Cheese now and then

This video shows the famous cheese market of Alkmaar just after the end of World War II, as well as to day. The narration of the newsreel which is the first part of the film is in Dutch.  The second part has an English voice-over.

In the after war years I witnessed the introduction of color in the newsreels . Because of cost reasons the majority was still shot in black & white followed by a special item in full colour which leads to a a funny contrast as you can see.

About 100,000 people from all over the world visit the cheese market in Alkmaar every year. The oldest "ordinance on the cheesebearers" dates from june 17th 1593.

The Netherlands in miniature

Parallel editing (cross cutting) is the technique of alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations. If the scenes are simultaneous, they occasionally culminate in a single place, where the relevant parties confront each other.

Why use it? To add interest and excitement to an otherwise boring scene. Parallel editing is often applied to create suspense
  
Parallel Editing Cut
Let's say you have a scene where a villain is chasing the hero of the film. To spend the entire chase scene trying to keep both the hero and the villain in the frame at the same time will become very difficult and un-engaging after a while. A better way to approach this problem is through the use of parallel cutting. In this example, the scene would consist of several shots of the hero running in one direction, and some shots of the villain running in the same direction. Perhaps the hero looks back, out of frame, at his pursuer. At this point, the editor would insert of a shot of the villain. Both characters haven't share the same screen space, yet the audience still understands that one is chasing the other.

Making of SUSKIND film

Süskind

1942. In an attempt to keep a group of children from being sent to the death camps, the Jew Walter Süskind befriends SS man Aus der Fünten. When the latter finds out that Walter has been deceiving him and his affection was faked, the Nazi takes revenge on the Jew.

Nazi-Germany occupied The Netherlands from May 1940 till May 1945. In 1942, the Dutch Jews were told they would have to leave for Germany in order to work in labor camps. Some hundred people at a time, the Jews were packed into the “Hollandsche Schouwburg” (the “Dutch Theatre”) in Amsterdam. From here they were taken by train to the transit camp “Westerbork” in the North-East of Holland. Here the trains left – not for Germany as the deportees had thought – but for Poland.

 

Filming with highspeed

A high speed camera is a device used for recording fast moving objects . After recording, the images stored on the media can be played back in slow-motion.

High speed cameras can film up to a quarter of a million frames per second by running the film over a rotating prism or mirror instead of using a shutter, thus reducing the need for stopping and starting the film behind a shutter which would tear the film stock at such speeds. Using this technique one can stretch one second to more than ten minutes of playback time (super slow motion). The fastest cameras are generally in use in scientific research, military test and evaluation, and industry. .

A problem for high speed cameras is the needed exposure for the film, so one needs very bright light to be able to film at forty thousand frames per second.

All development in high speed cameras is now focused on digital video cameras which have many operational and cost benefits over film cameras.

Sink or Swim

Subjective camera: The camera is used in such a way as to suggest the point of view of a particular character.

• High- or low-angle shots indicate where she or he is looking from

• a panoramic or panning shot suggests she or he is surveying the scene

• a tracking shot or a hand-held camera shot signifies the character on motion.

Subjective shots like these also implicate the spectator into the narrative in that she or he identifies with the point of view.

French Sketch-book

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties.


The term describes a range of filmmaking styles that are generally quite different from, and often opposed to, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking. Avant-garde is also used, for the films shots in the twenties in the field of history’s avant-gardes currents in France or Germany, to describe this work, and "underground" was used in the sixties, though it has also had other connotations. Today the term "experimental cinema" prevails, because it’s possible to make experimental films without the presence of any avant-garde movement in the cultural field.