Select three links on the right-hand column of this class blog, under the heading "Film Deconstruction Links." Explore and read these three links thoroughly. Then write 150+ words per link--450+ total words--summarizing what these links offer and responding to each link's usefulness to your understanding of film analysis and to your understanding of collegiate expectations of critical thinking. Copy/paste a little information that you find particularly useful and interesting (does not count toward your 450+ words). Professors want to combat ignorance by any means necessary; they want you thinking as critically as possible. Good thing you're doing such good work these days.
(This is actor John Malkovich in the Coen Brothers' film Burn After Reading, which is a puzzling character study. The characters are brilliant people merging with moronic people; this merger creates awful behavior by them all. Casey Strand wrote about this film--see the sample essay I gave you.)
126 comments:
For my links I chose: Web English Teachers Film Study, Study Guide Film analysis, and Harvard Film studies. I chose these because in a few ways they are similar but yet still different.
1. The first one was Web English Teachers Film Study; I chose this because it sounded interesting off the bat. So after looking around it was my favorite site. It really helped me see different aspects of analyzing films. I liked the camera angles link because it was really hard for me personally to analyze this. It gave little tips of how to spot these angles easier. I liked that is also gave reasons why they would use THIS particular shot. They talked about using the Birds-eye view because it makes things look tiny and insignificant, it sounds pretty self explanatory but to me it was hard to realize. Besides just camera angles this website also connects you to other websites that give tips on how to understand the literature in movies.
2. The second one I chose was Study Guide Film Analysis, this website is awesome. It gives you a list of questions to help understand your movie and analyzing it. It tells you what questions to pay the most attention to as well as how to make your mind think. I printed this one off. It gives you help with General Terms, Shots, Camera Movement, Camera Angles, Editing, and sound. I never really knew that you could analyze the way a movie was edited. I would never have thought to pay attention to things fading in and fading out. Besides just analyzing it also gives you an outline on how to write your paper. This website helped me a lot writing my outline and notes. You can also buy movies on this website through Amazon that can help you analyze film. I really didn’t know they made movies about analyzing movies. Maybe we should analyze those.
3. The last link I chose was Harvard Film Studies; I chose this one for kind of a stupid reason. I thought I’d pick this because it’s Harvard, and I hope they know what they are talking about (because of their standards to get in.) This link starts off with some really cool pictures, and it just seems like a pretty laid back website. After looking around for a while, I found the requirements that you need to graduate with a degree in film analysis and it’s pretty intense. I didn’t know you would end up with a Doctorate in Philosophy. This website didn’t really help me much with my paper analyzing but I did think this was a really interesting and fun to read about. It is also really cool that they have all these lists of resources for students on campus and off.
The first link I chose to view is titled “Web English Teacher Film Study”. This website has many links to different things that help students learn how to deconstruct films. The first link on this site, camera angles, has a list of the many different camera angles that are used in movies with a description of the angle. Along with the description is a picture that shows the angle. The description tells about the angle and how it’s different from the others. In the description, some also tell how the angle affects the scene and what effect it has on the viewer. In another link on the site, the grammar of television and film, also describes different camera angles but also teaches the “language” of film. It has terms that directors and editors use such as long take, screen time and subjective time. This link includes points about the use of sound, lighting and narration. I think this site is useful for both my individual paper and my group presentation because it includes information about films and film language. One thing, specifically, that I learned from this site that will help with my group presentation is the term “backlighting” from the link, the grammar of television and film. Backlighting is a lighting technique used on a romantic heroine. They are often backlit to create a halo effect on her hair. This is useful because my group is talking about Twilight and the backlighting effect is used on Bella, throughout the movie.
The second link I chose to view is titled “Deconstruction of 300 Film Poster”. This website is devoted to the deconstruction of the cover of the movie 300 but it inspired me to deconstruct the cover of the movie that I will be writing my essay on. This website breaks down the deconstruction into little sections such as color, setting, body language, clothing, camera angle and excreta. This website shows the importance to the cover of the movie, which is important because many people judge how the film will be on the cover. The movie cover also is a mini version of the movie itself in a way because it shows what the movie is really about, in one frame. The website breaks down the movie, on its cover, as an aggressive, gory and violent movie. I think this website can be useful to my individual paper because it taught me how to interpret the cover of movies. It also made me realize all the symbolism and meanings behind not only the pictures on the cover but also scenes in the movie.
