Archive for October, 2011

Classical Hollywood Cinema – The Silent Era and Studio Era of Filmmaking

October 13th, 2011

Classical Hollywood Cinema

Classical Hollywood Cinema is the time duration of the film industry that began with the movie discharge of “The Birth of the Nation.” It incorporates both the Silent Era and Studio Era of filmmaking. Unique to Classical Cinema, the mode of production in this timeframe encouraged film directors to view their work in the perspective of an employee of the studios rather than as auteurists who exercised creative treatments for their works together with a person film style. The Classical Cinema period of time ended in the 1960s when the film industry ushered in a new Post-Classical film style by auteurist film directors with the discharge of “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) as well as other landmark films of that decade.

Silent Era

The Silent Era is commonly known as the “Age of the Silver Screen” from 1917 to 1928. During this time period, there is no sound or synchronized speech accompanying the character’s images being projected about the movie screen. To accommodate for the lack of sound, on-screen captions were utilized to emphasize important points and dialogue within the story. Oftentimes, the projection of silent films onto the giant screen was accompanied by live instrumental music (pianist, organist, or even a large orchestra). The standard stylistic elements fundamental to classical Hollywood silent filmmaking were implemented with the Silent Era’s Director-Unit System. This technique of filmmaking included a fully integrated employees having a set of employees that had precise regions of responsibility under the leadership from the film director.

Studio Era

The Studio Era was a period in film history that started after the end from the Silent Era (1927/1928) with the discharge of “Jazz Singer”, the first complete film that contained talking sequences in it. The advent from the Studio Era also marked the beginning of the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” The contribution of Irving Thalberg was significant in development of Hollywood’s Central Producer System during the Studio Era while he was Chief of Production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In fact, the successful transition of classical Hollywood film production style in the Silent Era’s Director-Unit System towards the Studio Era’s Central Producer System at MGM took place under Thalberg’s leadership. His capability to create a quality film with aesthetic value was demonstrated through his balanced look at budgetary controls, script and story development, and employ from the “star system” within the successful movie “Grand Hotel.”

Intrinsic towards the studio system, the marketing strategies for movies utilized by the major Hollywood film studios was rather straightforward and uncomplicated since the studios obtained most of their cash from theater box office ticket sales throughout America. In those days, there were five major studios that owned a production studio, distribution arm, contracts with actors and technical support personnel, as well as a theater chain. These studios were known as the “Big Five” and included Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century-Fox, Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), and Loew’s, Inc. (owner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/MGM). Their revenues originated from monies paid through the theaters for renting films from the studios. Since the “Big Five” studios controlled nearly every theater throughout America, they received the majority of their money from box office ticket sales.

To further extend their power within the movie houses throughout America, these studios took steps to control almost all of the smaller independently owned theaters, too. With the contracting process of “block booking”, theater owners was required to show a block of films (typically in blocks of ten) at their movie house. When the independently owned theaters did not agree to purchase a block of films from a studio, they received no films in the studio whatsoever. Thus, throughout the Studio Era, the Hollywood film industry was tightly controlled by the powerful studio moguls. However, in 1948, a federal court case outlawed block booking. The United States Supreme Court ruled the vertical integration of the majors violated federal anti-trust laws and ordered the “Big Five” companies to divest themselves of their theaters on the five-year period. This decision basically brought the studio system era to some close by 1954.

Short Film Ideas

October 13th, 2011

How to find winning video clip ideas

The concept that begets all other ideas

In academia they call it cheating. Within the professional world, it’s known as collaboration.

I’m referring specifically to the procedure for venturing beyond one’s own resources and borrowing or buying ideas, assistance, and merchandise from others in order to accomplish a goal.

In class, you’re punished for asking someone over the room for the answers when in the middle of an evaluation. Pride and intelligence are measured by your capability to come up with the solution, solution, or creative result on your own.

Our idol based/pop star culture reinforces the lone ranger notion by presenting success stories as if these were primarily a matter of one individual pulling himself up by his bootstraps.

In the professional world, in particular, as well as in the filmmaking community, particularly, it’s understood that teams would be the entities that will get things done; small armies of passionate individuals, each of whom contribute a specialized form of knowledge or skill, united with a common need to move a project from concept to completion.

Eliminating an outdated and overused idea:

To find video clip ideas, one of the most commonly made mistakes is that of unnecessarily re-inventing the wheel due to a felt need to be independent.

If you are not an author or have never written a script before, why start now? Unless the primary goal of your video clip is to work on your ability as a copywriter, and I submit that there are more effective and less exhausting methods to do this, it’s best to stay with what you know and therefore are proficient at. To put it mildly, hire or collaborate by having an existing writer who already has scripts written or who would be wanting to write for someone that will actually get his script on lens.

This will not only allow you to focus on coming up with new short film ideas, it ensures the integrity of your project. If your video clip is going to have your name onto it and be accustomed to position your future career, now’s a lot of fun to exhibit others you know how to find a good story.

Creating through networking

The sad news about the film market is that there are much more workers than there’s work. The upside to this for that independent filmmaker, however, is that this industry has an atypical amount of unemployed talent willing to operate in a cost joyful manner. Why reinvent the wheel and fry your mind attempting to think of a script idea when you are able invest that same time and energy into reaching out to the community of freelance article writers?

Professional networking can sometimes feel annoying, awkward, and labor intensive. This really is precisely why it’s easier to just sit alone in an editing room trying to write a script when that’s not what you’re good at. It’s why many independent filmmakers just cast their non-actor friends in supporting roles rather than enduring the discomfort of such things as visiting a local playhouse and becoming to know the actors in the community.

Successful filmmakers realize that connections, not ideas or money, are the currency that move projects forward within the film community. No matter how much you lack in savings and inventive ideas, you will find the capacity to moderate your project’s destiny by making use of the ever expanding gamut of social tools created for this very purpose.