Oscar Michaeux, Alice Guy Blache, & Famous Silent Film Actors

The first African American film director:

Oscar Michaeux: Within Our Gates (1919) (music underscore added recently) and his film.

And the first female director:
Alice Guy Blache
The Pit and the Pendulum (1913)
Various films by the early filmmaker Alice Guy.

A little gender bending: Vitagraph's A Florida Enchantment

Comedy master Mack Sennet: Keystone Kops with Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle

Various famous Hollywood actors:
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the Thief of Baghdad (1924), The Mark of Zorro (1920);
Rudolph Valentino's The Son of the Shiek (1926) & the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Blood and Sand (1924)
Mary Pickford (1917) The Poor Little Rich Girl
America's Lovebirds or America's Sweethearts:Janet Gaynor & Charles Farrell
Clara Bow in It (1927)
Conrad Viedt
The Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney, The Phantom of the Opera (complete silent film, 1924), The Unmasking Scene from Phantom, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Unit Test: Film Origin to 1920

Styles of film: realism, classicism, formalism
Film Treatment (how to write one) & film pitch
Early film invention: Magic Lantern Daguerreotype Celluloid Kinetoscope Mutoscope
Praxinoscope
Edweard Muybridge, photography, & the Zoopraxinoscope
The Lumiere Brothers & their films (The Sprinkler Sprinkled, Arrival of a Train, etc.)
Pathe Frere Manufacturing Company (Charles Pathe)
Pathe Films: Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp; Onesime the Clock Maker; Slippery Jim; The Policeman's Little Run
Thomas Edison and the Edison Manufacturing Company: various films (Sandow the Strongman, Serpentine Dances, Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz (1910), Uncle Josh films, Life of an American Fireman, etc.
The Black Maria
Hepworth Manufacturing Company (Cecil B. Hepworth)
Hepworth's films:Rescued by Rover ; How It Feels to be Run Over;
Explosion of a Motor Car; That Fatal Sneeze; Alice in Wonderland
George Melies & A Trip to the Moon
Persistence of Vision
Etinnene-Jules Marey
George Eastman
Edwin S. Porter & his films: The Great Train Robbery ; Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Actualities & Blue Movies
D.W. Griffith and his contribution to film (also his Intolerance, Way Down East, and Birth of a Nation)
Billy Bitzer
Lillian Gish
Early film comedy and comedians (particularly The Keystone Kops, Mack Sennet, etc.)
Charlie Chaplin (various films)
Buster Keaton (One Week, The General, various films)
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle & his scandal (Hays Code chapter)
Hollywood (the origin and development of)
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
MPPC, MPPDA & AMPAS
The Hays Code
German Expressionism
F. W. Murnau & Nosferatu
Robert Weine & The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Birt Acres
R.W. Paul
Alice Guy-Blache
Mack Sennett
Oscar Micheaux
Other important film stars: Douglas Fairbanks sr., Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Janet Gaynor, Clara Bow, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, Conrad Viedt, etc.
Auteur, Story, Plot, Order, Narration, Narrative Form
Diegesis
Scene, Sequence, Frequency, Ellipsis
Motif
Space, Viewing Time, Duration
Film Reviews and how to write them

Treatment Due & German Expressionism

Expresssionism

“Why should an artist duplicate the real world when it already exists for everyone to see?”

• Begins in Europe around 1906 in painting and theatre
• Style is unrealistic, stylized
• Attention often given to angles
• Distorted perspectives
• Narrow, tall streets and buildings (set pieces)
• Lighting is “dramatic”; Use of shadows
• Actors are grotesque, exaggerated make-up
• Dark, nightmarish tones & moods
• Attempt to show the interior lives of characters through exteriors
• Expressionism influences Futurism (and Modernism)
• Expressionism influences Film Noir in the 1930’s

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – Robert Weine (director) 1919

On Youtube.com, please view clips from the following:

Murnau's Nosferatu (1922)
Wegener's Der Golem (1920)
Leni's' The Cat and the Canary (1927)

These movies, along with Dr. Caligari, are influential in creating the "horror" genre in film. Why is expressionism a good stylistic choice for horror films?

