24 - The Digital Future 1994 -

Question 1

What film does Wexman identify as a turning point when the image’s essential verisimilitude could not longer be assumed. When was it released?

Answer 1

Forrest Gump (1994)

Question 2

From 1994 on, what became ever more central to Hollywood productions?

Answer 2

Effects houses (i.e - Digital Domain, Industrial Light and Sound, and Imageworks)

Question 3

What is Subsurface Scattering? What film demonstrates this?

Answer 3

Digital Effect that makes the skin of animated creatures appear to glow from within.
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Question 4

What is Performance Capture?

Answer 4

A digital effect: by attaching electrodes to actors bodies, their actions and expression onto animated characters.

Question 5

What is the overall aim of computer-generated imagery/effects?

Answer 5

Replicate people & nature in a believable fashion.

Question 6

When was The Matrix released?
Who directed/wrote?
Production Company?

Answer 6

1999
Wachowski brothers (bro & ‘sis’) - D. & W.
Warner Bros. & Village Roadshow Pictures

Question 7

Which film was the first to be shown digitally (digital projection)

Answer 7

The Phantom Menace (1999)

Question 8

When did the widespread availability of feature films begin? With what technology?

Answer 8

1981 when VHS was widespread and DVD players began to proliferate.

Question 9

By ___ DVD players found a place in ___ of american households

Answer 9

2004

70%

Question 10

In ____ americans spent ____ buying and renting DVD’s and videos.

Answer 10

2004

24.5 billion

Question 11

How did companies try to keep people in the theatres? How does this help?

Answer 11

Technologies that are not available at home: i.e 3D.

Makes it harder to pirate.

Question 12

When was the ‘first’ modern/hollywood 3D film? Who directed it?

Answer 12

Beowulf (2007)

Robert Zemeckis

Question 13

How did the digital aesthetic & capacity influence the home-movie experience?

Answer 13

Computer-inspired aesthetic of interactivity; its no longer “I saw that movie… It’s I saw that movie, now I’m going to see multiple dimensions of that movie on DVD!”

DVD’s fed the appetite for extras (i.e - deleted scenes, alternate endings/versions, behind-the-scenes)

Question 14

What did media consolidation mean? when did it begin?

Answer 14

Began in 70's
Synergy was the name of the game… All the following owned by parent companies: 
movies made from books, 
advertised on networks shows
(later) screened on cable stations

Question 15

When was DreamWorks SKG established? Who founded it?

Answer 15

1994

- David Geffen, Steven Spielberg, & Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Question 16

Name three early successful films by DreamWorks.

Answer 16

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
American Beauty (1999)
Gladiator (2000)
A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Question 17

What are three films by DreamWorks animation studios?

Answer 17

Antz ,Chicken Run, and Shrek

Question 18

One company name was ‘revived’ in 2006. What is it? Who ‘revived’ it?

Answer 18

United Artists: Cruise & Wagner.

Question 19

What is the issue regarding Cultural Capital? When did it become an issue?

Answer 19

Frustrations regarding film ownership / authorship “film by.. “directed by…”
problem came to a head in 2001 when writers became vehement about the lavish way in which studios were bestowing possessory credits on virtually all directors.

Question 20

When did Cultural capital become an issue?

Answer 20

In the mid 90’s and into the turn of the century.

Question 21

Marketing strategies:

By ____ the cost of the _____ & ______ had risen to _____ per film

Answer 21

1997
blanket release & media blitz
22.2 million

Question 22

What are ‘date and day’ openers?

Answer 22

“opening weekend syndrome’ studios coordinating the release of blockbusters around world

Question 23

In 1985 there were ____ theatre screens in the U.S.

By 1995 this had risen to ____ screen.

Answer 23

1985 - 27, 805 screens

1995 - 37, 185 screens.

Question 24

What is Back-end Revenue?

Answer 24

revenue coming in from tv, cable, video & DVD sales

became a major role in studio profit pictures.

Question 25

By 2007 the global audience had accounted for nearly ____ of total box office take.

Answer 25

2/3rds

Question 26

Around the turn of the century, there was new directorial talent emerging. Examples? (Fin de Siecle)

Answer 26

Wachowski brothers

Tarantino, Linklader, David O. Russel, Sophia Coppola, Soderberg…

Question 27

The advent of digital has made what more feasible?

Answer 27

blockbusters/effect films

Question 28

When was the transitional period in cinema (film->digital)

Answer 28

90’s

Question 29

What is pastiche?

Answer 29

the combination (new combinations) of film genres/forms (HYBRID FILMS)

Question 30

List some of the advantages of digital.

Answer 30

Workflow
crisp quality
less $
emphasis on THE ARTIST
Painterly aesthetic

Question 31

List some of the advantages of film.

Answer 31

Overall quality - to some (y&n)

capture reality - film verisimilitude

Question 32

What is Perceptual Realism? (Rodowick)

Answer 32

CGI is used to add ‘realism’
Computers effect the film - > extend ‘reality’ but maintaining realistic attributes ‘Perfect merging of physical and pure digital info…’

Film & digital have a symbolic relationship…
IS THERE A NCESSARY DISTINCTION?

There is a Photographic faith in reality with film
- shift to subjective framework of reality - perceptions are justified. it’s ‘real enough’

Question 33

What is Fin de Siècle? Who does Wexman use as her most notable example? What other example does she list, and what was the film we watched?

Answer 33

End of the Century, referring to independent (or possibly different? not regular commercial?) directors from the 90s forward. Tarantino is discussed at length, but Richard Linklater is also mentioned. Slacker, 1991.