Literature of Cinema

CONTENT

                              I.            Literature of Cinema

                          II.            Film Techniques-Cinematography

                       III.            Components of film

                       IV.            Film Genres

                          V.            Narrative Point of View

                       VI.            Narrative Techniques

                   VII.            What is a short film?

                VIII.            Documentary Films

Assignments and Seminar

                       IX.            Film directors

                           X.            Academy award winning movies

                       XI.            Film history

                    XII.            Tamil directors

                XIII.            Indian legend directors

                XIV.            World movie directors

 Cinema have a literature as other forms of arts. The language of cinema that consists of image and sound. It is a completely distinct language. The style of cinema is unique and exclusive.

An image can speak.  Every image like a sentence and the sum total of all image is the final message of a film. Sound complements image. One has no meaning without others. If a scene does not have any sound even its absence can convey a special meaning. Silence itself becomes its message. Even in the silent era images carries meanings. Their language was not dependent on dialogue.  The images and sounds have been recorded with the help of camera and sound recording machine.

Film making can be divided into three phases.

1.    the screen play

2.    selecting appropriate location and shooting

3.    editing. 

1. The first is writing the screen play. The screen play is the basic structure of a film. It describes in words what on the screen is expressed through image and sound. It is this structure of a movie to make a film come alive and give it a cohesive form.

2. The second phase involves either selecting appropriate location based on the screen play or building a set getting together enough actors to play the characters as described in the scenario and shooting the whole process.

3. In the third phase is called editing. 

A scene is broken into different parts and various parts are then shown from different angles. Each individual part of a scene is called as shot.  This system of breaking up a scene is unique to cinema. It is based on an artistic purpose as well as linguistic merit.  The style adapted in a film is depended by story itself and the views and attitudes of the director.

Screen Play

The Learning how to make the script is very important to having a good film.
        
          Filmmakers must have a knowledge or an idea about how to get started, also  how to complete the script, or even how adapt the script to their particular needs and learn how to make biggest impact on the script.  It is essential to know that a good script must ensure a huge success in their project.  A film script is a linear structure that is made up of many parts: Action, characters, music, visual imagery etc. All of the parts make up the whole.

   A film script is divided into three parts:

Beginning -Act one                                       
Middle -Act two                                     
End- Act three

Beginning -Act one
          In this section we establish the dramatic context known as the set up .The three unities of dramatic action: time, place and action. Each has to be defined in act one. 

          The general rule of thumb, one page of script equals one minute of screen time. We set up the story with 30 pages, the characters, the dramatic premise, the situation (circumstances surrounding the action) and establish the relationship between the main character and the rest of the world he lives in.  The first 10 minutes is critical because we have to capture the audience and focus on establishing the main character, the dramatic premise and the dramatic situation.

Middle- Act two
          This section comprises approximately half of the script length.  That would be about 60 pages.  It is held together with a dramatic context of confrontation. During this act, the main Character encounters obstacle after that keeps him or her from achieving their dramatic need.  Dramatic need means, what the main character wants to win, gain, get or achieve during the screenplay.  We must know the dramatic need so that we can create obstacles, which creates confrontation or Conflict .
          Setup confrontation  specifies What drives the character forward through the action? What does he or she want? What are his or her needs?

End-Act three
          Resolution in a Screenplay is a solution to the conflict that allows the main character to achieve their need (happy ending) or fail (sad Ending).  The ‘act three’ of our script should be 3-5 pages in length, depending on the anticipated length of our film.

         Endings and beginnings are inexplicitly tied together like yin and Yang. They cannot exist without each other. So it is with film, we need to create the momentum for the life that will exist after the film is over. Start our film with action. Or reveal something that the audience needs to know to understand the story. Remember that it is a Visual telling of a story. Connect the two ends of the film that beginning and end.
  

Components  of Film script structure

The structure of a film script is composed of three components:
•    Shot- each time the camera is triggered until it is stopped, that is a shot. The length does not matter. A movie is composed of hundreds of shots.
•    Scene- a collections of shots that are related by subject. Scenes are often established by location or time.
•    Sequence- a series of scenes that are related by thematic structure, a single idea. For example,  the events leading up to a shift in the film.  It is a unit, a block of dramatic action unified by that idea.