MDA1700 - Weeks 3-6 - The Hollywood Continuity System

The first part of our MDA1700 studies has been focusing on the 'Hollywood Continuity System'.
While a lot of the initial coverage of editing, continuity editing, sound and use of colour has been revising what I learned in A Level Film and Media, we looked at a lot of theorists, techniques and films in a more in-depth way than I had previously studied.

As the initial module content seemed like a natural progression from my A level studies, I found many of the newer terms and concepts quite easy to grapple with. These include certain aspects of continuity editing, such as consistency of screen direction, and the ideas of spacial continuity.

The concepts and ideas relating to this module also linked in nicely with the content of MDA1300, as while 1300 was allowing us to understand and actively participate in creating, controlling and manipulating the different factors of the stylistic elements and skills needed for the course (camera, sound, lighting, editing, directing, producing,) and this complemented the classes for MDA1700, in which we simultaneously learned about their application and effects in feature films.

This was a useful factor of the first few weeks of the module, as learning about the effects of these stylistic elements and some of the theory and history behind them went hand-in-hand with applying them in a practical situation and utilising them effectively in the appropriate assignments.

An example of this, is when we learned about the effects of the high contrast lighting in the film noir genre and how the different types of lighting, and the use of shadows affect how audiences see characters or events (as well being a staple of the genre obviously). This meant that when we're set the specific assignment, we have more insight as to how we can go about getting the desired effect from our manipulation of the stylistic element.

Also, as none of my previous studies had concentrated much on classical Hollywood (most of the content had been British Cinema, International Cinema (Mexican and Spanish,) and Auteur Studies,) I found the first part of this module very interesting. For example, I enjoyed watching the films East of Eden (by Elia Kazan) and Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder,) which I had never seen or studied before, yet now had the chance to watch in an effective environment, and study in-depth in the seminars (East of Eden in relation to the editing and consistency of screen direction, for example, and Double Indemnity in relation to the conventional stylistics of the Film Noir genre).