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Here are some main points from Richard Barsam’s
textbook “Looking at Movies.” The opening
chapters discuss:
 You already know some things about movies, but
 Your knowledge is mostly instinctive
 You probably view movies primarily as entertainment
 Learning more about movies is likely to surprise you.
From Professor Lisa Jadwin Ph.D. – St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY
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These are the two key elements of any
narrative form, including film.
 FORM: the means through which a subject is
expressed.
 CONTENT: the subject of an artwork
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The Wizard of Oz
The Documentary, Salesman?
Apocalypse Now?
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What expectations do you have of the
following forms?
 Romance
 Mystery
 Thriller
 Fantasy
 Children’s film
 Instructional exercise video
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Patterns are elements that are repeated so
that their meaning is expanded and
intensified.
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Movies manipulate space and time in unique
ways.
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Movies depend on light.
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Movies create the illusion of movement.
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Erwin Panofsky:
“Movies give time to space and space to time” by
creating the illusion of movement and the illusion
of the passage of time.
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The audience remains fixed while the screen
images move in a variety of directions.
Film creates the illusion of time passing faster
or slower.
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Literally means ‘light’ ‘writing’
Began from 1800-1840; proceeded through
 Camera obscura
 Silhouettes
 Glass negatives
 Series photography (Edweard Muybridge)
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Slow – intermediate - fast speed
Film stock “speed” or “exposure index”
indicates the degree to which the film is
sensitive to light
“Fast” film stock is used in low-light
situations or to capture rapid motion that
would otherwise just be a blur
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Film comes in analog and digital formats.
Traditional film is still used to shoot most
movies.
Increasingly, digital film is being used in both
still and motion-picture photograph
Barsam does not devote a lot of discussion to
digital film technology, as it is still relatively
new.
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Gauge equals width of the film
8 mm to IMAX (210mm) in width
 Small-budget or intimate films are generally shot
in smaller gauge stock (16-35 mm)
 Big-budget or blockbuster films are generally shot
on wider gauge stock (70 mm widescreen or IMAX
210mm)
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This website provides examples of a variety
of optical illusions, such as motion aftereffect.
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_adapt/inde
x.html
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Persistence of vision (our eyes’ tendency to
“hold over” gapped images)
Phi phenomenon (the illusion of movement
between adjacent events)
 Critical flicker fusion helps create this
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Apparent motion (our eyes’ tendency to
connect disparate images into a single
smooth motion)
. . .at the movies, when you watch a
character use a computer monitor, and the
monitor seems constantly to flicker. Yet
when you look at your own computer
monitor, it doesn’t seem to flicker at all.
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Realism is the creation of scenarios that seem
plausible
Anti-realism is the creation of scenarios that
seem implausible (or defy the laws of
physics)
Verisimilitude is the illusion that a one- or
two-dimensional surface is three-dimensional
and actually real
A.
Plausible (realism)
B.
Implausible (anti-realism)
C.
Three-dimensional or real (verisimilar)
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Their 1895 film, “Exiting the Factory,” to
which sound has been added, utilizes fixed
cameras and tries to capture an everyday
event.
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It is on our web site robfilm.org in the
narrative video tutorials.
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Action
Biography
Comedy
Fantasy
Film noir
Gangster
Horror
Melodrama
Musical
Mystery
Romance
Science fiction
Thriller
War
Western
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Which genres does Citizen Kane belong to?
How does it experiment with conventions of
those genres?
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. . .when filmmakers alter generic
conventions
Often they do this to meet the expectations
of a changing society
What has happened to the western genre in
the past two decades?
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Factual
Instructional
Documentary
Propaganda
Sometimes, as with fictional films, these subgenres overlap or are impossible to
distinguish or determine.
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How can we determine what is a
documentary, what is factual, and what is
propaganda?
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Animation is created through manipulating
artificial characters – drawings, figures, etc. –
to provide the illusion of movement and life.
Puppet animation
Clay animation (ClayMation)
Pixilation
Traditional cartoons (like a celluloid flip-book)
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Avant-garde films: style becomes subject
These films are often designed to shock or
amaze viewers
They can be deliberately anti-realistic
Stream-of-consciousness is an avant-garde
technique
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Films are created not by individuals, but by
large teams of individuals working on special
issues: photography, acting, sound,
direction, editing, special effects, etc.
Traditionally the director is credited with the
overall vision of a particular film. This view of
film is called auteur theory (author theory).