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

Writing Advice: The Middle

You began typing the moment you had an idea. You started off strong. Now three lines in, or three pages, you've reached your first stumbling block: what happens next?

With prompts and experience, most writers can get started. I've given you several starters and graphic organizers for this project. Getting started should not have been too much of a problem if you completed these assignments. What's difficult is continuing through a murky middle. Here are some tips to slog through the worst part of your writing experience:

1. Most of the time we get stuck when we don't know what our characters want. Give your character a motive (a desire, or goal, etc.) to keep him/her moving forward.
2. Forward march: Move the plot forward by adding conflict and action. Involve your characters in a specific action or direct conflict with another character. This is particularly helpful if you are bored.
3. Put yourself in your protagonist's shoes: go inside a character's head. This is a common error that young writers constantly forget to do. Get your character's perspective. What would you think in a similar situation? What would you see if you were in this scene? What would you notice? What would you say? What would you do?
4. Skip forward in time. No one said this plot has to be chronological. Advance the time period and move forward with the plot. Skip a line to indicate you've changed time (either forward or backward).
5. Skip to another setting/location. Move your character to a new setting or scene. What happens there? Describe the setting/location, and the actions of minor characters. REMEMBER: every NEW scene or setting or location needs a new slug line. 

6. Skip to a different protagonist or the perspective of a new character. 

7. Press forward: If you need more time to research details and don't want to stop to look up a fact or information, indicate what you need to look up by BOLDING or CAPITALIZING a note to yourself. You can also insert NOTES using your word processor feature under the insert menu.
8. Skip to the next major plot point. If you know where the story is going, but don't know yet how to get there, skip and write the next scene.
9. Go back to brainstorming. Use your journal, graphic organizers, etc. to try out some new things. If you don't know (or are stuck on):

• Your characters: write a character sketch, draw a picture of your character, or develop your character's background history
• Your setting: draw your setting, find a picture of an appropriate setting on the internet, describe your setting using imagery--what sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and sights would one experience in the setting
• Your plot: list possible challenges or problems that a character might face in a similar situation or setting. Decisions characters make (or don't make) often create conflict. Create a mind map or use a graphic organizer to focus on plot elements.
• Your theme: create a premise for your story. What do you want to communicate about the human condition? What lesson or experience are you trying to relate?

 You are not really stuck unless you refuse to go forward. Writers block is a state of mind, not an actual thing.

Screwball Comedy; 1930's Films (continued); script project

During period 1 today, you have 20 minutes to work on your scripts. These script drafts are due on 4/25. During the second half of period 1, we will move next door to continue screening various 1930's films/clips and discuss screwball comedy.

Screwball Comedy gained prominence in the film It Happened One Night (1934), and, although many film scholars would agree that its classic period ended sometime in the early 1940s, elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage to, in our contemporary films such as the recent Identity Thief, 40-Year Virgin, Horrible Bosses, My Best Friend's Wedding, Bridget Jones' Diary and others.

Like farce, screwball comedies often involve mistaken identities or other circumstances in which a character or characters try to keep some important fact a secret. Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to the misunderstandings (Bringing Up Baby, I Was a Male War Bride, Some Like It Hot). They also involve a central romantic story, usually in which the couple seem mismatched and even hostile to each other at first, and "meet cute" in some way. Often this mismatch comes about because the man is much further down the economic scale than the woman (Bringing Up Baby, Holiday). The final marriage is often planned by the woman from the beginning, while the man doesn’t suspect anything at all. In Bringing Up Baby, when the leading woman says: "He’s the man I’m going to marry. He doesn’t know it, but I am."

Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies: the upper class tend to be shown as idle and pampered, and have difficulty getting around in the real world. The most famous example is It Happened One Night; some critics believe that this portrayal of the upper class was brought about by the Great Depression, and the poor moviegoing public's desire to see the rich upper class brought down a peg. By contrast, when lower-class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper-class, they are able to do so with relative ease (The Lady Eve, My Man Godfrey (the full film)).

Another common element is fast-talking, witty repartee (You Can't Take it With You, His Girl Friday (full film)). This stylistic device did not originate in the screwballs (although it may be argued to have reached its zenith there): it can also be found in many of the old Hollywood cycles including the gangster film, romantic comedies, and others.

Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, in which a couple must take care of a pet leopard during much of the film. Slapstick elements are also frequently present (such as the numerous pratfalls Henry Fonda takes in The Lady Eve).

One subgenre of screwball is known as the comedy of remarriage, in which characters divorce and then remarry one another (The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code as it showed freer attitudes about divorce (though in this case the divorce always turns out to have been a mistake).

It Happened One Night (1934)Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert (Frank Capra director)

The Thin Man (1934) Myrna Loy & William Powell

Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn
Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell
His Girl Friday (1940)

Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, & Katherine Hepburn
The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Abbott & Costello (1946/1948)
Who Done It? (1942)

Screening, Walt Disney, & Movie Script

During 1st period we will continue to screen movie clips from 1930's. Take notes, as you will be tested on key films, genres, and actors of the 1930's.

During 2nd period, you are free to either use the lab to continue working on your film script, or stay behind and view a few important technicolor Walt Disney short subjects.

• Mickey Mouse in 1928's short animated film: Steamboat Willie (1928)
• Silly Symphony, Walt Disney: Cannibal Capers (1930)
• Silly Symphony, Walt Disney: Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Pluto in Beach Party (1931)
• Flowers and Trees (1932) Walt Disney, but starring no one important
  Disney's The Three Little Pigs (1933)
• Silly Symphony, Walt Disney: 43 Funny Little Bunnies (1934)
• Mickey's Fire Brigade (1935)
• Mickey's Polo Team (1936--try to identify the famous caricatures)
• Donald Duck, Education for Death  (1937) (WWII Propaganda film)
• Little Hiawatha (1937)
• Clock Cleaners, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy (1937)
• Ferdinand, the Bull (1938, Oscar Winner)
• Donald Duck, The Hockey Challenge (1939)

HOMEWORK: Keep writing your script. Use this weekend to get a few pages written!

Playwrights' Festival & Coffeehouse Readings

Our playwrights' festival is May 18.
Our coffeehouse is May 29 at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater.

Film Writing Project

Today, during period 1, please work on your original film script. See below for some advice in working on this. Otherwise, use your graphic organizers we have already completed (or were supposed to have completed) to write and plan your original film script.

Use the handouts and organizers presented today if you need them to help you. During 2nd period, we will screen some films from the 1930's.

Screenwriting Tips

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. Be creative!

HOMEWORK: Please continue to write your scripts, particularly if you did not write much this morning. We will be doing 1/2 writing-1/2 viewing classes for a few days, unless the class isn't really using their time...which has been happening lately. Please read the article on Walt Disney & Snow White for next class.

Laurel & Hardy: Hal Roach Studios; Script Project

HOMEWORK: Please begin to write your script over the next 2 weeks. Keep your film script to between 7-20 pages in length. Use the planning worksheets you received to write your idea into a script. Use the script format (see links to the side; and our handout) to help prepare your script. The script will be tentatively due April 11. Remember: you may receive extra credit for watching any 1920's-1940's film this marking period. Full films are listed below (and in previous posts). Netflix (if you have it) also has many options, if you search a bit. You may also attend any film screening at the Dryden Theater and post your response to our forum.

Hal Roach was born in Elmira, NY (near us!), before moving to Hollywood. He worked for the Pathe Exchange Co. before working for MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) as a producer. He is best known for producing the comedy teams of Laurel & Hardy and The Our Gang (or Little Rascals).

Laurel and Hardy
Not all silent film stars made the transition to talkies. One comic duo that did, however, was Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. This iconic duo made over 100 films together, initially short films, before expanding into feature length films by the end of the 1930s. More can be examined by clicking on the link of their name above. Here are a few clips/films:

• The Music Box (1932) Winner of the Academy Awards for Best Short Subject
• Sons of the Desert (1933) (full film)
• Babes in Toyland (1934) (full film)
• Way Out West (1937)
• The Flying Deuces (1939) Full Film
• Nothing But Trouble (1944)

The Little Rascals (various clips/films):

• Spooky Hooky (1936)
• Let Me Call You Sweetheart
• Mush & Milk
• Golf
• We Want Cake
• Little Rascals (Greatest Hits, 1)

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