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film director, independent film, movie making, support independent film, film history, music history, music theory, comedy movie

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Here I share what I have learned about my passions--teaching, music, and film.
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Teaching- Greeting Students At The Door

One of the best ways to set a great tone for class and to build relationships with students is to be at the entrance to your classroom as students arrive. It is also one of the simplest actions you can take. Even if things get chaotic before a class and you aren’t as setup as you hoped you would be, spending just a couple minutes greeting each student is worth your time.

I am fortunate that in my music room, there is a long ramp that leads to the classroom door so I can see students arriving from quite a distance. Unless a group of students is held up in a previous class, usually they arrive at a manageable pace so that I can greet each of them by name. Saying someone’s name when you greet them has a great psychological effect on anyone. At the beginning of the year, when there are some students that you are just getting to know, the doorway greeting is a great time to either remember their names or ask “remind me of your name, please”. If you have students as their first class of the day, a nice greeting can really start off their day with a positive first impression.

Another great benefit of greeting students at this time is to ask them about things they have told you about from outside of class. For example, if a student told you they were going to have a soccer tournament last weekend, ask them how it went. If a student won a spelling bee the day before, congratulate them as they arrive. There is also nothing wrong with asking them how something related to class is going. Ask them how the note they are working on with their instrument is going. If they had a chance to listen to the example you shared, etc.

Greeting time is also a good time to remind one or more students about class procedures and expectations. If a student seemed to be talking out of turn a lot during the previous class, remind them of the expectation to be called upon before speaking. Don’t do this in a threatening way, but more of a collaboration between student and teacher to maintain a respectful class environment.

For my youngest students, I will often remind each one of them as they enter to walk to their assigned spot (I often use velcro numbered spots to assign places for the youngest learners). But because I am greeting them at the door, this procedure becomes one of making contact with students and not just telling them where to go. Think of it as hosting a fancy dinner party and inviting a guest to sit.

The space right outside the door where you are greeting students can also be a space if a student needs to take a break. If a student arrives to class upset about something and they do not wish to speak to you about it or go visit the school counselor, you can invite them to sit or stand right outside the classroom entrance until they feel ready to join class. This way, you can still keep an eye on them but they do not feel like everyone is staring at them.

If there is a task that you would like all students to do like fill out a survey, sign a thank you note, take an item, you can have a small table set up right outside or inside the classroom door. It is funny but I will sometimes literally put a table in the walkway so that students have to walk into it in order to forget to do what is on the table.

These are just some of the ways that greeting students at the door can help to build a stronger classroom environment. It is a super simple action that can go along way to building positive relationships with learners.

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11/23/2020 0 Comments

Film- Manos: Hands of Fate

Today, I share with you one of my favorite movies. Unlike many enjoyable movies, nothing about Manos: Hands of Fate is good. I can critique it, since I have made several of my own cheesy movies.

Just start with the title. If you are bilingual in Spanish and English, you know that the tile is really Hands: The Hands of Fate.

The story of its production is something that I couldn’t make up. Hal Warren, the filmmaker, was a fertilizer salesman. Somehow, he met Stirling Silliphant, the screenwriter of In The Heat of the Night. He thought it was a great film, but he bet Silliphant that he could make his own movie for less money… much less money.

He wrote the script himself and hired local theater performers to be the stars. He saved the coveted role of “Mike” for himself.

To create the scary atmosphere of the film, many of the outdoor scenes were filmed at night. In order to see the action, he had to rent huge lights. The downside to these lights is that many bugs were attracted to them and the lights were so close to the camera that most of the nighttime scenes had bugs flying in and out of the shot. But I guess this was appropriate for the satanic, lord of the flies, cult feeling that Warren was going for.

The film’s opening sequence is breathtaking--in the form of a yawn. It appears that the scenes of driving were meant to be a backdrop to the title sequence, but after “Manos: The Hands of Fate” appears, there are no other words that appear. Just endless scenes of the people in the car (who we don’t know yet) driving around while sexy saxophone music plays. I would say it is about 10 minutes into the movie that we hear the first dialogue and the characters admit that they are lost, so they sing Row Your Boat to pass the time. After passing a whole bunch of signs that tell them where various destinations are, they decide the best course of action is to stop at a rundown shack.

For fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that first saw Manos on that show (like me), this is when the movie really starts, with the introduction of Torgo. His name does work in the canon of evil sidekick names like Lobo, Igor, and Mongo. But he could also fit in with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx. I have read that it was Warren’s intention that Torgo be only part human and maybe part goat?? Supposedly someone designed this contraption that would make it look like Torgo’s knees bent from the back. However, the actor playing Torgo wore the contraption backwards so instead, Torgo just appears to have massive knees and needs a staff to avoid falling over.

After the lost family asks for directions and gets nowhere with Torgo, our hero Mike seems determined to spend the night at the rundown shack. Now, I have watched this movie more times than I probably should have, but I still can’t figure out why Mike is so anxious to stay there. Torgo has to think it over, because after all “The Master wouldn’t approve” (who is The Master??). Torgo thinks for what seems like an eternity and decides they can stay there and he even carries their bags into the house. At this point, the viewer hears for the first time “The Torgo Theme” a repetitive motif that may be the least threatening villain theme of all time.

I may not have made it clear yet, that more or less this movie plays out in real time. Once they enter the house, the family passes the time trying to make conversation with Torgo and admiring the minimalist decor. Finally, some action happens when Debbie wanders off and they have to search all two or three rooms of the house to find her and then the car won’t start! It’s once Mike goes to fix the car that the wife’s affair with Torgo begins. Kidding!!

After Mike leaves, Torgo and the wife just stare at each other. Torgo says some awkward things. I believe Warren was going for some type of assault, but Torgo flicks the lady’s hair and that’s it, so she slaps him and calls him a beast. Later on that night, we learn that Torgo has many women on his mind and goes to the evil cult altar where there are like 8 or 9 women in nightgowns in some sort of spell/sleep/trance type thing. He helps himself to tickle the arm of one of the women before going back to the shack to peep on the wife in the bedroom (twice!).

Just when things couldn’t get any worse, The Master wakes up and demands that the family be sacrificed to their god, Manos. All of the captive women (which turn out to be the Master’s wives) wake up and get into an argument about what to do with the family, which turns out into a big all-out brawl. As they fight, The Master finds Torgo asleep in the shack and tells Torgo that he may no longer require Torgo’s services as… whatever the heck Torgo does.

The Master breaks up the fight and tells the women they must kill Torgo. Their first attempt at an aggressive massage doesn’t seem to do the job. So the Master takes matters into his hand and takes Torgo by the hand. He touches Torgo’s hand to one of the logs in the campfire and through an abrupt cut, there’s a pretend explosion and Torgo runs away.

In the end, the family cannot escape The Master and Mike becomes Torgo’s replacement, while his wife and daughter join the Master’s wives (yuck). But honestly, once Torgo is out of the movie, so is the real drama.

When the movie was finished, either something went wrong with the sound that was recorded or no sound had been recorded, as much of the dialogue had to be dubbed in postproduction. For bigger budgets, this usually isn’t an issue, but not every performer was available for the dub. The best example of this is near the beginning when Mike gets pulled over for speeding. Warren had to dub the voice of Mike and the police officer, so he is literally talking to himself.

Warren went all out for the premiere in his local town. He rented out a theater and a search light for out front. He even rented a limo for the actors, but only wanted to pay for one limo so it would drop off one actor and then drive around the corner to pick up another actor.

According to what I have read, the premiere was a disaster. Pretty near the beginning, the audience started laughing, which continued the entire time and eventually the cast crawled on their hands and knees to escape the theater. Warren did have good instincts when he admitted that he could simply rebrand the movie as a comedy and have a hit. Unfortunately, the film did not find a large audience until Mystery Science Theater in the 1990s. Many people today enjoy the film and appreciate Warren’s work, even if his first intention was not to make a comedy.

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11/16/2020 0 Comments

Film- Do Film Critics and Scholars Ignore Most Comedy Movies?

