Week 15 Questions

1. Despite its use of improvisation, how is Gummo different from “execution dependent” screenplays such as Stranger than Paradise?

 

Most filmmakers that try to work in this type of dependent form depend on editing to create a coherent piece but Gummo exploits the editing.  He also exploits spontaneous and serendipitous events that can occur during filming.  The screenplay is actually extremely detailed.  Korine knows what tone, emotion, look, and sound he need from every scene.

 

2.  According to Murphy, what function does the “nonsense” included in the dialogue serve in the film as a whole?

 

Unlike in the film Kids, where the dialogue was long and tended to ramble, Gummo is quick and spontaneous.  It is nonsensical to make it feel real in way a kid would talk.  It is more like poetic realism than Kids.

 

3.  What specific connections does Murphy make between Gummo and New American Cinema (including Beat films)? How did Korine respond to associations made between his work and underground film?

 

The production company, Fine Line, pushed the film as an autuerist film by a 23 year old that was in touch with youth culture.  They stressed that he was a complete original.  Murphy discusses his influence of Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and the amphetamine-inspired, non-linear approach to narrative syntax by Christopher Maclaine (San Francisco Beat poet).  Gummo is an experimental narrative and is compared to European art film and the films we discussed in 227, Dogma 95.  The improvisation in the film is compared to New American Cinema director John Cassavettes who made the films Shadows and Faces.  Korine did the most brilliant thing in my opinion by denying underground art culture.  He pushed away from New American Cinema and Underground by claiming to be a completely commercial filmmaker.  He makes “Harmony” films for him and not to promote anything but the stories he creates and the world he wants to bring to life. 

 

4.  Besides as a filmmaker, how has Korine participated in alternative urban youth culture?

 

Korine is an urban artist by writing a novel, produced fanzines, and done installations in major art galleries.  He has ties to the art scene on the Lower East Side of NYC.  Korine debuted a video documentary on street magician David Blaine at a major museum exhibition entitled “Beautiful Losers:  Contemporary Art and Street Culture.”

 

5.  What are the parallels between Radiohead’s In Rainbows experiment and the digital distribution of the documentary 10 MPH? Why did the 10 MPH filmmakers choose the .m4v format?

 

Radiohead directly distributed their newest album In Rainbows through their website where the customer paid as much or a little as they wanted for a downloaded file of the album.  For 80 dollars, the customer could buy a record kit of the album that was much better quality.  The band was very established with a large audience before doing this.  The band plans on releasing the album on CD in Europe and the U.S.  The documentary 10MPH is very similar but not as lucrative.  Apple would not get behind a small independent doc the way they would for In Rainbows.  The DVD of the doc good be purchased on-line or downloaded through their website.  The creators and directors (same people) had to design a file that would work through itunes and for transnational purchases worked through the server e-junkie.com for credit card purchases.  Final Cut Pro’s 2 was used to compress the 92 minute doc in .m4v format that is smaller enough to work directly on your ipod or quicktime video.

Week 14 response

1. How is a $10 million dollar gross for an independent film typically broken up before the producers receive their share? How much goes to the following entities / categories?

 

Exhibitors:  Major studios usually collect around 50 percent of the gross and a strong independent will be able to collect between 35 percent and 45 per cent.  The sums received by the distributor from the theatrical exploitation of the film is called the rentals. 10 million dollar profit.

 

Distribution Rentals:  According to the author, if the distributor collects 40 percent of the 10 million dollar movie from the theaters, the producer has to split up a 4 million dollar profit.

 

Distributor’s Fee: The rentals will be first and take around 30 percent.  The higher the profit the higher the rental so higher the fee.  After the fee is collected, the cost of distribution and marketing are reimbursed.  Takes 30 per cent, so subtract $1.33 leaving only $2.66 million.

 

Prints and Advertising:  This is everything after the film.  All the trailers, flyers, and comforts needed in promoting the film.  This could take 100 percent of what is left.  Costs around $3 million dollars.

 

Payout (financiers, director, stars): The financer will usually recoup the cost of the film, plus the money from a fixed deal or interest.  $0 dollars left to spread.

 

Producer’s Net Profit: Possibly half the profit will go to financier and the rest will be divided among the producer, director, and the talent.  -$333,000.

2. In terms of a return on investment, what is far more important than the potential box-office success of a film? What role does the “sales agent” play?

