"The great movies enlarge us, they civilize us, they make us more decent people."
- Roger Ebert
Animation Basics: The optical Illusion of Motion - Ted Ed
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How do animators make still images come to life? Are the images really moving,
or are they merely an optical illusion? TED-Ed takes you behind the scenes to reveal the secret of motion in movies. Lesson and animation by TED-Ed.
2.
[4:04 min]
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Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering studies of motion are some of the most recognized images in the history of photography. His subjects ranged from exotic animals in locomotion to dancers – each displaying a playful and inquisitive eye. Muybridge’s determination to capture motion famously led to his proving that a horse does in fact pick all four hooves up from the ground when it gallops, a popularly debated question of the day.
3.
[3:48 min]
Etienne Jules Marey - Sport in the Darkroom (EN)
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Photographs by Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904):
French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of labor photography.
He is widely considered to be a pioneer of photography and an influential pioneer of the history of cinema.
4.
[8:49 min]
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Bill tears apart a film projector to reveal the amazing mechanisms used in the pre-digital age
to trick the mind into seeing a moving image. He uses high speed photography and animations
to show how the projector moves the film intermittently, how a shutter strategically blocks light as the film moves, and how the photo sensor reads the sound. He explains how all these mechanisms are synced.
5.
[1:28 min]
Behind the Scenes: How does a slow-motion camera work?
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"48 Hours"
reconstructed the bedroom of Brad and Andra Sachs to demonstrate the firepower used at the crime scene. We used a slow-motion camera to capture the damage an assault rifle can create. Associate producer Josh Parr talks with Drew Lauer of Hollywood Special Ops about his camera and how he captures slow motion video.
1.
[4:42 min]
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In this video, Dave Monahan (Author of Looking at Movies) describes the interrelationship between Form and Content in film.
2.
[3:46 min]
That dark stylish beauty synonymous with directors like Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton
has its roots in Germany during the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. Here, realism is done away with in favor of the distorted and the surreal. Mirrors, large shadows, and optical effects are abundant. Strange worlds are created through a purely subjective eye. This is German Expressionism. Created for No Film School by Press Play Productions
3.
[5:17 min]
Video Essay: How Italian Neo-Realism Brought The Grit of the Streets to the Big Screen
This insightful new video essay by Tyler Knudsen (AKA Cinema Tyler) shows how great directors like Visconti, De Sica, and Rossellini ushered in the raw, unfiltered reality of Italian Neorealism. The Italian Neorealist movement was a sister to French New Wave, wherein Italian directors were dealing with the political reality of fascism by showing life as it was lived by ordinary working people. They wanted to show these people grappling with large, sometimes unsolvable problems, sometimes coming from their own lives, and sometimes stemming from larger social structures over which they had no control.
4.
[11:20 min]
A 10-minute documentary depicting the cinematographic techniques and aesthetics
involved in the making of Film Noir motion pictures.
5.
[25:55 min]
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This educational video essay compiles clips and interviews to detail the life and career of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and how his unique cinematic style continues to influence our cultural lexicon.
Alejandro Jodorowsky is a radically bold and outrageous filmmaker, whose work is incredibly spiritual,
and on the surface it can seem esoteric. But in reality, his unique filmic style is informed by a lifelong study in Tarot, Eastern mysticism and Jungian philosophy. His visual approach combines vibrant, religious iconography with grotesque and often sexually violent imagery. His cinematography is both meticulous and surreal, and loaded with intense symbolic gravity - where objects and movements are turned into metaphors, emphasizing their concepts and ideas - OVER the literal plot points of the film. Watching any of his 9 films is a very dreamlike experience - a pageant for the eyes, but a meditation for the soul.
6.
[22:34 min]
My Life in Monsters: Meet the Animator Behind Star Wars and Jurassic Park
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Phil Tippett is the Oscar-winning stop-motion animator and designer behind some of the greatest fantasy creatures and sci-fi set pieces in cinema history. From his humble beginnings as an alien patron in the iconic Cantina sequence from 'Star Wars: A New Hope', to pioneering stop-motion techniques used throughout 'Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of the Jedi', to seamlessly merging practical animation and CGI in Jurassic Park and beyond. In 'My Life in Monsters', VICE chronicles Tippett's legendary life work, illustrating the process behind his greatest creations, the emotional hardships of transitioning into Hollywood's digital revolution, and completing his return-to-form, stop-motion opus with the brutal, dystopian 'Mad God'.
1.
[4:56 min]
Before a movie can proceed with its story, it needs to lay its narrative groundwork through exposition. However, exposition is often delivered in clunky and uninteresting ways, such as through voiceover narration.
