Jasmine Masters, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

  * Note : All film reviews come after the lecture notes in each post, so will have to scroll down to see review. Myth & Storytelling. Archetypes & Storytelling. Structural Theories & Storytelling. Time & Storytelling. Character & Storytelling. Quality & Storytelling Part 1 (B-Movies). Quality & Storytelling Part 2 (Exploitation).

Will be looking at the film lecture series to help aid in preparation for Premise. Film Lecture Series: #8 - Documentary  #9 - Adaptation, Transcription, & Biography. Documentary – Shockumentary, Mockumentary, Docudrama. Brief history into the scope of documentary: 1895 – Lumiere Brothers invent the Cinématographe motion picture system and ultimately one of the first to create a short film documenting a train pulling into a station called Un Train Arrivee (1895). This was filmed as a part of a travelling show to entertain audiences, as at the time it was created; motion picture was a new medium of capturing life events. Film shorts of this era were purely of documenting and experimenting with this new medium, so most things shot were of everyday life. It was only later that the medium was introduced as way of storytelling. Lumiere Brothers -  Un Train Arrivee (1895). 1922 – Nanook of the North – documents the day-to-day life of the Inuit’s and life in the cold co...

Today we looked at creating a script from scratch. With this the class was split into our collaboration groups and we were each given an image to then come up with a storyline that follows either; a linear or nonlinear plot and includes stages from The Hero's Journey. Script Writing Presentation. by Jasmine Masters on Scribd

Continuing on with Quality in Storytelling , I began to look more at the concept of exploitation within cinema; which was briefly touched on in part 1 of quality storytelling. Studios would exploit certain topics within society to fill seats in cinemas to earn more money; an example of this would be B movies, which were movies that were made cheap and tend to have a variety of bad qualities about them (theses ranging from bad acting, sets, story lines and usually had a monster of some sort). So, Exploitation = Money. “An exploitation film is any film which tries to succeed financially by exploiting a current trend, a niche genre, or a lurid subject matter.” “Subjects which these films exploit include, but are not limited to, sex, violence , and romance . Exploitation films are generally low-quality B movies ." - Bold daring shocking true a history of exploitation films by Eric Schaefer   1900-1930’s – Pre-Code Exploitation: Early 1900 B Movies, many films that were created had a...

Quality within storytelling is a vital part within any story, whether this be within a book or film. To understand were cinema today has come from we have to go back to the 1890’s  to see where the first motion pictures came into play. 1890’s -1920’s: Going back to 1890’s when Pathe studios and French cinema first came about; films of the time were created as a way to show of the new inventions/technology created to view a moving image (thanks to the Lumiere Brothers and their adaptations of photography equipment to create Cinématographe motion picture system). During this era there were no standards as it was a new media, new technology; meaning there was nothing to compare it to as it was the first of its kind. From there came the Nickelodeon studios (1906) that popped up in the east coast (New York) with their flicker books and producers came into play. With this emergence came industry as film becomes something to make money off of. A few years later, around 1908 Thomas Ediso...

Characters are a mix of complex qualities that can be hidden or personified to viewers by other means such as through personal nature or through a representation of a concept or quality. Actors are usually the ones to ‘find’ characters and build that characters internal/external dynamics to audiences so they can understand their personality/nature. So within stories characters are either designed to respond to events within the cinematic (e.g. Speed 1994) or are designed so that the characters cause the events that play out in the film (e.g. 12 Angry Men 1957). Meaning in some cases the audience really get to know the character, but in others they are just there to get the story across so don’t learn much about the character. Too much Plot? Some times in film you find stories to have ‘too much plot’ which can lead to having no character. For example, in Rambo: First Blood (1982) there are internal and external factors that drive the character John Rambo, creating a character with...