Test: Film Origins to 1930's

Today, you will take the unit test for Film Origins to the 1930's. After the test, please use the time in the lab to read the packet on narratology, brainstorm some ideas for a script, continue working on reading your chosen script from IMDBscripts (see link to the side and the post below).

HOMEWORK: None. Read your chosen script.

Film Script Tips & Prep for Test

For next week, please log onto the film script site (the link is also posted to your right) and select a film script you'd like to read. Pick something you like or have seen. It will make for an easier reading time for you. NOTE: Not all screenplays are written in the correct script format. Some are transcribed by fans. The more marginal the film, the more likely the formatting will be off. As you read this script, please complete the 2-sided handout: "Plot Structure Worksheet."

Use some of the day in today's class to find and begin reading this script. Also, find some time to create and flesh out an idea or two. Use the handouts appropriately to help with this. The other handouts are divided into character and plot worksheets. These are generally for your benefit, and not all of the character design needs to be written, but it's a good way for you to consider the full-lives of your protagonist. You should attempt to complete the complete plot handout. This one's important. You won't need the scene sheet until you complete the plot sheet.

NOTE: Tips abound below. Keep reading for some writing advice.

THEN: Spend at least a period or so studying for the test. It's a big one and there's a lot of material on the test. Go back and click on those links you've avoided until now. Study, study, study.

1. Most of writing a screenplay (about 65%) is done in planning and prewriting.
2. Writing a screenplay is a succession of breakdowns: moving from the general to the specific.
3. Don't write a script for a movie you yourself wouldn't go see.
4. Remember the goal of every writer is to get an "emotional" response from your audience. Scripts that are too bland or boring or cliche, only anger an audience (and don't usually get made in the first place).

Writers think in different ways:

1. Inductively: from specific to the universal
2. Deductively: from the universal to the specific
3. Logically: How one thing causes another thing to happen
4. Non-logically: Absurdity or mere coincidence
5. Creatively: discovering hidden connections or relationships between two unrelated things (i.e. metaphorically)

It's okay to think in any of these ways. No one way is the right way. You, of course, can also combine these ways of thinking too.

Get ideas from:

1. Experience (personal or from those around you)
2. What you overhear (conversation)
3. News/Advertising
4. Photographs, paintings, visual art
5. Mind-mapping on a specific subject
6. Speculative brainstorming: asking: What if...?
7. Dreams and/or visualization
8. Free association
9. Adaptation (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.)
10. Intertexuality (stealing similar ideas from other sources)

After coming up with an idea, test its strength by asking:
1. Who, what, where, when, how, why?
2. Does it have "legs" - is it dramatic and interesting?
3. What's at stake for your character/protagonist?
4. Is the situation understandable or filmable?
5. Is the story too personal or vague?

Always play the devil's advocate when considering the validity of your writing/story/characters/plot, etc. What weaknesses are in your script? Try to fix them after writing a first draft or during the first draft, if you can.

HOMEWORK: Study. The unit test is next class. See posts below for test prep details. Select and read a script from the script site above or to the right of this page. Complete the plot point handout sheet for your chosen script.

Film Exam: Prep

Your unit test will cover the following material. All material mentioned was either referenced and discussed below in the blog (check and review blog entries), the handouts from Turning Points in Film, or from Tim Dirks website (Film History). Please refer to your notes and study. This test covers a lot, please study. Please. No. Really. Study.

• Styles of film: realism, classicism, formalism
• Film Treatment (how to write one) & definition of a film pitch
• Early film invention: Magic Lantern, Daguerreotype, Celluloid, Kinetoscope, Mutoscope, Praxinoscope, Thaumatrope, etc.
• 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
• Augustin Le Prince
• W.K.L. Dickson
• 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 Sennett, Mabel Normand, Harold Lloyd, etc.)
• Slapstick comedy & comedic technique
• Charlie Chaplin (various films; we watched the Rink in class, but others were mentioned)
• Buster Keaton (The Paleface, One Week, Sherlock Jr., The Haunted House, 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.) 
• Advice about Camera shots and editing
• 180 degree rule & various editing techniques
• 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
• Minorities in film 
• Other important film stars: Douglas Fairbanks sr., Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Janet Gaynor, Clara Bow, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, Conrad Viedt, Lois Weber, etc.
• Auteur, Story, Plot, Order, Narration, Narrative Form
• Narratology
• Diegesis
• Scene, Sequence, Frequency, Ellipsis
• Motif
• Space, Viewing Time, Duration
• Film Reviews and how to write them

Sergei Eisenstein & The Beginnings of Horror: German Expressionism

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Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore..

Montage song from South Park, Season 6.

As film continued to gain popularity, the film culture around the world inspired various directors and auteurs to create new and exciting films. The most influential film maker of early Russian film was Sergei Eisenstein.

Eisenstein is remembered in film for his contribution of the montage. The montage changed the way filmmakers approached film. It allows a filmmaker to tell a story through a sequence of shots that manipulate time. It is still used today and carries with it a psychological impact. In a script it is indicated by a series of descriptive lines, each spaced apart to indicate a series of shots, rather than description that would indicate one shot or scene.

