The Stages of Film Production - Pre production

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It is the first stage of production. It involves everything that happens before shooting. Pre-production tasks include scripting, storyboarding, planning, budgeting, casting artists; construction of sets, props, and costumes, acquiring equipment like lights, camera, etc. Pre-production involves various tasks like:

1.      Conceptualization

It is the process of creating concept. Concept or subject matter is the basic idea of the film. A concept defines the objectives of the film and says what it is about.

2.     Research

Research is the deep study conducted on the idea or concept. Various aspects of the concept are analyzed in this process. Data collection from various sources to find out the possibilities of producing the film is the main objective of this stage. Research helps to create a one line of the story which is further developed into a script.

3.     Scripting

Script is the skeleton or basic structure of what we see as a film. Scripting is the process of writing down the entire matter to be produced. There are two types of scripts; namely screenplays or story scripts and shooting scripts. The screenplay is the basic script and it describes the story in its normal order. But the order of sequences in a shooting script will be arranged in the order of shooting schedule. Sometimes different scenes from two different parts of the story will be shot at one location for the convenience of production. Shooting script helps to arrange the sequences and scenes as per the availability of location and artist.

There are three types of treatment used for scripting. First one is short treatment. It is a short outline of the film without dialogues or commentaries included in it. Next type is step outline which describes the details of the basic story line and its sub plots. It is a sequence by sequence description. The third type is Full treatment, in which the details of characters, their behavior and relations, properties used, dialogues etc. are described in details.

4.     Storyboarding

A storyboard is the pictorial representation of the scenes. It provides a graphical representation of the camera angles and helps to fix the shot during production. A production crew includes artists who draw the storyboard according to the directors or producers instructions.

5.     Casting and Crew selection

Casting is the process of selecting suitable artists for the production. It is very important as the wrong choice for a particular role can lessen the effect of entire film. Selecting talented performers and anchors for film is done under the supervision of casting director and film producer. Selection of technical staff like camera person, music composers, sound recording artists, lighting team, etc., comes under crew selection process.

6.     Planning and Shooting Schedule

Shooting schedule is the basic order of conducting a production. Sometimes scenes from different parts of the story will be shot in the same location. In some cases scenes of some artists will be shot together as per their conveniences. In that case a shooting schedule will be prepared to arrange the conduct of production. A shooting script is the textual representation of schedule. Final decision on the types of properties used, and the number of junior artists in a scene, etc., comes under the shooting schedule.

7.     Location hunting & Acquiring permission

Finding suitable locations for shooting is a difficult process. It is a must for outdoor shooting. Some of the locations like forests, government buildings, institutions, etc., require special permissions from the concerned authorities. These types of activities are done in this stage.

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Production Process: The Stages of Film Production

The production process refers to the stages required to complete a feature film production, from the concept to the final copy. The production process is almost the same for all type of broadcast media.

1.       Pre-Production

2.      Production

3.      Post-production

These three stages are prime elements of producing meaningful and effective films. Production process is leaded by executive producer who guides the production team. The production team chose the crew, artists, location and equipment. They make finals decisions on script and content. The production team includes assistant producers who help to make the production run smoothly.

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Auteur theory of Filmmaking

Auteur theory, theory of film making in which the director is viewed as the major creative force in a motion picture. In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur" (the French word for "author"). In spite of the production of the film as part of an industrial process, the auteur's creative voice is distinct enough to shine through all kinds of studio interference and through the collective process. In law, the film is treated as a work of art, and the auteur, as the creator of the film, is the original copyright holder.

Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since 1954, when it was advocated by film director and critic François Truffaut. This method of film analysis was originally associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the French film review periodical Cahiers du Cinéma. Auteur theory was developed a few years later in the United States through the writings of The Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris. Sarris used auteur theory as a way to further the analysis of what defines serious work through the study of respected directors and their films. 

The championed filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and Jean Renoir are known as absolute 'auteurs' of their films. Although André Bazin, co-founder of the Cahiers, provided a forum for Auteurism to flourish, he explained his concern about its excesses in his article "On the Auteur Theory".

