Case Study:
1.
After watching all the films (with the exception of The Birth of a Nation) discuss at least 5 storytelling/narrative/plot) devices or editing choices that you have seen in recent films or TV shows. How did these devices or choices help drive the story? Then link those narrative techniques to the films you watched.
For example: In Walk, - You, Walk! (1912) Rose gets the help of friends to teach someone who mistreated her a lesson. This is common plot device in today's situation comedies.
Respond to at least two of your fellow classmates
2.
The Birth of a Nation (1913) is still seen as a monumental film due to its innovation of filming techniques that are still used today. For example, one of D. W. Griffith's key contributions was his pioneering use of "cross-cutting" to follow parallel lines of action. An early audience might have been confused by a film that showed first one group of characters, then another, then the first again, But Griffith successfully uses such a technique in a chase scene that is rarely not use in an action movie today. Besides "cross-cutting," There are at less 16 other ways in which Griffith was an innovator, ranging from his night photography to his use of the iris shot and color tinting. Due to Giffith's efforts, this is a film of great visual beauty and narractive power.
However, the movie is racist and unapologetic about its attitudes, which are those of a white Southerner, raised in the 19th century, unable to see African-Americans as fellow beings of worth and rights.
With that in mind, answer the following questions.
1) Is it possible to separate the content from the filmcraft? If art should serve beauty and truth, can great art be in the thrall of hateful ideologies? Can we still find beauty in such an ugly past? Is it reasonability "okay" to enjoy viewing such art with such a message?
2) Are there more recent films, TV shows, music, pieces of art that press against the same types of issues? If so, how do we/should we respond to them?
Respond to at least two of your classmates.AARON:
Hello All,
After watching all the films in Week Two's content (with the exception of The Birth of a Nation) discuss at least 5 storytelling/narrative/plot) devices or editing choices that you have seen in recent films or TV shows. How did these devices or choices help drive the story? Then link those narrative techniques to the films you watched.
A: The five editing choices that I am stoked to talk about this week includes: close ups on actors, cross cutting, continuity editing, contiguity editing, and shot reverse shot.
• Close ups. He has the golden idol, his whip as well, but he did not know that a boulder was about to squash him like a bug. Who can forget the zoom in and close up of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark? It makes sense that the average person would crap themselves upon realizing a few ton boulder is about to bid them a crushing defeat, but not for Indiana Jones. The audience shares in the pending disaster through the editing technique of a close up. As the camera pans in, we are able to see that the hero is just as worried about himself as the audience is. It is that conveyed emotion that draws us back to classics like the Indiana Jones series time and time again!
• Inception is an action movie that used cross cutting quite well. Cross cutting (Moura, 2014) is the technique of alternating between two or more scenes that are happening simultaneously but in different locations. It is down pouring in an American city while two gunmen on a motorcycle attempt to hijack a fifteen passenger bus. At the same time one of the stars of the movie is engaged in a battle of fisticuffs with a man in a hotel hallway. It turns out that the fight in the hallway is not happening in the real world, rather while the passengers in the van are in some sort of dream like state. As the van rolls off the road and flips side over side, the viewer notices that gravity is affected in the dream reality based on the orientation of the rolling van. The viewer is only aware of this phenomenon because of the use of cross cutting in nothing less than a superior manner.
• Continuity editing is the art of hiding the editing process from the viewer because the dialogue and actual scene convey enough information for the audience to understand what is happening. (Cameroon, 2012). The body is what is left after the dead guy mouthed off to the wrong good fella. As the body is being dragged out of the establishment where the murder took place, one of the men dragging the body tells the good fella who killed that man that they will take the body to his mother's house. The scene transitions from the body being dragged through a building to a car pulling into a driveway. The audience is able to draw the conclusion that the body has been loaded into the car, and that the car has arrived to the house of the good fella's mother without having to see those actual scenes unfold. The movie is of course the instant classic Goodfellas.
• Contiguity editing can be explained as simple as cutting from one scene to another, but to be more accurate; contiguity editing is used to follow characters through space and allow the audience to follow the narrative of a movie more easily (Lopez, 2014). Please watch any of the Fast and Furious films to view an abundant use of contiguity editing.
