Documentary, Narrative,

1
Documentary, Narrative, Early Film

• FS101
• Film and the Literary Text

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Introduction

• Tutorials
• began this week!
• First assignment
• Short Paper 1 due in tutorials next week
• (Week 3)
• NOTE The film scene (from Singin in the Rain)
  you are supposed to discuss for the assignment
  will be shown again in the screening tomorrow
• Today
• The beginnings of cinema
• many images from Bill Douglas Centre website

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On-Line Course in Script Writing

• This Web-based course will introduce you to the
  craft of writing scripts for film, television and
  the theatre.
• Please note you will require a computer and
  Internet access to participate in this course as
  it is delivered completely on-line.
• Start DateOctober 4, 2004
• TimeWhenever is best for you!
• WhereFrom the comfort of home
• Cost125
• InstructorDr. Leslie O'DellWilfrid Laurier
  University
• a second session of the course is offered at
  the end of winter term
• Call to register at [phone] ext.
  6036.Register in person at 202 Regina, room
  R293.Or e-mail lfanjoy_at_wlu.ca

4
Check your tutorial information

• 1 M 1230-120 5-304 M. Ackerman
• 2 M 1230-120 StM107 L. Butler
• 3 M 130-220 2-112 M. Ackerman
• 4 M 130-220 StM107 L. Butler
• 7 T 930-1020 5-304 N. Rebry
• 9 T 1030-1120 5-304 N. Rebry
• 10 T 1230-120 P2027 K. Poluyko
• 11 T 230-320 4-110 L. Springer
• 12 T 230-320 StM102 J. McLean
• 13 T 330-420 4-110 J. McLean
• 15 T 330-420 4-110 L. Springer
• 19 W 1230-120 StM123 K. Poluyko

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Short Paper 1 (due next week)

• For Tuts 2 and 4
• "Discuss the theme of reality versus illusion, as
  it is depicted in Singin' in the Rain.
• How does the film blur the distinction between
  "real life" and fantasy, and to what extent is
  film and the personas it generates more "real" to
  the characters than their own lives?

• For all other Tutorials
• Discuss how humour is generated in the first
  scene of Singin in the Rain, as Don tells the
  story of his life (the flashback with voice-over
  commentary).
• Discuss in detail and use specific examples from
  the film.
• (for Tuts 1 3) End with a line or two that
  explains how this scene relates to the larger
  themes in the picture.

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Film art and entertainment

• Film is like other arts
• Like painting and photography
• Line, form, colour, play with light and shadow
• Like sculpture
• Manipulates 3-D space
• Like theatre
• Actors and movement
• Like music
• Soundtrack and emotional effect
• Like literature
• Narrative, characters, imagery, metaphor, and
  symbol
• But they say A picture is worth a thousand
  words.

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Questions

• When I use the term early film what comes to
  mind?
• How many of you think they dont like early
  film?
• Whats the difference between film and cinema?

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The Birth of Cinema

• The focus of the course is
• film and literary text
• But early film was not the product of
• trying to bring literature to the screen
• First films were not stories
• ie. literary narratives
• They were documentaries

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The Birth of Cinema

• Q Who were the pioneers of early film?

• A. Artists B. Stage actors
• C. Inventors D. Academics
• E. Businessmen F. all of the above
• A It was Inventors
• Early film was the product of
• science and invention
• new advances in existing technologies
• film wasnt really all that new
• grew out of existing popular optical
  entertainments

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Moving Pictures (Motion Pictures)

• Film Still images movement
• Cinema Still images movement projection
• Precursors to film and cinema
• precinema ideas and technologies
• Phi phenomenon (illusion of movement)
• Photography (still images)
• Magic lantern (projection)
• Optical toys (illusion of movement)

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Moving pictures

• Film is not actually moving pictures
• It is a series of still images
• Moved very quickly through a shutter-system
• Speed?
• Today
• 24 frames/sec
• Silent era
• around 16 frames/sec
• Shutter closes between
• each still to avoid blur

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Phi Phenomenon

• The phi phenomenon
• is a perceptual illusion, whereby two or more
  still images are combined by the brain into
  surmised motion
• (from Wikipedia)
• The speed of film fools our brains into thinking
  that our eyes see movement
• Eg. think of cartoon flip books!

http//www.yorku.ca/eye/balls.htm
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Photography

• Moving pictures need still pictures first
• 1827 First photograph taken
• glass plate technique by Claude Niepce
• View from a Window at Le Gras
• took nearly eight hours to expose
• Technology advances
• faster development time
• and more flexible material
• ie. from glass plates to celluloid

