italian neorealism films

OSSESSIONE (Luchino Visconti, 1943)

Bibliography:Ossessione (2016) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossessione (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Ossessione, 2016)
Bibliography:grunes (2007) OSSESSIONE (Luchino Visconti, 1942). Available at: https://grunes.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/ossessione-luchino-visconti-1942/ (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(grunes, 2007)
Bibliography:Ossessione (1959) Directed by Luchino Visconti .In-line Citation:(Visconti, 1959)

Bicycle Thieves (1948 Vittorio De Sica)

Bibliography:Ladri di biciclette (1948) Directed by Vittorio De Sica .In-line Citation:(De Sica, 1948)

Bibliography:Bicycle thieves (2016) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Bicycle thieves, 2016)
Bibliography:Mooney, J. (2013) The bicycle thieves and Italian Neorealism. Available at: https://filmandphilosophy.com/2013/03/08/the-bicycle-thieves-and-italian-neorealism/ (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Mooney, 2013)
Bibliography:KARVAYO777 (2009) Bicycle thief last scene. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_lJbSJoIuw (Accessed: 3 October 2016).In-line Citation:(KARVAYO777, 2009)

Rome, Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini

Bibliography:Rome, open city (2016) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Open_City (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Rome, open city, 2016)
Bibliography:Roma città aperta (1945) Directed by Roberto Rossellini .In-line Citation:(Rossellini, 1945)
Bibliography:Index to NeoWeb (no date) Available at: http://www.carleton.edu/curricular/MEDA/classes/media110/Voigt/paper3.html (Accessed: 29 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Index to NeoWeb, no date)

https://filmandphilosophy.com/2013/03/08/the-bicycle-thieves-and-italian-neorealism/
(REJECTED)

http://www.oocities.org/tlverburg/bicycle.pdf
(REJECTED)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI3mvReS2BI
(REJECTED)

Bibliography:divadaniela (2012) CineCollage: Italian Neorealism. Available at: http://cinecollage.net/neorealism.html (Accessed: 20 September 2016).In-line Citation:(divadaniela, 2012)
Bibliography:Theme, M. and Media, rd W. 3 (2016) KEC Moodle: Log in to the site. Available at: http://moodle.kinged6nun.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=45727 (Accessed: 20 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Theme and Media, 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLOr-VEjBBc

Bibliography:The New York Times (2009) ‘The bicycle thief’ | critics’ picks | the New York times. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njLcOqW7xV0 (Accessed: 14 November 2016).In-line Citation:(The New York Times, 2009)

Apature

apature from abbie on Vimeo.
The aperture changes the focus of a shot. The larger the aperture e.g F/2 the more light allowed into the image but the more shallow the focus. Shallow focus or a shallow depth of field is when there isn't a lot in focus, meaning if you have a object in focus the background and surrounding area will be out of focus. When the aperture is small e.g F/22 it has a deep depth of field meaning everything or at least a lot of the image is in focus. When the aperture is low it also lets in less light. For the video i used a tripod as i used a telephoto lens, which is heavier and picks ups shakes more. So in order not to have shakes i used a tripod, however some of the panning was a bit jumpy, so i used a warp stabiliser in editing, so the video looks better and smoother.
The screenshot below is of an aperture of F/5, this is a low aperture that has brought in plenty of light so the image is slightly over-exposed.  You can see the shallow focus, as  there is only one section in focus, the leaf at the front and the bushes towards the back are all out of focus.  A shallow focus is used to draw attention to one particular thing in the shot, when used this would show that the particular thing in focus is important to the narrative.

The screenshot to the left has an aperture of F/8 this is a slightly deeper depth of field you can see compared to the F/5 screenshot there is more in focus however there is still party of the leaves out of focus. This aperture is good for shots where there are a couple of characters in shot and the camera needs to focus not them but instead of all the focus being on the characters , there is a little background to give it context, it could also be used to have someone walking into focus.
The screenshot to the left has an aperture of F/22. This is deep depth of field meaning everything is in focus. This is a good example of deep depth of field because of how much is in focus and the shot is correctly exposed. This aperture is best for establishing shots because all the background and everything is in focus.
The image to the right is of my first try shooting. As you can see the shot is over exposed due to the low aperture opening up the lens and allowing more light into the camera and while filming i didn't use a tripod and so the footage came out very shaky. Although it did show the shallow focus well,as the leaves in front are in focus and the background is completely out of focus.
If i re-shot, i would pan slower on a tripod to stop the shakes. so i don't have to rely on the editing so much. I would also change the shutter speed, in order for the scenes to be correctly exposed so that the shots are more effective and we could focus on the aperture.