Murnau: Nosferatu (1922) Full film
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (full film)
Der Golem (full film)
The Cat and the Canary (full film - silent)

Contemporary films like this one also pay homage to the style: Careful by Guy Maddin (1992)

Buster Keaton: The Great Stone Face

It is important to realize that actors back in the early days of film really did their own stunts. Comedy and slapstick particularly were rather dangerous. Here's a homage to Buster Keaton, one of the greatest early film comedians: A Montage of Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank Keaton was given his professional name by Harry Houdini. "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), was an American comic actor and filmmaker. He got his start as part of a vaudeville act and later co-starred with plump actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in "The Butcher Boy". Here's a clip of one of their films. He is best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was farce or physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton as one of the greatest male actors of all time. His film The General is listed as one of the greatest 100 films. (You can watch The General in its entirety below).

For those of you most interested in Keaton's life and work, here's an excellent website.

Take a look at some of his work:

One Week (1920)

The Paleface (1921)

The Haunted House (1921)

The Scarecrow (1920)

The General (1927) Full Length Feature Film
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) Full Length Feature Film

Film Treatment for a Silent Film Project

What is a Film Treatment?
A pitch is used to convince a film company to produce your film. The pitch is usually a one page summary of the main action, characters, and setting of the film. Essentially it deals with the idea.

The film treatment is usually a 2-5 page document that tells the whole story focusing on the highlights. It is more detailed than a pitch. It can include a scene by scene breakdown of a script. It is used BEFORE writing the real script so the author can plan his/her project.

How To Write a Treatment
The treatment should read like a short story and be written in the present tense. It should present the entire story including the ending, and use some key scenes and dialogue from the screenplay it is based on.

What Should Be in the Treatment?

1. A Working title
2. The writer's name
3. Introduction to key characters
4. Who, what, when, why and where. All the essentials of storytelling.
5. Act 1 in one to three paragraphs. Set the scene, dramatize the main conflicts.
6. Act 2 in two to six paragraphs. Should dramatize how the conflicts introduced in Act 1 lead to a crisis.
7. Act 3 in one to three paragraphs. Dramatize the final conflict and resolution.

The Three Act Structure
Basic screenplay structure for a full length film usually has three acts.

In The Poetics, Aristotle suggested that all stories should have a beginning, middle, and an end. Well, duh. You know that. But really. You need to remember this advice.

Breaking the plot of a story into three parts, gives us a 3-part or act structure. The word "act" means "the action of carrying something out. For our purposes think act one (beginning), act two (middle), and act three (end) of your short film.

Act 1, called the Set-up, The situation and characters and conflict are introduced. This classically is 30 minutes long. For a short film it can be only a few minutes or less than 1 minute.

Act 2, called The Conflict, often an hour long, is where the conflict begins and expands until it reaches a crisis. For our purposes a minute or two will suffice.

Act 3, called The Resolution, the conflict rises to one more crisis (the last one called the climax) and then is resolved.

How To Write The Treatment
Find A Title

The first contact a prospective producer has with a script is the title. Pick a title that gives a clear idea of what genre the screenplay is written in. Blood House is probably not a romantic comedy. Americans like one or two word titles: Psycho, Saw, Year One, Rocky, Pan's Labyrinth, Animal House, Tangled, Avatar, etc.

After a title, start a logline: a brief one sentence summary of the movie. For example: And Then Came Love is a character-driven romantic comedy about a high-powered Manhattan single mom who opens Pandora's box when she seeks out the anonymous sperm donor father of her young son.

Your treatment should include a synopsis.

Begin by expanding the logline into a three-act story Start with the end. For example, The Silence Of The Lambs:

Act 3: Clarice Starling catches the killer and saves the intended victim.

Then break down this synopsis into three acts. For example,

Act 1: While still a student at The FBI, Clarice is asked to help on a case. She's eager to help and interviews Hannibal Lector who gives her a clue.

Act 2: With his help, she is able to overcome many obstacles, and finds the identity of the killer.

