complete
F. The immersive qualities of film and the viewer become inseparable
G. Dialogue became a necessity to tell the plot of a film

Negative:
A. Produced panic and confusion in Hollywood
B. Many musicians lost their jobs
C. Early sound films from America were boycotted by certain countries; films were not as widely distributed, more costly to translate.
D. Silent film culture was destroyed
E. Films did not require additional music, some ambiance was lost -- sound film was seen as the killer of “film as the seventh art form”
F. Film was no longer a “theatrical” or “artistic” event
G. Dialogue became a necessity to tell the plot of a film