Film Studies Daily Log

Wednesday, February 3

Students received the closest thing to a textbook that the class offers: a packet entitled "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style. They should start reading it immediately and carefully. It will be the subject of a quiz on Monday.

We continued watching short, early films, this time focusing not on "actualities," but on films which used the opportunities for fantasy afforded by the medium. The technical similarity between animation and cinema per se, with its frame-by-frame construction was explored briefly. Films included "The Golden Beetle," "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend," "Winsor McCay and his Animated Pictures,: and "Onesieme the Clockmaker."