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FILM 2700: HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE PROFESSOR SHELDON SCHIFFER

FILM 2700: HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE PROFESSOR SHELDON SCHIFFER. MAYMESTER VERSION Office hours: 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM Daily Office : 25 Park Place South – Room 1023 phone : 404-413- 5623 email : schiffer@gsu. edu http:// schiffer.gsu.edu/wordpress/history. [Lecture 6 Slides].

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FILM 2700: HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE PROFESSOR SHELDON SCHIFFER

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  1. FILM 2700: HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTUREPROFESSOR SHELDON SCHIFFER MAYMESTER VERSIONOffice hours: 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM Daily Office: 25 Park Place South – Room 1023 phone: 404-413-5623 email: schiffer@gsu.edu http://schiffer.gsu.edu/wordpress/history

  2. [Lecture 6 Slides] Evolving Empire and Illusions: American Resurgence and Industry DominationLike the Soviets co-opted Constructivism and Montage, any government (capitalist democracies, and capitalist-fascist dictatorships) can use cinema to overtly or covertly spread ideology. Government can referee the operations of cinema to protect business internationally (trade quotas and tariffs) or it can sponsor it directly (arts agencies), or it can protect the door of entry for those not able to enter the industry (anti-trust, anti-monopoly, anti-oligopoly).

  3. Oligopoly The Big Five “Majors” – All exploited vertical integration: development, production, distribution/exhibition, and all diversified content in some combo with historical spectacles, comedies, dramas.

  4. Historical Question 6.1 Who were the oligopolistsin the American Film industry during the period from 1914-1948? What were each of their specific tactics and specializations at controlling their market segment?

  5. The Big Five • Paramount – came out of Depression era bankruptcy, brought in European directors and actors – Von Sternberg (director) and Marlene Dietrich (actress), comedy with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and Cecil de Mille history films • Loewe’s/MGM – survived Depression in tact. Focused on big budget musical, and protected with B-film serials for comedy and crime, i.e.AndyHardy • 20th Century Fox – Fox and 20th Century merged to survive Depression. Made films with popular non-actor starts, e.g. Will Rogers (cowboy), Shirley Temple (little girl), Sonia Henie (skater)

  6. The Big Five • Warner Bros. – sold property to survive during Depression. Relished in mid-budget genre films, evenly balanced: musicals, gangster films, social problem films, biography films • RKO – Came out of radio past, and grew primarily with edge on technology for sound exhibition through radio patents and engineering. Lacked a clear business strategy for the studio, though two major films in history:  Young Mr. Lincoln, and Citizen Kane.Also tried to adapt Broadway plays.

  7. The Little Three Little Three were less integrated, and relied on their distribution niche. • Universal – B-Movie focus on genre films that appeal to small town (“low brow” culture) e.g. Horror, mystery, slapstick, with BelaLegosi, Abbott and Costello. • Columbia – Used the model of rent-a-star. Would negotiate for use of star when studio actors were off and free. Payment would go to studio, not actor. • United Artists – origins in independent film actors/directors of silent era (Chaplin, Pickford, Griffith, Fairbanks) continued. Became the studio for early “auteurs” like Hitchcock, slapstick, Broadway, London and classical plays

  8. The Independents Independents were resilient entities that worked with no stars, all genres, and highly target audiences. • Monogram and Republic – both focused on crime stories, Westerns, serials, action/thriller • Ethnics – Black filmmakers, eg. Oscar Michaux, Jewish filmmakers,eg. Edgar Ulmer

  9. Historical Question 6.2 Whatimprovements were made in the production and distribution sectors that continued to attract an audience? How might the improvements be used as market competition?

  10. Architectural and Schedule Adjustments from Depression to WWII • End of urban movie palace construction • Replaced/competed with more economical, smaller auditorium, less plush theaters • Double features continued, but B-movies were getting so good, they became A-level in pleasure and artistic control, if not in name recognition

  11. Advancing Technologies • Microphones improved – from omni-directional to directional (cardiod and shot gun design) – sound recordist professional specialist • Sound mixing for movies was born – taking various categories of sounds and mixing them to one track – creation of DME separation and expertise: (D)ialog, (M)usic and (E)ffects. • Sound mixer professional specialist

  12. Advancing Technologies for Spectacle • Color – Technicolor  –prism directed 3 colors of light (Red, Green and Blue / Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) onto 3 separate black and white strips of film. Then each was printed to a color sensitive print stock (Ten Commandments) • Special Effects – originally a cinematographers job, now a specialty job, the VFX director, used for postproduction effects with optical printing.  Enabling specialized transitions and superimpositions using compositing techniques in optical printer: wipes, dissolves,mattes, traveling mattes and chroma-key compositing. (Ben Hur)

  13. Artistic Specializations • Cinematographers – expertise to the level of directorial recognition rose as lenses enabled deeper focus, shallower focus, controlled and stylized lighting (in Europe this had been going on for a while), and acrobatic/expressive camera moves –great example: Citizen Kane(1941) Greg Toland for Orson Welles • Art Directors – With so many super spectacles of historical, biblical and musical style, art directors became important specialist with name recognition

  14. Historical Question 6.3 Why were the Big Three, the weakest of the Big Five and the Independents the most suitable companies to produce films that featured the director as star, as opposed to the actor as star primarily?

  15. Rise of Auteur / Genre film – Name Recognition for Directors vis-à-vis Style • The studios that worked in genres that were not actor-star driven saw that directors could be narrative stylists that could stand out in ways similar to actors – giving audience a pre-conceived idea of what that director’s style will likely be.

  16. Rise of Auteur / Genre film – Name Recognition for Directors vis-à-vis Style • Orson Welles – psychological dramas with, eg. Citizen Kane • Alfred Hitchcock – mysteries, crime and murder, Dial M for Murder • HowardHawkes – adventure dramas, often war films • John Ford – Westerns, and other character-driven genres eg. Stagecoach • Busby Berkeley – not cheap to make, but musicals were his specialty,eg. 42nd Street

  17. Rise of Auteur / Genre film – Name Recognition for Directors vis-à-vis Style • Frank Capra and George Cukor – screwball comedies where mis-adventure and mis-perception create humorous misunderstanding and awkward situations, eg. You Can’t Take it With You and It Happened One Night, or Philadelphia Story • Tod Browning and Karl Freund (note both German) – horror films. Dracula (1931), and The Mummy (1932) • King Vidor, William Wellman and John Ford – social problem films, such as Our Daily Bread, Wild Boys of the Road and The Grapes of Wrath

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