
Here are some main points from Barsam’s
opening chapters.
 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.

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


The Wizard of Oz?
Courage Under Fire?

What expectations do you have of the
following forms?
 Romance
 Mystery
 Thriller
 Fantasy
 Children’s film
 Instructional exercise video

Patterns are elements that are repeated so
that their meaning is expanded and
intensified.



Movies manipulate space and time in unique
ways.
Movies depend on light.
Movies create the illusion of movement.

Erwin Panofsky:
“the movies give time to space and space to time”
by creating the illusion of movement and the
illusion of the passage of time


The audience remains fixed while the screen
images move in a variety of directions
Film creates the illusion of time passing faster
or slower


Literally means ‘light’ ‘writing’
Began from 1800-1840; proceeded through
 Camera obscura
 Silhouettes
 Glass negatives
 Series photography (Edweard Muybridge)



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




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.


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)

This website provides examples of a variety
of optical illusions, such as motion aftereffect.
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_adapt/inde
x.html


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

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.



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)

Their 1895 film, “Exiting the Factory,” to
which sound has been added, utilizes fixed
cameras and tries to capture an everyday
event. Here’s the You Tube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4
Q6s















Action
Biography
Comedy
Fantasy
Film noir
Gangster
Horror
Melodrama
Musical
Mystery
Romance
Science fiction
Thriller
War
Western

Which genres does Courage Under Fire belong
to? How does it experiment with conventions
of those genres?



. . .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?





Factual
Instructional
Documentary
Propaganda
Sometimes, as with fictional films, these subgenres overlap or are impossible to
distinguish or determine.

How can we determine what is a
documentary, what is factual, and what is
propaganda?





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)




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


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).