The third link I chose to view is titled “Teaching Film Studies”. This site provides many links to other websites and pages that could teach you about film studies and could also help teach someone else to teach a class about film studies and research. On the top of the page are six areas in which the site provides information to teach about film studies. These areas are: theory and criticism, genres, film production, film history, general resources and teaching film studies. For each link on this website, they list other websites or pages that provide information about each area. The link, theory and criticism, for example includes areas such as feminist approaches, postcolonial theory, postmodernism, psychoanalytical theory and other theories. Each group has links that take you to other websites about these topics. I think that this website is useful for my individual paper because it provides information about many different areas and if I need ideas for my paper, I can come here and click through the links they have and easily add information.
Megan Bly
Period 7
■Comparative Studies
■English
■East Asian Languages and Literatures
■French and Italian
■Germanic Languages and Literatures
■History of Art
■Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Literatures
■Spanish and Portuguese
■Women's Studies
these are the things that the ohio film studies class, has to offer in their class. they go over these things and show you how they are portrayed in movies. the film studies major concentrates on cinema as a multicultural phenomenon and shapes its study as a humanistic discipline. Students complete core courses in basic film analysis, history, and theory, and then go on to take classes in early cinema, a multicultural component, film electives, and a focus area generated by the student in consultation with a faculty advisor.
At Emory U the assignments the students do are treatment, development, narrative outline development, character development, and dialogue writing. students must write a 30 page original short film script. this would be pretty awe inspiring because it gives u the mind set that ppl have to be in and have to write a movie, one that means something. they have a seminar in feminist film and television theory, segregated cinema in a southern city, contemporary film theory, colloquium in film and media studies. they have script writing classes and intro's to films, and filmaking internships. this just shows that films are a huge part of our everyday lives and we need to learn about them. thats why every college has classes on them.
We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them. Film can help you 1) to understand your own response to a movie better, 2) to convince others why you like or dislike a film, 3) to explain or introduce something about a movie, a filmmaker, or a group of movies, 4) to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others as a way of understanding them better, and 5) to make connections between a movie and other areas of culture. all of this is true and are huge factors in the way we watch movies and understand them. we can either make connections to our own lives because the movie is a typical down to earth film, or we compare it to ours because the life of the person in the movie is either better or worse than ours and we either resent and envy or feel empathetic for them. when thinking about all this stuff we have to take into account the ethnicity of the movie, the religious standpoint and how well the movie is put together. For some African and Latin-American films, the rough and unpolished look of a film may be a byproduct of financial constraints, but also a conscious political choice to distinguish it from the glossy products of Hollywood. On the other hand, commercial Hollywood films may have gargantuan budgets that prevent them from taking too many risks that might alienate their audiences. In both cases, one has to be open-minded and flexible.
The first link I choose was Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. This website broke down how to write a film analysis paper and even how to make the essay look proper and neat. In this website it broke down some abbreviations that you might see in a film review. It showed what the abbreviation stood for and then it showed an example, which I thought was neat because you might have an idea what they are talking about, but if you see an example you will better understand it. This website will help in writing my paper because it explains some of the common terms that need to be used writing a film and shows examples. It also explains how some of the terms can be interchanged and others cannot. Like how you can interchange the words film and movie, but you cannot interchange shot and sequence. This website will also help in writing my paper because it breaks down the camera angles better for me and I get to see examples instead of just reading about them in the handout. I will definitely use this website in helping me write my paper. One part of this website that I found interesting was that in a couple shots they may use many different distances. “The framing shots may use different distances: close-ups (e.g., showing just the character’s face); extreme close-ups (showing, e.g., an eye or a mouth only); medium shots (showing most of a character’s body); long shots (showing a full body), and ¾ shots (showing ¾s of a body). Obviously, the “closer” the shot the more intimate or “subjective” it is; the “longer” the shot, the more “objective” and “distant.” Love scenes might require close-ups; while war scenes might require long shots. (A Short Guide to Writing About Film.”
