Brainstorm the following:Do Now

What techniques or creative choices might you expect from an “experimental” filmmaker?

List 3 things someone experimenting with audio and video might try to do.

What is Experimental Filmmaking?If you are practicing Experimental Filmmaking, you are creating new ways of expression from a technical or artistic perspective.To put it simply, you are trying something new.

Experimentation is at the Heart of CinemaThe Zoopraxiscope is considered by some to be the first movie projector. It was created by the photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879.

Experimentation is at the Heart of CinemaIn the 1890’s the motion picture camera was born. Thomas Edison and William Dickson were experimenting in New York with new technology to capture moving pictures (the Kinetograph) and the Lumiére Brothers made a motion picture camera in Paris (the Cinématographe).

Special Effects - The illusions or tricks of the eye used in the film.

George Méliès (1861 - 1938) The Father of Special Effects

Go to YouTube and watch the following:

yage dans la lune (A trip to the Moon) - 1902

George Méliès (1861 - 1938) His special effects included...The Stop Trick - where the camera stops rolling while an object is removed or replaced in the frame, creating the illusion of appearance/disappearance

George Méliès His special effects included...Multiple Exposure- exposing film to focused light more than one timeto generate a picture consisting of superimposed images.Superimpose- to put or lay on top of something else

George Méliès His special effects included...Hand Coloring - any method of manually adding color to a photograph, generally to heighten the realism of the photograph or for artistic purposes

Go to YouTube and watch the following:

"Serpentine Dance" by the Lumière brothers

George Méliès His special effects included...Time-lapse - taking a series of single pictures over a period of time and then putting them together to show the action happening very quickly“Lapse” is synonymous with gap, lull, and omission

George Méliès His special effects included...Dissolve - a gradual transition from one image to another

Fade In and Fade Out are simply dissolves that use black frames instead of other images.

George Méliès His special effects included...

Stop Motion – An object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of independent movement.

Go to YouTube and watch the following:

The Haunted Hotel; or, The Strange Adventures of a Traveler Preview

The Golden Age of Hollywood (1920-1960)

Many of the films that flourished inthe Golden Age of Hollywood (1920-1960) were built on the principle of continuity editing, or “invisible editing.”

Filmmakers believed that the recording and editing process should never take attention away from the content.Therefore, artists were limited by the classical style, patterns, and rules of continuity.• 180 Degree Rule• Eyeline Matching• Match on Action

Classical Hollywood cinema tended to tell stories that were restricted by time, and therefore told in a linear fashion.Linear Storytelling - Linear narratives follow a straight line. They start at the beginning, move to the middle, and proceed to the end of the story.A Narrative - a story or account of events or experiences

In the last Quarter we focused primarily on using continuity to depict a simple visual narrative.

We followed the rules.

This Quarter is all about experimentation. We will bend and break the rules to create something new.

We will look at the works of several experimental filmmakers who subverted the status quo over the last century of filmmaking.

Subvert - to disrupt the power and authority of an established system or institution

Status Quo – the existing state of affairs (the established system)

Brainstorm the following:Exit Ticket

Which of the special effects techniques that appeared in early experimental filmmaking interests you the most?

Write the name of the technique and how youmight experiment with it this unit.