Flim Studies

Unit -9 Flim and Visual Communication

Content:
 Film and television theory.

 Film and identity in Indian film studies, leading film directors of India before
and after Independence. Indian cinema in the 21st century.

 Approaches to analysis of Indian television. Visual Communication. Visual

analysis.

 Basics of film language and aesthetics, the dominant film paradigm, evolution
of Indian cinema-commercial and 'non-commercial' genres, the Hindi film
song, Indian aesthetics and poetics (the theory of Rasa and Dhvani).

 National cinema movements: Soviet Montage cinema, German

Expressionistic cinema, Italian Neo-Realistic cinema, French New Wave
cinema, British New Wave cinema, Indian New Wave cinema, Period cinema.
Cinema in the new millennium.
History and Science :
Visual Communication: This is a type of communication to convey the ideas and
information through the means of signs, typography, drawing, graphic design,
illustration, advertising, animation, and electronic resources.

There are seven components of visual communication: color, shape, tones,

texture, figure-ground, balance, and hierarchy.
Hierarchy is an important principle because it assists the audience in processing the
information by allowing them to follow through the visuals piece by piece. When
having a focal point on a visual aid (i.e. Website, Social Media, Poster, etc…), it can
serve as a starting point for the audience to guide them. In order to achieve
hierarchy, we must take into account the other components:
Color, Shape, Tones, Texture, Figure-Ground, Balance
Colors is the first and most important component when communicating through
visuals. Colors displays an in-depth connection between emotions and experiences.
Additive and subtractive color models help in visually communicating aesthetically
please information.
Additive color model, also known as RGB color (Red, Green, Blue) goes from dark
to light colors.
Subtractive color model is the opposite. The subtractive color model includes the
primary CMYK colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) which go from light to dark.
The visual arts are art form such
as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaki
ng, comics, design, crafts, and architecture.
Flim History:
 The magic lantern shows of the 1600s projected painted images onto
walls, a precursor to today's projectors. The key was the "persistence of
vision," where rapid image changes created the illusion of motion.

 The Thaumatrope : In the 1820s, the thaumatrope, a simple yet ingenious

toy, merged two images into one when spun, sparking interest in animation.

 The Phenakishoscope : The 1830s brought us the phenakishoscope, a

magnifying glass-like toy that created the illusion of motion through reflection.
Phenakistoscope was the first widespread animation device that
created a fluent illusion of motion. The phenakistiscope is regarded as one
of the first forms of moving media entertainment that paved the way for the
future motion picture and film industry. Similar to a GIF animation, it can only

show a short continuous loop.

  The Zoetrope : is a pre-film animation device that produces the illusion of
motion, by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing
progressive phases of that . William Horner’s 1834 invention, the zoetrope,
allowed multiple viewers to enjoy motion pictures without mirrors.

 The Praxinoscope : It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile

Reynaud. This ultimate elaboration of the device used long strips with
hundreds of narrative images.

 Eadweard Muybridge & Etienne-Jules Marey :

Photographer Eadweard Muybridge's motion-capturing cameras in 1878 set the stage
for cinematic innovation.

 From 1883 to 1886, he entered a very productive period at the University of

Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, producing over 100,000 images of animals and
humans in motion, occasionally capturing what the human eye could not
distinguish as separate moments in time.
 Etienne-Jules Marey photographed motion using a single camera. He is
widely considered to be a pioneer of photography and an influential pioneer of
the history of cinema.

 Flying pelican captured by Marey around 1882. He created a method of

recording several phases of movement superimposed into one photograph.

Kinetograph :
 A kinetoscope is a device for seeing a sequence of photos on an unending
band of film that constantly moves over a light source. It has a fast rotating
shutter to create motion through a magnifying lens.

 In 1891, Thomas Edison's Kinetograph recorded the first moving pictures.

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for
films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer
window. First described in conceptual terms by U.S. inventor Thomas
Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy
Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892.
Cinematograph
A cinematograph is a type of motion picture apparatus used both in the form of a
projector and a camera. It was the first viable camera that successfully recorded and
produced motion pictures.
Bouly" by French inventor Léon Bouly on February 12, 1892. Bouly coined the
term "cinematograph," from the Greek for "writing in movement."
Due to a lack of money, Bouly could not develop his ideas properly and maintain his
patent fees, so the Lumière brothers were free to adopt the name. In 1895, they
applied it to a device that was mostly their own invention.

Cinematograph is portable which is weigh approximately 7.1kg but kineotograph is more weigh which could move or

portable for flim projection.kineotograph which a person can be viewed one at a time but cinematograph can be projected, it

can be viewed by larger audience. Cinematograph is hand cranked or rotating but kineotograph is motor driven and images in

cinemagraph is more sharp and illuminating then kineotograph. Finally lumiere brother was successfully developed the flim

projection machine cinematograph and Edison invented flim role 35mm become standard for projection.

