What is a Turnaround Film and What Does it Mean When a Film Goes into Turnaround?
As members of the film industry know all too well, nothing is guaranteed, and things could change in an instant. This is true in a lot of different scenarios in filmmaking, but nothing is more difficult to accept than when a film becomes a turnaround. You might have heard the term “turnaround film” expressed in […]
Filming in the Snow: White Balance Correction for Filmmakers
When filming in the snow, correcting white balance can be tricky, particularly as some camera settings can leave your footage appearing gray or overly blue. If you’re a beginning cinematographer that’s just starting out, you might be tempted to use the various presets that your camera has to achieve proper white balance while you’re filming […]
Oppositional Cinemas and the Role of Oppositional Filmmaking
While there may not technically be a form of cinema that is considered opposition cinema, oppositional cinemas exist as does oppositional filmmaking which plays a significant role in guiding the socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts of various films. Many well-known examples of oppositional cinema or oppositional filmmaking thus have criticized the traditional norms of cinema introducing […]
What Filmmaking Movements did Direct Cinema Define?
Direct Cinema, a form of filmmaking that seeks to mirror that of real life production became popular in the 1960s following the French movement of cinema verite. Since then, documentarians have used a variety of similar techniques in order to achieve the outcomes of the fly-on-the-wall or fly-in-the-soup approach to filmmaking such that the idea […]
How to Use Syuzhet in Screenwriting
Before writing a screenplay, the writer will typically formulate a plan. The plan is an outline of events that includes the individual timeline. Upon which each of the key events of the story takes place. The writer is going to outline these events in chronological order, from beginning to end. But that’s certainly not how […]
Censorship in Hollywood by Joseph Breen Production Code Czar
According to history books and of course to film historians Joseph Breen, was a production code czar who established powerful censorship. Which guided the film industry for the next two decades. Originally appointed by Will Hays to assist the film industry in censoring itself. The idea that if censorship’s done right? There would be no […]
How Much Does Piracy Cost the Film Industry?
Piracy is a growing problem in the film industry accounting for billions in lost revenue annually. According to recent studies, piracy is the absolute greatest threat to the United States motion picture industry accounting for losses through internet and hard goods piracy in the form of pirated content downloads as well as pirated DVD sales. […]
What is a Film Sequence Analysis and Why is it Important?
When you’re the spectator of a film, are you watching every scene with absolute purpose? Are you thinking about how each scene is feeding into the next. And driving home the overall message of the film? Probably not. But the filmmaker was and the editor was when they coordinated the sequence. And produced the final […]
How to Do a Film Sequence Analysis
Film sequence analysis involves breaking down a scene or sequence of scenes to analyze elements of cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing and sound in order to formulate a deeper understanding of the Director’s vision for the story and the connection that each shot, scene, or sequence has to the overall message. Learning how to do a film […]
What is a Formal Analysis in Film?
Various elements of film analysis are represented in any formal analysis that is mentioned throughout film study or the education of film students. In fact, writing a formal film analysis certain requires that the author examine a number of individual parts. And choices that are made in connection with the creation and ultimate production of […]