Classic Hollywood

The classic Hollywood style generally has many stereotypical features. These are the most common features:

-The style focuses on a hero-figure.

-There is usually an obvious villain.

-Films are usually action-packed,

-The story often has a moral lesson.

-Generally uses special effects, well known-actors, and a big budget with expensive sets and costumes.

There are two main Hollywood film studios: MGM and Warner Bros. These two studios have very distinctive styles.

MGM films are generally set outdoors, on a staged set and sometimes on a fantasy like backdrop, attempting to create an effective atmosphere with the aid of a big budget. This compares to the lower budget of Warner Bros. who generally use cheap, realistic and practical sets, such as streets and offices.

MGM costumes are usually imaginative, colorful and flamboyant, which relates to their set designs. This is in contrast to Warner Bros, who again used more realistic, everyday wear clothes to reflect their budget. Warner Bros. use predominantly close-ups and medium shots and focus on facial expressions to create an intimate feel to the film. While to fully capture these elaborate backgrounds and designs, MGM use a lot of long shots within their films.

An example of an MGM production is The Wizard of Oz. A big and bold production with a fantasy-like backdrop. An example of a Warner Bros. production is The Maltese Falcon, a film noir genre.

German expressionism

During the recovery of World War 1, the German film industry was booming. However because of the harsh economic effects of the War, filmakers found it difficult to challenge the extravagant feautures coming from Hollywood. The German filmakers then developed their own style, known as German expressionism.

As photography was now around and popular as the most accurate display on real life, the public were no longer interested in realism paintings, this opened the door for expressionism. Expressionism, represents an approach to art that demonstrates a distorted reality, as well as a depiction of the artist's emotions and feelings. German expressionism invloves using sharply exaggerated shadows and silhouettes, high-contrast lighting, a technique known as chiaroscuro, disorientingly skewed set design and off-kilter camera angles, to create a mood and an effective atmosphere.It is used in many medias, including drama, architecture, music, painting, print-making, sculpture and of course film. German expressionism was hugely influencial to film noir.

Examples of early films that use German expressionism are The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu and Phantom. Alfred Hitchcock's career was well influenced by German expressionism. The shower scene in the film Pyscho, with the blurred image seen through the shower curtain is reminiscent of Nosferatu shown through his shadow, created an effective atmosphere. Adaptations of the style are seen in Tim Burton's Batman Begins, 1992. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares creates the feeling of loom and menace evident in Lang's Metropolis.

These pictures illustrate our grave yard we created in a German expressionist style. We tried to use sharp and unusual edges on the grave stones and trees to convey a German expressionist style. We used different colours of lighting including red, green and a light blue to form different shadows and lighting contrasts. We also used long exposure with our camera to produce several special effects and different contrasts with the lighting to create a mysterious and dramatic atmosphere in our graveyard.

Famous artists

Chiaroscuro is a term in art for a contrast between light and dark. It was used by all three of the artisits below. These artists are also all Baroque painters. Baroque is a style in which painters and sculptors rummaged emotion, movement and variety in their work. Chiaroscuro can be used in this style for dramatic effect.

Caravaggio

(1571-1610) Born in Milan on the 29th September 1571. He painted realism and used dramatic lighting to effect. He was also renowned as one of few artists whose lives were in some way depicted in their paintings. For example, after a terrible death in his family, Caravaggio began using darker colours to convey his sadness and despair. He used a variety of light, and forming of deep shadow. Carvaggio's main subjects were religous scenes, which he conveyed with courage. He was also the first to illustrtate people as ordinary looking. One film director influenced by the work of Caravaggio is Martin Scorsese.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn, was born in Leiden on July 15th, 1606. He was a portrait painter, and also famous for his religous subjects. Rembrandt's method of paint in touches of heavy-laden brushes is named impasto and creates a sculptural effect on his painting. He was influenced by the work of Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio, an artist known fro his unorthodox use of lighting and the erotic manner he presented his subjects. The style of Rembrandt which sets him apart from other painters is that his background composition is usually dark, while his subject is illuminated, making the image appear almost three dimensional. His paintings also usually showed a narrative. Alexander Korda's Rembrandt is a film that emulates Rembrandt's etchings and chiaroscuro scenes with great effect.

Vermeer

Johan Vermeer, born on October 31, 1632, and died in 1975 was a Baroque painter who opened up interior spaces by representing long files of rooms, often with extended views through doors, windows or mirrors. Religous, poetical, musical and scientific scenes are subjects that can be found in his work. He specialised in scenes of ordinary people going about their everyday life. Many of his paintings use bright colours and strong chiaroscuro effects to illuminate an object which are reminiscent of Rembrandts style of painting. One of Vermeer's paintings, "Girl with a pearl earring", was adapted as a film, directed by Peter Webber. Little is known about the girl in the painting, the film attempts to recreate the mysterious girls life, a maid in the house of Johan Vermeer.

Realism and formalism

Realism and formalism are two different styles of film. Realism film aims to produce a film that is based on events in everyday life. A formalist film is used to entertain the audience and is generally not based on everyday life.

These two styles of film use different techniques for effect to convey these styles. Realism films usually contains long takes without quick edits, special effects or transitions. It often excludes non-diegetic sound and uses natural lighting. Realism film also uses natural sets without anything added to it for effect. Story lines are realistic with no point of view, and simple camera shots are used for a realistic effect. The camera can also be handheld to again portray a realistic approach or symbolize a figure. There are also parts of the script that don't relate to the plot what so ever. Some realism films use unknown actors. An example of a film like this is This is England. The film has a realistic narrative structure and character. It is set in the 1980's, the era of the skinheads and the film aims to accurately show this. Racism is also brought up in the film to show the time the film was shot and this adds to its realism. The film's mis en scene also adds to the film's realism, with an effective setting of a small English town, as well as believable character looks. Furthermore, the main character position was auditioned on the town the film was to be shot and audtioned young boys from around the town. However the boy that got the part, (Thomas Turgoose) didn't audition at first, and was spotted by one of the film's producer, found playing on the street with his friends. He went in for an audition and turned out to be perfect for the part. All of these techniques gel together to produce a life like effect, a realist film.

A formalist film is simply the opposite of realism, and aims to produce an entertaining film. Often, formalist films use a large amount of special effects and non-diagetic sounds to create a dramatic effect. Formalist films are generally set in un-realistic settings, occasionally in fantasy settings, while artificial lighting and props can also be used. The characters often contain a hero and a villain, and the narrative is usually unrealistic. Camera effects are used well, with a variety of camera shots and angles, with quick and rapid editing. An example of a formalist film is Die Hard, which uses a wide variety of special effects as it aims to create a dramatic effect.