How cinematograph works ?

https://unacademy.com/content/ssc/study-material/physics/cinematograph/

Flim History: 2
 On 28 December 1895, the brothers gave their first commercial screening in
Paris. The Flim was made by Lumiere brother (Auguste and Louis
Lumière) Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. Films was 17 meters
long (approximately 56 feet), which, when hand cranked through a projector,
ran approximately 50 seconds. The screening consisted of ten films.

 1896 - The Kiss – William Heise (1m)

The First Movie For Demanded Censorship
 1902 - A trip to Moon - Georges Méliès (13m)
First Major Successful Film/First Sci-Fi Film
 1903 - The Great Train Robbery – Edwin S. Porter (11m)
The First Successful Film In America
 1906 – The Story of the Kelly Gang – Charles Tait ( 1h 10m)
The First Feature Length Film
 1914 – Tillie’s Punctured Romance – Mack Sennett – (1h 22m)
First Feature Length Comedy Film - Charlie Chaplin

 1920 – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – Robert Wiene – (1h 7m)

The First Feature Length Horror Movie – This Famous And Successful
German Expression Film is about 60+ Minutes Long.

 1922 – The Power of Love – Nat G. Deverich – (1h)

First 3D Movie
 1922 - Robin Hood – Allan Dwan – (2h.22m)
First Hollywood Film

 1925 – Battleship Potemkin – Sergei Eisenstein – (1h 6m)

 First Propaganda Film - This Movie based on the infamous Russian
Revolution
 This Movie Was Banned In The UK,France,West Germany,And Norway for
inspiration for possible communist revolution in those countries.
 This Was also the first movie to have a montage,It Can be seen in The
Odessa Steps Sequence.
 1926 – The Adventures of Prince Achmed – Lotte Reiniger – (1h 20m)
First Feature Length Animated Movie
 1927 – The Jazz Singer – Alan Crosland – (1h 28m)
First Talkie Film
 1929 – On with the Show! – Alan Crosland – (1h 28m)
First All Colour And All Talkie Film
 1939 – The Wizard of Oz – Victor Fleming – ( 1h 42m)
First Film To Be Broadcasted On TV
 1972 – Cheongchun gyosa – Kim Ki-duk – ( 1h 30m)
This Film is the first VHS movie ever created
 1993 – Jurassic Park – Steven Spielberg – ( 2h 7m)
First Movie To Use DTS Sound
 1995 – Toy Story – John Lasseter – ( 1h 23m)
First Fully CGI Animated Film
 1997 – Titanic – James Cameron - (3h 14m)
First Movie To Gross 100 Billion Dollars

History of Indian Cinema

  On July 7th 1896, the Lumiere Brothers showcased six films at the Watson
Hotel in Mumbai (then Bombay) and this marked the birth of Indian cinema.

Silent era (1890s–1920s)

 1913 - Dadasaheb Phalke released Raja Harishchandra in Bombay, the
first film made in India. It was a silent film incorporating Marathi and English
intertitles. It was premiered in Coronation cinema in Girgaon.
 Phalke completed filming in six months and 27 days producing a film
of 3,700 feet (1,100 m), about four reels.

 In South India, Raghupathi Venkayya, credited as the father of Telugu

cinema, built the first cinemas in Madras.

 In Madras film studio was established by Nataraja Mudaliar.

 1917 – Keechaka Vadham is the first Tamil by R. Nataraja Mudaliar.

 1930 – Vigathakumaran is the first Malayalam by J C Daniel who is said to
be father of Malayalam cinema. This movie is also the first Indian social
drama feature film.
In 1927, the British government, to promote the market in India for British films over
American ones, formed the Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee.
The Indian Cinematograph Committee was established by British Raj in 1927 to
“investigate the adequacy of censorship and the supposedly immoral effect of
cinematograph films”,

Sound era
 1931- The first Indian sound film was Alam Ara made by Ardeshir Irani.
 1932 - Ayodhyecha Raja was the first sound film of Marathi cinema.
 1931 - Irani also produced South India's first sound film, the Tamil–Telugu
bilingual talking picture Kalidas - H. M. Reddy
 The first Telugu film with audible dialogue, Bhakta Prahlada (1932), was
directed by H. M. Reddy,
 1935 – Jyoti Prasad Agarwala made his first film Joymoti in Assamese.
 1935 – Devdas a Bengali Flim by Pramathesh Barua based on the Sharat
Chandra Chattopadhyay novel, Devdas. Which become a huge success that
led to emerged a studious in Madras, Calcutta, Bombay.
 Swamikannu Vincent, who had built the first cinema of South India in
Coimbatore, introduced the concept of “tent cinema” in which a tent was
erected on a stretch of open land to screen films.

Production House

 1932 – The East India Film Company was an Indian film production
company, based in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India. It was the
first Indian film company to screen a movie at an international film festival.
Started by R. L. Khemka
 1934 – Bombay Talkies
 1934 – Prabhat Studios in Pune began production of Marathi films.

Masala Flim
The Indian Masala film—a term used for mixed-genre films that combined song,
dance, romance, etc.—arose following the Second World War. During the 1940s,
cinema in South India accounted for nearly half of India’s cinema halls, and
cinema came to be viewed as an instrument of cultural revival.
The Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), an art movement with a
communist inclination, began to take shape through the 1940s and the 1950s
The IPTA movement continued to emphasise realism in films Mother India (1957)
and Pyaasa (1957), among India’s most recognisable cinematic productions.