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Precinema Projection

• The Magic Lantern
• early device that projected images
• painted glass plates
• a lantern flame was lit behind the image
• a lens magnified the image
• Image projected onto a wall
• movement
• colour

Biggest problem with magic lanterns? Fires!
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Magic Lantern Shows
These shows had colour, projection, AND narratives
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (6 slides)
Images c/o Eastman House
The story of the birth of Christ image
c/o Bill Douglas Centre
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Thaumatrope

• Optical toys that gives illusion of movement
• Spin disc in your hand by pulling on the strings
• One pic on each side
• ie bird and cage
• come together
• ie bird in a cage

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Phenakistoscope

• 1832
• Optical Toy that gives the illusion of movement
• Pictures on disc
• illusion of movement
• view image in the mirror
• but through the slits
• while disc spins

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Zoetrope Wheel of Life

• William George Horner in 1834
• Refined the Phenakistoscope
• but discs and slots
• are combined in a
• rotating drum
• You look from the outside through slits

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Praxinoscope

• Created by Reynaud in 1877
• Refined the Zoetrope
• Drum Mirror
• Mirrors are in centre
• Lamp is above for light
• Both make watching it easier
• Reynauds Praxinoscope projected
• With magic lantern

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Optical Toys and Film?

• All these toys precede film with emphasis on
• Illusion of motion
• Spectacle of moving images
• Victorian audiences used to moving images
• So film wasnt necessarily a new idea
• People craved more new novelties of movement

Like us with videogames
and virtual reality?
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Eadweard Muybridge

• 1872
• This event only occurred because of a bet
• The former governor of California bet
• a horse lifts all 4 feet off ground
• when at full stride in a gallop
• Hires a photographer (Muybridge) to find the
  answer
• His experiment
• created a series of mounted cameras
• w/ electromagnetic triggers on a racetrack
• Horse gallops by and trips the triggers
• Q Was he right?

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He was right!

• Won a bet of 25,000!
• Muybridges experiment
• inspired other inventors
• to work on capturing
• life in motion
• Muybridges actual
• stills of a horse galloping

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Zoopraxiscope (1879)

• Muybridge works on improving on existing
  technology combined with his own experiments
• Discs and projection
• To recreate the real movement
• that was stopped by the camera

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Innovations of existing technology

• So by 1880s
• we have still images movement projection
• But still no cinema why?
• Photos are made on glass plates that would break
  if whipped through a camera at 16 frames a second
• But in 1880s, Eastman perfects celluloid film
• In 1888/89,
• several people in different countries
• all experimenting
• with celluloid and movement

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Kinetoscope (USA)

• Thomas Edison
• (yes, THAT Edison! lightbulbs and phonographs
  too)
• Capitalizes on the current innovations
• with help of assistant William Dickson 
• Wanted images to accompany his phonograph
• The Kinetograph movie camera in 1889
• Films the action
• The Kinetoscope movie viewer in 1893
• Allows you to view the images as moving
• early films only 20 secs long

Greek Graph draw Scope see
"I am experimenting upon an instrument which does
for the eye what the phonograph does for the
ear,"
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The Black Maria Studio

• The 1st film studio in 1893
• Edisons in New Jersey
• where his laboratory was
• Open roof and spun on a giant lazy susan
• to follow the sun (you need light to film)
• 1st film was of a man sneezing
• 2nd was of a kiss
• By 1898 Kinetoscopes
• In NYC arcades
• peep shows of
• boxing matches
• and dancing girls

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Problems?

• The Kinetoscope was expensive
• Each machine needs a film
• Each machine can have only one viewer
• Thats a lots of machines and lots of films
• Also Edison thought that film was just
• A novelty with no future!

Note This is not cinema there is no
projection! Films could only be viewed by one
person at a time
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Cinema Film Projection

• There were lots of people in UK, US, FR
• all working on the same thing at same time
• Edison may have won the first battle
• ie the patent on his machine!
• However, the Lumière Bros won the next!
• Auguste and Louis
• They had projection!

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Lumière Bros (FR)
Lumieres camera The Cinematographe

• Projection
• unlike Edisons Kinetoscope
• allowed more than 1 person to watch a film at the
  same time
• 1. More money for the filmmakers
• 2. Better experience for the spectators
• Exhibited in Music Halls amongst other
  entertainments
• The bill might include
• singing, dancing, and moving pictures

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The first film screening!

