The Filmmaking Process In Hollywood
explanatory Essay
1183 words
In today’s modern society, watching a film which satisfies people both visually and audibly is part of everyday entertainment. Being one of many entertainments which can be approached easily, film provides variety of genres which can satisfy various people with different choices. Moreover, films are created in different studios of different countries with variety of languages. However, an oligopoly of Hollywood studios, also known as ‘the Majors’, has dominated world cinema for more than nine decades and still does today (Silver, 2007). During the ninety years, a lot have changed in the film industry including development of equipments, introduction of colours, and most significantly, introduction of sound. Sound was not always synchronized with moving images nor was it always heard by audiences during the screening. The technological changes and development allowed moving images to be seen and to be heard as we experience today. In order to keep up with the transition from silent era to talkie era, Hollywood naturally went through changes in their filmmaking process and shaped various genres that exist today. This essay will, therefore, examine how introduction of sound has affected the filmmaking process in Hollywood, how sound has had an impact in different genres of films, and show that transition to sound film did cause apparent changes in process of filmmaking but did not result in the creation of a new film genre in Hollywood.
FILMMAKING PROCESSES
It is widely said that the introduction of sound in the 1920s had an impact on Hollywood’s filmmaking practices as the film industry tried to incorporate new technologies and filmmaking practices after the huge success of first sound film, The Jazz Singer (Crosland, 1927). Howev...
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...triarchy power started to be destroyed due to Great Depression. Using this as a chance, Hollywood used sexual difference to play with higher classes and social values. In It Happened One Night, characters talked non-stop without a pause and the narrative of the film flew very quickly. This allowed audiences to stay awake and did not give them time to be bored. Moreover, the film’s portrayal of role of women, Great Depression and class stratification entertained the audiences. Since then, screwball comedy became one of the most popular film genres in the film industry until 1943 when its fame started to burn down. However, the genre’s certain elements still can be seen in today’s contemporary films such as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Petrie, 2003) which include battle of sexes, and Two Weeks Notice (Lawrence, 2002) which include contrast between different classes.
In this essay, the author
- Explains how hollywood's oligopoly has dominated world cinema for more than ninety years and still does today. the essay examines how introduction of sound has affected the filmmaking process in hollywood.
- Explains that the introduction of sound in the 1920s had an impact on hollywood's filmmaking practices as the film industry tried to incorporate new technologies after the success of first sound film, the jazz singer.
- Explains that sound increased the mean shot length from 5 seconds to 11 seconds compared to silent films. the jazz singer contains both synchronous and asynchronous scenes.
- Explains that musical, gangster, and screwball comedy were important in hollywood films during the silent era, but they shaped into a perfect form only after the introduction of sound.
- Explains that musical genre emerged from stage musicals and operettas as early as 1735. new technology allowed singing and dancing to be synchronized in a film, not on the stage.
- Explains that gangster films did not gain fame and popularity until the talkie era.
- Explains that screwball comedy was first shown by howard hawks in 1934, followed by frank capra’s it happened one night.
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In this essay, the author
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- Analyzes how die hard utilizes a step-by-step style of narration, where the end and the objectives of the protagonist, john mcclane, are not arrived upon until all complications are resolved and enemies in the film are eliminated.
- Explains that hollywood films have reconnoitered numerous ways to tell a story, styles of cinematography, and technological effects, but one element remains: the notion of 'neatly' happy ending.'
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- Analyzes how the film opens with a talk from tom brands, the hawkeye's wrestling assistant coach. the sudden angry expression helps understand what is demanded from the best.
- Analyzes how the hawkeyes wrestling team exist because of this belief. josh budke represents the weak link, an example of "not great enough," and an overall abject man.
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In this essay, the author
- Explains that the idea of synchronised sound was unthinkable when the medium of film began over 100 years ago.
- Explains that sound played a part in cinema before the use of synchronised sound. the first film to incorporate the innovative technology was the 1927 warner brothers production of the jazz singer.
- Explains that the telecommunications company wanted to create profit, so they approached the film production companies with the technology. they did not feel the need to expand the way in which films were presented in terms of adding synchronous sound.
- Explains that hollywood cinema was thriving with its vaudeville style. the major production companies chose to avoid developing the technology provided by at&t and rca.
