Direct Cinema Essay

Being on a film lot together and viewing each others movies, directors were able to test and adopt different styles of camera work and storytelling that have become iconic today. The way they move the camera and the point of view of the movie

To say that the first movies were documentaries is a mistaken belief that too a big one. The first one-reelers were no more than a minute long, and they were called actualities. They were recordings of almost pointless daily events. Documentary filmmaking was something far more elaborated versions than actualities that was developed later. Documentaries are the complex films that are structure and purposed differently. Perhaps the only valid argument for calling the first actualities as “documentaries” is on the account of a specific style of documentary that is cinéma vérité (in French for “truthful cinema”) that is characterized by a

Video production colleges all over the country, now offer programs that come in different names such as film production, television production or digital media. Such programs are commonly offered within the Department of Design or Art. As a student, you can choose to finish the program within the school’s facilities or online. Should you decide to take it the traditional way, there is also the need to check the school location, kinds of video production programs that they offer, program costs, and available specializations.

Some of the important topics that are covered in the course are creativity and aesthetics, an overview of major movements in literature and cinema, cinema & art; understanding fiction, drama, poetry, narrative structures, understanding cinema, relationship between form and meaning, image construction, shots, scenes, sequences, mise-en-scene, cinematography, codes, frames, signs, syntax, diegetic & non-diegetic sound, silence, and various editing styles. The handout of the course (please go to the Appendix) gives the complete course description. Both literature and cinema being canvasses of immense depth, covering the topics mentioned above is a daunting task. There is the possibility of it becoming demanding to the students too. Since the majority of the students opting out for such a course have either a passion for or are keen to develop insights into the finer aspects of these mediums, they do

Throughout chapter one we are well informed about cinema from 1880 to the 1904. Cinema was invented in 1890; it offered a cheaper way of providing entertainment to a mass amount of people. Before cinema there were preconditions for motion pictures. There were five of these conditions: 1. Scientist had to realize how the human eye perceived motion images. 2. How were they going to project a rapid display of images? 3. How could they use photography to make clear images? 4. How could the photos be flexible? 5. Finding a suitable machine for cameras and projectors.

Oscar Wild once said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” and he is right. But no matter what the outcome is, or how complex the truth is, we will always strive for the truth. The concept of truth is no stranger to film documentaries, and one filmmaker that certainty was aware of that was Dziga Vertov. During the 1920’s Vertov created a newsreel series to promote the concept of ‘Kinopravda” which translated to English mean “Film truth.” Unfortunately, Vertov was ahead of his time, and this concept disappeared along the filmmakers’ path. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that other filmmakers around the world once again recognized the importance of the truth. Two movements with the purpose of revealing the truth of life, emerge in

Documentaries are a form of media that have been around for decades and have been used to display and educate a diverse range of subject matter from the lives of animals, political controversies, to how eating McDonalds for every meal of the day can effect your health. Because of their long history there have been many factors that have influenced the production of documentaries such as societal and economical changes. One of what is debatably the largest factors that has influenced documentaries is they have been a part of and shaped by the rise and full of many technological advancements, such as cameras, audio equipment, editing stations and even the distribution of the films themselves. As such it is important to see the impact that these advancements have had on the making of documentaries both stylistically and technically.

From the beginning of film filmmakers were using the platform to tell people stories, so that people could go be entertained and lose themselves in the experience of seeing the film. Though this form of filmmaking was entertaining for most people, some filmmakers wanted to break this tradition and expand filmmaking into a completely different way. Instead of making the same old narrative films, like classical Hollywood, they want to make more abstract and complex films, they wanted to make films as more of an art-form. Instead of relying on actors and writes to tell a narrative story, these filmmakers wanted to change things up and make films that went against the norms of the Hollywood cinema. They wanted to experiment with different methods of filming, more imaginative and inventive forms. They also wanted their films to have meanings and express what they, the artist, were feeling and how they viewed the world. From this a new film movement was born, the experimental film movement.

The introduction of motion picture drastically changed the world as we know it along with introducing new and advanced ways of making and presenting media to the masses. Before the introduction of motion picture the only way people were able to hear about the news or new products was either by newspaper or word of mouth. Before we had T5i’s or any other new and elaborate camera we had to film with black and white picture with no sound, like the old classic super eight film cameras. The process of editing has changed over the decades from where film was just cut and scenes would be placed right after the other with hard cuts with the raw material, literally they cut the film, to now where most editors use non-linear editing with a computer to add transitions, text, and other video effects to produce the most visually appealing and most understandable when producing a video production. The way the video productions are shown to the public have also adapted throughout its brief existence. When commercials and films first made their appearances in the early twentieth century Directors and Producers had no idea how to use color to catch the audience’s attention by using their sub conscious, they didn’t realize that the length of the production would play a role in rather a person will watch it or not. Nowadays there are entire books on how to grab the audience’s attention.

The Job of a Film Director The film director has an elaborate job, classed as an art in its own

Interestingly enough, this system has come to be considered the classic Hollywood method. By the 1940s, however, particularly with the development of such democratizing tools as deep focus photography which eliminated the need for montage, and moved editing toward realism once more. Editing styles became more or less standardized. Cinema reached a point of classical perfection where content fused with form and the next evolutionary advancement, if there was to be one, would not be propelled by a technical matter but a thematic one: the subject matter and the effect it imposed on technical/formal aspect (…). This cinematic progress is in perfect accordance with Bazin's notion of the cinema moving toward the myth of total cinema. The movement from the silent area into sound was an important one in the creation of realism. Bazin however, emphasizes the role of visuals more so than sound.

Photographic technologies brought with them the ability to freeze and capture for unlimited time a specific moment in time and space. However, these technologies also arose issues surrounding concepts of art and reproduction right along side depiction of reality through certain medium. Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Siegfried Kracauer’s, “Basic Concepts,” in Theory of Film, seek to convey the relationship between film and its ability to capture movement in time, concentrating in film’s qualities as a medium and its representation of reality. Nevertheless, they disclosed divergent, yet, related ideas and concepts about the representation of reality and movement.

When thinking about cinema, the first image that often comes to mind is that of a film reel, or a projector in a dark screen, not dissimilar to the one opening Bergman 's Persona (1966). Although originally indicating the physical medium on which moving images were fixated, the word “film” quickly evolved to mean motion pictures; for decades, cinema and film were not considered as two separate ideas.

In each era, ever since the decline or rather when the use of traditional art to record and document was toned down, films have been the new age art form that has documented and recorded the events of the society. The recording has been done in such a way that people find it appealing and entertaining. Due to cinema, the spread of information and the sharing of knowledge have become entertaining. Now, people want to know the story behind the events, the reasons behind the problems, and the secrets behind the successes.

Regarding my photographic process - I am somewhat bilingual, making use of both analog film and digital technologies. I primarily shoot large format sheet film with a view camera because of the amount of control the camera provides and the rich, descriptive negative that the process yields. The image is output in the form of archival pigment prints which are then sprayed with a clear coat that enhances the blacks of the print. The prints are produced using a drum scanner and large format printers which provide a high degree of control, sharpness, and description that is imperative to my work and not possible in the dark room.