     I do not want the reader to misinterpret the above statement as claiming “critics and scholars determine comedy to be bad”; however, by ignoring its significance, they seem to argue that it is not good enough to have aesthetic value. To demonstrate to the reader how comedy is left out in much of the literature of film criticism, I have compiled data from a variety of film associations and media publications.
    In 1998, to mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of the motion picture, the American Film Institute decided to create a list, ranking the 100 greatest films of the first 100 years of filmmaking. They clearly touched on a popular idea, for many other institutions and publications followed suit. In the list of the 100 greatest films of all time, AFI only includes ten comedies: Some Like It Hot (#14, directed by Billy Wilder 1959), Dr. Strangelove (26, Stanley Kubrick 1964), Annie Hall (31, Woody Allen 1977), It Happened One Night (35, Frank Capra 1934), Tootsie (62, Sydney Pollack 1982), The Gold Rush (74, Charlie Chaplin 1925), City Lights (76, Charlie Chaplin 1931), Modern Times (81, Charlie Chaplin 1936), Duck Soup (85, Leo McCarey 1933), and Bringing Up Baby (97, Howard Hawks 1938). To clarify, The American Film Institute has determined that of the 100 greatest films ever made, only 10% are comedies. Notice also that three of the ten films are works of Chaplin.
    In 2008, AFI decided to update their original list to 13% comedies, including The General (#18, Buster Keaton 1926), The Philadelphia Story (44, George Cukor 1940), and A Night At The Opera (85, Sam Wood 1935). Some Like It Hot (now #22), Dr. Strangelove (39), Annie Hall (35), It Happened One Night (46), Tootsie (69), The Gold Rush (58), City Lights (11), Modern Times (78), Duck Soup (60), and Bringing Up Baby (88) return to the list, though in a different order than in the previous list. Once again, the reader may notice that Chaplin still has the most entries.
    On American Movie Classic’s Filmsite, editor-in-chief Tim Dirks compiled a list of the 100 greatest films that appear on many such lists. He elected to include 13 comedies: Annie Hall, Bringing Up Baby, City Lights, Dr. Strangelove, Duck Soup, The General, The Gold Rush, His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks 1940), It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges 1941), Modern Times, A Night At The Opera, and Some Like It Hot. Apparently, he was feeling more generous towards comedy when compared to other critics. Critics at Yahoo.com include 11 comedy films in their list of the “100 Movies To See Before You Die”: Annie Hall, Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks 1974), Bringing Up Baby, Dr. Strangelove, Duck Soup, Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis 1993), It Happened One Night, M*A*S*H (Robert Altman 1970), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones 1975), National Lampoon’s Animal House (John Landis 1978), and Some Like It Hot.
     When Time Magazine set about to declare the “All-Time 100 Movies” in 2005, critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel decided to include only 6 comedies: The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey 1937), City Lights, Dr. Strangelove, His Girl Friday, It’s A Gift (Norman Z. McLeod 1938), and Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer 1949). According to these two critics, of all the greatest films, only six of them are comedies. Only 5% of Total Film Magazine’s “Greatest 100 Movies of All Time” list from 2010, are comedies: Annie Hall, Dr. Strangelove, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, and Some Like It Hot. The lowest blow to film comedy came from The British Film Institute, which did not include a single comedy in its Top 10 Films list in 2002.
     If we were to create an aggregate from the percentages of comic films represented in these lists, we would find that the general consensus among the critical community is that only about 8% of the most significant films are comedies. Also, consider that from the above examples, the same handful of films appears on multiple lists—indicating the small canon of currently recognized comedies. These facts suggest the clear state of the current critical and scholarly view of film comedy.
     The lack of study of comedy indicates that many academics feel that it is not worthy of study, not that there is a lack of comedy films to analyze. As we look further at the state of comedy film criticism and research, it will become quite clear that a lack of a clear critical language specifically crafted for the analysis of comedy is one of the leading causes for critics to overlook comedies: they simply do not know how to write about it.