The second link I choose was Study Guide Film Analysis. I really liked this website because it broke down a film analysis paper paragraph by paragraph on how to write it, which I find very useful. Another thing I enjoyed about this film is how it explained general filmmaking terms and then broke them down even farther to get more in depth. This website also gives you questions to consider when writing you paper. The questions involve background, theme, and structure/form. The one thing about this website I did not like was that it does not show examples of the different camera angles or terms used in film making. I believe this website will be useful in writing my paper because this website gave me an idea on how to write my paragraphs and what to put in them, but I believe it would have been more useful to me if it had shown examples of the terms it was explaining. When you don’t show examples people just have to image what you are talking about and what they might be imaging, might be wrong. The final thing that I thought was kind of neat was that you can ask questions on the website and people can answer you back with the answer or suggestions on what to discuss in you paper.
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The final link I choose to analyze was Web English Teacher Film Study. On the first page of this website it gives you links to click on, which take you to a more in depth discussion on the topic. When you click on the camera angles link the first thing it tells you is what to think about when analyzing camera angles. As you scroll down the page it breaks down all the camera angles with definitions and then an example. This page on camera angles also tells us about camera movements and then gives you other options on what to look at on this website such as sound and using you camera. If you are really analyzing camera angles in you paper this would be a great website to look at because it gives you many options and examples. This website in my opinion would be a good website for teachers to come to if they are looking for ideas because it has my options and ideas. I think this website is definitely more helpful for teachers then for students. I am not sure if I will use this website to help me write my paper because I really did not find it very helpful other then the camera angles it showed. It might also be a useful website if you were trying to make your own film because it has hints on sound and lighting.
The websites I choose were Study Guide Film Analysis, A Short Guide to Writing About Film and Studying Feature Girls.
The first website I choose was Study Guide Film Analysis. When looking through this website I realized that it will help me with my paper. They have a list of general terms different terms about sound, camera angles, camera movement. These terms can make you sound more “professional” in your paper and make it sound more technical. This website also has a list of questions that it is telling us to look for in our movie. It can help us get started on writing our paper. It gives us ideas about what to put in our paper. These questions helped me get started on my paper. There are a few questions that I would not have thought about answering. For example, What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole? How are the opening credits presented? Do they relate to meaning? Why does the film start in the way that it does? I now know that these are questions that I can add to make my paper sound intelligent.
The next website I decided to write about was A Short Guide to Writing About Film. The title says a short guide but it is not; but that is ok, it means more helpful information. This website split up into different groups; from abbreviations, some questions and how to make the paper proper enough to turn in. They talked about abbreviations and what they mean. They tell the definition and an example of each term. They had some questions about sound and theme of the movie. There are a few questions that I would not have thought to answer in my paper. This website shows some ideas to look for when watching the movie as well for example, theme, camera angles, sound, lighting and why the movie was named that way. When thinking about the costumes they are trying to portray the character a certain way, show the audience what the film makers what us to see. I know for sure that this website will be very helpful in writing my paper.
The last link I looked at was Web English Teacher. When you first click on the link you get a page that has different links to click on. I choose to click on Study Feature Films. This website talks about characters, setting, music, sound effects and more. When they talk about characters this website tells you what you should write and not write. They say to only tell the actors name once and possibly in brackets. Talk about the characters gestures, habits of speech and favorite sayings; it should give you a pretty good mental picture. They say that the music/ soundtrack is important for the mood of the film, and I agree. Playing the wrong music can make a movie decrease in likeability very fast. This website talks about special effects also. This is one topic I forgot about. I can talk about the special effects in my paper now. They say that the special effects can contribute much to our enjoyment of a film. This website will also help in writing my paper.
Emily Gardner_7
The websites I choose were A Short Guide to Writing about films, Study Guide Film Analysis and Web English Teacher Film Study.
The first website I choose was A Short Guide to Writing about films. I choose this site because I thought it would help me understand what to write about in my paper. This site offers a lot of useful information about film abbreviations, how to write an excellent movie analysis paper, and how to deconstruct a movie correctly. The questions that they have you think about will really help me write my paper. Some of the questions are: “What does the title mean in relation to the story? Is there a coherent message or story? Why or why not?” This website also talks about some of the different camera angles and lighting techniques that film makers use. It also talks about how to research your film and what to look for when doing so. I thought the information about lighting was very interesting. They said that lighting is used to illuminate an object or a character using either natural sunlight or artificial sources like lamps. Lighting can create a feeling of clarity and optimism or a feeling of oppression and gloom. This website will be very helpful in writing my paper.