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Major Film Movements - French New wave

The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950's and 1960's. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, their spirit of youthful iconoclasm, the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. 

"New Wave" is an example of European art cinema. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative Style. Using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time, the New Wave way of film making presented a documentary style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film stock that required less light. Filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes.

Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Cahiers co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement. By means of criticism, they laid the groundwork for a set of concepts, revolutionary at the time, which the American film critic Andrew Sarris called auteur theory. Cahiers du cinéma writers critiqued the classic "Tradition of Quality" style of French Cinema.

The auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film. They praised movies by Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo, and made then radical cases for the artistic distinction and greatness of Hollywood studio directors such as Orson Welles, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. The beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves.

Apart from the role that films by Jean Rouch have played in the movement, Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) is traditionally credited as the first New Wave feature. Truffaut, with The 400 Blows (1959) and Godard, with Breathless (1960) had unexpected international successes. The French New Wave was popular roughly between 1958 and 1964, although New Wave work existed as late as 1973.

New Wave critics and directors studied the work of western classics and applied new avant garde stylistic direction. The low budget approach helped filmmakers get at the essential art form and find what more comfortable and contemporary form of production was, to them, a much. The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as long tracking shots. Also, these movies featured existential themes, such as stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence.

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Major Film Movements - Italian Neo Realism

Italian Neo realism is a national film movement characterized by stories set among the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors. Italian Neo realist films mostly contend with the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation.

Italian Neo realism came about as World War II ended and Benito Mussolini's government fell, causing the Italian film industry to lose its center. Neo realism was a sign of cultural change and social progress in Italy. Its films presented contemporary stories and ideas, and were often shot in the streets because the film studios had been damaged significantly during the war.

In the spring of 1945, Mussolini was executed and Italy was liberated from German occupation. This period, known as the "Italian Spring," was a break from old ways and an entrance to a more realistic approach when making films. Italian cinema went from utilizing elaborate studio sets to shooting on location in the countryside and city streets in the realist style. Neo realism became famous globally in 1946 with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City, when it won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival as the first major film produced in Italy after the war. Italian Neo realism rapidly declined in the early 1950's.

Neo realist movies are generally filmed with nonprofessional actors. They are shot almost exclusively on location, mostly in run-down cities as well as rural areas due to its forming during the post-war era. The topic involves the idea of what it is like to live among the poor and the lower working class. The focus is on a simple social order of survival in rural, everyday life. Neo realist films often feature children in major roles, though their characters are frequently more observational than participatory. Vittorio De Sica's 1948 film Bicycle Thieves is a representative of the genre, with non-professional actors, and a story that details the hardships of working-class life after the war.

Some Major works are Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945), Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sica, 1946) Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946) Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) The Earth Trembles (Luchino Visconti, 1948) Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949) Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)

BicycleThieves
Neorealism never got more real than in Vittorio de Sica's 1948 classic Bicycle Thieves. This study of poverty in postwar Rome is now revived in cinemas as a harsh realistic treat. Antonio is a poor man who is thrilled when he is at last offered a job; delivering and putting up movie posters. But he needs a bicycle, and must supply his own, so his wife Maria pawns the family's entire stock of bed linen to redeem the bicycle he had already hocked. 

On his first day at work, the unlocked machine is stolen and Antonio drops everything to go on a desperate odyssey through the streets of Rome with his little boy Bruno to get his bike back, pleading and accusing and uncovering scenes of poverty similar to theirs wherever they go. They create uproar in classic crowd moments: in the streets, in a market, in a church mass. Faces always gather avidly around the pair, all commenting, complaining and generally magnifying the father and son's distress and mortification.

The father is obsessed with finding a stolen needle in the urban haystack, obsessed with getting his job back. Again and again, he ignores his little boy while scanning the horizon for his bicycle. At one stage, he hears uproar from the riverbank about a "drowned boy". With a guilty start, he looks around. Do they mean Bruno? No: there he is, safe and sound. Later in the movie he is finally to be his father's savior, but in such a way as to render Antonio's humiliation complete. This is poverty's authentic sting: dullness and horrible loss of dignity. Bicycle Thieves is a brilliant, tactlessly real work of art.

Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He turned to directing in 1940, making comedies in a similar vein, but with his fifth film The Children Are Watching Us (1944), he revealed hitherto unsuspected depths and an extraordinarily sensitive touch with actors, especially children. It was also the first film he made with the writer Cesare Zavattini with whom he would subsequently make Shoeshine (1946) and Bicycle Thieves (1948), heartbreaking studies of poverty in postwar Italy which won special Oscars before the foreign film category was officially established. After the box-office disaster of Umberto D. (1952), a relentlessly bleak study of the problems of old age, he returned to directing lighter work, appearing in front of the camera more frequently. Although Yesterday, Today and tomorrow (1963) won him another Oscar, it was generally accepted that his career as one of the great directors was over. However, just before he died he made The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), which won him yet another Oscar, and his final film A Brief Vacation (1973). He died following the removal of a cyst from his lungs.

Major Films and Directors

8½ (1963): Federico Fellini

Bicycle Thieves (1948) Vittorio De Sica

Paisan (1946) Roberto Rossellini

Amarcord (1973) Federico Fellini

Blow-Up (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni

Rome, Open City (1945) Roberto Rossellini

Death in Venice (1971) Luchino Visconti

Mamma Roma (1962) Paolo Pasolini

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Major Film Movements - Soviet Montage

Montage -is based on the theory that conflict must be inherent in all visual aspects in film, the principles of which include a rapid alteration between sets of shots whose signification occurs at the point of their collision, fast editing and unusual camera angles; also used for spectacular effect. It is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. The term has been used in various contexts. It was introduced to cinema primarily by Eisenstein, and early Russian directors used it as a synonym for creative editing. In France the word "montage" simply denotes cutting. The montage sequence is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory. 

From the 1930's to the 1950's, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots with special optical effects (fades, dissolves, and split screens, double and triple exposures) dance and music. They were usually assembled by someone other than the director or the editor of the movie.

Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage. He and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the essence of the cinema. His articles and books- particularly Film Form and The Film Sense - explain the significance of montage in detail. His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers. Eisenstein felt the "collision" of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors. He believed that an idea should be derived from the juxtaposition of two independent shots, bringing an element of collage into film. He developed what he called "methods of montage":

1. Metric: where the editing follows a specific number of frames, cutting next shot no matter what is happening within the montage. This montage is used to elicit the emotional reactions in the audience.

2. Rhythmic: includes cutting based on continuity, creating visual continuity from edit to edit.

3. Tonal: uses the emotional meaning of the shots to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage.

4. Over tonal: is the culmination of metric, rhythmic and tonal montage to synthesize its effects on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect.

5. Intellectual: uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.

In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict. He used stock characters, and the roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate classes; he avoided casting stars. Eisenstein's vision of communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Like many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned a new society which would subsidize artists totally, freeing them from the confines of bosses and budgets, leaving them absolutely free to create, but budgets and producers were as significant to the Soviet film industry as the rest of the world. The fledgling war and revolution wracked and isolated new nation did not have the resources to nationalize its film industry at first. When it did, limited resources- both monetary and equipment- required production controls as extensive as in the capitalist world.

Battleship Potemkin

Based on the historical events the movie tells the story of a riot at the battleship Potemkin. What started as a protest strike was when the crew was given rotten meat for dinner ended in a riot. The sailors raised the red flag and tried to ignite the revolution in their home port Odessa. 

