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Title: Lecture 2: The Nuts and Bolts of Getting a Movie Before an Audience


1
Lecture 2 The Nuts and Bolts of Getting a
Movie Before an Audience
  • Professor Michael Green

2
Previous Lesson
  • How to succeed in an online course
  • How this course is organized
  • What we study in an introductory film course
  • Form
  • Content
  • Do the Right Thing

3
This Lecture
  • Film as Art
  • Film Production
  • Preparation
  • Shooting
  • Assembling
  • Film Distribution
  • Film Exhibition
  • Case Study Jaws (1975) directed by Steven
    Spielberg

4
Film as Art
  • Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), directed by
    Clint Eastwood

Lesson 2 Part I
5
How do We Classify Film?
  • Is it Art?
  • Is it Entertainment?
  • Is it Business?
  • Can it be all three at once?

6
According to the Text
  • The authors of your textbook, Bordwell and
    Thompson, argue that film is at the intersection
    of art, entertainment and business.
  • They remind us that art often comes from popular
    traditions that were at one time not considered
    art, such as jazz and even Shakespeare's plays,
    but that such forms can foster art of high
    quality.

7
Cinema
  • Bordwell and Thompson consider film an art
    because it offers filmmakers ways to design
    experiences for viewers, and those experiences
    can be valuable regardless of their pedigree
    (whether a film is considered highbrow or
    lowbrow, made for commercial purposes, etc).
    Films for audiences both large and small belong
    to that very inclusive art called cinema.

8
Form and Style
  • Art in film, as it is in music or literature, is
    the
  • result of the application of form and style.
  • All films have subjects and themes that
    contribute to the artistic effect, but in
    themselves these are just raw material.
  • For example, there are many movies about serial
    killers, but the application of form and style
    makes each one distinctive.
  • Because of form and style, The Silence of the
    Lambs is a much different kind of movie than
    Friday the 13th, and arguably a much more complex
    and interesting one.

9
Bordwell and Thompson
  • Its through form and style that a movie draws
    us into a moment by moment engagement. As a film
    unfolds in time, it offers a developing pattern
    that encourages us to ask why things are
    happening and to wonder what will happen next.
    The film engages our vision and hearing, our
    knowledge of the world, our ideas and our
    feelings. The filmmaker can create a structured
    experience that will involve us keenly and
    sometimes change the way we think and feel about
    our lives.

9
10
Patterns in Film
  • A director repeats story information in the form
    of dialogue, sounds or images, that helps the
    audience keep up with the story.
  • These patterns in a film are often conventions
    borrowed from other movies that help viewers
    interpret the language of film, even if only
    unconsciously.
  • The knives in The Shining
  • Butterflies/moths in The Silence of the Lambs
  • The color red in The Sixth Sense

10
11
Film Production

Lesson 2 Part II
12
Four Phases of Production
  • Scriptwriting and funding
  • Preparation for filming
  • Shooting
  • Assembly

13
Scriptwriting and Funding
  • Two roles are central in this phase
  • Screenwriter
  • Producer
  • Tasks of the producer are
  • Financial
  • Organizational
  • The chief task of the screenwriter is to prepare
    the screenplay or script.

14
The Tasks of the Producer
  • Nurses the project through the scriptwriting
    process
  • Obtains financial support
  • Arranges to hire the personnel who will work on
    the film

15
Tasks of the Producer (continued)
  • During shooting, he or she acts as the liaison
    between the writer or director and the company
    that is financing the film
  • Arranges distribution, promotion and marketing
  • Monitor the payback of money invested in the
    production

16
Independent vs. Studio
  • An independent producer unearths film projects
    and tries to convince production companies or
    distributors to finance the film.
  • A producer may work for a distribution company
    and generate ideas for films.
  • A studio may hire a producer to put together a
    particular package.

17
Kinds of Producers
  • Executive Producer
  • Arranges financing/obtains literary property
  • Line Producer
  • Oversees day to day filmmaking
  • Associate Producer
  • Acts as a liaison with labs and technical
    personnel

18
The Screenwriter
  • Writes the script, which goes through several
    stages
  • The Treatment
  • A synopsis of the work
  • Drafts of the script
  • Revisions
  • The Shooting Script
  • The Final Version

19
Preparation for Filming
  • Director Christopher Nolan rehearsing Memento
    (2000) with Guy Pierce

20
Preproduction
  • Producer and director set up a production office,
    hire a crew and cast the roles
  • They prepare a daily schedule based on
    continuity, which is the most convenient order of
    production
  • Screenplay revisions
  • Storyboards

21
Preproduction (continued)
  • Production designer designs the films settings
  • Set decorator/set dresser
  • Costume designer
  • Previsualization with computer graphics
  • Episode III Revenge of the Sith

