Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock 13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980 was an English film director and producer, referred to as the "Master of Suspense". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. {1)
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in London, England, on August 13, 1899, and was raised by strict, Catholic parents. He described his childhood as lonely and sheltered, partly due to his obesity. A lot of Hitchcock’s ideas reflected in his films from how badly he was treated as a child. Hitchcock was a supporter of West Ham United Football Club. He told colleagues in Hollywood that he subscribed to English newspapers in order to keep track of their results.
As a child, Hitchcock was sent to the local police station with a letter from his father. The individual read the letter and immediately locked Hitchcock up for ten minutes. After that, the individual let young Alfred go, explaining, "This is what happens to people who do bad things." Hitchcock had a fear of police from that day on. In addition to his fear of the police, In Hitchcock’s films you closely notice the portrayal of police, you will see that if an officer is required to die, the death will be slow or gruesome. If police officers survive they are nearly always portrayed as baddies, though in reality they are the good guys. This was because of Hitchcock lifelong phobia of policemen.
Alfred Hitchcock was always formally dressed, wearing a suit on film sets. He worked for a short time in engineering before entering the film industry in 1920. He left for Hollywood in 1939, where his first American film, Rebecca, won an Academy Award for best picture. Hitchcock created more than 50 films in six decades, including the classics Rear Window, The 39 Steps and Psycho.
Hitchcock himself was one of the first people to have used a range of camera angles. Such as extreme close ups and close ups. This was good as films nowadays where becoming more advance and different instead of it being the same type of shots. In order to create suspense in his films, he would alternate between different shots to extend cinematic time. In a lot of his films he used to create more shadows on the walls to create suspense and tension.
Hitchcock hated to shoot on location. He preferred to shoot at the studio where he could have full control of lighting and other factors. This is why even his later films contain special effects or rear screen shots.
He established himself as Britain’s top director and the man who new to much. Lady vanishes was the film he last made before coming to America; it was said that the film was a “sensation” and was being spoken about around the world. The New York Times named the film Lady Vanishes as the best film of the year. When Hitchcock made Rebecca in 1939 it was Hitchcock’s first American feature, which was won for best picture. This film gave Hitchcock his first best director nomination. The movie Rebecca was influenced by the upbringing Hitchcock went through as a child and was also based on problems which goes on in day to day families. Hitchcock was best known for his technical expertise. He established a filmmaking style that influenced everybody since. This happened from the use of the camera, editing, deep focus and edited shots which was something Hitchcock used. In 1950s Hitchcock made a series of master words including, Rear window, Vertigo and North by Northwest which were all named as top 100 of the greatest American movies. He was nominated five times for an academy award and never won. Hitchcock made spy films, suspense films which were genres that no one really understood. All Hitchcock’s films had a lot of depth and meaning which symbolized him as an amazing artist. In 1960 his best known film Psycho. This movie was a huge reason why he got named “The master of suspense” it was a film which left the audience screaming. He earned a lifetime achievement award from AFI and also was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures in Hollywood Boulevard. From 1977 until his death, he worked with a number of writers on a film to be known as "The Short Night". The majority of the writing was done by David Freeman, who published the final screenplay after Hitchcock's death.
On the 29th of April 1980 at 9:17AM, Hitchcock unfortunately died peacefully in his sleep due to kidney failure. His funeral was held in the Church of Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, which had over 600 people present. Hitchcock will always remembered as the man who imposed his personality in every film he makes.
Harvard Referencing
A&E Television Networks. (October 12, 2017). Alfred Hitchcock Biography.com. Available: {1) https://www.biography.com/people/alfred-hitchcock-9340006. Last accessed 10/10/17.
Biography. (2017). Alfred Hitchcock Biography. Available: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/bio. Last accessed 10/10/17.
Sonia Kobal. (2017). Powerpoint. Available: Ilearn Word Document. Last accessed 10/7/17.
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock
Peter E. Berger
Peter E. Berger was an American film editor who sadly died in 2011 at the age of 67. Before his death however he had about 50 feature film and tv credits. He is best known for his work on “Coach Carter” in 2005, “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” in 1986 and “Hocus Pocus” in 1993
The editing process is one of the many elements that are going to carry the narrative in the filmmaking process. In this reports I shall be discussing the stages of editing and filmmaking have gone through the early pioneers to the most recent contemporary examples.
Firstly in 1895 we had the Lumiere brothers, pioneers of the early stages of film making. They began experimenting with the equipment their father Antoine was manufacturing. They invented their own device called The cinematographe, which combined a camera for recording the movement. Editing as such did not exist as we know it today; instead films were edited in cameras, which means the filmmaker had to shoot everything in a sequence. Camera editing shows the footage in a sequence and had the edit playing back in the camera which were continuous single shots. At this point the filmmakers were recording factual events that consisted of single shots.
In 1902 we had George Melies. He invented the idea of creating more exotic stories whereas the lumiere brothers created more factual ones. George Melies produced stories which consisted of more painted backgrounds and animations etc. He began to add a range of special effects and started to produce longer lengthy films for about 14 minutes. However, even know George Melies was doing this his movies still remained as single shots.
