So we watched Visions of Light, a documetary about cinematography and the use of light in film. Now blog about what you discovered in the film. Also, you could choose one of the movies discussed in the film and blog about it for us. Again, GET YOUR TEXTBOOKS and get familiar with the terminology in it to help make your points.
Here are the movies that are shown in Visions of Light:
▪ Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1895)
▪ Repas de bébé (1895)
▪ L'Arrivée d'un train à la Ciotat (1895)
▪ The Kiss (1896)
▪ Le Spectre rouge (1907)
▪ The Birth of a Nation (1915)
▪ Intolerance (1916)
▪ The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
▪ Way Down East (1920)
▪ Der Letzte Mann (1924)
▪ Ben-Hur (1925)
▪ Napoléon (1927)
▪ Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
▪ The Crowd (1928)
▪ The Cameraman (1928)
▪ The Cocoanuts (1929)
▪ Applause (1929)
▪ The Locked Door (1929)
▪ Possessed (1931)
▪ Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
▪ Shanghai Express (1932)
▪ As You Desire Me (1932)
▪ What Price Hollywood? (1932)
▪ Red Dust (1932)
▪ Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
▪ Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
▪ Queen Christina (1933)
▪ Becky Sharp (1935)
▪ Peter Ibbetson (1935)
▪ Desire (1936)
▪ Camille (1936)
▪ Jezebel (1938)
▪ The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
▪ Midnight (1939)
▪ The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
▪ The Wizard of Oz (1939)
▪ Gone with the Wind (1939)
▪ The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
▪ Rebecca (1940)
▪ The Sea Hawk (1940)
▪ The Long Voyage Home (1940)
▪ Citizen Kane (1941)
▪ How Green Was My Valley (1941)
▪ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
▪ Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
▪ Mildred Pierce (1945)
▪ The Killers (1946)
▪ Out of the Past (1947)
▪ T-Men (1947)
▪ The Naked City (1948)
▪ Oliver Twist (1948)
▪ She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
▪ Young Man with a Horn (1950)
▪ Sunset Boulevard (1950)
▪ The Big Combo (1955)
▪ The Night of the Hunter (1955)
▪ Picnic (1955)
▪ Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
▪ Touch of Evil (1958)
▪ Jules et Jim (1962)
▪ Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
▪ Hud (1963)
▪ Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
▪ The Professionals (1966)
▪ Cool Hand Luke (1967)
▪ In Cold Blood (1967)
▪ The Graduate (1967)
▪ 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
▪ Rosemary's Baby (1968)
▪ Easy Rider (1969)
▪ Midnight Cowboy (1969)
▪ The Conformist (1970)
▪ McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
▪ The French Connection (1971)
▪ The Godfather (1972)
▪ Fat City (1972)
▪ Chinatown (1974)
▪ The Godfather Part II (1974)
▪ The Day of the Locust (1975)
▪ Jaws (1975)
▪ Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
▪ Taxi Driver (1976)
▪ Eraserhead (1977)
▪ Annie Hall (1977)
▪ Days of Heaven (1978)
▪ Apocalypse Now (1979)
▪ Raging Bull (1980)
▪ E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
▪ Blade Runner (1982)
▪ Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
▪ Blue Velvet (1986)
▪ The Last Emperor (1987)
▪ Empire of the Sun (1987)
▪ The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
▪ The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
▪ Do the Right Thing (1989)
▪ Goodfellas (1990)
Some websites for you:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/glossary/glossary.jhtml#A
http://www.filmandvideolights.com/grip_glossary/index.html
http://www.lowel.com/glossary.html
Off you go.
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9 comments:
When we watched visions of light, the main thing I discovered was that there are so many different options to choose from when lighting a film that it can be confusing sometimes. One of the cinematographers said that he discovered a lighting phenomenon by accident when he blew droplets of water against a window pane that created an interesting effect when light passed through. Another said that early film makers did certain things with lighting that they couldn't explain, but the techniques simply worked for the films. Since they were ahead of their time, much was hard to explain. Some of the directors got in disputes with other cinematographers because there were so many options to choose from. It wasn't like one of the options was wrong, but a matter of preference over the countless lighting options created the disputes.
I did not know that diffrent parts of the camara was invented by diffrent camara men. I knew that the newest stuff like auto zoom and diffrent things like that was invented by like speacilest, but I thought the basic things were invented by one man. Not a hundred diffrent things invented by a hundred diffrent people.
I also realized that one of the cinematographers job is to make the lead actor or actress look good no matter what was happening in the scene.as was showen in movies like desire.
In visions of light i discovered that in the 1920's film was based on music & lighting because there wasnt any sound for filmmakers to use.
The movie that caught my attention was "Desire" I've always liked old time movie and I learned that the filmmakers in this movie tried to make actors and actresses look as good as possible with light. Most actors would request to have shadows anywhere but their faces do their good looks could be shown.
The one thing that really stuck in my mind for the movie was that there is never a right and wrong way to light a movie. It is all the theme and mood of the movie, by how well you can see the character or how you can't see them. it is all in the eye of the cinematographer.
I think that when sound was first introduced into movies in changed how the actors could move about. I remember one of the filmmakers saying that at first you could always tell where the microphone was because the actors would all be around that one object. This limited the actors to how much the could do in certain scenes depending on where the mic was. But overall i think the lighting that caught my eye the most was the shadowy type look. Such as in the movie where the older lady was on the porch with the gun and the shadowy figure was sitting outside the house. This really created a mysterious feel because you really never could figure out who it was since his face was mostly darkened.
Honestly the movie that was shown in the last class was very informative... It showed a vast variety of movies from the first movies made and the techniques used to the new and improved movies... I've never thought of the camera and the making of it but it was good to know that the various types and/or abilities were brought about by different directors.
The movie that I think have the best/easiest lighting was the movie Jaws... To me is was easy for utilize the sun but it may have still been hard to light the cabin and other areas while they were at see.
for this blog i chose to watch raging bull a scorsese film done in black and white in 1980. after watching the film it is difficult to recall whether or not the whole film was done in black and white or color. the contrast of the film subtlety conveys color so vividly it is amazing. Gene Siskel said,"it is a superior achievement of film art". I very much agree with this statement and highly recommend it.
I watched dog day afternoon. its a movie with al pacino about a bank robbery gone bad. i noticed a lot of the shots that they showed in the movie, and they did have a lot of action for the shots. as far as the lighting goes it really just looked kind of like natural light to me. like the typical light that you would see in a bank , fourescent lights and such.
I have seen many of these movies and besides the obvious favorite of most, The God father, I chose two other must see films. Citizen Kane 91941) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) are two movies as film makers are a must see. As far as lighting is concerned there are two similarities that these movies share and that is with the symbolic reasoning for certain lighting set ups
Citizen Kane was Director Orson Welles about a publishing tycoon’s mysterious life. The movie discovers the meaning of his last words. Many believe this man was full of greed, coldness and cockiness. Its done in Black and white with many shadows that cast away from Kane. The lighting was used in the beginning to show his fame and status. Made him appear God like and superior.
Like Citizen Cane, Sunset Blvd. by Billy Wilder also followed a life of a person that was once an idol in society. It was about a striving scene writer who gets into a twisted love affair with this washed out actress. This movie too accentuates her beauty she once had. They use many shots up close and fully lite her face in order to make her appear flawless and like a “movie star” The lighting was very fantasy like and soft. I love these movies. A must see.
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