22
Storyboards
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
23
Shooting the Film
Clint Eastwood directing Blood Work (2002)
24
Shooting
  • Also known as principle photography

25
Directors Crew
  • Script Supervisor
  • Continuity
  • First Assistant Director
  • Plans shooting schedule, sets up shots
  • Second Assistant Director
  • Liaison among the first AD, the camera crew and
    the electricians crew
  • Third Assistant Director
  • Messenger for director and staff

26
Directors Crew (continued)
  • Dialogue Coach
  • Feeds performers their lines
  • Second Unit Director
  • Films stunts, location footage, action scenes

27
Other Aspects of Shooting
  • Cast/Acting
  • Director shapes performances
  • Visual Effects Unit
  • Stunts
  • Animal Wranglers
  • Camera Operator

28
Other Aspects of Shooting (continued)
  • Key Grip
  • Supervises grips who carry and arrange equipment
    and props
  • Gaffer
  • Head Electrician
  • Boom Operator
  • Microphones

29

Assembling the Film
Thelma Schoonmaker, who has edited many of Martin
Scorseses movies
30
Postproduction
  • Editor
  • Works with the director to make creative
    decisions about how the film footage can best be
    cut together to tell a story
  • The editors job can be a huge one

31
Post Production Terms
  • Rough Cut
  • The shots loosely strung in sequence, without
    sound effects or music
  • Final Cut
  • The finished film, still without sound
  • Outtakes
  • Unused shots

32
Sound
  • The Sound Editor builds the soundtrack, which is
    made up of
  • Dialogue
  • Sound effects
  • Music

33
Modes of Production
  • Large Scale Production
  • Studio Filmmaking
  • Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney
  • Exploitation and Independent Production
  • Small Companies
  • Miramax, Focus Films
  • Small Scale Production
  • Personal Filmmaking

34
Distribution
Lesson 2 Part III
35
What is Distribution?
  • Bordwell and Thompson refer to distribution as
    the center of power
  • Distribution companies form the core of economic
    power in the film industry
  • They provide mainstream entertainment to theaters
    around the world

36
Distributors
  • Six Hollywood firms remain the worlds largest
    distributors
  • Warner Brothers
  • Paramount
  • Walt Disney/Buena Vista
  • Sony/Columbia
  • Twentieth Century Fox
  • Universal

37
Large vs Small Distribution
  • The major distributors have won such power
    because large companies can best endure the risks
    of theatrical moviemaking, which is very
    expensive
  • They also stand to recoup the most profits
  • Smaller distributors usually distribute specialty
    films

38
Ancillary Markets
  • Home video/DVD
  • Cable and Broadcast television
  • Airlines and hotels
  • Cyberspace/Video on Demand

39
Profit
  • Ancillary markets are where films make most of
    their money, sometimes recouping the losses from
    a film that did poorly in theatrical release.
  • Austin Powers International Man of Mystery did
    moderate box office in the theater, but really
    found its audience on video, paving the way for
    theatrical sequels, which now had a built in
    audience.

40
Marketing
  • Trailer
  • Television commercials
  • Web
  • Newspapers
  • Soundtracks
  • Video games
  • Merchandising

41
Exhibition
Lesson 2 Part IV
42
Kinds of Exhibition
  • Theatrical
  • Commercial movie houses
  • City art centers
  • Museums
  • Film Festivals
  • Non-theatrical
  • Home video
  • Cable
  • Schools

43
Television
  • Television keeps the theatrical market going.
  • In 2004 distributors earned about ten billion
    dollars worldwide from theatrical distribution
    and about 23 billion from home video.

44
Jaws
Lesson 2 Part V
45
Why Jaws?
  • Jaws is a famous production that highlights both
    the problems that arise during the creative
    process of filmmaking as well as the innovation
    necessary to overcome those problems.
  • Jaws was a watershed moment in the history of
    film. Along with Star Wars, it is credited with
    ushering in the era of the blockbuster (which we
    are still in). It changed the way that films are
    distributed and exhibited.

46
The Production of Jaws
  • Based on a bestseller by Peter Benchley
  • Rights acquired by producers Richard Zanuck and
    David Brown
  • Spielberg tapped as director
  • His second feature film after The Sugarland
    Express and the TV film Duel

47
Problems
  • The film was pushed into production early
  • It was a technical nightmare
  • The shark almost never worked
  • Slow production with a lot of pressure from the
    studios

48
Results
  • Jaws became the highest grossing film ever at
    that time
  • Proved the success of repeater business
  • One of the first films to open wide on many
    screens at once as opposed to being slowly
    rolled out.

49
End of Lecture 2
  • Next Lecture Narrative Structure and Say
    Anything.
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