Unit 26 film studies report

Unit 26 film studies

                                                Assignment 2: the contexts of production

                                                                       Final report

                                                                      Hamzaa Zamir

Brief

I was asked to find out about how the contexts of production can affect the final product, in this case,films.contexts I was to investigate were:

·       Historical

·       Technologic al

·       Cultural  

Methods

a.)   Historical & technological

     Firstly I watched a documentary called The Birth of Hollywood narrated by Paul Merton which explained about how the Hollywood film industry started, the people the places and the technology and also some clips from the earliest of films. Then I explored a PowerPoint called film history which explains and shows all the historical events that happened I the early stages of film and Hollywood, it also shows and explains the first ever camera that records. From these I constructed a leaflet and a short silent film. The silent film was very simple just me drinking water for 30 to 40 seconds which was the length of an actual silent film back in the day.  

b.)   Cultural

I investigated how ideology and culture can be represented through a country’s film output. This involved looking at some clips from different countries and conducting further secondary and primary research into the films of one particular country of my own choice from which I constructed a prezi about my foreign movies that were Japanese. I also compared representation made to my own experiences.

c.)    Remakes (historical, technological & cultural)

Firstly I researched 3 films and their remakes noting similarities and differences between them. This includes points about their production/ technology; narrative; setting; characters; make up and script.

Secondly I focused on back to the future II and looked at historical contexts to construct mood boards then chose a scene and planned how I would remake it 30 years in advance to reflect the changes in the years. For example I chose the scene in Back to the Future when they be in 2015 so I remade it and was in the year 2045.

            The screen shots above are my leaflet about the birth of cinema. It explains who were the Lumiere brothers, kinaetoscope, world first cinema and the Birth of a Nation, which caused a big uproar because it was about the KKK, and the persecution of black people in America. I learned about when people one at a time used to watch a shot black and white clip in the kinetoscope then as the years went on from the kinetoscope then was the projector invented by the French which the movie was projected on a wall which can be viewed by a larger audience. 

This is a screenshot of my silent film, which is basically a 30 seconds clip of me drinking water with a Turkish flag at the back. I did this because the very first cinema was invented by the Lumiere brothers and they were of course black and white and the length of them were 30 seconds so that’s what I did. I also added silent movie music and my title was in French, which was l’homme turc, which means the Turkish man,

Because the original movies were in French. We modern audiences understand these old stories because we can see the impact that the story has, we know this is because we watch modern movies with plots and stories so we can understand a short clip which has a story in it.

                               

The screenshot above is my prezie on the country that I chose which was japan.  I chose japan because the Japanese film industry is very big and popular; in this prezie I explain the Japanese culture and just a quick summary of japan like the population, its economy and why japan is famous. By researching the Japanese culture I have found lots of information on how the Japanese are influenced, I have found that the Japanese culture influences the Japanese film a lot. Because many Japanese movies include Japanese cultures and beliefs like monsters and spirits which is a major in the Japanese culture.

While doing my research on japan I have crossed on people’s perceptions on the Japanese culture, some are true and some are stereotypes. Large amount of people describe the Japanese movie based on there own culture, and some included some stereotypes of the Japanese culture. For example like anime and monsters and samurais. 

 

This particular part of my prezie about japan I explain the Japanese film industry and how big it is and why is it still growing.  I also include famous Japanese actors and actress. I have also included Japanese stereotypes based on what people have heard of japan and their movies.  Lastly I have included the five Japanese movies that were very popular and some even remade in America, all the movies were horror. This shows that japan and the culture are very interested in horror and paranormal. I explain about the Japanese film industry and I said its still growing because I have looked online at number of websites and many people from around the world enjoy Japanese movies, the most popular genre that attracts many people from around the world is horror and anime.

The Japanese films I chose were, Ju- On, which is a classic Japanese horror movie that was so big that it was remade in America. The second movie I chose was, carved another classic Japanese horror, one miss call was a big sell out in japan again it was so big that the Japanese horror was remade by America with American actors and spoken in English. My other Japanese movie I chose was infection which was not that big, lastly my fifth Japanese horror was the Ring, this movie was so big that it attracted a wide range of audiences across the world, couple of years later it was remade in English by America.     

            This screenshot is the PowerPoint of different years from 1955 to 2015; I have also included the year 2045.  My task was to put pictures and news articles that happened in the years the screenshot above is an example of 1955.  I included all the news articles and pictures in each year except for 2045, in the slide 2045 I have only included pictures of what can happen or will exist in the year 2045.  This shows that fashion and technology will change throughout the years, also the media and movie industry will advanced and change as the years go on. In 1955 you can clearly see that women dresses represented feminism, and the cars were old school American. In the 2045 slide the car is more futuristic almost look half machine and the women clothes do not look feminine at all but look more sexual, and the city looks like a space city. Comparing the two slides it shows that women will dress more sexual in the future instead of more feminism dresses in 1955, and cars will be more developed than ever and buildings in city’s will be like futuristic space city with robots.  

            Conclusion

Overall I believe the representation of ideology, culture, identity and power changes throughout the years because the technology advances which changes the production of film in different cultures and will be a major impact because of new technology that will be available in the future.  The cultural values are transmitted through the narrative and acting, also the representation of the country’s ideology.  For example 50 years ago the Japanese movie industry was very big on martial arts and samurai movies, this reflected on the world, which then stereotyped japan as being samurais. Now today japan movie industry has grown massively because now its horror movies and anime, also this now reflects the world and now the stereotypes of japan is now anime.  Remakes influence films production because it shows the directors vision and how they would improve the movie it also keeps classic movies alive which means they want to make a great movie into a greater movie and this will generate more money and show the original movie in HD with better quality.   

I chose Scarface because it has a remake that people don’t really know; the original Scarface was in black and white and was made in 1932, whilst the remake was made in 1983 and in colour. Between the original and the remake there is a big difference for example the main character in the original was Italian and in the remake he was Cuban, the script was changed and colour was introduced, the movie was a big blockbuster and made a large amount of money.

This is the second remake I chose which is the Texas chainsaw massacre, comparing the original and the remake there is only a slightly bit od difference between the two. For example the original had colour and music and of course the remake had colour as well but the pictures was more HD and up to date, many people who watched the two voted that the original was more better even though it was not HD.

My last remake I chose is Dawn of the dead, the original was made in 1978 and the remake was made in 2004. I compared the two trailers and I can see that the first Dawn of the Dead was not HD and had like small pixel stuff in the movie, the music was very bland. And in the remake the script is changed but the plot is the same just with more improvements, the actors were changed and the movie was remasterd in HD.