Online Class Notes (Jesse)

As a producer, I know that the film makers and photographers always some ways to create the atmosphere for their works. For example, music, lighting, color, shooting angle and tilt of the camera. And yesterday I watched a video which was about “ Why movies tilt the camera like this?” and knew the history and story about it. From the video, I knew that most often, we called the tilt of the camera was “ dutch angle” which was come from fine art. During the world war one, the German government banned the import of foreign films, so the filmmakers of German turned to the arts as they got the inspiration from the movement which was called “Expressionism”. Expressionism is hard to define, but we can think of it as the opposite of impressionism. As we know, the representative of impressionism is Monet and Degas whose painting in floaty, lovely and soft style，and expressionist painters were focus on depicting a subjective version of a world in turmoil with tossed angle, intense and unrealistic color . In 1920, a German silent horror movie with a literally tilted set which was rendered in stark, graphic lines by a trio of expressionist painters. When the film launched, the critics called it startling, weird and sensational! After that, some expressionist classics like Metropolis soon followed, they used the camera to tilt the scene, instead of the set. Subsequently, this camera tilt method was widely used in various films and commercials. And many filmmakers realize that tilting a shot to highlight tension，or distortion, or underscore a film’s dystopian，keeping the expressionism alive.

As a producer, I know that the film makers and photographers always use some ways / methods to create the atmosphere for their works. For example, music, lighting, color, shooting angle and tilt of the camera. And yesterday I watched a video which was about “ Why movies tilt the camera like this?” and learned / learned about the history and story of it. From the video, I learned that most often, we called the tilt of the camera was “ dutch angle” which was came from fine art. During the world war one / the first world war, the German government banned the import of foreign films, so the filmmakers of Germany / the German filmmakers turned to the arts as they got the inspiration from the movement which was called “Expressionism”. Expressionism is hard to define, but we can think of it as the opposite of impressionism. As we know, the representative of impressionism is Monet and Degas whose paintings are in a floaty, lovely and soft style，and expressionist painters are focused on depicting / expressing a subjective version of a world in turmoil with tossed angles, intense and unrealistic colors. In 1920, a German silent horror movie with a literally tilted set which was rendered in stark, graphic lines by a trio of expressionist painters. When the film launched, the critics called it startling, weird and sensational! After that, some expressionist classics like Metropolis soon followed, they used the camera to tilt the scene, instead of the set. Subsequently, this camera tilt method was widely used in various films and commercials. And many filmmakers realize that tilting a shot to highlight tension，or distortion, or underscore a film’s dystopian，keeping the expressionism alive.

Vocabulary

sensational – sth that is shocking and make people talk

everything is step by step – on track  

overlapping 

I will tell you the story of my life – your life’s story
I will tell you a story about my life – just 1 story and the subject is related to your life

to depict sth – to express sth in a vivid way (often used in art)

turmoil – lots of drama, problems, noise, crazy
eg. during COVID the world was in turmoil

email_01@hotmail.com – underscore
underscore – highlight / emphasise

utopia < > dystopia
eg. I want to live in a utopia

Black mirror is a dystopian tv show

Grammar

I went to America
I went to the USA 

they want to critical the world – criticize

dogs tilt their heads when they’re listening (v)
the painting is tilted (adj) so you should straighten it

Pronunciation

expressionism – ecks preh shen nizm
impressionism- imp preh shen nizm

Metropolis – met TROH pol lis