Thursday's Class

During first period, if you are taking an AP course this year, please check in and go to the ensemble theater 1st period to fill out essential test-taking forms for your AP exam (first two weeks in May).

All others, please complete your films, watch the 1940's film clips & take notes.

HOMEWORK: None (unless your film is not finished or you haven't turned in your Metropolis paper or you have not watched the clips from the 1930's and 1940's and taken notes on them, or you haven't read the article on Citizen Kane & Snow White).

Laurel & Hardy, The Little Rascals, and 1940's film clips

As you continue to edit and work on your film projects, please watch the following clips and take notes about content, directors/actors and genre of film.

Laurel and Hardy

The Music Box (1932) Winner of the Academy Awards for Best Short Subject
The Flying Deuces (1939) Full Film
Nothing But Trouble (1944)

The Little Rascals (various clips/films):
Spooky Hooky
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Golf
We Want Cake

Whatever Happened to the Little Rascals (information, although a bit grim)

Film Noir
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
And another from Casablanca (1942)
Gaslight (1944) starring Angela Lansbery, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
Double Indemnity (1944) Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray, Edward G. Robinson
Mildred Pierce (1945) starring Joan Crawford
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) Lana Turner
The Big Sleep (1946) Humphrey Bogart
The Third Man (1949) Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten

Alfred Hitchcock:
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Rebecca (1940) Laurence Olivier
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Joseph Cotten
Life Boat (1944) Talula Bankhead
Notorious (1946) Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman

Walt Disney:
Fantasia (1940)
Pinocchio (1940)
Dumbo (1941)

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) with Sabu and Conrad Veidt
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Orson Welles
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) Gary Cooper & Ingrid Bergman

Abbot & Costello:
Buck Privates (1941)
Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Elizabeth Taylor (child star) and animal star films:
Lassie Come Home (1943)
National Velvet (1944)

Frank Capra:
Arsenic & Old Lace (1944) Cary Grant
It's a Wonderful Life (1946) James Stewart
Miracle on 34th street (1947) Natalie Wood & Maureen O'Hara

Horror:
Cat People (1942)
I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942) Boris Karloff & Lon Chaney Jr.
House of Dracula (1945)
House of Frankenstein (1944) Boris Karloff & Lon Chaney Jr.
The Mummy's Tomb (1942) Lon Chaney Jr.
The Uninvited (1944) Ray Miland

Silent Film Project Deadline Thursday

Your silent films should be completed (edited, etc.) by Thursday and turned in. Please use this time in the lab today to complete your work.

Metropolis Paper Due! Continue Editing Silent Film

Your Metropolis paper is due today by the end of class (see previous posts for details). Please continue editing your silent film projects.

Snow White (part 1)
Snow White: Heigh Ho song
Snow White: Someday My Prince Will Come
Snow White: Ending

HOMEWORK: Please read "Snow White" and "Citizen Kane" for Tuesday's class.

Silent Film Project/Metropolis Film Analysis Paper

Please work on your silent film editing. Please work on your Metropolis Film Analysis paper (due Friday).

With time remaining, please read and take notes on the clips for Technicolor and the 1930's stars and films posted below.

Technicolor

Color tends to be a subconscious element in film. It has an emotional appeal which often suggests mood of the film or characters in it. At its most effective, complimentary characters are dressed in complimentary colors--antagonists are dressed in contrasting colors to their protagonists. Characters can match or contrast their settings and a whole host of other useful symbols can be created with color.

The first Technicolor film was THE GULF BETWEEN (U.S., 1917), a five-reeler made by Technicolor Motion Picture Corp. in Florida mainly for trade showings in eastern cities, to create interest in color movies among producers and exhibitors. It did not receive nationwide distribution. A lost film today, only a few frames survive.

The first two strip Technicolor feature made in Hollywood, and the first to receive nationwide distribution, was the costume drama THE TOLL OF THE SEA (1922).
Another silent movie filmed entirely in two strip Technicolor was the swashbuckler THE BLACK PIRATE (U.S., 1926), produced by and starring Douglas Fairbanks.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Cecil B. DeMille's epic, 1923) THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) BEN-HUR (1925) and KING OF KINGS (Cecil B. DeMille, 1926) used color as a gimmick or in parts.

The first all-talking Technicolor feature was the Warner Bros. musical ON WITH THE SHOW (1929).

All of the color films up to this point were two-color processes, which could capture only two of the three primary colors of light.

In 1932, Technicolor perfected a three-color motion picture process (also known as three-strip Technicolor, because three negatives were employed in the camera, one for each primary color of light -- red, green, and blue).

It was introduced with the Walt Disney cartoon FLOWERS AND TREES (1932), which won the first Academy Award for Animation. Walt Disney kept a monopoly on 3-color technicolor from 1932-1935.

The first feature-length movie in three-strip Technicolor was the costume comedy-drama BECKY SHARP (U.S., 1935)

Technicolor used a three color system: red, blue, green (these colors therefore are most vivid)

Early color was used as an expression (expressionism) of the director’s or cinematographer’s story, and so early films with color tend to be ones that are formalistic, artificial, or exotic. Color was often not used for “realistic” movies.

Warm colors: red, yellow, orange (brown)
Cool colors: Blue, green, violet (white)

Technicolor fragments.
Phantom of the Opera Masquerade Scene
During the 1930's, technicolor was still expensive. It was still being used as a movie gimmick as seen here. The Women (1939); here's the trailer.

Uploading Your Film: Silent Film editing & Metropolis Paper

Please upload your files to the computer and continue editing your film. By now your titles, intertitles, and end credits should be close to complete. Add new footage and edit.

If you are not editing (remember only 2 people at most from your group need to edit the film), please watch the previous film clips from previous posts covering the 1930's. Take notes where appropriate. You should know who directed and acted in these films.

Finally, spend some time today writing your Metropolis analysis paper. This paper is due Friday at the end of class. Start it, if you haven't done so yet.