As a result, clever screenwriters often disguise their obvious attempts at exposition by using humor to distract us — like a magician diverting our attention with one hand, while performing a trick with the other. Ultimately, well-delivered exposition can be one of the movie’s most memorable moments, as this video essay will explore.
2.
[8:56 min]
Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Elements
Looking At Movies (you can find this video on your course textbook's publisher's website)
3.
[7:24 min]
The Darjeeling Limited: How Brothers Communicate
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CLIP DESCRIPTION:
This video looks at the dynamic relationship between dialogue, character development and the movie environment in The Darjeeling Limited, a Wes Anderson Movie.
Production Design
1.
[2:46 min]
Rear Window | The Opening Sequence | James Stewart and Grace Kelly
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This movie clip is an excellent example of exposition, expressed visually.
SYNOPSIS:
Rear Window (1960)
A newspaper photographer with a broken leg passes time recuperating
by observing his neighbors through his window. He sees what he believes to be a murder,
and decides to solve the crime himself. With the help of his nurse and girlfriend,
he tries to catch the murderer without being killed himself.
2.
[15:24 min]
The Legacy of German Expressionism and Mise en scène
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German Expressionism was one of several creative movements in Germany before WWI, influencing architecture, painting, printing, and cinema. Expressionist films often used wildly non-realistic and geometrically absurd sets with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights and shadows.
The plots of these films often dealt with madness, insanity and betrayal as well as other topics considered to be intellectual (as opposed to non-intellectual topics of action and romance). The influence of German Expressionism can be seen in American film as well. Many German directors fled to America to escape the Nazis during WWII, and found their way to Hollywood. Here, horror and film noir genres received the greatest impact.
3.
[5:41 min]
The Darjeeling Limited - Little Things With Big Impacts
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How little things can make big impacts. A video essay on The Darjeeling Ltd.
4.
[6:06 min]
Costume Design: The Hidden Layers of Movie Magic
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How Costuming is a vital but oftentimes overlooked aspect of amazing filmmaking. Let's take a look at some movies andn see how the cosuming added so much to their stories.
Composition, Framing, Aspect Ratio
1.
[15:55 min]
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CLIP DESCRIPTION:
This video looks at the impact that purposeful composition has on the meaning of a film.
2.
[12:43 min]
Ultimate Guide to Camera Shots_ Every Shot Size Explained [The Shot List, Ep 1]
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CLIP DESCRIPTION:
Camera shots and camera angles — every shot, in a scene, in a sequence, and in a movie, needs to be decided on with purpose. Choosing between a close-up or a medium shot can mean a huge difference in how the moment is perceived and felt by the audience. There is psychology at play in film language and film theory, and it is up to the director when making a shot list to speak that language fluently.
3.
[5:29 min]
What is 2:1 Aspect Ratio — Why David Fincher, Ari Aster, and More Directors are Switching to 18:9
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CLIP DESCRIPTION:
This is Cinematic Aspect Ratios Explained — Aspect ratios in filmmaking and cinematography are not just technical jargon, there is real visual storytelling value in which aspect ratio you choose. But what is aspect ratio today? Despite TVs being designed to accommodate widescreen filmmaking, they typically default to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which often compromises the filmmaker’s original vision. Today, we’re going to look at the 2:1 or 18:9 aspect ratio, how it might just be the perfect happy medium and why filmmakers like David Fincher and Ari Aster are switching over.
4.
[5:44 min]
The 180 Degree Rule in Film (and How to Break The Line) #180degreerule
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CLIP DESCRIPTION:
The 180 degree line is a rule used in filmmaking that helps you maintain a constant orientation during your scenes. That said, there are ways you can break the 180 degree rule, and ways that you can bend the 180 degree rule. Our video breaks down how to follow the 180 degree rule, how to break the 180 degree rule, and bend the 180 degree rule to achieve maximum effectiveness from your scene. Breaking the 180 degree rule can also be called crossing the line or jumping the line.
We show specific examples of directors and films that follow the 180 degree rule, break the 180 degree rule, and bend the 180 degree rule so that you understand perfectly the different effects each has on a viewer. When you finish this video, you will understand why you need to follow the 180 degree rule in most situations,
5.
[3:33 min]
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One of the many pleasures of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” (2011) is that the shots feel both tightly composed and weirdly unpredictable. Even though most of the images follow a simple quadrant system,
Refn puts plenty of subtle touches within the frame. Let’s take a look.
Cut, Edit, Montage
1.
[11:21 min]
A Trip to the Moon: Film History #1
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If you’ve ever watched a science fiction movie, or one that uses special effects, then you owe a debt of gratitude to Georges Méliès, one of the few people who truly deserve to be called a “visionary.”
