Black and White

by: Stephanie Kubick

Black and white. We all have that one show that comes to mind when we think if black and white movies and shows. The first one that comes to mind for me, is “I Love Lucy.” I spent much of my childhood watching the charismatic episodes wishing I could have the same cute hats and dresses.

Black and white films still leave many aspects of visual arts to the imagination. Think about how much color effects your perception of something. Did you like Lucy Ricardo with the “gray” hair ( we all knew it was dyed bright red), or did you like the shade of the red when the released some episodes in color? Personally, I enjoyed the black and white better. It left more to the imagination. What color were the dresses? What was the color of the furniture in the room? Leaving the episodes in black and white gave off a more classic feel. It fits the perception we have of that era.

In the mid-twentieth century, color came out. The first famous color pictures were “Gone with the Wind” and “Wizard of Oz”. There were a couple of pictures that came out in color previous to those two films, but those were the first to be successful. And today, they are still classics, expected to be seen by everyone of all ages.

Black and white is personally a favorite of mine. I can use my imagination more and it holds a bit more mystery than the average colored film. 

 

Gilliam’s Iron Cages

By Cheyenne Naeb 3/27/2016

Please Note: Read only if you have seen at least some of the cinematic works of Terry Gilliam.

Another auteur filmmaker that I would like to elaborate upon further is the British-American director Terry Gilliam. This is not only because some of his films such as “Brazil” or “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” have become personal favorites of mine, primarily due to their themes and visual aesthetics. Starting his career as the animator of the Monty Python troupe, Gilliam contributed to the groups’ work by adding a sense of absurdity and fantasy to their silly humor (an example of this would be the the “heart attack scene” in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, which Gilliam himself playing the animator). After the troupe “broke up” in the 70’s Gilliam went on to have a prominent directorial career, and while he often failed to achieve commercial success, the respect he gained amongst filmmaking contemporaries was high. Here are some of the unique themes that I think contribute to his success:

Technology as being intrusive – While most films in the science fiction/fantasy genres often show technological achievement as a highly cherished accomplishment of human ingenuity, Gilliam seems to take a more skeptical look towards technology. In particular, he often portrays technology as often being dated, nonsensical, and highly intrusive on human happiness and well-being. The strongest example can be found in “Brazil”, with its machines and devices constantly malfunctioning (think of the pipes found in Sam’s apartment) or failing to provide significant benefits to their lives (the computers function, but need enormous magnifying glasses to simply read them).

Iron Cage – As the title of the article suggests, Gilliam’s films often contain the concept of the “iron cage” of modernity developed by sociologist Max Weber. To summarize it briefly, the concept of the iron cage is that in which modern life has “demystified” the world through its emphasis on rationality and de-attachment, and thus has made men feel trapped in an “iron cage”. This can be seen all over Gilliam’s work such as the oppressive parents in “Time Bandits”, the bureaucracy of “Brazil”, and the mental institution seen in “12 Monkeys”.

Schizophrenic view of the world- This is heavily related to Gilliam’s camerawork, which is often described as being unstable, chaotic, and non-stationary. This is often done to demonstrate the fragile mind-states of of his protagonists, many of which struggle to see the dichotomy of fiction and reality. The iron cage could be considered the reason many of his characters seek after fantasy/delusion, as the bleak rational worlds they inhabit are often so horrible that they will seek anything to escape its nihilism.

I hope these encourage further explorations into the themes of Terry Gilliam.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam

Comedy

Comedy and making people laugh has existed since the ancient Greek times. Comedy developed from the Athenian celebration dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry. This festive aspect of the deity lends comedy its name and some of its more ridiculous attributes, since it’s taken from the Greek word komos. In addition, comedy has been shown in many movies, it is actually one of the most known genres since film started.  Movies have the power to make us laugh.It has been scientifically proven that laughter makes you have a longer and happier life. There are many different ways comedy is combined with other genres like romantic comedy and drama comedy for example. Since the silence film era comedy films have been popular. They could not make jokes or express words to make the audience laugh but, they could use the slapstick technique that relies on visual representations. Through entertaining stories and characters, comedy is a very trending genre. The films have a tendency to become a hybrid sub-genre because humor can be incorporated into many other genres. Comedy has been around for so many years making people have some humor in their lives. It is said that for people to have longer lives people need to live joyfully and through films we are able to have some laughter.