 

I believe Schamus is talking about investors, the deal-making success of the movie’s producer with whom you are working with.  The success is measured by the amount of money the producer can get up front from the various distributors around the world in forms of advances and minimum guarantees against the producer’s.  So producer has to secure guaranteed money before the film is released.  The investor and the producer share the profits.  The sales agency is the company that will special in the licensing of the independent film and collecting on contracts.  Most of the time, the sales agent will advance to the producer a portion of the film’s budget as a way of securing sales rights to the title.  The agents go into the marketplace and conduct business arrangements (sometimes on finished films or at the package stage) and close deals in each territory and making collections on the money owed.  The agency’s fee can be quite small if they have no hand in financing the film because they are putting up no advance.  If they put money into they have tons of leverage with the producers and can have fees of close to 25 percent.

 

3. What are some of the expenses associated with the Cannes Film Festival (or any festival, for that matter)?  Unreal and almost not worth it.  Cannes requires that you send in two prints of the completed film, one subtitled in French.  You have to pay the lab, translator, a subtitling service, and shipping and customs to get the prints to France.  The festival only covers 3 nights hotel for the director, but the festival lasts for two weeks so expect to pay for a room for an extra 5 nights.  If you plan on bringing your stars, producers, and entourage expect another 200 to 400 hundred dollars a night per room.  Food is extremely expensive, especially when eating out every meal.  Press packets and stills for the press members will become expensive.  Then you have to pay to send them.  The scheduling is so chaotic that a publicist is in order.  You have to pay the market section of the festival to replay your film another two times so that all the right distributors can get a look if they missed the original showing.  After press and advertising, it can cost up to $150,000.

 

 

4. What costs are associated with the “delivery” of the film to a distributor?

When a distributor buys a film from a film festival they need both the physical elements from which release prints can be struck, supporting legal clearances and publicity materials needed for the cinema release.  The total cost to get from the original negative to the check-print stage is about $45,000.  This process is necessary because the splices on your negative can come undone at anytime and it is irreplaceable.  You have to get the 16mm blown up to 35mm, which costs about $35,000.  You have to technical clean up your location sound recording and replace many of the actual sound effects.  Have every little sound placed on a separate track.  Then you have to create master tapes to transform sound into image and then back into sound.  All this will cost about $40,000.  The cost of transferring the film to a master video is about $25,000.  The distributor might make you buy errors and omissions insurance.  It can cost up to $300 to $500 thousand dollars delivering a no budget film to a distributor.

 

J.J. Murphy’s Book page 25-45

2. What are some of the connections between Stranger than Paradise with the New American Cinema, including Shadows?

 

I think that Stranger than Paradise has the connection of ambivalence that displayed in Shadows.  The characters are not very clear.  The audience has to watch and cannot predict what a character will say or how they will act.  Shadows was a film comprised of aspiring non-professional actors.  The film was most improvised.  The characters Ben and Lelia adds that element of unpredictability to the narrative.  The film is not familiar because the narrative is built around subtly in its characters and not the story that they are living.  “In terms of motivation, they remain open to the possibility of the moment instead of being constrained by defined character traits.  As a result, their personal identities remain very much in flux.”

Questions on Independent Cinema Screenwriting and Independent Black Cinema

According to Murphy, what are the two major faults of the traditional screenwriting manuals in their treatment of independent cinema?

 

Murphy says an awful lot about the 3 act structure and the downfalls of Hollywood structure that is preached over and over in screenwriting manuals.  I believe his first fault in traditional screenwriting manuals that he explains is that the formulas are believed to generate salable Hollywood projects.  By plugging into a formula, the movie script that fit in the formula have a great chance of being successful economically.  The second fault with the manuals is that all the preaching of formulas puts the independent screenwriting in a position of writing within the formula but having the mindset of not following the rules if it seems creatively sound.

 

 

Why did the filmmakers of the "LA Rebellion / Los Angeles School" (including Charles Burnett) reject traditional Hollywood production values?

 

The LA rebellion was a way for independent black filmmakers to reject Hollywood production values because of the way Hollywood had portrayed the black race.  Schools like UCLA produced black television through athletes like Jim Brown.  Hollywood believed that independent black filmmakers were technically inadequate which turns out to not be true.  The independent black filmmakers had mastered the technical aspects of Hollywood filmmaking and chose to reject it.  Lott says that the alternative style of the LA school aimed to politicize the question of technical competence.

