scene comparison bladerunner and lady from shanghai

I'm going to compare the funhouse mirror scene from lady from shanghai with the chase scene from bladerunner.

to start with the lighting in both scenes are dark and unnatural in lfsh the light in the scene is harsh and overhead from bulbs in an indoor setting. in bladerunner the lighting is atmospheric and made hazy by mist and rain, giving the impression of being outdoors but actually being on set. the dark muted colours contrast heavily with the neon lighting in br and in lfsh the stark lighting in the black and white scene created harsh whites and dark shadows to create contrast. 

in both scenes the directors welles and scott are both aiming for a surrealistic and dream like tone and both use similar techniques in different ways to create atmosphere.

the music in lfsh is classical throughout the entirety of the film which is typical of noir films and in the scene the music is loud and conveys the urgency and panic the characters are feeling. in br the music is made with a synthesiser which creates a 'fake orchestra' since it mirrors the sounds of organic instruments but also sounds artificial which ties into the themes of the film. in the scene, the music is droning and mournful it focuses on mood rather than sound and creates an atmosphere of emptiness and dread as roy chases deckard through the dilapidated and hollow apartments. the dream like and surreal tone is also pushed further as roys howls also blend into the music which causes the sound to bleed into the environment and add to the atmosphere of dread as if roy is omnipresent in the chase which helps the audience sympathise with deckards feelings of isolation and fear. 

both scenes are shot on set which the directors use to their advantage. welles films in a carnival fun house, a scene that visually references german expressionism films in the way its shot and the props of the set add to the atmosphere and feeling of being trapped in a nightmare or a bad drug trip. in br the set is a hollow, crumbling building which fits the narrative of the film since all the people that once lived there are offworld which creates the feeling of isolation and hollowness. 

visual disturbances and blindness in cinema

inattentional blindness is a term used in cinema where the characters or the audience will either not see or misperceive a scene in a film. this is often used by directors to control the audiences perception of the scene which can affect the viewers perception and experience with the film. there is also something called a hierarchy of perception which includes the characters in a scene as well as the audience, what this means is  that the director chooses what can be seen in the scene that either the audience or characters can  either see or miss, for example a character can't see what's behind their back but the audience can and therefore the audience is higher on the hierarchy of perception. this of course goes both ways and its up to the director how this affects the scene and whether the audience is blind, misperceives the scene or sees everything.
the audiences perception is greatly affected by whatever the director chooses the scene to focus on by training the camera on a certain space or by lighting a subject with more intensity or by tracking a subject by using camera movements or by centring a shot so the audiences eye is instantly drawn to one space. these are just a few examples of how to draw the audience's focus. certain directors use techniques such as these not only to draw focus but also to create very aesthetically pleasing compositions, a prominent example of a director that does this is Wes Anderson who uses symmetry and golden ratio to draw the audiences attention to the centre of the screen and create a pleasing shot composition to look at .

presentation on the carrage scene and funhouse scene in lady from shanhai

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ir_Wr3rU1vHRvCynCuxGLDlA7ROvspQmOnOlZ0ecQkc/edit?usp=sharing

history of hollywood cinema

Film first started officially in the 1900s with the silent film 'the great train robbery' but the movie industry didn't take off until the 1920s where Hollywood became the hub of American cinema and film theatres  where built all over the country. By the 1920s the concept of the movie star was born and actors would star in multiple movies each year. Studios that became industry giants that are still active today such as 'warner brothers', '20th century fox', 'paramount' and Colombia pictures were all huge names at the time. 

At the time, there was also a boom in animation and Disney was the first to create a feature length animation 'snow white' which allowed them to dominate the animation studios at the time since they mostly just created animation shorts for people to see at the cinema often. 

This also saw the birth of the director which allowed films be styled and unique to each director which wasn't possible due to restraints with budget and technology.

the 1930s was labelled the golden age of cinema but it also saw the birth of the 'code' which was a set of oppressive and now outdated rules that censored films, some of the rules include no homosexual or interracial couples as well as no drugs, gore or sexual imagery but these rules were gradually broken until they were thankfully a thing of the past. 

the 1930s also saw the first uses of sound and genre in film and later on the 1940s saw the first primitive uses of colour with the invention of two strip technicolour which was created when red dyed and green dyed strips of film were glued together to create limited and primitive colour film.

later on, kinema colour  was invented where the huge invention of cameras that would develop colour film as it would record but these cameras were huge, needed a lot of bright light and made so much  noise that they would have to be insulated in a blimp made of soundproof foam. 'The wizard of oz' was the most notable use of this type of camera and the constraints of the camera was worked around such as the studio lights being so bright that the set would reach boiling temperatures and a set that was in sepia tones was built for the beginning and end of the film to give the illusion of black and white to colour.

by the 1950s almost every American household had a television which brought on the concept of the target audience and more films were aimed towards the American youth and the invention of pop culture. the 1960s and 1970s were slow due to depression and the Vietnam was but the huge cultural shift for civil rights which affected the movies people watched.

the 1980s was the start of an era of unoriginality and the concept of movie sequels became popular and practical effects became more outlandish and advanced than ever before.

by the 1990s DVDs were becoming popular and would ultimately replace videotapes altogether, this saw the rise of rentals overtaking the sales of cinema tickets since it would be easy and cheap to pick out any film you wanted from a shelf instead of watching whatever the cinema was playing.

the digital age made film tape obsolete and is now widely used by most filmmakers apart from some who chose physical film for aesthetic reasons.

now we can watch films wherever we want with the advent of smartphones and streaming services such as Netflix etc and DVDs tapes and even cinemas are now on there way out. film has come a very long way in a relatively short amount of time and it all arguably couldn't have happened if it wasn't for Hollywood.    

types of shot

close up shot

big close up

two shot

wide shot

extreme close up

high angle shot

wide high angle 

extreme wide shot 

long shot

mid shot

the characteristics of film noir

the characteristics of film noir include dramatic lighting which comes from German expressionist cinema and French film noir. These two influences also contributed to the dark and very cynical tone in American film noir. Narratively, American film noir is often about a crime or mystery and the main protagonist is often narrating retrospectively during the film  and often the tone is bleak, cynical and sometimes existentialist. the American film noir was popular during the depression era because of how they resonated with audiences at the time and since they came from German expressionism which  would often have dimly lit sets and use cheap grainy film because of budget restraints on the studio. Although American film noir didn't have as much of a problem with budget, the aesthetic carried over because of stylistic choice.