Works Cited

http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/comedy#

http://study.com/academy/lesson/comedy-genre-definition-characteristics.html

Career Shifts: Music to Movies

While the music industry may be fulfilling to most artists, it didn’t hold the interest of hip-hop stars Tupac Shakur and NWA’s Ice Cube or even “Marky Mark” Whalberg for long. What’s significant about all three? Each musician became a movie star after their respective music success. After sales for Tupac’s hit track “California Love” started dwindling, he signed a contract with Paramount Pictures to star in Juice, Poetic Justice, and Beyond the Rim. By channeling the same passion and machismo that made him famous as musician into acting, Shakur was an instant success in Holly Wood. If it weren’t for his untimely murder following the release of Beyond the Rim, Shakur likely would have went on to act in 3 more films he’d secured contracts for. Like Shakur, Whalberg was scouted for his “macho” image and was cast in several crime dramas as well as a series of commercials. After NWA’s Ice Cube decided that he was done with the hip hop scene following the release of his solo record “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”, he told his agent to “find [him} something colder to do”. Soon after, Ice Cube signed a contract with Columbia Pictures. After becoming a hit success in his heartfelt but street-hardened role as Doughboy in “Boyz in the Hood”, the former musician took on six more production contracts. Because music and acting allow individuals to showcase their inter-most thoughts, feelings and personality traits, movie production companies can get a sense of what characters a musician can play based on their music. Similarly, a musician will have the necessary experience expressing themselves dramatically from their stage performances. Essentially, transitioning to acting is one of the most logical career swithces for a musician.

Movie Trailers

 

Looking back at the past movie trailers started in 1913 Nils Grandlun the manager for Marcus Loew theater chain. He made a short promotion for the musical The Pleasure Seekers. The theater chain started showing the trailers after the movie; “trailing” the feature which is the reason for the name trailer. The method was interesting but some what ineffective because many audience would leave the theater as soon as the movie finished. From then on trailers were shown before the movie was shown in theaters. Admittedly, trailers are a great form of movie advertisement. Until the 1950’s, trailers were mostly created by National Screen Service and consisted of several key scenes from the film being advertised. The trailers had large, descriptive text describing the story, and an underscore generally pulled from studio music libraries. The new Hollywood arrived, and trailers now consist of a series of selected shots from the film being advertised. In a few minutes with some seconds the trailer should attract public that is interested in the movie. Consequently, with technology admirers are closer to the production of the movies and by releasing a sneak peak to them will guaranteed watchers in the movie theaters when the movie is presented. Movie previews are a great attraction they are great sources of advertisement. Undoubtedly movie trailers came to stay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_(promotion)

The Contributions of George Lucas

3/19/16 By Cheyenne Naeb

Whether you admire him or condemn him, there are few people who stir up such cinephile controversy as George Lucas. Despite having his reputation slowly dissolved away over the course of the last decade with his constant re-edits of the original Star Wars trilogy, the release of the Star Wars prequels, and his incessant commercialization of all his major creations, Lucas is a man that I personally believe deserves at least some degree of respect. Here is a list of personal reasons why I believe he needs to be respected.

• His Early Work- One of the most common criticisms you will find of George’s work is that not only is he an incompetent filmmaker, but he never had any filmmaking ability or talent to begin with. However this is simply untrue, as watching some of his pre-Star Wars films demonstrate his solid understanding of cinematic technique and visual storytelling. If you take the time to watch films such as THX-1138 and American Graffiti, one can see that Lucas makes excellent use of lighting, sound, motion, set design, and cinematography to contribute to the emotions experienced in  the films. In particular, the stark white minimalistic prison sets of THX-1138 and the documentary-like look of American Graffiti stand out as some of his best pre Star Wars visual achievements.
• ILM – Lucas also managed to give the movie going public one of the world’s most popular special effects studios, ILM, or industrial light and magic. ILM would go on to make several major special effects achievements throughout the decades, such as the completely computer generated “genesis sequence” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or the T-1000 in Terminator 2 being the first fully computer generated movie character. Without ILM, there would be none of these movies previously mentioned as well as countless modern blockbusters including The Avengers, Pacific Rim, and all of the Transformers films.
• His Contributions to Charity- This may seem to be appealing to emotion, so forgive me if this sounds contrived or overly sentimental but it is a rather remarkable fact that George donated the 4.5 billion dollars he received from his recent sale of Lucasfilm to Disney to primarily charitable causes (if headlines are to be believed). Again, a minor point but one that is worth considering.
• He is still responsible for some great films- A rather simple point, but one that is often overlooked is that no matter how much people try to discredit him, George Lucas still was largely responsible for Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Although many people state (to a certain degree of truth) that Spielberg, Kasdan, Kurtz, and the various cast and crew of Jones and Star Wars are responsible for the films’ high quality, Lucas was the main inspiration and creator behind both series, and for that he deserves respect.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Light_%26_Magic

The Actors Brain

 