In 1905, there is a general feeling of revolution among the Russian populace against the Imperial rulers. This feeling is slow to reach the crew of the battleship, Potemkin. However, the crew eventually does rebel against their Imperial ruled officers for what they see as the poor conditions aboard, namely the provision of maggot infested rotting meat as their food. This mini-revolution on board leads to a confrontation between the officers and crew. News of the result of this confrontation hits the streets of Odessa as the Potemkin sails into port. The fight on board the Potemkin makes its way to the streets of Odessa as civilians want to show their support for their brothers on board. This situation leads to further actions by the Imperial army, both against the Russian civilians in Odessa as well as against the Potemkin crew. It is a dramatized account of a Great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre.

The film's 75 minute duration is composed of 1,400 takes and is the precise model of its innovatory director's theory of montage. Potemkin is a vital viewing experience that transcends its landmark/milestone status. Its virtuoso technique remains dazzling and is at the service of a revolutionary fervor we can still experience. The Odessa Steps massacre, invented by Eisenstein and his collaborators, is one of cinema's greatest single sequences.

Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, a Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958).

Major Films and Directors

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924): Lev Kuleshov

Luchsmerti (1925): Lev Kuleshov

Strike (1925): Sergei M. Eisenstein

Battleship Potemkin (1925): Sergei M. Eisenstein

Storm Over Asia (1928): VsevolodPudovkin

October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1928): G. Aleksandrov, S. M. Eisenstein

Man with a Movie Camera (1929): DzigaVertov

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Importance of Set design or Mise en scene in Cinema

Mise-en-scène is a French term which means, literally, "put in the scene." For film, it has a broader meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the composition of the shot, including the composition itself: framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and general visual environment, even sound as it helps elaborate the composition. Mise-en-scène can be defined as the articulation of cinematic space, and it is precisely space that it is about. Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theater or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story" both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction. Mise-en-scène has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term". When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, sounds, and lighting. 

The “mise-en-scène”, along with the cinematography and editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude of a film in the eyes of its viewers. The various elements of design help express a film’s vision by generating a sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and sometimes suggesting a character’s state of mind. “Mise-en-scène” also includes the composition, which consists of the positioning and movement of actors, as well as objects, in the shot. These are all the areas overseen by the director, and thus, in French film credits, the director's title is metteur en scène, "placer on scene." Andre Bazin, a well-known French film critic and film theorist, describes the mise-en-scene aesthetic as emphasizing choreographed movement within the scene rather than through editing.

For some film critic, it refers to all elements of visual style—that is, both elements on the set and aspects of the camera. For others, such as U.S. film critic Andrew Sarris, it takes on mystical meanings related to the emotional tone of a film. The term is sometimes used to represent a style of conveying the information of a scene primarily through a single shot often accompanied by camera movement. Mise en scene is nothing other than the technique invented by each director to express the idea and establish the specific quality of his work.

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Major Film Movements - German Expressionism

German Expressionism is an artistic genre that originated in Europe in the 1920s, and is broadly defined as the rejection of Western conventions, and the depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect. Heavily influenced by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and El Greco, Expressionists were less concerned with producing aesthetically pleasing compositions as they were with creating powerful reactions to their work through the use of bright, clashing colours, flat shapes, and jagged brushstrokes. In its nature, the movement was interested in the relationship between art and society, and encompassed a broad range of fields, including architecture, painting, and film. 

Expressionist films were initially born out of Germany's relative isolation during the 1910's, and quickly generated high demand due to the government's ban on foreign films. The films' appeal soon spread to an international audience, and by the early 1920's, many European filmmakers had begun experimenting with the absurd and wild aesthetics of German cinema. Two of the most influential films of the era were Metropolis (1927), by Fritz Lang (Austrian, 1877–1961), and The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1920), by Robert Wiene (German, 1873–1938). Similar to Expressionist paintings, Expressionist films sought to convey the inner, subjective experience of its subjects. Expressionist film in the 1920's was based on the premise that film becomes art only to the extent that the film image differs from reality.

In German film making in the 1910's and 1920's, one can observe tone, meaning, and narrative information conveyed through mise-en-scène. These films were a part of the German Expressionism movement in the 1920’s, and were characterized by their extreme sets, décor, acting, lighting, and camera angles. The aim of these films is to have an extremely dramatic effect on the audience, often emphasizing the fantastic and grotesque. Perhaps the most famous example of this is The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1919) where a character's internal state of mind is represented through set design and blocking. The sets involved stress the madness and horror of the film, as expressionist films are meant to do.