The Current State of Film Comedy Research

Many before me have written about the history of film comedy, the significant comic minds of the Twentieth Century, and how the films are a reaction to the times. The significance of the historical and cultural contexts in which films exist cannot be overstated. The effect of historical events and changes in the culture are important to the comedies that appear at specific times, and sometimes the films themselves may influence the culture. Some academics catalogue the various comic styles, defining them as “comedian comedies”, “slapstick”, or “Screwball”, among others. Although a few scholars have tried to discover what makes a comedy funny or to compare or contrast comedies to non-comic genres, to the best of my knowledge, no scholar has ever tried to determine why critics do not give comedies the recognition that I argue they deserve.
Viewing comedy as a social activity is much more a component than with other genres, For example, with a gathering of friends, it would be commonplace to watch a Pink Panther or a Marx Brothers picture. This situation could possibly be due to the fact that a comedy (which can be quite episodic) can withstand an interruption such as a conversation during a viewing, which could be disruptive to the viewing of a non-comic film. It would be rare for friends to gather as a social activity and then view a tragedy like Love Story (Arthur Hiller 1970) or Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli 1968), although I do not wish to negate the ability for people to bond through watching a tragedy. The idea of comedy as a communal experience helps explain what makes comedy unique.

A Definition of the Comedy Film

   I must begin this section by reiterating that there is no universal, unified definition of comedy, While dozens of scholars have attempted to craft definitions of comedy since the earliest days of Greek comedy, it is difficult to even gauge what the components of a successful comedy are.
     To help me in the study that I did, I found common things among the comedy films I watched, I dub them the Four Principles of Comic Effect. Together, these Principles do not form a universal definition of comedy, rather they reveal the themes and conventions that make comedy what it is—which is perhaps the closest one can get to a functional definition of comedy.
    First, is The Principle of Comic Timing. This Principle includes the elements of surprise, discovery, revelation, and anticlimax—shown so well through the medium of film with which a filmmaker can disclose or withhold information through shot choice. Expectations and assumptions of the audience—either previously held or encouraged by the filmmaker’s use of patterns—fuels the Comic Timing,
     Here is where comedy and horror films diverge. Both rely on the unexpected, but comedy uses an aspect of surprise for its comedic absurdity, while horror uses it as suspense. The surprise of comedy occurs when the comic performer goes against the viewer’s conception of what is socially permissible. However, for the suspense of horror to work, the viewer must anticipate that something horrific will happen—the unexpected occurs because the viewer does not know when the horrific thing will happen. Some may argue that the surprise of horror results in a more predictable outcome of fright or shock, while the surprise of comedy may lead to many things such as absurdity, unpredictability, chaos, a pause, or even a shift in the narrative. One may see a great example of the element of surprise as a narrative shift in comedy in the “and now for something completely different” style of the Monty Python pictures.
     Following expectations, points of coincidence fall under Comic Timing. At its greatest extent, this Principle can totally catch the viewer off guard with a total reversal or opposition of what the viewer expects. Through this Principle, the comedy may go against socio-cultural expectations, entering the domain of taboo.
    The second Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Logic. Under this Principle fall the comic methods of exaggeration, excess, caricature, imitation, and mockery. Exaggeration follows as a product of the logic of the absurd by functioning in a way that makes sense within the frame of the comedy, but seems ridiculous outside the comedy. Following these methods are the complementary methods of repetition, recurrence, and intensification.    As I shall demonstrate using the case studies, recurring events and repetitive actions and motifs result in a compounding of the actions or motifs, intensifying with each repetition.
    The third Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Experience. Comedy brings attention to the external, physical, and literal. Under this Principle, we have the comic trait of impersonation and disguise—most commonly seen by the cross-dressing gags in movies like Bringing Up Baby and Some Like It Hot.
    The last Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Sense, which describes the lack of awareness featured by so many comic characters. Comedy often comes as a result of absent-minded characters, From Cervante’s Don Quixote to Peter Seller’s Inspector Clousseau, a character that is unaware of his own flaws makes us laugh. Physically enacted, this absentmindedness leads to clumsiness. As for a comic character’s traits, her precipitance, or penchant for jumping into situations without any forethought of consequences comes from this Principle—best shown by Katharine Hepburn’s character of Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby. In terms of interaction among characters, comic sense leads to the possibility of misunderstanding, confusion, and deception—again seen in Bringing Up Baby, as well as in The Ladykillers.
    Following the Four Principles of Comic Effect, I shall now present the first four themes that I have identified as commonalities across many comedies.
     First, I find that comedy goes against the conventions of filmmaking. 1) Comedy can break the Fourth Wall. In comedy, the narrative is no longer the be all and end all, as gags often exist outside of the narrative. 2) A film comedy does not require closure—the resolution necessary for a fulfilling dramatic narrative. The comic heroine or that comic heroine’s situation may appear at the end of the film exactly as it had appeared at the beginning—with no apparent transformation within the heroine or with her situation. 3) In comedy, when one actor can play several roles, it not only works, it shows true comic merit. Often, the comedienne takes precedence over any character she may be portraying. As I stated above, in addition to these broken film conventions, comedy is the only genre of film that comfortably, and frequently, addresses social taboo.
    The second common theme among comedies is that comedy is a struggle between limiters and disruptions; In comedy, gags may upset the narrative structure with no undue consequences. It is up to the filmmaker to craft a narrative that makes it possible for other narrative events to keep the gags in check. Typically, every comedy has at least one comic character and one serious character, or ‘straight-man’, in order for the comedy to work. As part of this balance, we often see comic characters that are ‘The Other’, one who does not fit into the preexisting social mold. This is frequently true in the films of Chaplin as well as the anarchic comedies.
    The third common theme is that comedy is an essential part of humanity, marking us as distinctly human. Comedy gives us the opportunity to deal with life honestly, because with comedy we are forced to laugh at ourselves, no matter how uncomfortable. It causes us to drop our guard in order to deal with truths that might otherwise be painful, Comedy forces us, as viewers, to acknowledge the flaws that we all have. The nature of comedy allows us, as individuals, to lower our defenses and to address issues openly and honestly. In this sense, comedy is necessary for a fulfilling life. I would even argue that life is the great comedy—if we allow it to be that by acknowledging and expressing our genuine selves, flaws included.