- Explains that adding sync sound specifically dialogue was a risk for the overseas market as english is not their first language. it was easier to translate silent films because changing the title cards to the required language was simple.
- Explains that when the idea of adding synchronised sound to cinema occurred, there was a lot of hesitation amongst film production companies.
- Explains that warner brothers and 20 fox had taken the risk to use sound in their films, which upped their ranks in the production company hierarchy. the technology was expensive and made it hard for others to compete with them.
- Explains that sound production companies had to find funding in order to fund productions with sound technology. they could have less creative control as the banks would not fund an idea they didn't like.
- Explains that the warner brothers and fox initiative to use the technology forced the big production firms to compete.
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- Explains that music has become the lingua franca of films in the twentieth century, and scholars find it challenging to explore some aspects of film music for several reasons.
- Argues that academics have not yet extensively researched the role of music within films. the "silent era" began in the 1920s.
- Opines that the scoring of mainstream hollywood films has been frozen for the past decade or so. the classical hollywood style is still the main model for film productions.
- Opines that the divide between visual and auditory means of films needs to be addressed in film music scholarship.
- Analyzes how a compilation score is not always tailored for the film. kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey is an example of this.
1130 wordsRead More - Sound on Discexplanatory essayFrom the Kinetophone to the Vitaphone, the sound-on-disc format dominated the pioneering stage of sound in movies. For the first time ever, people were able to hear sound synchronized with the images on the screen, and the revolution had begun-the talkies were here to stay. It was the sound-on-disc format that helped create many of Hollywood’s “talkie” classics, including The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool. However, another format, sound-on-film, would soon take reign of the talking motion picture movement, as the audience and the exhibitors started to become more demanding as technology was slowly improving. Sound-on-disc was simply beleaguered with too many technical and economic problems to continue to stay relevant. Thus, the competing sound-on-film format eventually became widely-accepted in the motion picture industry and is used even to this day.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that the sound-on-disc format dominated the pioneering stage of sound in movies. it helped create many of hollywood's "talkie" classics, including the jazz singer and the singing fool.
- Explains that edison's kinetophone was the most influential film-phonograph combination in the 1920s, which featured an automatic synchronizing system.
- Describes how the kinetophone premiered in 1913 at the colonial, a vaudeville theatre on broadway.
- Explains that edison's failure marked the end of the pioneering phase of phonograph-based sound pictures.
- Explains that the at&t subsidiary western electric began sound-on-disc research and development in 1912, when lee de forest's audion tube was acquired. the us involvement in world war i forced the company to put their sound projects on hold.
517 wordsRead More - The Evolution Of Silent Filmexplanatory essayFrom the beginning of cinema as an art form to cinema today, film has evolved and developed drastically. Each era of film from the Silent Film to the French New Wave was influenced by prior film generations and influenced those films that came after it. The era of Silent Film was very basic as it emerged when motion pictures had only begun. Across the sea, the age of German Expressionism, a film genre with features of the Silent Film era which conveyed the German people's struggle after World War I had started. Afterwards, the Studio Era surfaced and portrayed larger than life heroes in narratives with the gloss of a storybook. During the Studio Era, films like these were produced quickly because of success and began to appear mass produced
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- Explains how the silent film to the french new wave eras were influenced by prior film generations and contributed to cinema's evolution.
187 wordsRead More - Essay On Sound Cinemaanalytical essayHegel once described hearing and seeing as two rational senses working together to give us the complex picture. While sight permits to perceive the object only as a surface without depth, hearing allows to overcome distance between the subject and the object. From this point of view one could assume that the use of sound in film will add to its ability of verisimilitude. Nevertheless, the first reaction to the sound cinema was not always welcoming and numerous film theorist, Rudolf Arnheim leading the list, feared that sound would be a relapse to the old perception of cinema as filmed theatre. In 1929, Weimar director Fritz Lang, the author of renowned Metropolis, “scoffed loudly and publicly at the very concept of the sound film”. However,
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- Analyzes how hegel described hearing and seeing as two rational senses working together to give us the complex picture.
- Explains that in 1931, the transition from silent cinema to sound film in germany was rapid, whereas in 1929 only three percent of films were shot with sound, in the next year the number have risen to 84%.
- Analyzes how the start of the film is announced by strike of a gong, which induces the documentary atmosphere supported by the camera omniscience and detailed depiction of city and police practices.