I also choose the Study Guide Film Analysis website. I choose this website because it breaks down how you should write your paper and what questions to think about very well. I like outlines to know how to do things and this website has just what I need. It tells you what you should think about putting in each one of your paragraphs of your paper. It also has some general film terms that I need to know in order to write my paper. Some of the camera angle terms that I will try to use are: pan, tilt, tracking, low and high angle of the camera. If I use some of these terms that I have learned it will help me sound more “professional” when I am writing my paper. This site lists some useful questions to think about when trying to write my paper. Such as, “How does the film use color or light/dark to suggest tone and mood in different scenes?” This website will also help me in writing my paper.
The last website I looked at was Web English Teacher Film Study. When I click on the link first it brought me to a page with other links to choose from. I choose the Camera Angles link because I wanted to learn more about why movies use the camera angles they do. The extreme close up shot is used for dramatic effect; with such a tight focus the slightest camera shake will be noticeable. This kind of camera angle would take a lot of hard work to pull off. The aerial shot is usually used in the beginning or a film to establish the setting and movement. It is usually shot up in a helicopter because it can go anywhere and keep up with anything. A close-up shot is used to concentrate on a face or a specific detail of the scene. The background is blurred out and the shot magnifies the object and shows the importance of what it is looking at. I know that all three of these websites will help me write my paper.
Ashley Christensen_5
At the University of South Dakota their films studies class is meant for students to study films and study the effect that they have and society and on cultural values of today. Part of the class is studying films based around historical events and how films were portrayed in comparison to the times in history. Another part of the class is based on studying films from when they first started to now and how directors have created it into more of an art form and as a medium to portray messages and values. This is helpful because we are studying in class now partial of what this class offers. This link is helpful because it helps us to understand what is expected in the same kind of class available in college. If we know what we have to do in college then we can make sure we work harder on it now in this high school class so we are better prepared.
On the link that is about a short guide to writing about a film the very first thing tells why we go to movies. We either go to think, not think, to stare at them, or to write about them. This link is all about some ways on how we can think deeper and to teach us how to get more out of films other than just two hours of escape. Now sometimes that’s just what we need two hours to get away and escape in a film into a different world more interesting than our own. But a lot of times we should analyze films. We should re-watch them and try and get more out of them, find hidden messages and try to figure out what the director was try to say when he or she made the film and why they made it.
The link about the Coen brothers talked all about their history. It talked about how they started and some of the movies they made. It also talked about the kind of movies they made and how they made them. The Coen brothers are truly film geniuses. They take the idea of a basic film that some directors would stop with and continue on to make it deeper and more enjoyable. They make it ever apparent that not just any one can make a movie. You need to be able to add more to the film for the viewer. To have things that aren’t just on the surface of a film but lie deeper in and have hidden messages that are up to the viewer to decipher and make the film their own. In doing this they have made themselves legends in the film community and have won many awards thanks to their genius.
MEAGAN DONOVAN
The first link I chose was “New Ways to Teach Cinema.” It is a helpful page that literally gives us ways in how we could possibly deconstruct our film as a group, or in our own papers. It examples how to use new software, DVD format films, and out of the box concept maps to guide your presentation. I find this link useful because it gives a step-by-step format to present with. It also tells how deconstruction is applied to learning and analyzing, that it is not just a mindless process we are forced to do. I like this because sometimes it is hard to understand why our teachers make us do the things we do, and this brief paragraph is helpful in understanding the “why?” In addition to the aide of better understanding the project at hand, this page also gives an example of some of the concept maps we could use in our presentations which is very helpful. All in all I think this page is ten out of ten.
The second link I chose was “Feminist Film Theory.” It basically describes how the feminist aspect was unveiled, and its history. I find this page helpful because it furthers my knowledge of how to use my feminist lens, and teaches me new ways in which I could apply it to my paper; ways I had never thought before. And again, I also like learning the history behind why this is an important way to look at things. On this site, it gives an analysis title written by a woman named Molly Haskell called “From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Films,” which is nice because I can then view how other people use this lens and learn from it. It also tells about Freud and what he thought of feminism, which I find intriguing because it is concrete knowledge; a well known name helps make it more believable.