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11/9/2020 0 Comments

Teaching- Alternatives to Recorder

school instrument, school music, music education, alternatives to recorder

Personally, I have never had an issue with recorders. I do wear musician’s earplugs when we play them and offer earmuff headphones for students to use. I have had students not like the high pitched squeal. I do still use recorders with my 3rd grade students but I also use several other instrument options for variety.

One option is pitched percussion, and what are specifically called barred Orff instruments. These instruments come in varying sizes. If you don’t already have a collection in your school, it is best to budget for them over several years. When planning for a purchase, there are things to consider:

Do you want a collection of several identical instruments or a variety of instruments of different pitch ranges and materials? The advantage of identical instruments is there is no stress for the youngest students when they don’t get the one they want. The advantage of different pitch ranges is students can explore high and low. The advantage of different materials (like metal or wood) can allow students to compare different ways of creating sound.

In addition, for all different types of barred Orff instruments, there are options.

glockenspiel, school instruments, school music, music education, music teaching

Soprano glockenspiel, the smallest instrument with metal bars, comes in at least 3 different styles that I have seen. Some have permanent (non removable) bars that allow the player to explore the C Major and A minor scales. This works when too many options could overwhelm students. Another style looks similar to a piano and has a full chromatic octave, so students can play in any key, but as I said above, more options may make these more complicated than they need to be. A third style has 8 bars of a major scale, but the bars are removable. Often, they come with Bb and F# bars that can be switched out to play in other keys. Another advantage to the removable bar style is that you can modify the instrument so only the notes needed are present. For example, if you are working on Mary Had A Little Lamb, you can leave 3 bars on the instrument and remove the rest, giving the students a much higher chance of hitting the correct notes and feeling successful.