- Analyzes how lang uses voice-over as an original way to assemble consecutive shots by sound bridge, an editing pattern when the diegetic sound originating from one shot segues into the next shot.
- Analyzes how lang approached the editing of sound in m by the technique called montage to buttress the parallel structure of the film.
- Analyzes how the lang's use of sound creates strong emotions of anxiety and fear without mentioning what happened.
- Analyzes the relationship between the sound and blindness in the film, which starts and ends with the black screen and sound coming from darkness.
- Explains that lang was one of the first to use a leitmotif in film and moreover he was the pioneer of employing the opera technique of musical representation
- Explains caroll's classification of m as a silent sound film and asks lang whether his use of the sound is more prodigious or underdeveloped.
1359 wordsRead More - The Use of Sound in Coppola’s The Conversationanalytical essayAs an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the conversation's use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image.
- Analyzes how francis ford coppola's the conversation was made in between the first two godfather movies. the film is a character study of harry caul (gene hackman).
- Analyzes how the opening title sequence is one of the most interesting sequences in the film. it begins with a wide high angle shot looking down over san francisco's union square.
- Analyzes how the camera zooms in on harry caul's footsteps, which sound distant and tinny as if they were recorded from far away.
- Analyzes how the digital noise in the film is manipulated to make out the muffled exchange between two people. caul glances over his shoulder and looks up towards the camera.
- Narrates how they thought to themselves what if a conversation focused on using that special microphone, then someone walked in front of those two people.
- Analyzes how the three surveillance recording points are mixed and edited as if we are hearing the sound being captured from three different microphones attempting to record their encounter.
- Analyzes how asynchronous sound is powerfully used by the film's sound designer walter murch. to remove this design and replace it with sounds from the location would be catastrophic to say the least.
- Argues that accurately recorded sound adds nothing to the image system of cinema, since it still has no aesthetic content.
- Analyzes how the film cuts between caul's workshop and flashbacks of his memories from the couple on that day.
- Analyzes how the film's mystery is amplified as caul professionalism prevents him from handing over the finished tape to the company director.
- Analyzes how murch uses external diegetic sound to show the beginnings of caul's mental state breaking down.
- Analyzes how the dialogue from fredric forrester underpins the suspense of the entire film. coppola leaves the viewer with the same questions as caul.
- Analyzes how the line 'he'd kill us if he had the chance' was repeated over and over again, with different emphasis depending on what you knew about the story.
- Compares the conversation to antonioni's blow-up in that crucial piece of evidence is hidden in the background recording. the image is repeatedly enlarged, the same thing is being done with the sound.
- Analyzes how the use of sound is brilliantly frustrating in gradually revealing its intentions as different parts of the conversation are exposed; the ever-malleable truth that eludes caul leads to his nuances on the vital line, causing his paranoia
- Analyzes how the use of external sound helps to show the audience harry’s hysterical thought process, as he continues to twist the meaning that is totally consuming him.
- Analyzes how harry's investigations lead him to a hotel where he believes the young couple will be murdered. caul is an observer, consumed with guilt at the possibility of what his work may have caused.
- Analyzes how harry's use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound weaves together the stories conclusion, while standard location sound would not have had the same impact.
- Explains that the theme from the conversation was composed by david shire, whom francis ford coppola approached before filming began.
- Explains that coppola's intention was to compose a score that reflected harry’s personality. the single piano with clear jazz/bluesy feel complimented his love of jazz music.
- Opines that they've never heard a score that was just piano before; they thought that the piano felt lonely, and the film was about privacy.
- Analyzes how the timbre and rhythm of the score has a haunting and sinister feel, particularly effective when used in earlier sequences as it adds to confusion and sense of unease.
- Analyzes how caul investigates the hotel room where he fears a murder has taken place. the distorted piano score pushes murch's use of the score further.
- Explains that they were able to take the music and send it through a synthesiser and deform it in various ways. as the story gets more complex, harry's life begins to unravel.
- Analyzes how the relationship between murch and shire proved invaluable in its impact on the film’s sound design. the two experimented with different pieces of music to fit various scenes.
- Explains that they could write the score while you (coppola) were editing the picture, send up various tapes for walter, and experiment with different pieces.
- Analyzes how the final version leaves the audience feeling uneasy as they are being sucked in. only then can it be fully appreciated and understood.