Set design:

An important element of "putting in the scene" is set design—the setting of a scene and the objects (props) visible in a scene. Set design can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood, which has physical, social, psychological, emotional, economic and cultural significance in film.

Lighting:

The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting can influence an audience’s understanding of characters, actions, themes and mood. Light (and shade) can emphasize texture, shape, distance, mood, time of day or night, season, glamour; it affects the way colors are rendered, both in terms of hue and depth, and can focus attention on particular elements of the composition. Highlights, for example, call attention to shapes and textures, while shadows often conceal things, creating a sense of mystery or fear. For this reason, lighting must be thoroughly planned in advance to ensure its desired effect on an audience. Cinematographers are a large part of this process, as they coordinate the camera and the lighting.

Space:

The representation of space affects the reading of a film. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, set design, effectively determining mood or relationships between elements in the story world.

Composition:

It includes the organization of objects, actors and space within the frame. One of the most important concepts with the regard to the composition of a film is maintaining a balance of symmetry. This refers to having an equal distribution of light, color, and objects and/or figures in a shot. Unbalanced composition can be used to emphasize certain elements of a film that the director wishes to be given particular attention to. This tool works because audiences are more inclined to pay attention to something off balance, as it may seem abnormal.

Costume:

Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Costumes in narrative cinema are used to signify characters or to make clear distinctions between characters.

Makeup and hair styles:

Establish time period, reveal character traits and signal changes in character.

Acting:

There is enormous historical and cultural variation in performance styles in the cinema. In the early years of cinema, stage acting and film acting were difficult to differentiate, as most film actors had previously been stage actors and therefore knew no other method of acting. Eventually, early melodramatic styles, clearly indebted to the 19^th century theater, gave way in Western cinema to a relatively naturalistic style. This more naturalistic style of acting is largely influenced by Constantin Stanislavski’s theory of method acting, which involves the actor fully immersing themselves in their character.

Cabinet of Dr.Caligary

Filmed in 1920, The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari tells the story of Francis, who, through flashbacks, recounts his terrifying experiences at a carnival in a small German village, where he first encountered Dr.Caligari, a man with the power to control people in their sleep. When Francis's friend is mysteriously murdered and his fiancée is kidnapped, he pursues Dr.Caligari to an insane asylum, determined to unravel the mystery surrounding these terrible events.

In scenes throughout the film, sidewalks lead nowhere, walls appear warped, creating strange shapes, and buildings rise at distorted angles in the background. Considering the cultural context in which Caligari was created, it makes sense that German Expressionism was such a widely used device in film, visual art, and literature. The sense of anxiety, distrust, and uneasiness were at an all-time high in Germany following World War I, and films such as Caligari were examples of art imitating life.

Robert Wiene

Robert Wiene was an important film director of the German silent cinema. He is particularly known for directing the influential German silent film The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari and a succession of other expressionist films. Wiene also directed a variety of other films of varying styles and genres. Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, Wiene fled into exile.

Major Films and Directors

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920): Robert Wiene

Nosferatu (1922): F. W. Murnau

Faust (1926): F. W. Murnau

Metropolis (1927): Fritz Lang

M (1931): Fritz Lang

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Great Masters of World Cinema

Cinema, one of the most captivating medium all over the world, has an illustrious history of more than 100 years. Consequently, there are numerous directors and other film personalities that have contributed to this medium. The following section is an attempt to introduce some of masters of cinema. The list is incomplete.

Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica (1902 –1974) was a film director and actor who was a major figure in the Italian Neo-realist movement. During a prolific career that spanned 55 years, De Sica directed 35 films and acted in more than 150. The Bicycle Thief is considered to be his masterpiece and rated as one of the best film ever made.