Instruments like the glockenspiel are small, so one student per instrument will be needed. For classes of 25 students, you would need a set of 25, or you could have students trade off with half that many.

xylophone, school instruments, school music, music education, music teaching

metallophone, school instruments, school music, music education, music teaching

Looking at the alto range, I have only seen models this size with removable bars. With wooden bars, they are called xylophones and with metal bars they are called metallophones. Metallophones ring a lot longer and can be played louder. As long as students are reminded to play gently this shouldn’t be a problem, but occasionally an excited student plays louder.

Xylophone bars are made of wood (some are now a synthetic material). The last time my school ordered some, I found that I had to sand the bottom of the bars a little. It would be rare that a student would ever touch the bottom of a bar, but I still didn’t want to risk splinters. These models are large enough that 2 students can share one instrument and both play at the same time (often the range is from C to A on the next octave). Just like with band or orchestral pitched percussion, it is important to teach students which mallets work with each instrument. After several reminders, my students have been trained to use rubber on the metallophones and yarn on the xylophones. I don’t use brass mallets with elementary students because they can be piercingly loud.

Similar to the alto range, there are tenor and bass models of xylophones and metallophones. I would only recommend having these as part of a collection of different sizes. Unless your music classroom is very large, you will need to store these instruments when not being used. The bass instrument is about 4 feet wide by 2 feet deep, so even 12 would take up quite a lot of real estate. Consider too, the larger the instrument, the higher the cost.

There are many accessories available for these instruments like storage racks and carts with wheels. Before assuming that you need all of these, consider your own situation and how you would store and move the instruments. In my classroom, I have several tables making an L shape in the corner and most of the larger instruments fit under those. The rest fit in a tall storage cabinet. For Kindergarten and 1st grade, I will place the instruments in front of the students. For 2nd grade and up, I demonstrate and teach them the proper way to hold and to carry the instruments and they become responsible for moving the instruments themselves. Even with Kindergarten, I make sure that every student is responsible for putting their mallets back on the tray. I believe that every amount of student responsibility at clean up time benefits students.

keyboard, school instruments, school music, music education, music teaching

Next, I will discuss electric keyboards. Just like anything, there are so many models and options available. Just like with Orff instruments, you need to decide whether you want variety in a collection or identical instruments. Either way, I would recommend that you find a model that is MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface--turning sound into data) capable (most of them are) so you can one day connect them to computers and practice inputting notes with software.

The big brands of keyboards today are Yamaha and Casio. Both make a good instrument. The only difference I have noticed is that Yamaha keyboards can work with 3rd party power adapters, whereas Casio keyboards have to use Casio adapters because the plug is a different shape. I always use the keyboards plugged in (that’s what power strips are for), because replacing batteries would be a full time job. I recommend 61 keys or more so that 2 students can play on a keyboard at the same time. You can also either purchase stickers for the keys to help students find the notes that they need. This past year, a fellow teacher was able to use a Cricut to make custom stickers.

In terms of making a first sound, keyboards may be the friendliest instrument. Students get excited at how easily they can start to make their own sounds and create or reproduce melodies. It’s never too early to introduce the C shape of the hand and demonstrate how much easier it is to reach the keys than with flat fingers. Decide ahead of time whether students will have time to explore sounds or if all will be set to the same piano sound. I recommend starting and ending the lesson with some exploration time and having the instruction portion be all the same sound. Otherwise, you will hear spaceships landing while students are trying to play Hot Cross Buns.

One advantage to keyboards is that the students can be introduced to chords. Maybe once they have mastered the melody to a one chord song, they could play the chord with their left hand. Once you connect a keyboard to a computer through MIDI, there are limitless things that students could do. You may want to start with one main computer and students taking turns before you buy a MIDI cable for each keyboard.

ukulele, school instruments, school music, music education, teaching music

Moving into the string family, this past school year was my first year using ukuleles, and it was fantastic. My school got a matching set, enough for 25 students. I found for myself that I needed a concert size instead of soprano because my fingers were too big!

One of the wonderful things about ukulele is that the C major and A minor chords only need 1 finger. I actually start the students with chords before we try melodies. With chords, we experiment with rhythm and strumming direction. I require that all the students use a pick, so that they are not tempted to pull on the strings. With just these two chords, we can discuss what makes a major or minor sound. To help students find where to put their fingers, I use color coded sticker dots for the different chords.