Colin O’Neill

As with any profession, Acting has its stereotypes. Overly Dramatic. Charismatic. Exceptionally social. Bubbly and happy. There are far too many stereo types to count. As someone fascinated by the brain and its affect on personality, I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the  typical actors brain like? Granted, the very essence of acting requires that people with many different personalities partake, there must be some commonalities, right? Over the past few days I’ve analyzed the media I consume for cues and indicators relating to actor’s personalities. Though characters and acts vary, it’s not hard to feel out the actor from behind the mask of the character. Commonalities I observed were few, but consistent nevertheless. For one, most actors have a high social-emotional capacity, or EQ/SQ (Social-Emotional Quotient). After all, one has to understand complex emotional situations in order to portray them dramatically, right? Secondly, actors exude confidence, weather their character requires it or not. This wasn’t surprising to me either, seeing as being comfortable in extraordinary situations is just part of the job. According to a market analysis conducted by internet marketing firms, the majority of readers depart from the page before the last 1/3 of the content. The purpose of this interlude is to assess how many people actually read past this point, providing a sample to compare against this study. If you read to this point, kindly comment “Freud” to prove it. Back to the topic of actors brains now. The job of acting is so emotionally intensive that the actor’s brain chemistry can, in some instances, be altered by acting. In the process of emulating certain emotions, combinations of the neurotransmitters Serotonin and Dopamine flood the thalamus, limbic system and other emotional regions.  By doing this frequently, the neural connections between these regions strengthens, as does the ability to relate to others emotionally. This strengthens the individuals emotional and social capacities in the process.

Children Movies

This weekend I had to babysit 2 wonderful kids after playing with them for a few hours they asked if they could watch a movie. We watched a least 5 movies before I could put them to sleep after the first two movies I realized how impacting movies can be for children. Some of them are just stories but the majority of them actually have a message about life. I stopped and watched the movies with an open mind and saw how the children got fascinated. Most of the movies involved animals who had some type of issues and had to face them and go through the problem. It is surprising to see the psychological aspect of movies and how they transmit emotions relevant to all children and therefore have an appeal to a wider universal audience. Children movies become family movies and
many of them involve many genres for example comedy, drama, action, adventures and science fiction. Love is the universal theme that everyone understands and some how all these movies find a way to incorporate this theme into them which makes them more general and signifying to each family member. A lot of the songs that they incorporate into the movies are very sticking which makes a connection between the movie and the song.

First of Hollywood

By: Stephanie Kubick

The first of all Hollywood movies was the black and white picture, “In Old California.” The picture was released On May 31, 1942. It was directed by D.W. Griffith and written by Gertrude Purcell, Frances Hyland, J. Robert Bren, and Gladys Atwater. The cast included John Wayne, Binnie Barnes, Albert Dekker, and Helen Parrish to name a few. The film was shot in Big Tujunga Canyon, Sunland, and Los Angeles, California.

Director D.W. Griffith discovered Hollywood, which was at the time a little village, on one of his trips to California. He then decided to shoot there because of the beautiful scenery and friendly people. For years, the first film shot in Hollywood was “The Squaw Man,” but “In Old California,” was the first movie of any considerable length filmed in Hollywood.

The storyline was of a Boston pharmacist named Tom Craig. When he comes to Sacramento, he finds out a local politician boss, Britt Dawson, is exacting protection payment from the citizenry. Dawson then frames Craig with poisoned medicines, but Craig redeems himself during a Gold Rush epidemic.

One of the reviews of the movie says, “A strongly dramatic story with the picturesque background of California in 1822 as a setting. It is well acted and the dramatic situations are developed with intelligence and ability, while the photographic quality is beyond criticism….The picturesque setting adds to the beauty of the picture and is therefore a welcome addition to the film.”

I have not seen this film yet, bit from the reviews and the actors and actresses, I am very interested in seeing it.

 

Sources:

“In Old California.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

“In Old California.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

 

 

Quentin Tarantino versus Disney

By Colin O’Niell

As the holiday season approached this year, people were buzzing about more than shopping and office parties. Star Wars 7, The Force Awakens dominated screens, billboards and social networks for months leading up to the its 1.729 billion dollar release this December. As some have said, “You don’t make it big without making a few enemies along the way”. This sentiment is ever relevant to Disney as the release of the new Star Wars left lawsuits and bad blood in its wake. The most newsworthy Disney drama came after Quentin Tarantino, producer and former Disney employee, announced that he would be suing the “Big Mouse” for extortion. Having just finished production of The Hateful 8, Tarantino was more than taken aback when he was told that the Cinerama Dome, Hollywood’s premiere cinema would be defaulting on their contract to debut his film. While to some this may appear as a small financial loss for the producer who has it all anyway, it was a deeply personal  loss for  Tarantino. Unknown to the average popcorn muncher, The Hateful 8 was shot in a special 70 mm film with express purpose of being played on the wider, classical screens. The Cinerama Dome happens to be one of 3 commercial theaters in California with screens equipped for 70 mm viewing, and Tarantino had made sure to book the theater months in advance. Enter Disney and everything changed. Disney, anxious to stretch profits in their traditional manner, threatened to pull The Force Awakens from several prominent theaters if certain screens weren’t allotted to their screening. Their hands tied, many theaters complied, pushing the lesser films out of theaters. Following the incident Quentin hysterically tempered on about how Disney “went out of their way to f*ck [him]” on the Howard Stern Show. Clearly upset, the former Disney employee vowed never to collaborate with the Big Cheese again. Thankfully, Quentin’s Hateful 8 did surprisingly well, especially considering that it was pushed out of many big-name theaters.