History of Italian neorealism

1944-1952
It was a backlash of the WW2 which ended in 1945.
 Mussolini was the leader before getting overthrown in 1943, he was against the Italian neorealism films as they painted Italy in a negative light, so he pushed for meaningless films made purely for entertainment. These films were called white telephone films which were Italy's imitation of American films. The war also destroyed most of Italy's studios, leading them to film on the streets, this worked as it added more realism to the films. Filming on the streets became a style of the Italian neorealism films




http://moodle.kinged6nun.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/50031/mod_resource/content/1/Introduction%20To%20Film.pdf

Italian neorealism

Italian neorealism is a type of film that was made in Italy between 1944-1952. These films consist of post war Italy and the poverty stricken working class. The films focus on the conditions of the working class and the sate of Italy post World war two. The films were shot in real locations showing a realistic portrayal of Italy. Films like this before WW2 were banned as they were believed to show Italy in a negative way.  Most of the actors in these films were un-trained or amateur in order to give the films the realism they wanted to portray. The film the Bicycle thieves, its lead protagonist was a factory worker and the boy who played his son was a spotted when filming as he was selling flowers with his father. The film the bicycle thieves is one of the most well known and critically acclaimed Italian neorealism films, as it not only clearly shows the state of Italy and the struggles of the everyday man trying to support his family but it also clearly shows how everyone is struggling and how no ones issues are unique as the ending scene shows Antonio and his son walking away and fitting into a crowd of people in the same position as him.


The title of the film is bicycle thieves, thieves meaning more than one, as Antonio has his bike stolen by a thief, the first their and at the end Antonio himself steals a bike making him the second thief.
When Antonio is deciding to steal a bike the director leaves several minutes of him arguing with himself to show that stealing the bike is not an easy design but in order to be able to provide for his family he must do so, this is a key moment as it reflects the situation most people had to face in order to survive. He gets caught stealing the bike, which does not just create public humiliation for him but he is caught in front of his son, which is arguably a worse form of humiliation and he is confronted with the fear that he is unable to provide for his family which is common, and as Lamberto Maggiorani who plays Antonio the protagonist of the film, is not a trained actor so most of the acting done in this film was real, he has lived through similar situations as he is was factory worker when he was cast for this role. This is all post WW2 because the conditions of Italy were very poor, people from Italy desiccated that time as still being in a depression because not many people could get jobs or have enough money to feed and support their family. The ending of The bicycle thieves is not a happy ending, if it wasn't a Italian neorealism film and a hollywood or white phone film instead then the ending would be happy and Antonio would have found his bike and everything would have been alright but because it is an Italian neorealism film, which focus on the realistic truth behind the poverty stricken Italy. Antonio never found his bike because that was the realistic truth that work was hard and it was difficult supporting a family.

Italian neorealism

When Antonio is deciding to steal a bike the director leaves several minutes of him arguing with himself to show that stealing the bike is not an easy design but in order to be able to provide for his family he must do so. He gets caught stealing the bike, which does not just create public humiliation for him but he is caught in front of his son, which is arguably a worse form of humiliation and he is confronted with the fear that he is unable to provide for his family. This is all post WW2 because the conditions of Italy were very poor, people from Italy desiccated that time as still being in a depression because not many people could get jobs or have enough money to feed and support their family. The ending of The bicycle thieves is not a happy ending, if it wasn't a Italian neorealism film and a hollywood or white phone film instead then the ending would be happy and Antonio would have found his bike and everything would have been alright but because it is an Italian neorealism film, which focus on the realistic truth behind the poverty stricken Italy. Antonio never found his bike because that was the realistic truth that work was hard and it was difficult supporting a family.

Shutter speed

Sequence 01 from abbie on Vimeo.
The shutter speed, control the exposure of camera, the longer the shutter speed e.g 1/30, the more light is allowed in the camera, the shorter the shutter speed time, the less light there is, as there is less time for the light to get into the camera. When the shutter speed is low, the more light can enter the image however without a tripod the image can have movement blurs, as when the shutter speed is low it pick up more movement and too much movement can lead to blurs in the image or video.
This is not the best example of shutter speed, as some of the shots of over exposed like 1/30 of a second. The videos are also out of focus, because i couldn't directly see the camera when shooting the videos came out unfocused. It would be best to re-shoot the videos to get a clearer example of the different shutter speeds in use. The faster shutter speed would best for action sequences with fast movement as the moves would be seen as more precise without movement blurs. Slower camera speeds can be used for scene where there isn't a lot of lighting and the characters aren't moving too much, as the little movements won't create movement blurs and the lower shutter speed will let enough lightning for the shot to be correctly exposed.