After India Independence

The Indian government had established a Films Division by 1948, which
eventually became one of the world’s largest documentary film producers with an
annual production of over 200 short documentaries, each released in 18
languages with 9,000 prints for permanent film theatres across the country.
The Films Division of India (FDI), commonly referred as Films Division, was
established in 1948 following the independence of India. It was the first state film
production and distribution unit, under the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, Government of India, with its main intent being to “produce
documentaries and news magazines for publicity of Government programmes”
and the cinematic record of Indian history.

Golden Age (late 1940s–1960s)

The period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is regarded by film historians
as the Golden Age of Indian cinema.
 This period saw the emergence of the Parallel Cinema movement, which
emphasised social realism. Mainly led by Bengalis,
Major Figures in Parallel Cinema :
Bengali
 Satyajit Ray
 Ritwik Ghatak
 Mrinal Sen
 Tapan Sinha
Malayalam
 Adoor Gopalakrishnan
 G. Aravindan
Tamil
 Balu Mahendra
Kannada
 Girish Karnad
 Girish Kasaravalli

 Shyam Benegal
 Mani Kaul
 Shaji N.Karun
 Buddhadeb Dasgupta
 Goutam Ghose
 B. Narsing Rao
 Nagesh Kukunoor
 Rituparno Ghosh
 K. N. T. Sastry
 Ram Gopal Varma
 Saeed Akhtar Mirza
 Ashim Ahluwalia
Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992)

Ray was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker,

author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and
composer. Ray is widely considered one of the greatest and most
influential film directors in the history of cinema.

Ray’s Filmography

Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries, and shorts

 Pather Panchali (1955) - Song of little road directoral debut
and produced by the Government of West Bengal.
 Pather Panchali won eleven international prizes, including the
inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film
Festival.
 It won India’s National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 1955.
 Series of The Apu Trilogy
1. Pather Panchali - 1955
2. Aparajito - 1956
3. Apur Sansar – 1959

 1955 – Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), 115 min.,

B/W.1956
 1956 – Aparajito (The Unvanquished), 113 min., B/W.
 1958 – Parash Pathar (The Philosopher’s Stone), 111 min.,
B/W
 1958 – Jalsaghar (The Music Room), 100 min., B/W
 1959 – Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), 106 min., B/W.
 1960 – Devi (The Goddess), 93 min., B/W.Devi [DVD]
 1961 – Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), Postmaster 56 min.;
Monihara 61 min.; Samapti 56 min. (Two Daughters,
Postmaster 56 min; Samapti 56 min), B/W.
 1961 – Rabindranath Tagore, Documentary, 54 min, B/W
 1962 – Kanchenjungha, 102 min., Color
 1962 – Abhijan (The Expedition), 150 min., B/W
 1963 – Mahanagar (The Big City), 131 min., B/W
 1964 – Charulata (The Lonely Wife), 117 min., B/W.
 1964 – Two, Short, 15 min., B/W
 1965 – Kapurush – O – Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy
Man), 74 + 65 min., B/W
 1966 – Nayak (The Hero), 120 min., B/W
 1967 – Chiriyakhana (The Zoo), 125 min., B/W
 1968 – Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (Adventures of Goopy and
Bagha), 132 min., B/W & part in color
 1969 – Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest),
115 min., B/W
 1970 – Pratidwandi (The Adversary), 110 min., B/W
 1971 – Seemabaddha (Company Limited), 112 min., B/W
 1971 – Sikkim, Documentary, 60 min., B/W
 1972 – The Inner Eye, Documentary, 20 min., Color
 1973 – Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder), 101 min., Color.
 1974 – Sonar Kella (The Fortress), 120 min., Color
 1975 – Jana Aranya (The Middleman), 131 min., B/W.
 1976 – Bala, Documentary, 33 min., Color
 1977 – Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players), 113 min.,
Color
 1978 – Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God), 112 min, Color
  1980 – Hirak Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds), 118 min.,
Color
 1980 – Pikoo (Pikoo’s Day), Short, 26 min., Color
 1981 – Sadgati (The Deliverance), 52 min., Color
 1984 – Ghare-Baire (Home and the World), 140 min., Color.
 1987 – Sukumar Ray, Documentary, 30 min., Color
 1989 – Ganashatru (Enemy of the People), 100 min., Color
 1990 – Shakha Prashakha (Branches of the Tree), 121 min.,
Color
 1991 – Agantuk (The Stranger), 120 min., color.

Awards

Ray’s has won highest national award in india – 36 National Award

He won a Golden Lion, a Golden Bear, two Silver Bears, many additional awards at
international film festivals
Padma Shri - 1958
Padma Bhushan - 1965
Padma Vibhushan - 1976
Dadasaheb Phalke Award - 1984
Commander of the Legion of Honour - 1987
Bharat Ratna 1992
Academy Honorary Award 1992
Other Points