CTCS 190
Fall 2023
Lecture I.
Film in the long history of art. Film as a technology, business, and cultural product
I.
Introductory matters
a. Introduction to Norris
b. Introduction to course structure
i. lectures with Dr. Carstocea and discussion sections with TAs
ii. assignments
1. week 3 in-class ekphrasis exercise
2. ekphrasis paper
3. midterm take-home – sequence analysis exam
4. final take-home research exam
5. weekly quizzes
c. Syllabus overview, university policies, course expectations
i. Attendance, both lecture and section (let’s do it now for the first time)
ii. Academic integrity
iii. Support systems – OSAS accommodations
d. College work expectations
i. 2 hours of homework for each hour of instruction
ii. Read the chapters in advance, lecture is not just a replication of Bordwell
and Thompson; material in the textbook is all fair game for quizzes
iii. Study skills – break down schedule in advance
iv. Grading scale
II.
Perceptual grounding exercise
III.
Film as technology
a. Born in the industrial revolution – shift to mass production
i. 19th century was an era of quick change and invention; scientific
investigation into the recreation of life in motion are at the heart of the
drive towards film
ii. Time of quick industrialization and urbanization
iii. Film as embedded in the modernist moment – the infrastructure and
concerns of the period lead to discoveries
b. Six steps to film
i. Still Photography
1. Camera Obscura first described in 5th century BCE by Mozi,
founder of Mohism (China). His discovery was not picked up
again until the Middle Ages: the camera obscura started being used
by 11th century BCE – projecting real-life scenes on an interior
surface; used as drawing aid in the 17th century, also gave birth to
the first projection device for still images – the lanterna magica, or
magic lantern
2. Finding a photosensitive substrate to record the image – Nicephore
Nièpce, 1827 first photograph (heliograph on pewter, substrate was
bitumen in oil of lavender). Exposed inside a camera obscura,
exposure lasted hours, if not days (likely was several days for the
first one)
3. Practical photography (exposure times reduced down to 15
minutes) developed from Nièpce’s approach by his
employer/business partner Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre – hence
“daguerreotype”
ii. Persistence of Vision
1. The human mind holds an image for a fraction of a second after
you see an image – creates the illusion of motion
2. Phi phenomenon – our brain obtains the illusion of motion from
serial imagery if presented at high enough frequency
3. Early to mid 19th century toys used these phenomena
4. Thaumatrope – Dr. John Ayrton Paris, spinning coin that makes the
bird appear in the cage from the other side. Thauma=wonder;
trope=turn; thaumatrope=to turn out wonder
a. In lecture – example from Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton,
1999)
5. Phenakistoscope – Joseph Plateau, 1832
6. Zoetrope – William George Horner, 1834
iii. Motion Picture Camera
1. Series Photography
a. Eadweard Muybridge - Experiments commissioned by
governor Leland Stanford of California to settle a bet about
whether horses ever lifted all four feet/hooves off the
ground at once. Muybridge arranged 24 cameras on strings
set off by the horses as they ran by. You could see
movement, but it was prohibitively expensive, and not
much action was covered.
b. Jules-Etienne Marey created a photographic gun which
make 12 pictures on rotating glass plates.
iv. Film Stock
1. Celluloid – cheap, easy, long intervals of action
2. Stock to take 1000s of stills
3. Invented by Hannibal Goodwin, refined by Eastman, produced by
Edison/Lumiere/Pathe/etc.
4. Several framerates originally used, 24fps became standard with the
arrival of sound
v. The Printer
1. Converted negative images into positive images
vi. The Motion Picture Projector
1. Methodically project in front of a powerful light
2. Lumière Brothers – December 28, 1895 – first public exhibition of
motion pictures in Paris
Clip: The Sprinkler Sprinkled (Lumière, France, 1895)
Clip: The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Lumière, France, 1896)
c. Technology’s influence on production, aesthetics, business, and spectatorship.
i. Technology influences aesthetics and business; all four areas influence
each other i.e. the coming of sound allowed for musicals, development of
box office
ii. The Power of Film Technology
1. You’ll see what you missed
2. It allows us to see more; we edit reality.
3. It can maximize objects/sounds/silence; recreate the past and the
future
iii. Technology and expressive constraint
IV.
