Lecture 2 : The Nuts and Bolts of Making and Getting Movies to Audiences

1. Lecture 2:The Nuts and Bolts of Making and Getting Movies to Audiences Professor Aaron Baker

2. Previous Lesson • How to succeed in an online course. • How this course is organized. • What we study in an introductory film course: • Form and • Content.

3. This Lecture • The Technology of Moving Images • Film Production • Film Distribution • Film Exhibition • Case Study: Matewan (1987) written and directed by John Sayles

4. Part I: The Technology of Moving Images

5. Movies, Technology and Business • Bordwell and Thompson state that film requires a lot of technology: cameras, lights, sound equipment, and computers to edit and create digital images and sound. • Film also requires companies, to make the technology, to invest money, and to distribute and exhibit movies once made.

6. A Film Camera • Runs undeveloped film through at 24 fps. • The shutter opens, and a lens focuses light bounced off what the camera will record in front of it onto the film, creating the photographic image.

7. Still Pictures Move • As we watch a film, we are looking at a series of still pictures. • Movies, however, trick the human eye into seeing movement.

8. Apparent Motion • Film is projected at 24 fps (frames or still photos per second). • Each of those 24 frames is shown twice, creating 48 still photos projected per second. • Showing still images that fast makes them seem to move. An effect called apparent motion.

9. Celluloid Film became possible with development of celluloid, a flexible material that could run through a camera and projector fast enough to create apparent motion.

10. The Projector • works the opposite of a camera, sending light out through the film to throw an image onto a screen. • Film runs through a projector at 24 fps, and each frame is shown twice to create apparent motion.

11. The Negative • Is made when film is shot by the movie camera. • Filmic images are recorded on chemical emulsion on the film’s surface. • A copy of the negative made in a printer is called a print. • Digital video records photographic images in binary codes, not in chemical emulsion with light.

12. Sprockets • Film is moved quickly through the camera, printer, or projector by small teeth, sprockets, that grab it by the holes on its edge and move it ahead. • The sound track is also on the edge of the film, in this image on the right side. 12

13. Film Gauge • Refers to the width of film. • Films shown commercially are usually 35 mm (millimeters). • The bigger the gauge, the better the image quality.

14. Part II: Film Production

15. Four Phases of Production • Scriptwriting and funding • Preparation for filming • Shooting • Assembly

16. Scriptwriting and Funding • Two roles are central in this phase: screenwriter and producer. • Tasks of the producer are financial and organizational. • The chief task of the screenwriter is to prepare the screenplay or script.

17. The Tasks of the Producer • Supervises the scriptwriting process • Lines up financial support • Hires the personnel who will work on the film • During shooting, acts as the liaison between the writer or director and the company that is financing the film • Arranges distribution, promotion and marketing • Monitors the payback of money invested in the production

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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

21. Preparation for Filming Director Christopher Nolan rehearsing Memento(2000) with Guy Pierce

22. 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 • Production designer creates the film’s settings. • Set decorator/set dresser • Costume designer • Previsualization with computer graphics

23. Storyboards Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

24. Shooting the Film Clint Eastwood directing Blood Work(2002)

25. Shooting Also known as principle photography.

26. Director’s Crew • Script Supervisor • Monitors continuity during shooting and changes in the script. • First Assistant Director • Plans shooting schedule, sets up shots. • Second Assistant Director • Liaison among the first AD, the camera crew and the electrician’s crew. • Third Assistant Director • Messenger for director and staff • Dialogue Coach • Feeds performers their lines • Second Unit Director • Films stunts, location footage, action scenes

27. Other Crew Jobs • Cast/Actors • Director shapes performances • Visual Effects Unit • Stunts • Animal Wranglers • Camera Operator • Key Grip • Supervises grips who carry and arrange equipment and props • Gaffer • Head Electrician • Boom Operator • Microphones

28. Assembling the Film Thelma Schoonmaker, who has edited many of Martin Scorsese’s movies

29. 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 editor’s job can be a huge one.

30. Post Production terms • Rough Cut • The shots loosely strung in sequence, without sounds effects or music. • Final Cut • The finished film, still without sound • Outtakes • Unused shots

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

32. 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

33. Part II: Distribution

34. Risk and Reward • Companies that distribute films form the core of economic power in the movie industry. • They can afford the large economic risk of funding, marketing and distributing movies to viewers around the world. • When successful, the profits are enormous.

35. Hollywood Studios Six companies that are the world’s largest distributors: • Warner Brothers, Paramount, Walt Disney, Sony/Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal

36. Ancillary Markets • DVDs • Cable, Broadcast Television • Movies to Airlines and Hotels • Online/Movies on Demand

37. Profits 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(1997) 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.

38. Part III: Exhibition

39. Kinds of Exhibition • Theatrical • Commercial movie houses • City art centers • Museums • Film Festivals • Non-theatrical • Home video • Cable, Satelite • Online

40. 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 viewing.

41. Part IV: Case Study: Matewan • Matewan Writer and Director John Sayles on-- • Independent Production • Preproduction • Screenwriting

42. John Sayles • American Independent Filmmaker, Writer • Born 1950 • Made 16 Features Films 1980 – Present • McArthur Genius Award in 1985 42

43. Thinking In Pictures • Book About Screenwriting, Independent Filmmaking and Sayles’s 1987 Film Matewan with Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones

44. Sayles: Narrative Film Three Parts: • Literary (Script) • Theatrical (Acting) • The “purely cinematic (cinematography, editing)” • These Three Elements Need to Work Together, or Viewer Distracted 44

45. Movies Through Writing • Sayles Got His Start in Movies by Writing • Independent Producer Roger Corman Hired Him to Write Horror Films • Wrote Piranha 1978 45

46. Sayles on Screenwriting: • Dialogue easier, cheaper to shoot. • Action scenes require precise camerawork, lots of shots. • Dialogue is best to define characters. • “Pure cinema” is powerful but simple, less able to convey ideas, nuance.

47. Sayles on Screenwriting: • Write “in pictures,” with language that evokes the look of the story, so director needn’t interpret—although s/he might anyway. • Images make imagination solid, tangible. • E.g. in Matewan the dark/damp/cold of coal mine help viewers feel the physical aspects of the story, and understand why miners fight for more pay/safety.

48. Clip #1: In the Coal Mine: How do the images of the coal mine make tangible the difficult work experience of the miners?

49. Violent Individualism “The individual is the backbone of our mythologies. . . .Dramas of collective life have always had a stronger hold on European and Asian audiences than on Americans. The lone man . . . is a typical American movie protagonist, and whether he chooses it or has it forced upon him, he is usually the bringer of violent justice.“ Sayles, Thinking in Pictures, p. 16

50. Sayles on Points of View: • Too Many = Confuses Viewer • Three Max: • Camera Looking • Narration: Views via Editing, Camera Movement • What Character Sees • E.g. of # 3: Clip 2: Raging Bull (1980)