Friday, 7 September 2012

Sources for Iraq and WW2





Friday, 2 March 2012

Hays Code

Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:
  1. Pointed profanity-by either title or lip-this includes the words "God," "Lord," "Jesus," "Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell," " damn," "Gawd," and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled
  2. Any licentious or suggestive nudity-in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture
  3. The illegal traffic in drugs
  4. Any inference of sex perversion
  5. White slavery
  6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races)
  7. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases
  8. Scenes of actual childbirth-in fact or in silhouette
  9. Children's sex organs
  10. Ridicule of the clergy
  11. Willful offense to any nation, race or creed

And be it further resolved, That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:
  1. The use of the flag
  2. International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country's religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry)
  3. Arson
  4. The use of firearms
  5. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron)
  6. Brutality and possible gruesomeness
  7. Technique of committing murder by whatever method
  8. Methods of smuggling
  9. Third-degree methods
  10. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime
  11. Sympathy for criminals
  12. Attitude toward public characters and institutions
  13. Sedition
  14. Apparent cruelty to children and animals
  15. Branding of people or animals
  16. The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue
  17. Rape or attempted rape
  18. First-night scenes
  19. Man and woman in bed together
  20. Deliberate seduction of girls
  21. The institution of marriage
  22. Surgical operations
  23. The use of drugs
  24. Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers
  25. Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a "heavy.
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the time, Will H. Hays.

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

IMAX


The IMAX format imposes particular possibilities and limitations. Since the viewer sits lower in relation to the IMAX screen than in a conventional theatre, the frame’s center lies about a third of the way up from the bottom of the screen. Close-ups therefore need plenty of headroom. While long shots can be framed wider than usual, the movement from extreme long shot to medium close-up can be very condensed and the screen’s enormity cannot tolerate grainy or irresolute images. It is interesting to note that one of the difficulties (or challenges) the IMAX format poses have provoked reactions very similar to those expressed by directors working in early CinemaScope … Longer pacing and the large frame are ideal for the wide-world films IMAX produces but they send acting, dialogue and emotional scenes into the wrong orbit. Quick cuts are a rarity in IMAX, because they would subject the audience to severe jolts and probably violent nausea.

    Imax, which is coming off a bumpy few years marked by struggling ticket sales and multiple earnings restatements — the company acknowledged last summer it overstated revenue between 2002 and 2005 — now finds itself filling theaters well in advance.      In Chicago, for example, The Dark Knight is sold out for the next week, the company said.      Mr. Gelfond said Tuesday that Imax is now in talks with several other directors who want to duplicate Mr. Nolan’s model, where scenes are shot for the oversized Imax screens, and then shrunk for regular theatres.
The IMAX started off not so good, the price was too high for most people but it slowly got better and is a big reason why the dark knight did so well.

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Digital Screen Network

Creation of a digital screen network; support for independent cinemas; and improving access to cinema for people with disabilities.
Fifteen million pounds of capital funding was delegated to the UK Film Council (now BFI) by the Arts Council of England, which is allocated as follows:

Digital Screen Network

The largest proportion has been used to create a network of screens dedicated to the exhibition of specialised films in locations across the UK where there is no such provision currently. 

Capital funding for cinemas 

This fund assists cinema operators to undertake and/or complete capital projects, particularly where the works are considered essential to the cinema's continued existence or of benefit to audiences that may currently be excluded (for example, by improving access for disabled cinemagoers).

The average Hollywood blockbuster opens on 300-plus screens across the UK; most independent films, restored classics, documentaries and foreign language films still struggle to reach over ten per cent of those screens.
Digital screening cuts the cost of releasing films (a digital copy costs around one tenth of a 35mm print). That's why UK Film Council (now BFI) and the Arts Council England created the Digital Screen Network – a £12 million investment to equip 240 screens in 210 cinemas across the UK with digital projection technology to give UK audiences much greater choice.
Cinemas in the network have already screened non-mainstream films including Control, This is England, Good Night and Good Luck and the Oscar®-winning The Lives of Others, as well as classics like Meet me in St Loius, The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca.
Digital Screen Network cinemas hosted the UK Film Council and BBC Two's Summer of British Films season - a sell out tour running from July to September 2007 featuring British classics such as Goldfinger, Brief Encounter, Billy Liar, Henry V, The Wicker Man, The Dam Busters and Withnail and I.

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Gladiator

Gladiator Trailer

When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an emperor's corrupt son, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.