The third link chosen was “A Short Guide to Writing About Films,” which I find the most attractive when selecting a link to help with deconstruction. It gives a short description of camera shots, why we go to movies, and technical terms, and how to write about a movie properly. I like the camera angle description the best because it also gives a picture as well as a description, not just words. I like the excerpt “We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.” I just find it rather humorous, and it makes me want to read into the page more because I know it will not just be boring. I also like that it lists questions to ask while watching the film because sometimes it is hard to know exactly what to do with an hour and a half long film; you could go on and on in the completely wrong direction without knowing it! This link is by far my favorite.
Laryssa Osheim Pd. 3
The first link I chose was the Study Guide Film Analysis one. The first thing I noticed about it was that it was very easy to navigate through! On one of the links on the page titled “Essay Guidelines”, they give many useful questions to help you but together your paper piece by piece. Many wouldn’t think of all the questions to help the paper flow easily, but all the questions shown can make writing the paper very easy. Another link takes you to General Terms used in describing films. These will help you figure out what complex words mean. It’ll help us sound more scholarly in our papers so we don’t just use simple terms. It also gives out “Film Review Guidelines”. This describes what is expected in each paragraph and gives you idea for topics of each paragraph. This will really help you break down the paper and figure out how to separate it into paragraphs so your paper flows and is not choppy and unscholarly. Overall, this website helps a lot and will make me look deeper into my movie by answering many of the questions on the site.
The next one I chose was “A Short Guide to Writing About Film”. I loved the first line of the website, “We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.” That explains it all. Most people don’t think they’re analyzing movies, but most subconsciously do! The website also points out that when writing about a film, always keep the audience in mind. A film can be good, but with a bad audience, it’s going to get a not so fabulous review. It also gives you step-by-step approaches to writing about the films. It gives you “elementary questions” to start with. Once you get those answered you can go more in-depth, and answer tougher questions. This website focuses a lot on the picture/editing of the movie. Like looking at transitions and if they are smooth or abrupt; then why are they like that? This website is making me look more into the actually filming of the movie and seeing why shots are taken/edited a certain way!
The last one I chose was the “Feminist Film Theory” link. Feminists focus on the “function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women”. Women these days are portrayed differently; anywhere from sex objects to successful women. This website helps us look deep into why the women are portrayed as that. Is it due to stereotypes these days? They also say that without the woman the men have nothing to go to. Without the women you can’t have 90% of movies that are out today. They also look at if women are degraded in films, and if they are, there’s usually a message behind it. There’s never something in a film that doesn’t have a meaning. Overall, it helps us look at why women are in the movie, what their roles are, and the significance of them!
1) The film Studies at Harvard was interesting to me because I found out that there one can receive a full PhD program on film studies. One can even study abroad to where movies were made. It explained why film studies were so important and that there are many ways one can view a movie. One can benefit from taking a film studies class and analyzing because there is so much to study and the class is only 2 years long. One can break now movies into labs/experiments in how to “interpret the world in images and sounds” this shows how artistically the movie was made and how much time they took in making the movie. There is also a Sensory Lab that deals with soundtracks and the human existence and you learn how they touch you.
2) The Film Studies at Yale provide different terms of film vocabulary. They break the movies/film analysis down into 6 parts. This website is very helpful because it breaks down things into categories that can be useful to my paper. Sound that directors used to lead in and out of the scene. It’s sometimes used for creativity and directors put it in for a nice effect on the clip. There are many examples on how music pans in or out and why they would play that certain type of music in that scene. A lot of things are analyzed in a movie but sound is just one out of many and in many different categories. There is: sound bridge, sonic flashback, digetic/non-digetic sound, direct sound, nonsimultaneous sound, offscreen sound, sound perspective, and many more. If one can put their sound into a category one can understand more thoroughly why director’s put that certain sound in there and how it makes the movie more understanding.
3)Corrigan, Timothy’s A Short Guide to Writing About Film help you understand more on why it’s important to write analytically about a film. They can help you understand more clearly why you dislike or like a film and to compare and contrast one movie to another etc. This website helps you break downs the steps into writing your paper and how to do it effectively. There are questions you have to ask yourself and you need to better understand technical film terms to speak analytically. There are many different shots that directors do on purpose to get more from the viewer. A lot of things are good to analyze besides just camera angles. There’s also lighting, costumes, and actors to consider. This website will help anyone write their paper.
