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Damian Fuentes

Mrs. Trishia Briones

ENGL 1302-222

20th March 2022

The Modern Age of the Motion-Picture Picture Industry

Taking a step back to grasp the entirety of movies. From new superheroes movies to new

dramas, to new tragedies, it seems as if everything has been done already. But as time

progresses, people keep finding ways to innovate cinema in every aspect altogether. When

comparing a movie from the 1960’s – 1970’s it is shown how the political climate has changed

along with the technology of these films, from Hal Roach’s Safety last to Avengers: Endgame,

every aspect of cinema has changed. Examples of these changes are the way people watch

movies, the inclusivity of the cast and directors, all blended with newer technologies causes

quality films to be more feasible to produce than ever before.

Proper representation and inclusivity have both always been vital aspects when it comes

to pretty much anything in world and environment around us. A recent example of the mentioned

aspects would be representations and all-inclusiveness of black communities. Throughout history

society has always been tainted with the poison of racism and as such it leaks into the motion

picture industry causing roles for people withing the suggested communities. Specifically in the

United States of America, roles and parts given to people of black communities are often brushed

under the rug and disregarded as such, leading to a misrepresentation of the black communities

via cinema. In the article by Teisha Dupree Wilson she states, “The roles played by African

Americans in early television and film confirmed the entrenched American view that African

Americans should only be viewed as servants or slaves and nothing more.” (Wilson 13) And
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with this perspective that Wilson brings up points the very topic as mentioned before of

representation. By looking at films that have been released in these past two decades there has

been not only better but true representation black communities as more of it is shown along with

other races getting the same progressive treatment. Diversity is now mainstream within the

Motion Picture industry, and it has changed the entire industry for the better by allowing more

ideas to flow from all these communities. In any case it is always good to have new and creative

ideas from different minds that do not think alike so with the leeway for other communities to

chime in causes never before seen ideas to be applied on new films that release. Cinema changes

as society advances and a great example of this separate from representation is when British film

makers came to the United States. This is where even more bright minds in the film industry had

a chance to shine along with others.

Similarly to the British invasion of music, there was also a time in which the British

traveled to America for film making. Multiple ideas implemented with newly found and

unlocked ways of cinematography all together. In the article by Ian Scott, he says, “the ability to

shape the American past or present on film became a sign of one’s ability in the new medium,

mastering the art form was like mastering the “untamed west” that the sons of pioneers had come

to inherit.” (Scott 9) The west side of the world is often associated with the whole wild west

façade and so this is the limelight it has been stuck with for quite some time and with this in

mind, the British in a way used the famous American front to project their own ideas within

cinematography. The British mad multiple attempts to break the standard opposing force versus

the main or “good” force regardless of movie genre, i.e., romance, action, comedy, tragedy, etc.

And finally with ideas from the said British directors’, they finally landed upon the decision of

expand upon the already default movie formula by attempting to improve the already working
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standardization of how movies play out. In layman’s terms it is essentially emphasizing what is

already there to make it unique. Referencing the same article, “Andrew Sarris’s groundbreaking

study of the 1960s, The American Cinema, which famously borrowed from European critics the

notion of directorial authorship – auteurism – as a key to unlocking the structure and routines of

the Hollywood industry from the 1920s onwards.” (Scott 10) As simple as this might seem

auteurism is what gives each film its personality so that each film can stand out from each other.

Setting the foundations for years to come, the British directors found a way maintain the status

quo of movie structure by essentially elaborating on the already set ideas to have everything

extensive and centralized focusing, we see cinema with big and flashy. However, this does

sometimes take away from yet again more representation from other aspects being how small

local towns are also misrepresented in cinema.

Typically, small towns in films are depicted to have a mystery causing them to be eerie

and having people wanting to avoid them altogether. “It seems, finally, to respond with the

fatuous bleat that the spontaneous goodness inherent in small town folks is the great problem

solver.” (Muzzio 2) The small little towns are those that are rich in history and as such should be

represented that way on the silver screens. For the most part, small towns are only referenced to

in this light and what the articles goes on about is how they should have more focuses to these

places as these are where ordinary people reside “Typically hailed as a paen to the virtues and

rewards of small town life in a golden era.” (Muzzio 2) As more movies glamorize urban areas

where ‘everything’ happens, the audience tends to lean towards this view point of metropolitan

cities in which leads to the way the film industry now. Big cities are where anyone would want

to be based on these statements and such so it would make sense that people would astray from

smaller folk towns to chase the dream world. So with this dream world in mind it is with the
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technologies that are present today to make everything seem better than reality. Through the

world of animation.

With advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, newer ways of producing films

make it so that half the leg work of film making is done automatically by these mentioned

technologies. “It is very important to innovate the visual performance of movies, explore new

ways of visual performance of movies, and meet the characteristics of the times and industry

needs.” (Yijie, Mengqi 1) As stated by the authors Yijie and Mengqi a new appeal to the industry

is needed and their solution would be to generate 3d animation. This is done in the same way

new art is created by the same sense that movies are also a medium of art. So, the next step of

default animation would be 3d animation. Machine learning technology is what helps seal

everything completely as it paves the way into a new branch in cinematography. “Since the

movie video itself contains a large amount of data, it is composed of multiple frames of static

images per second, and each frame of image contains rich information.” Just to get an idea of

how complex this really is, it is explained just briefly of what animation is and to compile that

altogether in order to produce 3D animation is just astonishing which leads back to the

complexity of algorithmics that mix with artificial intelligence. Eventually 3D animation can go

into the next evolutionary process of the film industry by having a new way to watch movies

entirely.

Virtual reality is often a topic that is not fully understood however it is one that can be

applicable to cinema. As technology grows and goes hand in hand within the movie industry, Di

Lei and Sae-Hoon Kim write about how the next step to revolutionize the way we watch movies

is via Virtual Reality. In the paper, it is shown the process to try and figure out on how to train

A.I and technology to better understand human interactions by the process, “Extract the intention
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of the user’s brain from the user’s behavioral representation.” While they were not exactly able

to produce an outcome that most people would not understand, it does set up the basics to have

newly revolutionizing ideas for the modern film industry. What they ended with was the

proposition of two models that can potentially bridge the gap between VR perception and

simulation with film and television.

Simply put the future of cinema is certainly bright and a perpetual journey to

advancement seizes the minds of every film maker whether old or young, black or white,

American or British and even as far to say human or A.I. It is truly marvelous the technology to

convey stories without needing books.

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Works Cited:

Di Lei, Sae-Hoon Kim, "Application of Wireless Virtual Reality Perception and Simulation

Technology in Film and Television Animation", Journal of Sensors, vol. 2021, Article ID

5041832, 12 pages, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5041832

Dupree-Wilson, Teisha. “Killing ‘Dixie’: The NAACP, the Black Press, and the Crusade to End

Black Caricature Culture in Hollywood, 1950–1969.” Journal of African American

Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, 2020, pp. 596–610., doi:10.1007/s12111-020-09502-6.

Ian Scott. “‘Don’t Be Frightened Dear … This Is Hollywood’: British Filmmakers in Early

American Cinema.” European Journal of American Studies, vol. 5, no. 4.

doi:10.4000/ejas.8751.

Muzzio, Thomas Halper- Douglas. “It's a Wonderful Life: Representations of the Small Town in

American...” European Journal of American Studies, European Association for American

Studies, 24 Feb. 2011, journals.openedition.org/ejas/9398.

Yijie Wan, Mengqi Ren, "New Visual Expression of Anime Film Based on Artificial Intelligence

and Machine Learning Technology", Journal of Sensors, vol. 2021, Article

ID 9945187, 10 pages, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9945187