History of Movies

Movies, often known as flicks, are a form of visual communication that uses sound and moving visuals to convey information to a target audience. They are created with a camera. There are numerous diverse movie genres, including comedy, mystery, thriller, horror, documentary, and action.

Originally, before movies were made, plays were performed in theaters, where players had to project their voices and use apologies to ensure that the audience could hear and see them properly. The performers in today's movies are more cogent and articulate thanks to the use of voice projection and exaggerating gestures (Sabato, 2017). A Russian actor and director named Konstantin Stanislavski came up with the “method acting” which involved critically analyzing the actions and utterances of the of the actor from the script. This technique by Konstantin has helped the films today as the actors are no longer just saying lines from the script, the actors can show conviction and sincerity during the performance exhibiting feelings and emotions. Lee Strasberg had a technique called “sense memory” whereby, the actor is supposed to relive or re-experience an event to portray truth and emotion within a fictional story. This technique has helped films today because its use brings out authenticity and a connection between the viewers and the actors (Sabato, 2017). Stella Adler encouraged a technique which involved an actor learning the qualities of the character in the script such as dancing, driving among others. This method has helped films today because the performances by the actors show a level of professionalism in the partaken activities.

Impacts that Acting Techniques have on Films

Acting techniques like Stanislavski’s system have helped the film industry as it has brought an aspect of realism through the self-analysis thus, making the films being created have a realistic structure that captivates the audience (Baron, 2016). The practical aesthetics technique makes the actor focus on the action happening on a particular scene; thus the actor can accurately play the desired role without difficulty or error hence, the quality of the film goes up due to perfection (Baron, 2016). The technique of relating one’s encounters to be in line with the script helps to bring out truthfulness and creates a bond with the audience of the film throughout the performance.

Common Assumptions Regarding Emotional Effect of Music on Film

The common assumption generated by the emotional effect music has on a film is such as the incident happening at that time in the film is real as music stirs different emotions in the viewers. Many people feel that music in a film offers a subtext whereby, the music fills in the part of a commentary thus making the current scene in a film appear realistic. Another assumption generated by the emotional effect of music in a film is that something tragic or saddening is going to happen afterward (Saltzman, 2014).

Effects of Music to a Film

When music is introduced in a film, it may change the emotion of the audience depending on the tempo and genre of the music, thus improving the quality of the film. Music can be used to create a film’s vibe as it contains the emotional landscape of a particular production thus making the audience feel the emotion at a particular instance in a film (Saltzman, 2014). Sometimes during the creation of films background noises can be heard and music can be used to eliminate the noises making to avoid causing distractions to the audience making the film flawless (Saltzman, 2014). Music can be used to prevent suspense during changes of a scene to keep the audience engrossed in the film.

Special Effect Revolution in the Film World

Special effects have revolutionized the film word in various ways such the special effects for flying has been refined since the early times. Initially, flying involved a character jumping then the introduction of a cut scene to the destination which appeared fake and deceitful but special effects make the character seem to be flying more realistically making the aspect of flying in the film believable to the audience (Keil, & Whissel, 2016). Special effects improve the quality of a film because, without special effects, the scenes appear dull and boring, but the use of special effects creates a thrilling film. An example is when a character is shot, and there are no special effects the actors just appears dead with a spot of blood, but with the introduction of special effects, the character’s skin seems to be raptured thus improving the quality of the movie (Keil, & Whissel, 2016).

Special effects Prevalent in the 80’s Movies

Some of the predominant special effects in movies during the 80’s are such as the plasma effect which was used when the film tried to portray that the actor was time traveling or encountering a supernatural event especially sci-fi movies (Bernardovillela, 2013). Another special effect mostly used in the 80’s films was a montage with upbeat music which incorporated the musical montage at a specific part in the movie for different purposes. The arcade is another special effect prevalent in the 80’s which involved games housed in gigantic slaps of chipboard. The film would show youngsters playing wrestling with arcade machines which are not common in the current era indicating the setting of the movie is around the 80’s (Bernardovillela, 2013).