I chose the popular link “Web English Teacher Film Study” first. I began reading about camera angles and now understand WAY more then before. Probably the most interesting to learn about was the shot length, because directors that cant write down what is going through a characters mind like an author can. All they can do is show you with different close ups and angles shots to help portray what a character might me thinking. The close up is a great example of this. You usually do not get right up into someone’s face unless you personally know them or you are intimidating them. This is easily written in a novel but director’s use carefully thought out camera angles to show us. I also enjoyed understanding how directors use the camera level to make the audience feel “godlike” position. (Birds-eye view) Or they place the camera low so actors like Tom Cruise actually look normal height to the audience.
Another quite interesting site was the Yale Media Studies link. The site had a guide to pick from a few different aspects of analyzing films. I chose to educate myself on the sounds and how directors use sound bits to sometimes give some foreshowing later on in the movie. I really like this site because after every sound deconstruction section they had a shot clip to give an actually example to help you understand the information. At the end of most scenes in movies there is a small sound bit that carries over and help the scenes transition. I thought it would be kind of hard to be creative with this because the sound playing usually (I thought) to set up the background of the scene better. Directors use several different sounds at once to keep viewer wondering what is happening or what is coming up. In one of the clips provided by the site, the music playing in the background is playing a romantic melody after a break-up with her boyfriend. This foreshowed that the girl was going to be in another happy relationship.
The last link I chouse was the “Wisconsin Film Festival”. This has gone on for 12 years now and seems very interesting. Many up and coming independent directors just starting off can submit there videos here and may be shot off to stardom. Many kids participate in the festival and you can volunteer to help out if you wanted to. You could never know if a movie could make it to the big screens like the other big Hollywood producers. “Paranormal Activities” is just one great example of a small budget, independent, movie maker that got hot and became on of the scariest movies this decade. Wisconsin has several film festivals and convention going on. Anyone that is trying to make it as a director should defiantly check it out. It seems very fun and entertaining.
The first link that caught my eye was "A Short Guide to Writing About Film". This page gives an abundance of information and tips to assist us in successfully deconstructing a movie. These tips include how you should keep your audience in mind while writing, how camera angles are used, about the approaches used when analyzing a film, the style and structure in writing, and how to research your movie. The site also includes various questions that can help us to think deeper and understand the complex messages within a movie. I plan on using these tips and question's as a guide to writing my film analysis paper. I found the quote, "Remember there is pleasure in analysis, in unraveling, in thinking" insightful and I would have to agree. At the beginning of this unit, I thought analyzing films would be incredibly boring. Though I still occasionally enjoy just 'staring' at a movie, I've found that critically and probing these films can also be entertaining.
The second link I selected was "Web English Teacher Film Study". This site is full of various links meant to inform and assist people that are studying and writing about films. The first thing I saw after entering this page was the camera angles link. This caught my attention because in our paper we're supposed to be analyzing the angles of different shots through out the film and it's been something I've been struggling with. It describes each angle and explains it's significance. Some of these angles include the bird's eye view, high angle, eye level, low angle, and the oblique, or canted angle. Another link on the page called, "Studying featured films" recommends certain films to analyze and gives information on how to successfully deconstruct them. I'm looking forward to using this information to my advantage and improving my critical thinking skills.
The third link I chose was "New Ways to Teach Cinema". What I liked about this page right away was how clean and uncluttered it looked compared to the other sites I had visited. This site's arrangement made finding certain information I was looking for simple. The link "New Ways to Teach Cinema" walks you through the deconstruction process and uses different concept maps to further explain the system. These concept maps can help us break down the knowledge we've learned through out our analysis and use them as an organized structure to present with. I also found how the author explained deconstruction along with the process of reconstruction, or "re-composition" interesting. After deconstructing a film and analyzing it, we can reconstruct it allowing us to achieve a completely deeper understanding of the movie. "New Ways to Teach Cinema" is another tool I look forward to using throughout my deconstruction process.
Hilary Peterson pd. 7
My first website I looked at was A Short Guide to Writing about Film. This website starts out talking about why we go to the movies and exactly what we get out of these movies. It explains how experts write reviews to lure the broadest possible audience. People aren't going to go to some random movie on most occurances. People want to read an indepth, trustworthy review to give them a good idea if they will like this film or not. Then the site tells you some elementary questions to ask while watching the movie. Thes questions may be a bit dull, but they are only meant to get you started on your essay. It also describes the importance of taking notes while watching a movie to truly deconstruct it. Providing a wide range of different camera angles, this site definitly helps with giving the writer a good idea on just why the director has the camera where he/she does. There are different categories of films are studied here as well. In our culture, there are many different types of movies and understanding these differences is crucial to writing a good paper.