- Analyzes how the camera pan of harry's apartment is intended to appear as a surveillance device. harry sits there in the rumble playing his saxophone, while the piano, which has accompanied the whole film, is playing harmoniously.
- Analyzes how the conversation's post-production/sound design took almost a year to complete. the narrative is totally reliant on the direction of sound.
- Explains that there are two rhythms, the rhythmic course of the objective world and the tempo and rhythm with which a man observed this world.
- Opines that the story allows itself to be opened up to experimentation in its audio construction because of harry's situation and choices in life.
- Describes the main features of the film.
- Cites filmtracks, hilditch, n., and the internet movie database. the conversation (1974).
- Explains that lobrutto, v., norelli, c. n. and ondaatje, m. (2004). the conversations: walter murch and the art of editing film.
- Analyzes how tarkovsky, a., and francis ford coppola talk about the evolution of movie sound.
2672 wordsRead More - Destry Rides Again, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and the Fall of the Hollywood Studio Systemanalytical essayThomas Schatz cites the 1950’s as the inevitable end of the Hollywood film studio system, with the signs appearing as early as the height of the second World War (472). However, the seeds of discontent and disintegration within the system were apparent as soon as the late 1930’s, exemplified in such films as Destry Rides Again (1939, George Marshall) and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939, Frank Capra). The production of these two films and the paths down which they led their star (James Stewart), directors (at least Frank Capra), and studios (Universal and Columbia, respectively) are evidence of the decline of the studio system. The haphazard production of Destry Rides Again and its subsequent success (financially, but not as an enduring classic film) are indicative of a system eating itself alive: so intent on the production of film after film made with almost the same crews and casts that lasting meaning had been all but completely forgotten in favor of financial success and power within the system. This also demonstrates the decline of the fascist executive order of the studios in favor of the hard work and devotion of those directly involved on the film set as well as the increasingly important role of the talent agent as the intermediary between the talent and the studios. Frank Capra’s eventually freelance auteurship, in the wake of David O. Selznick and his “independent” film productions, particularly evident in the production of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, was a notable indicator of the studios’ impending loss of power (Schatz 407). These and other independent and freelance artists (such as Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang)...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes destry rides again, mr smith goes to washington, and the fall of the hollywood studio system.
- Analyzes how the haphazard production of destry rides again and its subsequent success (financially, but not as an enduring classic film) indicate the decline of the studio system.
- Analyzes how independent artists like alfred hitchcock and fritz lang turned the tide against the studios until the balance of power was tipped in favor of the individual filmmakers.
- Analyzes how universal came under a completely new ownership during the second half of the 1930s. the new owner, j. cheever cowdin, set up robert h. cochrane and charles r. rogers in charge of universal.
- Analyzes how destry rides again was a product of the studio system, but it also defied industry standards. it was received at the time and is remembered with admiration, though rarely with respect.
- Analyzes how david selznick, after years at various studios, formed his own film production company in 1935.
- Analyzes how mr. smith goes to washington is patriotic and advocates democracy to the point of absurdity. it paved the way for his success in destry rides again.
- Explains that the hollywood studio system of early film was a difficult industry for so-called independents like david o. selznick due to its "fundamentally collaborative" nature.
- Analyzes how stewart's work with frank capra, destry rides again, and alfred hitchcock paved the way for his career.
- Analyzes how destry rides again is a classic western film, but critics and writers dismiss it as mindless fluff and escapist entertainment.
- Analyzes how mr. smith goes to washington is honored and respected as a film which upholds democracy, which in the case of this film is simplistically equated with the state and practice of being american.
- Analyzes how the reviews of destry rides again mistakenly credit the producer joe pasternak with the role of director, while george marshall was, in fact, the director.
- Analyzes how destry rides again advocates democracy and blind devotion to colonialist ideals as strongly as, though with greater subtly than, mr. smith goes to washington.
- Analyzes how the historical and political functions of these films can be seen by their positionality in the history of the film industry, the fall of hollywood studio system, and the rise of independent, more flexible mode of producing films.
- Explains that "destry rides again, 6 december 1939". variety: a sixteen volume set.
- Cites wright, william, six guns and society: a structural study of the western, berkeley, los angeles, london, university of california press.
- Narrates nugent's "mr. smith goes to washington, 11 october 1939". variety: a sixteen volume set.
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