Congratulations to Grace & Gena for winning 2nd place in the Sokol competition. We are proud of you! Geva is contacting people about scripts, so if you submitted and won something, please let me know!
Thank you all who attended the Coffeehouse last night. You represented your class very well! Yay!
Please turn in your Disney response (see posts below--look under
homework!) and turn in the narratology essay you were supposed to have turned in last class. If you don't have it, add it to your homework stack and complete it this weekend. Chop-chop. Please do yourself the favor of participating in our class consistently. Not completing homework (even if you are absent--and especially if you are absent) will leave you with a bottle-neck of work at the end of a marking period. Work steadily!
Color in Film
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
It was therefore technicolor and the 3 strip technicolor process that rocketed the Walt Disney Studios into a formidable film studio. Please refer to the chapter on Walt Disney (see previous handout that you probably discarded) and take notes on him, his studio, and why he's important in the film industry.
- 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)
- Mickey's Polo Team (1936--try to identify the famous caricatures)
- Donald Duck, Der Fuehrer's Face (1937)
- Education for Death (1943) (WWII Propaganda film)
- Little Hiawatha (1937)
- Clock Cleaners, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy (1937)
- Ferdinand, the Bull (1938, Oscar Winner)
- Scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Scene from Pinocchio (1940)
HOMEWORK/Classwork: Begin writing your script idea. Create a TREATMENT of your film idea. This treatment is due completed by Thursday, April 10. You will have only one full day in the lab to complete this, so please begin your treatment AS HOMEWORK this weekend.
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.
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 1 minute.
Act 2, called The Conflict, often an hour long, is where the conflict begins and expands until it reaches a crisis.
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, The Hobbit, Rocky, Pan's Labyrinth, Star Wars, Animal House, Tangled, Avatar, Pinocchio, 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.
Treatment sample #1
Treatment sample #2