{2} {3} 1903 it was the start of continuity, which was started by Edwin S. Porter. The pivotal year in Porter’s work was 1903, when he began to use a visual continuity that made his films more dynamic. Porter invented the Simplex camera for the Edison Company, and pioneered new techniques in films like The Great Train Robbery, which was his first film to show a range of editing. The Great Train Robbery was running for 12 minutes, with its ground breaking use of cross cutting in editing to show simultaneous action in different places. Cross cutting was more none in the 1920s and created more tension for the audience.
In 1915 D.W Griffith considered to be the father of editing came up with most of the techniques that are still in use today. He made solid principles of continuity editing. Griffith created the use of multiple shots such as extreme long shot, close up, tracking shot etc, which did not exist before. In From this point starts the classic hollywood style and goes on until 1960. Filmmakers either followed it or revolted against it. The most important elements of the classical hollywood style was the narrative, this caused effect and had a resolution at the end. space and time are unified and lastly editing which consisted of continuity and invisible cut.
In the 1920s cross cutting was more acknowledged and created a wide range of tension for the audience. During this time shots were more linked together and there was a number of multiple camera angles.
1924-1930 the Soviet Montage began and ended in 1930. During the Montage movement's existence, perhaps fewer than thirty films were made in the style. But the films were very influential. The central aspect of Soviet Montage style was the area of editing. In action to continuity editing Montage cutting often created either overlapping or elliptical. Overlapping editing is when the second shot repeats part or all of the action from the previous shots. Whereas elliptical creates the opposite effect. This means a part of an action is left out, so then it would takes even less time than it would in reality.
The Kuleshov effect is a film editing montage effect demonstrated by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. The Kuleshov Effect influences every film and every filmmaker. For example the following series of stills from “The Wolf of Wall Street” demonstrates the Kuleshov Effect in practice. Summarising The Kuleshove effect identifies that you can generate meaning by associating shots. Furthermore, by putting specific images together creates psychological’ symbolism which influences the audience.
In 1927 marks the year when sound was used in films for the first time. This was because of the Warner brothers. In about 1913 they began producing their own films, and in 1917 they shifted their production headquarters to Hollywood. However in 1927 They produced the first sound (voice) feature film The Jazz Singer. This was seen as a massive achievement as using sound on film meant there was going to be several technological barriers which had to be overcome. For example, the microphone quality will not be as clear as it needs to be and secondly another barrier which individuals struggled with in the 1920s was the issue of sound amplification.
In 1925 Alfred Hitchcock, was considered to be Britain's best film director. The first film he made there, Rebecca 1940, won an Academy Award for best picture. Hitchcock directed more than 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades. Hitchcock himself was one of the first people to have used a range of camera angles. Such as extreme close ups and close ups. This was good as films nowadays where becoming more advance and different instead of it being the same type of shots.
In the 1960s however, we had the French New Wave. The French New Wave was a group of directors who created a new cinematic style, using breakthrough techniques and a fresh approach to storytelling that could express complex ideas.They exploded onto the film scene in the late 1950s; revolutionising cinematic conventions by marrying the rapid cuts of Hollywood with philosophical trends. Elaborating on this, discontinuity was common in these directors books. They used a range of Jump cuts that disobeyed the film industry in a way.
MTV has transformed film editing. This was done by the way the different genres of music videos are either performance based, narrative based or conceptual. There were also new styles of storytelling within music videos. Such as, part narrative or atmosphere, sound intensive, image rich or videos, which try to appeal to the new generation. This shows the amount of influence MTV had when editing different types of films.
To conclude Continuity editing is the process in film and video creation, of combining more-or-less related shots, or different cuts from a single shot, into a sequence. Discontinuous editing is a unique editing style in film that is antithetical to that of normal cinema, or continuous editing. In a discontinuous sequence, the filmmaker will deliberately use an arrangement of shots that seem out of place or confusing relative to a traditional narrative. Overall the purpose of Film editing is the art, technique and practice of assembling shots into a coherent sequence,
space, time, and information. ... It was introduced to cinema primarily by Sergei Eisenstein. However, the desire of editing can be seen as being very significant; the editing itself is effective as it sets a meaning for the film. The editing can also help the film with the narrative; by this it helps the audience receive information about the plot and the story throughout the film.
Harvard Referencing
A&E Television Networks. (April 27, 2017). Biography. Available: https://www.biography.com/people/alfred-hitchcock-9340006. Last accessed 10/10/17.
SARAH PRUITT. (OCTOBER 3, 2014). The Lumière Brothers, Pioneers of Cinema. Available: http://www.history.com/news/the-lumiere-brothers-pioneers-of-cinema. Last accessed 10/10/17.
A&E Television Networks. (October 12, 2017). Edwin S. Porter Biography.com. Available: https:// Last accessed 10/10/17.
{2} Sonia Kobal. (2017). Powerpoint. Available: Ilearn Word Document. Last accessed 10/7/17.