Introducing the students to the ukuleles is similar to any instrument. We started with learning how to properly open the case, how to safely hold the instrument, how to strum, etc. It was probably 2 weeks before we actually started learning chord shapes, but by then the procedures for using ukulele were automatic. There are many ways to learn strumming patterns, through echo games, reading upbow and downbow symbols, saying up and down as you play, etc.

guitar, school instruments, school music, music education, music teaching

Guitar is obviously larger than the ukulele. I have several teacher friends that have matching classroom sets of half size guitars. At my school, we had an instrument donation drive, so we have enough mismatched acoustic and electric guitars for a class of 25 to trade off. I would say the biggest difference from ukulele (besides the size) is that guitar has 6 strings, with different letter names than the ukulele. One modification is that, when strumming down (from the strings closest to your face, moving away from your face), you can leave out the lowest two strings and play with just the higher 4 strings to make chord shapes easier.

The next difference of guitar from ukulele is the material of the strings. Even though both ukulele and guitar may have some type of nylon, the distance that a student will have to press the string on guitar is more. Both ukulele and guitar have advantages, but I would say guitar has a steeper learning curve because of the differences mentioned.

These are just a few of the options you have for some variety when you don’t want to focus solely on recorders. In many ways recorders are great for getting students introduced to wind instruments, but can also be deceptive because instruments like clarinet, flute, saxophone will take a lot more air than a recorder requires.

Please let me know if you have questions and share your own experiences with recorders and other instruments in the comments.

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11/2/2020 0 Comments

Film- When Was The First Movie?

This is a question that I have heard many people ask. A great many people are quick to say The Wizard of Oz because that is the oldest movie they can remember, but films had actually existed for a few decades before that. There were already movie stars and a studio system before the advent of sound technology in 1927, 12 years before Wizard of Oz.

The short answer to when was the first movie is-- no one knows! The idea of separate pictures shown fast enough to create the illusion of movement started in the last quarter of the 19th century. Carnival attractions of the little carousel with slits in it that when looking through it showed a horse galloping or a person dancing became popular.

It was about 1885 that someone (it was not Thomas Edison, as is generally believed; he was a strong inventor and an even more ruthless businessman) figured out how to use sprockets to string film and play pictures in sequence with a bulb shining on the film. In general, film works because different amounts of light and dark will work differently with the chemicals on the film. This is how shades of colors are shown with film.

The oldest film that is still viewable today is from 1893 France. It is a short comedy scene of a man watering the garden. A kid comes up and twists the hose to stop the water. The man looks in the hose to see why the water has stopped and gets sprayed. It is really amazing to think that we can still see footage from about 130 years ago. Film is much more likely to degrade than still photographs or paintings because of the chemicals used to produce the film. Many early film stocks are now lost because the chemicals used in its production were so flammable that entire vaults of films were lost to fire. Another reason that we have fewer films from the early 20th century, despite how many were regularly made, is that studios did not see a long-term value in preserving a film. Either they were stored without care or simply discarded once the studio had exploited them completely.

Frame Dimensions

It was much later into the 20th century that standards of frame dimension, framerate per second, and more became the norm. The 1.33 or 1.37:1 that is called the “Academy” ratio was not standard until about the 1920s. If an aspect ratio is unfamiliar to you, it is simply the width of the image compared to the height. So the academy ratio is 1.37 times as wide as it is tall. A perfect square would have a 1:1 ratio. Some filmmakers envisioned that a square would be the standard and that filmmakers would make the image inside that square wider or narrower as needed for the story.