• Shot reverse shot is typically used in dialogue sequences where one camera focuses on one actor speaking at a time (Mott, n.d.). The numbers of examples of this editing technique are numerous to say the least, but to get a good idea of what shot reverse shot looks like you need to search no further than the prologue of a movie titled Hard Eight (Mott)
References
Mott, P. (n.d.). For the Sake of Conversation: On shot reverse shot. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from
https://www.aotg.com/index.php?page=shotreverseshot
Lopez, R. (2014). Editing Techniques. Retrieved on January 14 2017 from https://storify.com/ranierlopez/editing-techniques
Cameroon. (September 27, 2012). Continuity Editing. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from https://newcollegefilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2012/09/continuity-editing.html
Moura, G. (July 1, 2014). Parallel Editing. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from https://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/parallel-editing/
ROBERT
This is an interesting topic to me because I feel that it is fascinating how some film makers have demonstrated the ability to employ certain devices in order to make the film itself an actual character. Starting with my favorite new director, Alejandro Inarritu, who first got the world's attention with "Birdman" which had an interesting take on the film industry itself: he seemed to be sneering at the popularity of the Marvel and Transformers franchises. In the middle of this he employed the device of absurdity when his character, living a normal life, is suddenly thrown into a scene straight from one of the sci-fi blockbusters complete with monsters, heroes, and comic book action.
A second device that immediately comes to mind is prologue, especially since there is an interesting one in my favorite movie, "The Big Lebowski." In this film Sam Elliott introduces the main character through a folksy prologue full of witticisms and opinions about different things that will play a part in the movie.
I also have to mention ad-lib because I'm an admirer of Marlon Brando's ability in particular to do so. The first thing that comes to mind is his iconic "I coulda been a contender" speech in "On The Waterfront" which was completely ad-libbed. Brando was a master of ad-lib, even to the point of stroking a cat at the beginning of "The Godfather" which again was unscripted but the actor felt that doing so added a layer to the character.
I also thought about the device of the "locked down shot" in "Reservoir Dogs" which I watched again recently...this was employed during a horrifying scene where a gangster is cutting a police officer's ear off. The camera is slightly off while the audience has to listen to muffled screams and a radio. The shot works because it is very tense and the audience knows what is happening.
Finally ,the device of ambient lights which I mention because I feel that my favorite all time director Stanley Kubrick was amazing at this. I enjoyed the lighting in his last film "Eyes Wide Shut" especially in the fancy homes of the wealthy Tom Cruise character and those of his friends. Elsewhere the movie is quite dark which makes one wonder if there is a message that one's life is brightest when he is home with his family.
TOPIC 2
MICHAEL
In watching a birth of a nation I would say it is possible to separate the content from the filmcraft. I think like everything it is how you want to perceive it. When I was watching Birth of a Nation I was looking at the actors clothing style, automobiles and it give you an idea of that snapshot in history. The American past was not always pretty and to try to show it as if it was would be unjust. You can still find beauty in watching a film that is hatefully if it portrays the truth of the matter.
There were few of the good things I pulled out of this film I wanted to point out. The first thing was that families were fighting one another because some had moved to the north and were drafted to fight the south. When I saw that guy about to stab someone on the battlefield and when I know that guy and stopped. The fact that the war was using freed slaves to fight against and gain the advantage against the south. It also did a good job of displaying the struggles of the families that had the husband's lives cut short for the cause and how the women had to rise up and take lead household roles and nurses.
ROBERT:
I think that it is very worthwhile for critics of art to point out examples where artists have used their form to portray those who hold unsavory ideologies as heroic. As groundbreaking as "Birth of a Nation" was it upholds a belief system that is roundly rejected today by almost all Americans. In relative terms though, a film that espouses the racism of 100 years ago is not nearly as threatening as the fact that a statue of the founder of the KKK remains intact in Memphis to this day. Art has often been used to manipulate the public and the first thing that I think of is a painting like "The Death of Murat" which glorified perhaps the most extreme member of the violent wing of the French Revolution. Critics were quick to point out the problems with Murat's portrayal as a righteous martyr and certain references to the revolution have been omitted from the painting as it appears in books. Another example is the recent "discovery" of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" which all but destroys the positive civil rights legacy of Atticus Finch that was apparent in "To Kill A Mockingbird." In any form of art we hope that those who are portrayed as heroic have decent values and it is very difficult to separate a work of art's values from the work itself if we don't see them as profitable for the public.