Film as business
a. Production, distribution, exhibition
i. Producers – Financial role, hiring labor
ii. Distributors – Get the movies to theaters
iii. Exhibitors – show the films
b. originally exhibited in vaudeville, the most popular commercial entertainment
i. At the end of the act as people getting up for intermission often skipped
the last show. However, everyone stayed for the movie and it soon
became the main attraction.
ii. Fitted into the proscenium arch, hence the rectangular shape
iii. Began running at their own venues (rickety)
iv. 1905 – first Nickelodeon in Pittsburgh; 1st permanent home for motion
picture; 15 minute programs
v. 1914 – first movie palace (and first feature length); brought together upper
and middle classes; built like a European opera house
c. Early cinema – “Cinema of Attraction” per Tom Gunning – early kinetoscope
shorts as well as early theatrical programs
Clips: Zach King, Graffiti trick film, 2019; @jilliansurfs, TikTok trick edit, 2020
i. Every town had 6-8 theaters; the star system took off
d. Modes of Production
i. Large-scale production
ii. Small-scale and independent production
e. Distribution and exhibition
i. Theatrical
ii. Non-theatrical
iii. Home video and streaming
f. Organized labor and entertainment
i. Current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes
1. Intellectual property rights and AI
2. Residuals and streaming
3. Labor protections and industrial churn
g. Artistic implications of business context
Influence of Business on technology and entertainment/art
a. Post-WWII business practices and necessities
i. TV and other leisure activities stealing audience; move to suburbs
ii. New technologies as a response – widescreen, color introduced to bring
back audiences
iii. New aesthetics –genres such as the historical spectacle flourish
V.
Film in culture
a. Urban context
b. Affordability
c. Socialization
Clip: D.W. Griffith, Those Awful Hats (1909)
d.
e.
f.
g.
Accessibility
Cleanness
Narrative
Community
h. Relatability
i. Processes of taste formation
j. The Social Dimension
i. Filmmakers are subject to their social environment; film uses elements
from society
ii. Film is both from and about society and culture
k. Cultural Dimension
i. Film can reflect, subvert, idealize, or transform culture
ii. We can encounter a past culture’s representations of themselves.
VI.
Film and art
a. Placing film in the long history of art
b. Paradoxes – artistic discourses and artistic inclinations might come at odds with
technological limitations or business practices/decisions
i. Film is collaborative, though art is seen as the product of individual
personality.
ii. Technology is impersonal, while art is seen as personal
iii. Film is a business; the medium is dictated by economics
iv. Film is for a mass audience, appeals to the lowest common denominator,
while art has to challenge and transcend time
c. Film contains the seven traditional art forms
i. literature - plot, character, pov
ii. theater – structure, performance
iii. painting – spatial composition, light
iv. dance – movement, related to sound
v. architecture – creates and shapes space
vi. sculpture – three dimensional objects you can move around
vii. music – rhythm, pace, harmony, motif
d. Film is a technology with industrial, cultural, and artistic aspects
e. Influence of entertainment/art upon technology and business
i. Aesthetics affects technology which affects business
ii. i.e. In order to create his vision of Star Wars, Lucas had to advance
technology, which in turn changed the business
VII.
VIII.
f. Creative decisions – mise en scene, cinematography, editing, sound
i. Examples from Perceval le Gallois, Barry Lyndon, and Shadow
15 minute break
Intro to Cave of Forgotten Dreams
a. Werner Herzog
b. Documentary and expressiveness
c. Documentary and reality
d. From cave paintings to 3D cinema