 

 

According to Ed Guerrero, what were the three phases of the black image in Hollywood films?

 

The three phases of the black image in Hollywood films started as early as 1918.  The first phase was a pre-blaxploitation era, during which a mainstream image of black accodationism and submissiveness prevailed.  The black people basically conformed to the demands of the white people.  Next, there a blaxploitation era of resistance and co-optation dominated by black action films employing strategic reversals of mainstream ideology.  I believe this phase to be the time of Shaft, which was parodied by the movie Undercover Brother in certain themes.  The final phase is filmmaking practices of both black independents and blaxploitation era filmmakers slowly moving together into a new black cinema.  I believe this is talking about some black films being politic and others being for entertainment like Big Mommas House.

 

What are the two distinct notions of "guerrilla cinema" exemplified by Spike Lee and Bill Gunn?

 

Spike Lee’s notion of guerrilla cinema is that independent black cinema sphere is really a stepping-stone into the Hollywood industry.  Lee is the leader of a new generation of black filmmakers in Hollywood.  On the other hand, filmmakers like Bill Gunn have use guerrilla cinema as a way of contestation.  The example of how Hollywood hired him to make a black horror film and instead he made two consciously political black films that were never released theatrically but constantly play at film festivals.  Lee has found a way to fit into the Hollywood system and still get his message across with movies such as He Got Game and Do The Right Thing.

Week 12 Reading Questions

What were the average shot lengths (ASLs) for the following periods?

 

The 1920s was a period of fast cutting, averaging four to six seconds per shot, but sound changed everything.  Between 1930 and 1960, most feature films averaged shot lengths of 8 to 11 seconds and contained between three hundred and seven hundred shots.  Things started speeding up in the mid-1960s.  The average shot length was between 6 and 8 seconds.  About ¾ of the films had an ASL of between 5 to 8 seconds.  The 1968 film Head had an amazing ASL of 2.7 seconds.  Mainstream films of the 1980s average shot lengths between 5 to 7 seconds.  By the century’s end the ASL of a typical mainstream film in any genre would average between 3 to 6 seconds.

 

 

How has faster editing in Hollywood affected the other elements of film style?

 

Films are cut at places where it was considered taboo to do before.  Today’s filmmakers feel no hesitation to cut in the middle of a camera movement.  Pans and tracks are usually interrupted by cuts today.  Whiplash pans and jerky reframing are in sometimes used in the editing process.  Rack focusing can shift a shot’s composition as crisply as a cut can.  Filmmakers are making cuts throughout the film to keep it fresh and full of energy.

 

 

 

Why are establishing shots less necessary in intensified continuity?

 

Cuts during dialogue scenes are more common to reinforce the 180-degree rule.  Spatial relations have to be tightened if cutting back and forth in dialogue scenes take place.  The shorter the shot length the more exact the angles have to be.  By keeping the shots shorter, including less or shorter establishing shots, the editor has to play by the rules of classical Hollywood to ensure a tight film.

 

How were wide angle (short) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Wide angel lenses were used for characteristic distorting effects like bulging on the frame edges, exaggerating distances between foreground and background.  Filmmakers using wide-screen formats commonly resorted to the wide-angle lens to provide looming close-ups, expansive establishing shots, views inside cramped quarters, and medium shots with strong foreground-background interplay.  In the 1980s and 1990s, action film directors used the lens with packed compositions and tight camera movements.  Some directors use short lens for caricatural comedy.  Often used in T.V.

 

 

How were telephoto (long) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Long Lenses magnifies distant action.  Typically for shooting ecterior scenes, telephoto lenses can be used for interior scenes to save time.  Multiple-camera shooting became more popular in the 1970s with T.V., directors used long lenses to keep cameras out of each other’s range.  The long lens create a documentary immediacy or a stylized flattening, making characters appear to walk or run in place.  Dr. Berliner used Mike Nichols The Graduate for his example, Dustin Hoffman is running down the street and it feels like he is going nowhere.  The long-focus lens became an all-purpose took, available to frame close-ups, medium shots, over-the-shoulder shot, and even establishing shots.  Milos Forman and Robert Altman were likely to use the telephoto lenses for nearly every setup.