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa (1910 –1998) was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. In a career that spanned 50 years, Kurosawa directed 30 films. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in film history. In 1989, he was awarded the Academy Award for lifetime achievement. He was first Japanese film director to win international acclaim, with such films as Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985), Dreams (1990)

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman (1918 –2007) was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. He directed over sixty films and documentaries. His major themes dealt with death, illness, betrayal and insanity. Bergman first achieved worldwide success with Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957) and Wild Strawberries (1957). The Seventh Seal won aspecial jury prize and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and Wild Strawberries won numerous awards for Bergman.

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray (1921 –1992) is regarded as one of the greatest directors of 20th century cinema. He directed thirty-seven films, including feature films, documentaries and short films. Ray’s first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Document at the Cannes film festival. Alongside Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959), the three films form The Apu Trilogy.

Ray’s other important films include Devi, Kanchenjungha , Charulata , Mahanagar, Teen Kanya , Abhijan and Kapurush - Mahapurush. An honorary Oscar was awarded to him weeks before his death, which he received in a gravely ill condition. He died on 23 April 1992. He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1985. He was awarded the highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna shortly before his death.

Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein (1898 –1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and October, as well as historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. But it was mostly his international critical renown which enabled Eisenstein to direct The General Line (Old and New), and then October (Ten Days That Shook The World) as part of a grand tenth anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917.

Krzysztof Kieślowski

Krzysztof Kieślowski (1941 –1996) was an influential Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for his film cycles The Decalogue and Three Colors. His early documentaries focused on the everyday lives of city dwellers, workers, and soldiers. Though he was not an overtly political filmmaker, he soon found that attempting to depict Polish life accurately brought him into conflict with the authorities. Kieślowski remains one of Europe’s most influential directors, his works are included in the study of film classes at universities throughout the world.

Roman Raymond Polanski

Roman Raymond Polanski (1933- ) is film director, producer, writer and actor. Polanski’s first feature-length film, Knife in the Water (1962), made in Poland, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His Chinatown (1974) was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and was a critical and box-office success. The Pianist (2002), based on the real story of World War II Jewish-Polish musician is one of his best films. The film won three Academy Awards including Best Director, the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, and seven French César Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini (1920 –1993), an Italian film director, is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century. Many of his films blended realism with social satire. As a child, Fellini ran away to the circus for a few days and the experiences inspired much of his films. His first international success, La Strada (1954) won an Academy Award as best foreign film and established his wife, Julietta Masina as a star. This grimly realistic, yet poetic film describes the relationship between a brutal circus strongman and a half witted young girl.

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin (1889 –1977) stardom began in 1914. He was a figure of poverty looking undernourished and undersized. He wore a funny hat, a coat too small for him and trousers too large for him. He walked in a shuffling manner with a bamboo walking stick. With his inimitable acting style and peculiar mannerism, he brought laughter and relief to millions of film viewers. Chaplin’s early films include The Kid (1920), A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925) and The Circus (1928). After the arrival of sound films, Chaplin made The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), as well as Modern Times (1936) before he committed to sound. In The Great Dictator (1940) he played two roles, a humble Jewish barber and a tyrant based on the German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899 –1980) was an English filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. The Pleasure of Garden (1925) was Hitchcock’s first film. He gained his first success with The Lodger (1926) based on Jack the ripper. Later he emigrated to US and there his film probed more deeply into the psychology of the characters and were longer and complex works. His first US film Rebecca (1940) received the Academy Award for the best picture.

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg, (born 1946- ) is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Spielberg’s early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg’s films, Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Jurassic Park (1993) achieved box office record. Spielberg’s next film, Schindler’s List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust.

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick (1928 –1999) was an American director. He became noted for his pictures dealing with serious social themes. Kubrick aroused much controversy with his satire How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The film is bitter but comic treatment of how the Soviet Union and the United States accidently start a nuclear war. Kubrick’s science fiction story 2001: A space Odyssey (1968) became spectacular for it visual effects. His other major film includes Lolita, Spartacus, A clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket.

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