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Presentation for POL 338 Dr. Kevin Lasher

Dive into the world of film basics with insights on profit motives, mass public appeal, collaborative enterprises, and the art of storytelling in movies. Understand how business drives the film industry, the impact of mass audience preferences, and the evolution of collaborative filmmaking. Explore the power of narrative storytelling, genre conventions, and the dynamic nature of film genres over time. Discover the key elements that make films successful and engaging for audiences.

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Presentation for POL 338 Dr. Kevin Lasher

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  1. Presentation for POL 338 Dr. Kevin Lasher

  2. Film Basics • Profit motive • Mass public • Collaborative enterprises • Avoid politics (generally) • Storytelling • Genre

  3. Film Basics: Profit Motive • Movie business – ultimate goal is to make money • Sam Goldwyn: “messages are for Western Union” • More money through DVDs, Netflix, streaming, toys, merchandising • Liberal Hollywood is the most “capitalistic” enterprise • Looking for next blockbuster (international sales)

  4. Film Basics: Profit Motive • Business supersedes ART • Win awards, prestige films • Certain directors (Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Steven Spielburg, others) can pursue artistic visions • Young directors with early success may disappear if films fail to make money • More outlets for “auteur films”

  5. Film Basics: Mass Public • Today the focus is on youth and repeat business • Reflect opinion and tastes of audience (rarely challenge) • Entertainment/escapism

  6. Film Basics: Mass Public • 1920s-early 1950s film was the primary source of mass entertainment • Two-thirds of population went to the movies weekly

  7. Film Basics: Mass Public • Today: International mass public • Today: mass pubic versus niche market

  8. Film Basics: Collaborative Enterprise • Least common denominator versus auteur theory • Early studio system was an “assembly line process” • Studio head, producer, director, screenwriters, editing, technical, others • Audience is part of the collaborative enterprise

  9. Film Basics: Collaborative Enterprise • Studio system is dead but collaboration remains • Any message can be “diluted” by multiple players, production companies, corporations

  10. Film Basics: Avoid Politics • Films about politics are not very appealing, not profitable and possibly too controversial • Counterintuitive: politics is conflict • Small subset of all films • Directors want to send a political message (if they can), so they keep trying on occasion • Many of the AFI’s greatest films are “political”

  11. http://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx

  12. Human beings have been telling stories since the creation of spoken language

  13. Movies take us to a fictional world to tell a compelling story about interesting characters ---- NOT REAL

  14. Film Basics: Storytelling Classical Hollywood Narrative “A story built around an active protagonist who struggles against primarily external forces of antagonism to purse his or her desire, through continuous time, within a consistent and causally connected fictional reality, to a closed ending of absolute, irreversible change.”

  15. Film Basics: Storytelling • Classical Hollywood narrative • Protagonist(s) vs. antagonist(s) • Directional plot; conflict • Three act structure (generally) • Resolution of conflict (or failure) • Political films contain these components

  16. Film Basics: Storytelling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yqUmedyOM

  17. Film Basics: Genre • Particular type of film in which audiences have certain preconceptions and expectations; which share comparable and recognizable patterns in theme, period and setting, plot, symbols and types of characters

  18. Film Basics: Genre • Genres developed because of nature of studio “factory production system” (1930-1960) • Genres developed because audiences enjoyed certain types of films • Genres are not permanent, borders are flexible, old genres can die, new genres can emerge

  19. Genres • Westerns • Gangster Films • Horror Films • Film Noir • Musicals • Action/adventure • Science Fiction • Romantic comedy • Superhero • Others

  20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS7EHDwIzPc&t=10s

  21. The End

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