The second website I chose was Boston College Film Studies. This website brings what you are going to do at college in perspective. It tells you exactly what the film studies course at Boston College will be like. Not everybody will be going to Boston College, but most colleges follow a similar format to teach film studies. The areas that college students will spend most of their time studying will be video, photography, and television. Studying these will improve the student's critical and technical skills. Another reason why studying these things in college is that this class opens the door to a lot more deeper doors. With learning the basics in these classes, and not easy basics, one could find themselves wanting to follow a carrer in the film industry.
For my third website I chose to look up feminist theories in Feminist Film Theory. This website is a great website to show you how women are degraded and looked down upon in many movies. This also shows how some movies take women out of their steriotypical women roles and switch them with men roles. This website explains how feminist film theory started and how its used to deconstruct movies. In our culture, we have been used to seeing movies and shows with the male being the dominate figure, but hollywood sometimes throws that sinker and the public isnt alway ready for it. Some movies get lower ratings or lower attendace since the movie is daring and really trying to ditch the sterotype of the powerless woman.
I clicked ‘TV Tropes – Amazing Analysis’, and then clicked the Please Dump me tropes. It told me it was exactly what the plot of the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was about and that is the movie I’m writing about so I thought I would read it. “Almost always backfires; in fact, Sometimes it just makes things worse.” Exactly in the movie “How To-“ Hudson tries to make McConaughey break up with her but he won’t do it because of a bet. But it does really happen in life, people do really put themselves in those kinds of situations, whether it is because they don’t want to hurt their feelings or maybe they just don’t know how to do it. This movie shows the people who watch it that everyone has relationship problems and that when you find the right one for you, you will be happy. I also clicked on “Opposites attract” under this link. It stated, “About the biggest challenge in creating a day-and-night dynamic is to keep the “attract” and “repel” cases relatively balanced. When the pendulum swings too far toward the “repel” side and the characters seem more interested in torturing each other than helping out, it’s no longer cute to watch; it’s just masochistic.” Masochistic is the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation. Therefore the movie sells because people like watching people get played, humiliated, etc. It’s funny when it’s not you kind of thing, that’s why it’s entertaining. This paragraph also states “strong relationships, in both TV and real life, thrive on how each member compensates for the other’s weaknesses with his/her own strengths, and vice versa.” This link helped me find things I can use to help me write my paper on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and also it helped me think about my own life, when I am in a relationship and how I will treat others and be treated in return.
Another link I choose was ‘U of Colorado Film Studies.’ While about this class it tells how film studies help with your critical thinking. They are courses to make you think well and get a better thinking process for life. “The BA degree in Film Studies gives students a solid background in critical thinking and writing, skills that serve students well in any career they choose.” That means by taking a film study course you are not only getting an easy A (writing papers and studying movies isn’t that hard) in your class, but you are getting ready for the “real world” by giving yourself the chance to learn how to think critically with thought instead of thinking without reason. Also by studying films it says that you are studying films as an art, not to just make films or recreate ideas. By studying it as an art you are seeing what affect it has on life. It just shows how important it is to direct your thinking in high school and college otherwise they wouldn’t have degrees in this film studies. To me it seems like film analysis is just another word for critical thinking.
Lastly, I choose the XX link then I followed it to http://afronord.tripod.com/teach.html it showed me all about the importance of film deconstruction. For example how important color is? Today we don’t see hardly any black and white films. This is because we are not in a black and white world. We are in a color world, full of life and art. This site stated, “If you like finished and polished texts, get a book.” To me this quote is so true, after reading all about film studies and doing our own in class. In the “real world” nothing is really just handed to you with a solution. When you have a problem you have to figure it out for yourself and THINK about it. In text you can take things differently but here are only a few ways to take it, when you watch a film you see real life problems and can think about those that can help you in real life. You are seeing real people on a screen and not reading about people who maybe aren’t real. I think that is why a movie seems so much more real.
