Buster Keaton's Use Of Photography In Silent Film

The lighting is mainly focused upon one or two characters, putting everything around them in shadows. This brings about a claustrophobic atmosphere in the scene, creating a mysterious feeling among the audience. Both films use this technique to “hide” something in the background, like the replicants in blade runner. Moreover, the shadows defined by the key light create a more dramatic environment that promotes the mysterious vibe of the scene. It also serves as a way of displaying a doomed outlook onto the world, one that is filled with deception and lies. This “view” on the world is quite common in film noir, as the style was created around WWII. By creating a depressing mood, the shadows and lighting also allow the audience to sympathize with the main characters - as it does not paint any character as primarily good or evil. Without the use of the chiaroscuro effect, both films would fail to produce the elemental nature of the characters surroundings. The character’s emotions are not only exemplified by the low key lighting, but also by the camera’s angle and proximity to the

How to Survive a Plaque by David France and United in Anger by Jim Hubbard are both historical documentary films that talk about the history of the organization created called ACT UP. ACT UP is for the AIDS activist movement from people with all different perspectives such as people from the trenches to people having the disease and fighting it. The film was made to expand the news on the movement and to try to show the effect AIDS had on people. Interviews, footage of protests and speeches from the members of ACT UP were all recoded for these films. They were all personal and true stories that were told to help the future generations and to prevent something similar happening again. The people from ACT UP battled corporate greed, social indifference, and government neglect.

Many films of the silent movie era are melodramas, which was a term used back then purely as a descriptive word to describe a movie and not a ‘negative’ term the way we use the term today. Chaplin’s film is a melodrama that invokes the emotions of his audience. Some elements of melodrama are present in Chaplin’s film The Gold Rush, the characteristics of a melodrama aid in analysing how melodramatic a silent movie is. An element of melodrama is, a situation - an occurring conflict in the film created by the screenwriter to evoke an intense emotional response from the viewers. For example, in a scene from the film The Gold Rush” the protagonist, The little fellow and his friend Big Jim are in a cabin which has been blown off to the edge of

Early films by Edison and Lumiere involved very simple cinematography, little to no editing and simple realist mise en scene. However, Georges Melies, a theater proprietor and an amateur magician, laid foundation for the new generation films. In A Voyage to the Moon, he becomes first person to introduce a sci-fi film. In this paper I hypothesize that A Voyage to the Moon was most innovative in cinematography and editing. Although mise en-scene was the main focus of the film, I hypothesize that mise en scene wasn’t as innovative as the other two.

Dirty Dancing was released in 1987. The film clip I chose was from the end of the season talent show. Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) approaches Baby’s (Jennifer Grey) table and tells her father “Nobody puts baby in a corner.” In this scene, Johnny grabs Baby hand and escorts her towards the stage while everyone looks shocked even to see him. The individuals on the stage are singing their farewell song, but they immediately stop to let Johnny capture the spotlight. The cinematography used throughout this scene focuses mainly on Johnny and Baby. The lightings utilized in this clip were low-key and three-point lighting. These different lighting techniques are applied in the movie to help set the tone and mood for the film scene. The

In “Aesthetic of Astonishment” essay, Gunning argues how people first saw cinema, and how they are amazed with the moving picture for the first time, and were not only amazed by the technological aspect, but also the experience of how the introduction of movies have changed the way people perceive the reality in a completely different way. Gunning states that “The astonishment derives from a magical metamorphosis rather than a seamless reproduction of reality”(118). He uses the myth of how the sacred audience run out the theater in terror when they first saw the Lumiere Brother Arrival of the train. However, Gunning does not really care how hysterical their reaction is, even saying that he have doubts on what actually happened that day, as for him it the significance lied on the incidence--that is, the triggering of the audience’s reaction and its subsequence results, and not the actual reactions and their extent. It is this incident, due to the confusion of the audience’s cognition caused by new technology, that serves as a significant milestone in film history which triggered in the industry and the fascination with film, which to this day allows cinema to manipulate and

of the Classical Association of Canada, vol. 7 no. 3, 2007, pp. 213-245. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mou.0.0029

Silent movies were almost always accompanied by music, from a multipieced pit orchestra to a single piano or even a guitar. This is why silent film audiences seemed perfectly happy with silent movies. There was also technological difficulty of matching sound with visuals so that everyone in the audience could hear. The problems were synchronisation and amplification. A vitaphone was something that produced the first commercially viable sound system. This was then replaced by the now- standard strip of celluloid prepped for sound that runs on the side of the film strip, this makes the two modes remain in sync.

Released September 29, 1950, Sunset Boulevard is a film noir of a forgotten silent film star, Norma Desmond, that dreams of a comeback and an unsuccessful screenwriter, Joe Gillis, working together. Ultimately an uncomfortable relationship evolves between Norma and Joe that Joe does not want a part of. Sunset Boulevard starts off with an establishing shot from a high angle shot with a narrative leading to a crime scene shot in long shot (a dead body is found floating in a pool). The narrative throughout the film established a formalist film.

Mise-en-scéne is crucial to classical Hollywood as it defined an era ‘that in its primary sense and effect, shows us something; it is a means of display. ' (Martin 2014, p.XV). Billy Wilder 's Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) will be analysed and explored with its techniques and styles of mise-en-scéne and how this aspect of filmmaking establishes together as a cohesive whole with the narrative themes as classical Hollywood storytelling. Features of the film 's sense of space and time, setting, motifs, characters, and character goals will be explored and how they affect the characterisation, structure, and three-act organisation.

The use of background light was an important focus in this picture, there was less attention to lighting the actors faces but in almost every frame there is well placed background light often combined with a moving light source. Repetition was also evident within the visual composition of the frame, the actors were rarely positioned within the center of the frame but always to the left or the right with a light source covering them from behind. Ridley Scott perfectly matches colorful high key light with low key lights creating impeccable contrast, this lighting used could be described as a modern Citizen Kane style. Although this is overall a very dark and low light film, the motif of shadows and darkness allows the beauty of light to truly be

Tim Burton is well known film director. The movies that he has created are often described as mysterious, odd, and intriguing. Burton's movies use certain film techniques to create a certain feeling for the audience to experience. The three main techniques that Tim Burton usually uses is the lighting, camera angles, and sound techniques.

There are many things that make “Citizen Kane” considered as possibly one of the greatest films every made; to the eyes of the passive audience this film may not seem the most amazing, most people being accustomed to the classical Hollywood style, but to the audience with an eye for the complex, “Citizen Kane” breaks the traditional Hollywood mold and forges its own path for the better.

In the 1920s the movie picture show was relevant. These movies were silent, yet these silent movies gave people in the 1920s a new form of entertainment. This new form of entertainment brought to the people of the 1920s news, comedy, romance, action, sports and creativity to people in the form of a moving picture show. The phonograph was an item that brought music to the home of many people in the 1920s. This device would play many tunes and made it a joy to be in your home. This new ability to now listen to music in your own home made many families and individuals very happy. People could now get together and dance and sing together. It was a time of joy in the form of entertainment. Jazz music was very popular in the 1920s, this developed

The lighting displayed throughout the film mirrored the theatrical lighting techniques used in German Expressionist films. Detour was