Here's a few clips from some of his films:

Battleship Potemkin (Odessa Step Sequence) (1925)
Oktober
Alexander Nevsky (battle on the ice sequence) - Music by Sergei Prokofiev

Expressionism

“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)
• Carl Laemmle's Phantom of the Opera (unmasking scene) and the Red Death Masquerade scene (1925)
• Leni's' The Cat and the Canary (1927)

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

Nosferatu (1922) Full film
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (full film)
Der Golem (full film)
The Cat and the Canary (full film - silent)
The Phantom of the Opera (full film)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (full film)
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (full film)

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

and The Call of Cthulhu (2006), The Artist (2011)

Minority Voices in Film: Blache, Weber, Micheux, & others

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, watch a few of their film clips and take notes on 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?

Oscar Michaeux was 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. Sadly, in American film, it is not until 1991 that the first African-American female director appears (Julie Dash). 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 Pit and the Pendulum (1913)

Various films by the early filmmaker Alice Guy.

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). The film was directed by Alice Guy Blache. 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)

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. It stars Conrad Viedt (see below). 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.)

Latino silent film information can be found here. There is little on line to watch (sorry about that). 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. The director Dadasaheb Phalke is considered the father of Indian film, although Asian film begins in the late 1890's. 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 (Russian and German Expression films).

But for now...

Early Film Stars from Hollywood:
From your notes you should also know the following blockbuster film stars of the early screen. Please watch their clips. Various famous Hollywood actors:

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the Thief of Baghdad (1924), The Mark of Zorro (1920); the full version of The Thief of Baghdad can be found here. It's really a good film, all told. Douglas Fairbanks was known for doing his own stunts.
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)

Buster Keaton & Techniques of Comedy

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 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)
Sherlock Jr (1924)
The Scarecrow (1920)
The General (1927) Full Length Feature Film
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) Full Length Feature Film

Comedy:

Much of comedy (reasons why we laugh) have to do with these things:

• Incongruity or Non sequitur. Humans are rational (supposedly) and laugh at anything that breaks a pattern or does not logically follow. Anything we are not expecting as a logical sequence creates incongruity, and so we laugh.
• Farce or physical humor (often pratfalls, slapstick, hurting people, etc.) What doesn't kill us makes us laugh. This is only funny if the victim is not really hurt (consider cartoons!) If the character/victim is killed and we laugh, we fall into black or dark humor (and bad taste!)
• Superiority vs. inferiority (we laugh at those weaker or in a worse situation than us). Usually an underdog or weaker protagonist gets to overcome a stronger opponent. This usually makes us feel better, and in a comedy plot, makes us feel stronger over our own oppression as viewers.
• Mistaken identity. Ever since farce and satirical plays from the Greeks and Roman theater, mistaken identity has been a constant element in farce.
• Absurdity (if it doesn't make sense, we laugh). Similar to incongruity, absurdity is, well, absurd.
• Surprise. Humans will usually laugh is you can surprise them (and they are okay). The adrenaline rush is often accompanied by laughter.

Task: As you watch the screened movies of Buster Keaton, record the different types of comedy examples you see. Turn in your observation sheet.

HOMEWORK: Please peruse and take notes on Minorities in Film (see post above).

Slapstick & Silent Film Comedy

This morning, please take 10-15 minutes to prepare and send your 10-minute play script to Geva. The address is as follows:

youngwriters@gevatheatre.org

You should have a TITLE PAGE with your name, address, phone #, school name, grade, and email address in the lower left or right hand corner. On your title page, please include your cast requirements (characters, and a short 1-sentence description of the character, if possible).

While you are waiting for the class to complete this task, please read about Slapstick and comedy. This topic will take up much of our class today.

Slapstick & Silent Film Comedy

The name "slapstick" comes from the bataccio — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in commedia dell'arte. Actors using the slapstick may hit each another repeatedly with great audible effect while causing very little actual physical damage. The term "slapstick" became synonymous with the style of silent film comedy most frequently found in the comedic silent films of Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Hal Roach, and other comedic directors.

Later, the animated films from Warner Brothers Studio and Walt Disney will utilize many of the common gags found in comedic silent films. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry, and Donald Duck are just a few examples.

Slapstick is characterized by broad humor, absurd situations, comedic or farcical action such as chase scenes, and, of course, physical violence. Watch various clips below and note the actor/director where appropriate. Take notes on the film styles and view the films for ideas for your own stories, plays, and films.

Mack Sennett: Bangville Police (Keystone Cops feature)
Mack Sennett: comedian Billy Bevan (scene from Wandering Willies - 1926) and another clip with Vernon Dent & Billy Bevan
Mack Sennett: Black Oxfords (1924) with Vernon Dent & Sid Smith
Mack Sennett: comedian Harry Langdon (scene from Fiddlesticks - 1927)
Mack Sennett: comedian Harry Langdon (scene from Smile Please - 1924) & another scene (the skunk) from the same film.
Mabel Normand: The Extra Girl (clip, 1923)
Mabel's New Hero  Mabel Normand & Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle: Coney Island (1917)
Fatty Arbuckle & Buster Keaton: The Cook (1918) and the spaghetti scene from The Cook.
Buster Keaton: stunts from The General
Harold Lloyd: from The Freshman (1925)
Harold Lloyd: from Safety Last (the clock scene) (1923)
Charley Chase: Accidental Accidents (Hal Roach directing)
Charley Chase: Fluttering Hearts (1927)
Ben Turpin: Seein' Things (1928), part one; Seein' Things (part two) Stan Laurel: Pie Eyed (1925) and finally: Charlie Chaplin Tribute (various clips).