• Lumière Bros Cinématographe
• Premiere December 28, 1895
• At the Indian Room of the Grand Café - Paris
• Program included
• Workers Leaving the Factory
• Feeding the Baby
• The Sea
• Disembarking of Photographic Congress Members at
  Lyon

A lot of film historians now debate whether
this was the first public film screening
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Cinematographe

• Word cinema is derived from Lumieres machine
• Light weight, easier to use and move
• And an all-in-one camera and projector
• Outdoors films and travel around the world
• no longer stuck in the studio
• Lumieres sold their cameras and supplied films
• By 1898, their film catalog had over 1000
  newsreels, documentaries, sort subject films

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Other early filmmakers

• Who invented cinema first?
• Lumiere bros often get all the credit
• But lots of people all working on the same
  technology
• There wasnt one great genius that cooked up
  cinema!
• Logical development from existing Victoria visual
  media
• Lumieres cinematographe an important step
• But soon superceded as people take that
  technology
• and improved upon it
• Now there are claims for other public demos in
  1895
• Feb 1895 - Jean Acmé Leroy (US)
• Aug 1895 - Birt Acres (UK)
• Nov 1895 - Max Skandanowski (Berlin)
• Dec 1895 - Arthur Melbourne-Cooper (UK)

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On the Bandwagon

• Back in the US
• Edison realises profit to be made w/ projection
• Designs his own cinema projection device
• The Vitascope (1896)
• Actually created by partners Norman Raff Thomas
  Armat (but Edison always took the credit)
• They improved the Kinetoscope
• For longer films
• and sturdier camera
• ALSO projected the films

34
Documentaries

• Vitascope means life viewer
• Lumières and Edison filmed
• actualités
• Slices of life
• Documentaries
• Cinema of Attractions
• Not narratives/stories/fantasy
• 1st Novelty of moving pictures
• 2nd Novelty of new images
• far away places
• news
• events

Early Lumiere films
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Lumière Bros films

• Scenes of daily life
• Long shots only
• no close-ups
• Each film 1 shot long
• no editing within scenes
• Little or no camera movement
• stationary camera

Louis Lumière. Feeding the Baby (Repas de bébé).
1895.35mm film, black and white, silent, 45
seconds Starring Auguste Lumière, Mrs. Auguste
Lumière, and their daughter
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Narrative comes to Film

• George Méliès (FR)
• A stage magician begins
• influential artistic stylistic movement
  towards narrative fantasy
• Completed over 500 films between 1896 and 1912
• A Trip to the Moon is his most famous film
• Elaborate sets magic illusions fantasy
• Trick films - used editing to replicate or
  expand on magic tricks
• Stories - surreal adventures, trips to the moon,
  mermaids, fairies
• Memorable special effects
• slow motion
• superimpositions (double exposure)
• Colour! he used hand-tinting
• Stop motion photography

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Lumières V Méliès

• Documentary films
• Real events no stories
• Often boring
• Shot outdoors
• No actors were used
• Friends and family
• No editing
• No special effects
• Black and white

• Narrative films
• Fiction told stories
• Exciting fantasies
• Shot in studio with sets
• Used actors, acrobats, and magicians
• Editing
• Special effects
• Hand-coloring/tinting

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Edwin S. Porter

• Innovative film style
• Outdoor scenes
• Camera movement
• used pans placed camera on moving objects
• Dynamic blocking
• moved actors about and through frame
• Occasional close-ups for effect
• Introduced parallel action
• Two scenes occurring at same time are intercut

• Early US narrative film developed by Edwin
  S.Porter
• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• Porter builds on the grammar of film
• Works on developing continuity with a complex
  story
• Makes longer narrative easy to follow through
  editing

39
Cinemas rapid development

• 1893 birth of film watch slices of life (20
  sec documentaries) on single viewing machines in
  arcades (kinetoscopes)
• 1895 birth of cinema with projection (60 sec
  documentaries)
• 1903 films get longer and have narratives
• 1906 - a narrative system is being developed (a
  formalised way to tell stories visually) and
  films are longer 1 reel (12 mins)
• 1910, over 10,000 Nicklelodeons (cinemas w/
  nickel admission)
• attracting 26 million customers each week!
• Cheap ticket price attracts working class and
  immigrant audiences
• 1915 - feature-length films (one hour or longer)
• encourages more complicated plots, character
  development, literary adaptations
• aimed at attracting middle class-audiences (and
  more profits!)