Film studies breaks down into two over arching discourse communities, film production, and film theory. Film production, focuses on the practical aspects of film, whereas film theory, focuses on the theoretical aspects of film. Each of these discourse communities, in them selves, encompass multiple, smaller communities.
“Looking through the lens of a camera as actors bring to life a writer’s story, the filmmaker is also peering into a world of imagination. The director, producer, actors, screenwriter, and film editor are all essential players in the journey from concept to finished film. In this remarkable process, thousands of small details—and often hundreds of people—come together to create a Hollywood film.”(http://www.learner.org/interactives/cinema/)
To begin with, film production, as its name states, focuses on the production and creation of new films. Production can be broken down into three general categories: pre-production, production, and post production. In each of these camps, various aspects of the film-making process are discussed and carried out. All three communities are composed of various smaller communities, consisting of various professions, that come together to fulfill that part of the production.
-In pre-production, film makers discuss and tackle the tasks of what needs to be done before the film can actually be recorded. Discourse communities in this aspect of production discuss and handle pre-visualizing/conceptualizing, screen writing/ scripting, story boarding/ creating shot lists, casting actors and locations, creating shooting schedules, finding vehicles and props, costume design, much more. All of these “communities” come together, all under the watchful eye of the director and producer, to form the pre-production of a film, which without, production could never occur. The aim of pre-production essentially is to make the filming process as time and cost efficient as possible.
-Now on to production, and it’s various communities. During the production stage, the film is actually being recorded, people are on set, and are actively making the content of what will be seen in the film. Examples of different communities in this over arching community include, Cinematographers/camera operators, sound designers/recorders, lighting designers, stage directors, grips/gaffers, actors, directors, assistant directors, and much more.
-“To a great extent the knowledge base of the cinematographer overlaps with the knowledge base of the director. The cinematographer must have a solid familiarity with the terms and concepts of directing, and the more a director knows about cinematography, the more he or she will be able to utilize these tools and especially be better equipped to fully utilize the knowledge and talent of a good DP (Director of Photography). Any successful director will tell you that one of the real secrets of directing is being able to recognize and maximize what every member of the team can contribute.”(Brown, 2002) This quote from Brown, emphasizes the idea of specialization and collaboration in film production.
-It’s important to emphasize why these examples are called communities. Each example is a highly specialized profession, that can only be done by someone who has been trained and knows how to perform the duties of the profession. Without one, the rest cannot function in creating the production. A “skeleton” crew on a small, extremely low budget film, needs around 20-30 people to run efficiently. In larger budget, Hollywood productions, this number can be expected to be in the 150-200 range.
-Check out an example of discourse within the Cinematography community here.
-And the last camp in the production based community is post-production. Post production handles everything between the time the film is finished being recorded on set, and when the film hits the theaters. Communities in post production include editors/ assistant editors, color corrector, sound and visual effects editors, sound designers, marketers and distributors and more. In essence, each specialty in post-production works towards the goal of fine tuning the movie, and then putting it into theaters.
Discourse in Film Studies 