Effects of Lighting on a Movie

Lighting in a movie is important as light illuminates the subjects ensuring the subject is lit for easy visibility during the activities hence improving the visual quality of the movie. Lighting helps the events of a film appear natural since the camera does not respond the same way human eyes do in the absence of artificial light and needs light to adjust the contrasts to make the film seem natural (Brown, 2012). Lighting can create emotional impact or psychological mood for a movie whereby poor lighting shows the movie has a theme of horrors or untrustworthiness and brightness indicates comfort. Multiple different lightings in a movie attempt to show conflict or contradictions. Lighting improves the clarity of the movie and provides attention to detail as the essential details of a frame in a film are easily captured like facial expressions.

Key light in a movie is used to identify the principal character from a group or the primary activity that should be focused on by the film audience. High contrast lighting makes a film colorful and exciting as the colors under high contrast are more visible (Brown, 2012). Also, high contrast lighting can make a movie achieve a perception of daylight when the light from the sun is not enough to make the shooting of reach its expectation of daytime.

Film Shots, Angles, and Techniques used Movies

There are several types of film shots such as long shot which captures the subject or area from top to bottom though not filling the frame. Another film shot is full shot which involves the character being captured from head to toe but filling the frame (Honthaner, 2013). Medium shot is whereby, a shot portrays a specific part of a subject in detail. A close-up shot involves the subject filling the frame tightly. Angles used in movies are such as bird’s eye view where the scene is directly overhead the subject, and the high angle is whereby the camera is elevated above the action being captured using a crane and the subject being captured appears small (Honthaner, 2013). Another angle is eye level which involves the camera being placed to look as if it is observing the subject face to face.

The different techniques used in movies are such as cucoloris which is lighting technique involving an object being placed between the light sources to form a shadow pattern on the subject. Flashback is a technique used to refer to prior events in the film to foreshadow coming events. Lighting is also a technique used in film and can be regulated and changed to show different moods (Honthaner, 2013). Finally, montage is a film technique where a series of shots in a movie to create a brief narrative.

Super 8 Camera

A super 8 camera is a motion picture camera which applied the super 8mm motion picture format and was more comfortable to use to shoot home movies. The super 8 cameras were first manufactured around 1965, and they succeeded the cameras that used 16mm films. Steven Spielberg has used the super 8 cameras since his childhood and found the camera easier to use to shoot home movies (Barbash, & Castaing-Taylor, 1997). Many people began to use the supper 8 cameras and among those people were Abrams and Matt who took their films to the S8 festival and met with Steven with whom they co-produced “Super8”. Their co-production made the super 8 cameras famous across the world as the video had been fantastic. Other factors that made filming on the super 8 cameras great is that it was cheap, had high image quality and had less hassle in terms of opening and splitting films into half like the 16mm cameras (Barbash, & Castaing-Taylor, 1997).

References

Barbash, I., & Castaing-Taylor, L. (1997). Cross-cultural filmmaking: A handbook for making documentary and ethnographic films and videos. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Baron, C. (2016). Modern Acting: The Lost Chapter of American Film and Theatre. London : Palgrave Macmillan UK

Bernardovillela. (2013). Once Upon a Time in the 80s- Special Effects. Retrieved From: https://themovierat.com/2013/01/17/once-upon-a-time-in-the-80s-special-effects-part-3-of-17/

Brown, B. (2012). Motion Picture and Video Lighting. CRC press.Sabato, M. (2017). Going Method:A History of the Modern Acting Techniques. Retrieved from: https://www.filminquiry.com/history-modern-acting-techniques/

Honthaner, E. L. (2013). The Complete Film Production Handbook. CRC Press.

Keil, C., & In Whissel, K. (2016). Editing and special/visual effects. New Bruswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, 2016.

Saltzman, S. (2014). Music editing for film and television: the art and the process. CRC Press.