One of cinema’s most important pioneers, Méliès worked in an age when the medium was changing rapidly
and when the whole world was obsessed with scientific discovery, explorations, and expeditions to the furthest reaches of the planet. So it’s fitting that a Doodle created in another age of fast-paced cinematic change — our current time — honors him by using some fancy technology of its own.
2.
[3:32 min]
How Soviet Cinema Gave The Movie Camera its Eyes
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How Soviet formalism changed cinematic storytelling forever.
3.
[7:38 min]
Alfred Hitchcock on 3 Theories of Editing
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A portion of a 1964 interview with Alfred Hitchcock from the CBC TV series "Telescope". Here, Hitchcock discusses three theories of film editing with examples, notably from his 1960 horror-thriller, PSYCHO.
4.
[7:37 min]
Satoshi Kon - Editing Space & Time
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Four years after his passing, we still haven't quite caught up to Satoshi Kon, one of the great visionaries of modern film. In just four features and one TV series, he developed a unique style of editing that distorted and warped space and time. Join me in honoring the greatest Japanese animator not named Miyazaki.
Types of Cuts
1.
[9:24 min]
How Does an Editor Think and Feel?
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For the past ten years, I’ve been editing professionally. Yet one question always stumps me: “How do you know when to cut?” And I can only answer that it’s very instinctual. On some level, I’m just thinking and feeling my way through the edit. So today, I’d like to describe that process: how does an editor think and feel?
2.
[6:25 min]
Editing 101: The 3 Types of Structural Editing | Editor Richard Pepperman
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Editor/Professor Richard Pepperman sits down with H8URS to discuss the 3 types of structural editing-- Cross-Cutting, Parallel Editing, and Intercutting.
3.
[5:54 min]
Video Essay: How the “French New Wave” changed cinema
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Ah, the French New Wave, the film movement on which many young cinephiles cut their teeth.
Its hip, moody black-and-white stories of love, violence, ennui, and social strife provide a perfect entrance into the private-made-public world of cinema. This remarkably detailed video essay both gives us the history of the movement and explains why its disjunctive essence has been so important to today's filmmakers.
4.
[8:37 min]
How WW II changed Cinema | Godard’s Breathless
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This is a solid nine-minute look at Breathless and how it grapples with Hollywood’s influence on the film industry. Beginning with Quentin Tarantino’s oft-noted quote that he “outgrew” Godard after being initially inspired to make movies by him, this video from The Nerdwriter breaks down how WWII led to an influx of Hollywood films in France, the way Breathless grapples with this legacy, the specter of Humphrey Bogart, Lacan’s mirror stage and much more.
5.
[18:24 min]
How Star Wars was saved in the edit
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A video essay exploring how Star Wars' editors recut and rearranged Star Wars: A New Hope to create the cinematic classic it became.
Metanarrative & Ideology
1.
[4:46 min]
Zizek - Coca Cola, and Kinder Eggs
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Slovenian Philosopher, researcher, and provocateur, Slavoj Zizek, explains how the seemingly mundane desire for things, is never as simple as the desire for the thing itself.
2.
[9:02 min]
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Here, Slavoj Zizek, discusses how various cinematic techniques, invented purely due to the nature of the medium of cinema as a moving pictures, work together to indicate a wide array of different ways to experience life.
3.
[54:20 min]
Michael Parenti: Rambo and the Swarthy Hordes"
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Lecture by Michael Parenti "Rambo and Swarthy Hordes"
How American entertainment, like movies, try to promote and cement the ideas of the ruling class..
Sound Design, Diegesis
1.
[5:26 min]
Sound Design: Using Sound to Get Inside a Character’s Head | Writer / Director Michael Tyburski
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In this video, writer/director of The Sound of Silence, Michael Tyburski sits down with H8URS to discuss how to create a character's subjective sound.
2.
[4:10 min]
Sound Design: The Key to Atmospheric Sound | Writer Director Michael Tyburski
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In this video, writer/director of The Sound of Silence, Michael Tyburski sits down with H8URS to discuss the use of micro sounds to create an atmosphere for his film ’The Sound of Silence.’
3.
[2:43 min]
The Oscars: Whiplash - Best Sound
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Ahead of the Oscars, production sound mixer Thomas Curley shares technical details and anecdotes
from the set of what's rumored to be the best film of the year.
4.
[7:52 min]
Harry Potter: What Magic Sounds Like?
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We understand what we see, and we feel what we hear. By creating a diverse palette of sounds,
whether it’s explosive whooshes, wisps of wind or crackling lightning mixed with voice, these
filmmakers and sound designers brought Harry Potter to life.