This screenshot is 1/30 of a second.The image has more movement blur because of the slower shutter speed. The image is also a lot brighter than the others because more light can get into the image because of more light getting into the image.

 

The image to the right is a screenshot of my video at 1/50 of a second. The is the average shutter speed when filming. As you can see there is less movement blur compared to the 1/30 of a second but there is still slight movement blurs.
This screenshot is of 1/250 of a second, there is a lot less movement blur than the other two shutter speeds, because it is quicker at capturing the the image per frame. However this image is darker as the shutter speed doesn't allow as much light.

contextual studies research cont.

Backlash of post ww2 Italy.

Realistic endings, Bicycle thief doesn't have happy ending

Described as a national film movement

Had an effect on French new wave cinema

In Bicycle their the lead was a factory worker

https://filmandphilosophy.com/2013/03/08/the-bicycle-thieves-and-italian-neorealism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves

Story instead of plot

http://www.oocities.org/tlverburg/bicycle.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI3mvReS2BI



The bicycle thieves- ending scene
The end shows the film going in full circle, Antonio steals a bike when his stolen bike fails to turn up. The last shot shows Antonio walking with his son in a crowd, showing how they are like everyone else, as it is poverty stricken Italy there are not many people with jobs who can easily provide for their family.
The title of the film is bicycle thieves, thieves meaning more than one, as Antonio has his bike stolen by a thief, the first their and at the end Antonio himself steals a bike making him the second thief.
When Antonio is deciding to steal a bike the director leaves several minutes of him arguing with himself to show that stealing the bike is not an easy design but in order to be able to provide for his family he must do so. He gets caught stealing the bike, which does not just create public humiliation for him but he is caught in front of his son, which is arguably a worse form of humiliation and he is confronted with the fear that he is unable to provide for his family.

Italy

Before WW2 filmmakers were encouraged to make meaningless films, purely for entertainment, most Italian neorealism films didn't do well critically or finically because of showing a realistic version of post war Italy, as many people went to the movies to escape. WW2 destroyed not only Italy's economy, finically and politically but it also destroyed many film studios.

contextual studies research

Before WW2 filmmakers were encouraged to make meaningless films, purely for entertainment, most Italian neorealism films didn't do well critically or finically because of showing a realistic version of post war Italy, as many people went to the movies to escape. WW2 destroyed not only Italy's economy, finically and politically but it also destroyed many film studios.


Dialog was made up of everyday conversations instead of over dramatic lines to add realism
They also used un-trained actors as leads.
Long takes
shooting on location
natural lighting
working class protagonist
poverty, crime, social injustice are all common themes
Mussolini

1949-  A law strengthened production and exhibition of Italian films imposed censorship that showed Italy in a negative way or "slandered Italy".

Mussolini rejected the making of realistic films that showed Italy in an negative way.

Bibliography:The New York Times (2009) ‘The bicycle thief’ | critics’ picks | the New York times. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njLcOqW7xV0 (Accessed: 14 November 2016).In-line Citation:(The New York Times, 2009)



Italian neorealism has more of a low budget.

ISO comparison

Sequence 01 from abbie on Vimeo.
The ISO can help you adjust the lighting on a image. If you take a picture and the image is under-exposed you can change the ISO, the higher the Iso the more light you can get in your image. However if the ISO is too high the quality of the image gets changed and you can get grain and or noise on your image. Thats why you should try and keep your ISO as low as possible, around 100 or 200. When taking an image that is under lit, you should change the shutter speed or the aperture first, as then it allows you to keep the quality of the image.

This is a screenshot (to the left) from my video, where i used a ISO of 3200. As you can see the quality of the image is low as the grain can clearly be seen.
 The screen show bellow is when i used an ISO of 200, the quality is better as their is less grain as outside it was brighter and the ISO could be kept low.




I showed the ISO changes in two videos played one after the other, with the 200 first then the 3200. I also added text in the video so the person watching the video can easily tell which ISO was used for which video. However i could have shown the videos in a more effective way by having the two videos played side by side, in red to show a direct comparison. Also in my first clip, the 200 ISO, the quality of the video isn't very good as it is slightly out of focus and the panning is shaky. I attempted to fix the handheld shake from the camera by using a warp stabiliser, but the effects are minimal when compared to the original clip.