Act 3: She confronts the killer, saves his intended victim and atones for the death of the lamb. The scriptwriter should follow this break down for his or her story, and then expand this into a synopsis that is about 2-5 pages in length.

Get into groups of 1-2. You may, if you wish, work alone, but feel free to choose a person you can work with.

Work together or alone to create a treatment for a silent film.

Treatment sample #1
Treatment sample #2

Charlie Chaplin - The Lovable Tramp

"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl." -Sir Charles Chaplin

Sir Charles Chaplin (1889-1977)

• Born in London, UK to theatrical parents
• Chaplin’s childhood was one of extreme poverty and hardship
• Abandoned by an alcoholic father and left with a mentally unstable mother who was unable to support him, he struggled through life in the poor house and on the streets
• He learnt much of his timing and technique in the employment of impresario Fred Karno (1866-1941) whose troupe he left during an American tour in 1913
• Offered a contract by Keystone Films
• After 1914, he convinced Keystone producer Mack Sennett to allow him to direct his own films - often wrote, directed, acted and composed his own musical scores for his films
• In many silent shorts, he established the grammar and ground rules of screen comedy using his physical dexterity and pantomime skills to create expertly choreographed, visually humorous entertainment that mixed irreverence, romance, and pathos (feeling)
• Co-founder of United Artists in 1919
• Married Oona O’Neill (daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill)
• His left-wing sympathies caused him to emigrate to Switzerland during the 1950’s, McCarthy period
• He published his autobiography in 1964 and was knighted in 1975
• Chaplin died on Christmas day, 1977
• A writer Performer, director, composer and icon, he was a vital figure in the development of the screen comedy Films (incomplete list): Making a Living (1913) Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) The Champion (1915) The Tramp (1915) The Pawnshop (1916) The Rink (1916) A Dog’s Life (1918) The Kid (1921) The Gold Rush (1925) City Lights (1931) Modern Times (1936) The Great Dictator (1940) Limelight (1952) A King in New York (1957) A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)

Take a look at some of Chaplin's Films:

Table ballet sequence from "The Gold Rush"

The Tramp (1915)
The Kid (1921) trailer
The Lion's Cage clip from the Circus (1928)
The Gold Rush (1925) sound and words added later
City Lights (1931)
Modern Times (1936)
The Great Dictator (1940)

D. W. Griffith

D.W. Griffith was called the "Father of film technique" & "the man who invented Hollywood"

Birth of a Nation trailer.

With cinematographer G.W. Bitzer, he created and perfected the film devices:

the iris shot
the flashback
crosscutting

He directed the very controversial The Birth of a Nation (1915) Based on Thomas Dixon's stage play "The Clansman" Over 3 hours long, the racist epic included a cast of hundreds. The film contained many new film innovations:

Special use of subtitles
Its own musical score with orchestra
Introduction of night photography
Used a "still shot"
Used an "Iris shot"
Used parallel action
Used panning and tracking shots
Used close-ups to reveal intimate expressions of actors
Used fade outs and cameo-profiles
Used high-angles and panoramic (extreme) long shots
Used cross cutting between two scenes to create excitement and suspense

Here's a clip from Birth of a Nation.

A year later his masterpiece Intolerance (1916) was made as a reaction to the censorship of Birth of a Nation

Part one: Intolerance.

In 1919 he established the film company United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and William S. Hart

Overall, Griffith directed over 500 films. He retired in 1931 and died in Los Angeles in 1948. In 1975 his picture was on a post stamp. But by 1999, The Director's Guild of America's National Board renamed the prestigious D.W. Griffith Award (first given in 1953 to such directors as Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, and Cecil B. DeMille) because of Griffith's racism.

"We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue - the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word - that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare."
D.W. Griffith (1915)

"If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain." - D. W. Griffith (1915)

Please take a look at these clips and films starring Lilian Gish.

Way Down East (1920) Probably the most amazing stunt ever pulled in cinema history. Please realize that these actors really were doing their own stunts. That water is cold and yes, those are ice floes.

Orphans of the Storm (1921) (with sister Dorothy Gish)
Judith of Bethulia (1913) (entire film)