Chapter 2
The Making of a Message: Film Production and Techniques, and Political
Messages
The purpose of this chapter is to identify what we mean by political messages and
analyze how each step in the filmmaking process can achieve the effect of political
messaging to an audience. While focusing on films with intentional political messages,
in keeping with Chapter 1’s political film typology, this chapter also considers how films
can transmit messages that are unintended reflections of political and social realities
and thus also contribute to audience political socialization.
Objectives for Chapter 2:
1. Outline the film production process from concept to distribution and promotion and
suggest the possible contribution each step can make to the political impact of a
film.
2. Explain what an enormous financial undertaking most commercial films entail and
stress how the economics of filmmaking affect overt or oblique political messaging.
3. Sketch an overview of the debate whether mainstream films are inherently
conservative and in support of the status quo or overwhelmingly liberal in their
vilification of conservative icons.
4. List four typical movie conventions that minimize the political conflict of storylines
that might otherwise arouse controversy.
5. Introduce the concept of the auteur director and the reasons why it is not
necessarily accurate or operative.
6. List elements in film direction that may be used to send a political message,
including casting of particular actors.
7. Describe the current industry business model and the conglomerate global media
financing structure.
8. Explain the relationship between filmmakers intending to promote political
viewpoints (or action) and the mass audience that they also try to please and entice.
Together they influence the national imagination.
Class Activities for Chapter 2:
1. Set up debates in class around questions raised in this chapter. Remind students to
use specific films for evidence and avoid generalities. Examples of debate topics:
a. Should the U.S. federal government subsidize filmmaking to encourage
the making of movies less dependent on the current financial structure of
the global media conglomerates? (Relevant information might be
found in researching such programs in Australia, France, and elsewhere.)
b. Are most movies liberal (“dark and cynical” about America) or
conservative (in support of the status quo)?
c. Surveying the current film scene: Has the corporatization or
conglomeration “tent pole” business model put the nail in the coffin of
auteur filmmaking? (Look over current movie posters: how many of them
prominently feature the name of the director? What associations would
viewers have with that director?)
2. Break class into four groups and assign each group one of the general movie
conventions—personalization, sugarcoating, the unlabeled bottle,
ambivalence—that tend to minimize the political conflict a film might otherwise
express. Ask them to present a definition to the rest of the class providing recent
examples of their own. Require each group to suggest an alternative path the film
could have followed that would have led to a more explicitly political message. (For
example, what if The Hurt Locker had unfolded from the point of view of Iraqis and
not American soldiers (ambivalence)? What if Zero Dark Thirty showed characters
actively blaming President Bush for not capturing bin Laden (unlabeled bottle)? Let
the rest of the class discuss whether or how well they think each group’s example fits
the convention.
3. Play the following clips to accompany explanation and discussion of how different
aspects to filmmaking can transmit political messages. (Check Youtube.com to make
sure links are still valid.)
a. Title sequence to All The President’s Men (1976):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldMGOaMs4uw. The sequence
begins with extreme close-up shots on a blank typewriter page. As the
typewriter keys strike they are accompanied by amplified, isolated ambient
sound, no musical soundtrack. Try asking students to close their eyes
before you play the first part of the clip without introduction and ask what
they hear. Play the clip a second time and discuss the quality and
suggestive value of the audio. Repeat at 2:19 when the screen is black but
for the credits: what is that sound? What is the effect? Similarly what
effect does the intervening television news clip have on the film’s
establishment of political meaning?
b. Title sequence to Blue Steel (1989):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O9j4imgA6Q. Beginning at :28 the
relevant title sequence commences; relevant audio begins at :32. Point of
audition and point of view are both confusing since it is not yet clear what
the setting is, whose point of view the camera is tracking, or whose
screams are beginning to be heard.
i. Close analysis of the opening sequence from the perspective of
gender, the gun, and the law can be found in “Yuppie Devil: Villainy
in Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel” by Kevin L. Ferguson, Jump Cut: A
Review of Contemporary Media, No. 50, spring 2008:
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/BlueSteel/text.html.
Relevant passages are the first five paragraphs beneath the heading,
“Lost in the Supermarket.”
4. After modeling the analysis using clips from the book, play a few clips not discussed
in the book and let students analyze them in a similar manner.
Assignments for Chapter 2:
1. In class ask students to write down one to three recent movies they went to see and
ask them to do the following for each:
a. Speculate what kind of production and marketing budget each enjoyed
b. Name as much of the production crew and cast as they know/remember
c. Name the companies responsible for its production and whether they
think/know if these companies are part of a larger conglomerate or if the
film is “indie-wood.”
Ask them to take these notes with them and on their own look up the titles on
IMDB.com for the answers to these questions, tracing each film’s provenance. Are
they big studio productions or were they independently produced but distributed by
a conglomerate-own studio like Disney? Ask them to research how the film’s budget
was promoted: did Variety post an article on its expense? Did official trailers for the
film emphasize special effects, a star lead, or something more intimate and
personal? Now write a brief essay considering how these films fit on a spectrum of
big studio to completely independent filmmaking: does the capital-intensive nature
of the films connect to any of the standard film conventions that tend to vitiate
political effect? Conversely, does the low budget history of the film connect to a
stronger political message?
2. Assign a film for students to view and write an essay analyzing how selected
elements of direction can be interpreted for political effect. Choose 4 to 5 from these
elements: titles, sound and dialogue, music, editing/montage, composition/mise-
en-scène. Also photography/cinematography, and under that: lighting and color,
camera angles and placement, sets, props, special effects, product placement. Actors
and acting can also be included here.
3. Movies are part of the political socialization process by which a society’s political
ideas and values are inculcated. Ask students to attend a film with friends or family
and go out afterward specifically to discuss the film and “process” its effects. Then
have them write a brief essay reflecting on the experience. Were they influenced by
the film to adopt a new (or reinforce an existing) attitude readily identified as
political? Did discussing the film change or reinforce their initial response? Did the
conversation lead to debate or agreement on the political messaging?