The technical challenges that i faced during the shoot is the steadiness of the camera, i could have used a tripod to demonstrated a steady pan. I would have also preferred to show the lowest ISO which is 100, however the lighting outside wasn't great,s o the best i could film is 200. Although i managed to change the ISO with no problem and if i came to it and i did need to change the aperture or the shutter speed, i would know how to do so.

Contextual study of Italian neorealism after WW2

Italian Neorealism stylistic characteristics

• Shot in real locations, instead of studio backdrops
• Amateur/ unprofessional actors and actresses 
• Storied often tell the stories of the poor and un-wealthy 

Miracolo a Milano (1951)

Bitter rice (1949)

Bicycle thieves (1948)

Umberto D (1952)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLOr-VEjBBc





Bibliography:divadaniela (2012) CineCollage: Italian Neorealism. Available at: http://cinecollage.net/neorealism.html (Accessed: 20 September 2016).In-line Citation:(divadaniela, 2012)
Bibliography:Theme, M. and Media, rd W. 3 (2016) KEC Moodle: Log in to the site. Available at: http://moodle.kinged6nun.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=45727 (Accessed: 20 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Theme and Media, 2016)

Pull focus video evaluation

pull focus from abbie on Vimeo.

This is a screenshot of a shot from my video, everything is shot is at least slightly out of focus after the focus shift from the pipes to the sign on the stares. I didn't notice this during editing, as the unfocused shot is seen after the pull focus which means i could have cut the shot short and the unfocused shot wouldn't have been there but i didn't notice it in post production, so in the future when i am editing, i need to focus more when editing, so i don't keep having unfocused or under/ over exposed shots.


I used the effect warp stabilizer, in order to steady the scenes. As i used only hand held camera shots, which means there is slight shakey or jolts int he middle of a shot which makes it look less smooth. So the warp stabilizer helps steady the shots to make them look smoother and more natural. However there is still some light shakes throughout the video.

I like this shot because it runs smooth, the shift in focus is a smooth transition and the way the camera moves is not shake it runs smooth and clear. This is one of my better shots int he video because of the way it moves and it clearly shows the shift in focus which was the task. However their are still slight blurs in the shot where everything is slightly out of focus, this was noticed but i kept it because it was better than cutting a part out of the middle of the shot because the camera glides from one door nob to the other and so missing a bit out would make the shot jump slightly, so i kept the unfocused part in.


I added text to my video, and i also added the cross dissolve for the text to enter and exit on. I wanted to experiment with the effects and filters and by having the the text dissolve, it goes with the change of focus on screen.  I also edited the colour of my text to try and been with the background, so it doesn't distract the viewer from what i gave filmed. The trouble with getting the text is to go with he background is that the background changes and so in some shots the text does stand out more than on other shots.







The last shot on my video doesn't clearly show the pull of focus. I tried to have the focus on the door then the mannequin, however because most of the shot is underexposed it is not clearly seen. However what I do like about this shot is nearing the end a shadow comes over the mannequin and so at the end of the video it looks like a natural closing shot to a video. I would re-shoot this and get maybe a better, lower angle alongside a clearer demonstration of the pull focus. Although the video is good quality and not out of focus but still there is slight camera movements that can easily be detected.

research development of editing technology

In 1885, the cinematographe was invented by the Lumiere Brothers, this was a device that recorded, captured and projected moving images. Shortly after the Lumiere Brothers invented the cinematographe, Edwin. s. porter showed that a film didn't need to be one long take, and instead created a story that was different to the original footage story.
The film "for love of God" by D.W Griffiths was the first film with a continuity cut when a scene cut, he then developed a way to show emotion int he film, instead of just the actors shwoing. What he did was use different camera angles and changing the speed of the editing. He later went on to make "the birth of a nation" which included many camera techniques filmmaker use today like panoramic long shots, still shots, cross cutting, iris effect and panning shots.
Lev Kuleshov discovered the Kuleshov effect, which was a montage effect. The potentials of montage were explored by Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov as Eisenstein's in 1925 thought he could by using a montage in film, could explore different ideas in his film Battleship Potemkin- montage.
Before computer editing, there was analog editing. The negative of the film would be cut down and then pasted back into order, it was then put though a Moviola or K.E.M machine.

