Turning a New Leaf

During the 1960's a revolution in film occurred.  This revolution was a move from traditional film making (including plot lines, camera angles, editing, etc.), and introduced a new way of doing things.  Before the '60's film making was very "assembly line," meaning that all camera angles were the same, if there was a love scene in any movie the camera angles all followed the same template of movements, this is also the case for all editing forms (with some exceptions but very frowned upon), as well as plot development for all genres.  During the 1960's the way films were made was changed and a new era of producing movies came to pass.

The first biggest change that happened during this revolution was the soundtrack.  Before, during the classical era, soundtracks were all comprised of composed music, meaning it was all instrumental based, and did not use the popular music of the time.  During the "post-classical" era, this was not the case, producers now used soundtracks comprised of music that was popular at the time.  The best example of this would be "The Graduate."  In this film the soundtrack is all music that was popular during the time, as well as some original songs composed just for the movie (Mrs. Robinson).

Another big change that happened during this era was the editing styles.  Before the editing was template based, meaning that all editing was done the same way (with some exceptions).  During the '60's though, this all changed.  All forms of editing were accepted during this time.  The editting style that gained in popularity (although introduced in earlier films, but gained popularity during this time), was the "jump cut."  In this editing style the scene moves from one focal point to the next very fast without a smooth transition.  Many other forms of editing were widely used as well, but this was the one that was the most popular.

With these introductions of changes the movie industry began to open up for independent film makers to become recognized.  No longer was a movie recognized by the studio (although this element was still around, it was not the sole focus), but by the producers, directors, actors instead.  It opened the film industry to the individual and this shifted from sole credit going to the studios.  These changes allowed for film producers to try new things, and for it to be an acceptable notion, whereas before that would have meant the end of a producer.  The achievement during this era was the acceptance of the independent film maker, as well as showing the film world that there is other ways of producing a movie without strictly adhering to templates.