Film making

Film Studies is growing field of academic study that is focused on the critical appraisal and appreciation of cinema as a form of art together with its role in shaping contemporary society and culture. Scholars in the field concerns themselves with analyzing how best to view and appraise movies in order to understand all their many meanings and impacts. The discipline sits within the larger fields of media and cultural studies.

The subject is not focused on the technical aspects of filmmaking or production. Rather it is concerned with exploring its non-technical aspects such as the narrative, aesthetics, artistic, ideological, cultural, economic, and political implications of cinema.

Academic cinema journals have introduced many important concepts in film theory over the years. For example, prominent cinema theorist and British academic Laura Mulvey (1941-stillliving) published her famous 1975 article titled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Screen. That influential article adopted a Freudian psychoanalytic analysis of the portrayal of women in cinema. It is one of the earliest articles to combine cinema theory, psychoanalysis and feminism and remains widely read today.

Given the commercial dominance of Hollywood movies on contemporary culture, it may surprise many some people to learn that Russia and Europe have had a strong influence on both filmmaking and theory. A clear example is the Moscow Film School. This institution, founded in 1919, and was the first school in the world to focus on the production of movies.

As another example, Frenchman Andre Bazin is generally acknowledged to be the first cinema theorist. He writings date back to 1943 during World War II in 1943, when he was only 25 years old. Soon after, in 1951, he co-founded the widely read Cahiers du cinema magazine with two other colleagues, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. His writings remain an influential voice in contemporary cinema circles.

Perhaps the most controversial of all of the views of Bazin on cinema was his support for appreciative criticism alone. He believed that only critics that liked a movie had a legitimate basis to review and assess it. Clearly this is a restrictive stance. It is also an extreme view all the more so since Bazin was himself a prominent critic.

Bazin also favored films that presented an objective reality rather than indulging in blatant fake manipulations of reality. He supported documentaries and films crafted on the lines of Italian neorealism. From a technical viewpoint, he encouraged directors to render themselves invisible in their films; he supported advocated deep focus shots and wide shots; he discouraged adding meaning through montage favoring instead continuity via mise en scene.

One of the most controversial of Bazin views was perhaps his strong advocacy of appreciative or constructive criticism. He argued that only critics who liked a movie could legitimately review it, clearly a contentious and restrictive position. Interestingly, Bazin himself was a movie critic. Not all Bazin views are supported by contemporary film studies scholars.

Tarintino had to start somewhere. Film school can open the door to a lucrative and enjoyable career. The industry requires hard work and long hours so get started at a Canadian Art Institute. If film does not interest you then try taking web design courses or photography courses.