Editing on a computer is much easier and faster, because it is you can cut, paste and put togetehr all on one machine as analog you would need to cut the negatives. Many editing software's are available such as Imovie or Adobe Premier pro. When editing on these software you can also add different visual and sound effects.
Offline editing is when the raw footage gets copied and edited in post production without effecting the cameras original footage. The name offline editing is referred to when he footage is not being edited by any other device unlike online editing, which comes after the offline editing. Offline editing has been used since near the beginning of editing, however this process was usually used to assemble scenes together than final editing, as if done wrong or imperfectly, physically cutting the image could lead to the picture breaking up.
Online editing is the final editing process, which takes place after offline editing. Online editing has mainly now been taken over by computer editing software like Adobe, that have NLE (non linear editing systems). Online editing is more automatic than offline as it is under the control of another device.

how and why lighting affects camera techniques for moving image

Lighting is important to film because without the proper lighting, the shots would be under-exposed or over exposed if lighting is not done properly. There are different lighting techniques like hard lighting, warm lighting, low-key lighting.

Hard lighting is created from a single point and from a single light source, this creates a hard edge on the shadow to give it a clear shape. This is good when creating a silhouette for noir films or if the light is lite through Venetian blinds it creates shadows across a persons face this can give extra meaning to a shot.




Soft lighting creates a softer shadow on the subject or objects. There is several light sources coming from different angles. The shadow of a subject in soft lighting is faded with a gradient edge to give it the softer effect. This is often used as fill lighting to lessen the use of shadows or to make a subject look better as the lighting is not as harsh on the face.



Bibliography:Marine, J. (2013) Basic lighting lesson: Understanding hard light and soft light. Available at: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/03/basic-lighting-lesson-hard-soft-light (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Marine, 2013)

Bibliography:Theme, M. and Media, rd W. 3 (2016) KEC Moodle: Log in to the site. Available at: http://moodle.kinged6nun.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=46643 (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Theme and Media, 2016)

Bibliography:Lavideofimlmaker (2010) Film lighting techniques and tips: With pretty pictures! Available at: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/film-lighting-tips.html (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(2010)

how and why lighting affects camera techniques for moving image

Lighting is important to film because without the proper lighting, the shots would be under-exposed or over exposed if lighting is not done properly. There are different lighting techniques like hard lighting, warm lighting, low-key lighting.

Hard lighting is created from a single point and from a single light source, this creates a hard edge on the shadow to give it a clear shape. This is good when creating a silhouette for noir films or if the light is lite through Venetian blinds it creates shadows across a persons face this can give extra meaning to a shot.




Soft lighting creates a softer shadow on the subject or objects. There is several light sources coming from different angles. The shadow of a subject in soft lighting is faded with a gradient edge to give it the softer effect. This is often used as fill lighting to lessen the use of shadows or to make a subject look better as the lighting is not as harsh on the face.



Bibliography:Marine, J. (2013) Basic lighting lesson: Understanding hard light and soft light. Available at: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/03/basic-lighting-lesson-hard-soft-light (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Marine, 2013)

Bibliography:Theme, M. and Media, rd W. 3 (2016) KEC Moodle: Log in to the site. Available at: http://moodle.kinged6nun.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=46643 (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(Theme and Media, 2016)

Bibliography:Lavideofimlmaker (2010) Film lighting techniques and tips: With pretty pictures! Available at: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/film-lighting-tips.html (Accessed: 13 September 2016).In-line Citation:(2010)

List of lighting equipment and setups that you would use for the following...

A small documentary where portability is paramount

• Audio reorder

Inhances the volume, so everything that you have filmed can be heard

It's an extra thing to carry around and setup, this could waste time and make things harder

When going through the recordings, you may find something you missed shooting

Having an extra recording device besides from a camera can make people being filmed act less natural

• shoulder mount

It's eaier to move around to capture shots

Shots might not be as smooth as when using a tripod

• tripod

Steady shots

may waste time setting up to the correct angle and height for the shot

• LED lights

Better lit shots

takes time to setup

may put people off, if documenting people


Talking head style interviews

• Tripod

Keep the camera steady and focused on subject

having a camera placed directly in front of someone may put them off

capture everything needed without hassle of holding camera

• Reflector

Keep the lighting soft and less harsh on the subject

can be difficult to place if not know what your doing

creates a well lit head shot

A night time shoot

• Led lights

Creates lighting in order to get well lit shots

can create too much hard lighting

• Tripod

Keep the camera till for shutter speeds under 1/60 sec

can be difficult to set up to the correct hight in the dark