Dogme 95/realist filmmaking, genre, representation, documentary, city symphonies, animation, industry, audiences.

City Symphonies
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
City Symphonies
Introduction
City symphonies constitute a unique genre of films because their vibrancy was notable for a decade, i.e., between the 1920s and 1930s. City symphonies are documentary films that ordinarily reflect the cinemas of urban life. City symphonies are often described as city film or city poems. They combined elements of documentary, narrative, and experimental film and not merely the depiction of the city as a background story. The symphonies are centered on the urban modernity as a driving theme. However, the city symphonies remain elusive entertainment genre. One cannot get a precise answer on what constitutes a city symphony. Still, most will agree that this genre is a poetic and experimental documentary that depicts the city’s life. City symphonies are an embodiment of artwork that invent and represent cities through imagination and creativity; this leads to the unraveling of subtle and hidden aspects of urban life by bringing them to the level of human consciousness. This paper will discuss diverse concepts on the genre of the city symphony, which includes its aesthetic values,historical placement, and rope in the concept of funding approaches to this city symphony genre.
My Choice: City Symphony
I will focus on city symphony as my product design. I am interested in city symphony, though it is a genre that has been ignored for long. It still holds relevance in today’s world, where we have more problems than never before in urban life. The rising cost of living, the congestion, environmental pollution, impoverishment, inadequate housing, and filthy, are some of the critical issues that could demonstrate the relevance of city symphony film. Since this type of genre mainly existed during the 1920s to 1930s, it may mean a lot of people may not be aware of it.
Funding Approaches
Without finances, it is impossible to produce films like city symphonies. Money is required to facilitate the implementation of all activities that revolve around the film production from aesthetics inputs to equipment. There diverse financial strategies that one can engage in the film production of any genre. Firsts, I can bring on board other investors, groups of investors, or infusion of capital from friends or family (Kwatinetz, 2011). This approach is defined as equity, and it means that the stakeholders who join my venture become part of the investment, and thus, they own a stake. Secondly, I can deploy the strategy of pre-sales, where I make a contract with film distributors and production units so that they can fund the project. However, they will get back their investment through the sales of the films produced. While using this financing approach, I need to convince these marketers or distributors that my product will have a sustained demand in the market due to its inherent qualities. Pre-sales agreements are anchored on the film’s potential strength, marketability, and sales potential (Kwatinetz, 2011). In the pre-sale agreement, the film distributors can get bank loans that will be used in the production and repay the loan after making film sales. Thirdly, one can use tax incentives to the fiancé or mitigate costs associated with film production. This financing method depends on the jurisdiction; there are places where authorities would give tax incentives in you hire a particular number of employees in film production from such a locality. Fourthly, grants, and donations are other critical and potential options for financing films. A film producer can apply and seek donations and grants by elucidation of the value and the possible social outcomes of the film. Fifthly, one can get a personal loan to finance the project wholly or partially. Finally, crowdfunding harbors the potential to provide critical financial resources that facilitate production. One might get financial help after registering in Kickstarter or GoFundMe, which are platforms that allow people to donate small amounts of money.
City Symphonies Aesthetics, History and Social contexts
The global witnessed the accelerated growth of urbanization in the early 1920s. During that time, there was an interest in the urban atmosphere; being fueled by cinema practices, symphony films gained palpable momentum. The urbanization phenomena elicited corresponding moving images that were espoused in cinematic poems that could reflect the dynamics of city life. Cities as we know them came into being when they industrialized in the 19th century. The film assumed its epoch when cities around the globe had become fascinating spaces. This observation might have informed the development of pioneering motion pictures by making cities as their subjects.
The artworks at that time provide synthetic and imaginary portraits of the city through the intertwining of moving images of the urban landscape through the montage technique (Penz and Lu, 2011). In the early 1920s, the film making was taking centre stage in the entertainment industry, and it can be inferred that the film industry could have acted as an avenue for the emergence of city symphonies. There are diverse city symphonies that reflect life intrigues in urban areas. They include Bronx Morning, Propos de Nice, Manhattan, Rien ques les heures, Organism, Rain, Skyracrapper Symphony, and Die Symphonie Einer Großstadt and the Man with a Movie Camera.
The city symphonic films provide spectators with fresh experience via the creation of parallel realities in different spaces. These cinemas give experience and perception of cities to viewers, which they could have remained inaccessible. The modernist perceived such films as vivid descriptions of space through animated artistic debate. Space, as a representation of an urban area or metropolis, is linked to time and motion, as seen from an individual’s point of view. In Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passo paints the city as intricate, multi-layered, fragmented, and deep space (McParland, 2014).  Manhattan cinema is made up of alternating film sequences and titles that make fixed panoramic shots. It is composed of aesthetic images like skyscrapers, which are a true reflection of modernity. The height of buildings, the people, waking like ants, moving cars in the street, are a classic pictorial representation of city life. It is not surprising to realize that in the 20th century, metropolis were areas of great interest, and this appeared to have lured the keen eyes of avant-garde artists, who had a sense of reflecting the fast-paced, accelerated, dynamic, and mechanized life in the city spaces. The Movie Camera of 1929 espoused the fundamental aesthetic constituents of symphonies that include space, time, motion, and interpretation (McParland, 2014). The Movie Camera deploys an experimental approach that is visible at the start. The photographer stood over a film camera, followed by empty theatre with seats, which later filled by the audience. Vetrov also follows almost a similar pattern; the privacy room’s occupants are depicted in a deep sleep, and it is sequenced by people sleeping in public parks, and sidewalks. A montage of closed stores, empty streets, and close windows illustrate the time just before the people wake up (McParland, 2014). However, it would be critical to show that Vertov is a portrayal of Soviet cities, which has a slightly different social ideology.
Simultaneity is another concept that is infused in most city symphonies. This concept involves ...