Today, most films are either presented “flat” with a 1.85:1 ratio (often captured with a full frame and cropping the top and bottom to make it appear wider) or “scope” (named after Cinemascope, which was a widescreen system that began in the 1950s) with a 2.35:1 ratio. Many other aspect ratios have been experimented with over the years. I am not sure if anyone has ever tried an image narrower than 1.33:1. The widest aspect ratio that was presented in mainstream theaters was 2.76:1. Only about 5 films ever used the MGM Camera 65 or Super Panavision 70 system that allowed for this width, the most notable being Ben-Hur in 1959. The extreme width came from a 70mm (wider) piece of film and an anamorphic lens that would squeeze the image. When projected, another anamorphic lens would unsqueeze the image. Even though Ben-Hur was filmed this way, many regular cinemas did not have the ability to show it that way, resulting in them cropping off the sides of the image.

Frame Rate

Another idea is framerate, or the number of frames that occur in a second. The 24 frames per second rate that we take for granted now was also not standard until about the 1920s. Much lower frame rates per second gives film that kind of choppy look that we associate with many silent movies. Keep in mind at that time, when the camera was hand cranked to feed the film through, the speed at which it was cranked could change the frame rate. So the standard, consistent 24 frames per second could not be widely used until the cameras were automatically cranked. Even though 24 frames per second for cinema presentation is still the standard, television and video technology makes it complicated. In most European countries, the standard for video is 25 frames per second, so it is not too difficult to convert a movie to show on television. However, in North America, our video standard is 29.97 frames per second (often simplified to 30). Clearly, you can’t just speed up the movie so that it runs at a faster frame rate (the result would be high pitched dialogue). Instead, there are formulas for converting frame rates (most are done automatically by computer software today).

Sound Technology

Another film technology that is often discussed is sound. The transition from silent movies to full sound did not happen as abruptly as many people assume. Although experiments with sound synchronized to image began around 1926-1927 and the first full sound film The Jazz Singer premiered in 1927, full sound movies were the exception until about 1930. The first sound technology used were records that had to be lined up with the image. The limitations to this were quickly apparent, as the projectionist would have to change reels and records.

Soon a way of printing the soundwaves on the film, called optical sound made it so that the sound was synchronized to each frame. At first, the sound was monophonic, meaning 1 channel, produced by a single strip of soundwaves on the side of the frame.

Once television became competition to the film industry, filmmakers needed to think of ways to attract people away from their televisions and into cinemas. Beyond various methods of creating larger and wider images (detailed above), stereo sound (2 channels) was the next step for sound technology. This meant that not only were there 2 separate sound signals, but the sound could also be directional. This means sounds would be heard coming from the right or left, relating to what was happening on the screen.

Although 6 channel sound is assumed to be a product of the 21st century (it was for home theaters), 6 channel film sound appeared in the 1950s as well. In order to accommodate the 6 different strips of optical sound, larger film was needed. The 70mm film actually showed an image that was 65mm because the 6 tracks of sound took up the rest of the frame. 6 channels then meant that the audience could hear sound coming from behind the screen, both sides, and behind the seats. Now that most movie theaters use digital projectors, the audio source is just another digital file. 8 channels seems to be the most in common use under various brand names like Dolby.

Color Technology

The final film technology development that I will discuss today is color photography. Just like sound technology, color developed over time. Just like Wizard of Oz was not the first feature length film, it was also not the first full color film. Based on films that still exist, Becky Sharp from 1935 was in color. Before that, there were short films and experiments with color for certain scenes. Some mostly black and white films added a tint to certain shots, but it was still monochromatic. There were a few attempts using a 2 color process, which was later abandoned with the 3 strip Technicolor process.

We still know the Technicolor name because it was (and is) very high quality. To avoid all the technical details, the 3 strip color process worked because each strip was sensitive to a certain hue and rejected other hues. The three strips would be Red, Green, and Blue. Together, they could create any color needed. It was not perfect right out of the camera. There was a lot of processing work in the lab after filming that needed to be done for it to be perfect. This processing step was the reason why many films were still black and white through the 1960s--the cost of the processing.

Later film products were able to film in color without the 3 strip processing and today, digital cameras have different photographic cells that respond to different colors, but the idea is still the same.

So unfortunately, I was not able to answer the question of the first film that ever existed, but hopefully you learned a little something of the development of film technology.

Please let me know in the comments if you have questions or would like more in depth information about particular film technology developments.

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