The first link I choose was Study Guide Film Analysis. This website will be extremely helpful while writing my paper. This website gives three links: Film analysis essay guidelines, film review guidelines, and film analysis terms. Although we aren’t writing a review, it offered ideas that could be used in a paper. The review gave a list of what one should have in six paragraphs when writing a review. A couple of the questions one should answer in the paragraphs include: How did the actors portray key character roles? Were any particular film techniques used in key scenes? How did the film techniques and music enhance the setting and themes of the film? The general terms is also something that will be helpful while analyzing my film and writing my paper. It lists and explains the different shots used in films, camera movements, camera angles, sound, and editing how shots are put together. Using these terms will be very helpful when talking about the techniques and other camera things used in our papers. The terms will also be helpful when taking notes. The Essay guidelines will be the most helpful. It includes questions about background, structure/form, and theme. It will be easy to follow these questions as a guide and use as a checklist.
The second link I decided to click on was the Feminist Film Theory link. I choose this link because I plan on using a feminist point of view in my final paper. Feminist film theory was acquired from feminist politics. In this website there is the history about development of feminist film theory. There was also a list of feminist film critics. It also had two key themes: The Gaze and the Female Spectator and Realism and Counter Cinema. Under the Realism and counter cinema section it also mentioned how crucial the compositions, editing, lighting, sound, and camera angles are to a movie. “The early work of Marjorie Rosen and Molly Haskell on representation of women in film was part of a movement to make depictions of women more realistic both in documentaries and narrative cinema.” Beneath The Gaze and the Female Spectator it had information about how Hollywood filmmaking uses the woman to represent something. One of the critics, Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives that occur in film which serve to sexually objectify women. The first is the perspective of the male character on screen and how he perceives the female character. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen. The third "look" joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience member's perspective of the male character in the film. This third perspective allows the male audience to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate himself, through looking, to the male character in the film. This website was okay. It gave me an understanding on the feminist point of view and what we women think of things and how critics put it into perspective.
The last website I decided to write about was A Short Guide to Writing about Film. There was a lot of helpful information on this website. It was broken up into seven different chapters. It also included a list of technical film terms. It was very helpful how the terms had pictures as examples to show one what they are talking about in the terms. Like many of the other websites and handouts this website also tells us to watch for lighting, camera angles, and sound. After seeing this in so many places, it shows how crucial those things are to analyze while watching a film. Under Chapter two, there are many helpful tips for one to use when they are “Beginning to Think, Preparing to Watch, and Starting to Write.” Another thing the website mentioned to think about was the purpose of the movie’s name/title, and costumes related to the time the movie was made. This is another one of those websites I found helpful and will use while writing my paper.
Brittney Myrlie
Pd. 7
One of the links I chose was A Short Guide to Writing About Film. I chose this link because i thought it would help me write my paper. This website is very helpful because it gives you many words that are used with film making. I haven’t read the handouts yet but i have read the website. there are a lot of words on this link that i have never heard about. Some of the words i have read will be used in my paper for sure. This website helps because it will give you the word and explain what it means. then it shows you an example of what the word means. Also it bolds the words used for film making so they are easy to find. The website talks from shots, to camera angles, to music, to editing. It gives you all the information you need for analyzing a film. Also it talks about how to analyze a film. There are different “chapters” for step by step help on how to analyze a film. Also each “chapter” asks you questions about a film. Some of these questions would be a very good idea to include in my paper.
Another great link was Yale Film Studies. Like the first link i looked at, this website also had many words i can use in my paper. The difference between this link from the other one is that this one describes what the word means better. It gives you real examples from movies. The examples are clearer on what the word means. Also it is more organized and easier to read. They also have actual short movie clips to help you understand what they mean. I liked this website more because it was easier to read and gave more examples with film clips to help you understand better. This link looks more professional.
The last link i chose was Los Angeles Mount St. Mary’s College Film Studies. I thought this college was very interesting. The grading requirements really shocked me. I guess i never really thought of the way a college grades you. I knew it wasn’t like high school because you dont get little assignments like you do in high school. “The students will be graded on a 1400 point scale. Perfect attendance is worth 250 points.
Each session missed will result in 100 points being deducted from the final grade. More
than four sessions missed will result in a failing grade. Students may make up only ONE
session for 100 points by writing a paper on the material missed. Class participation in
the form of discussion and weekly Clip Quiz is worth 250 points. The mid-term will be a
storyboard consisting of (6) photos telling a story with a beginning, middle, and an end is
worth 200 points. The final paper is an (8) page paper covering one of the genre listed for
the course, and is worth 500 points. This paper is due on the 5th weekend. Late papers
will be deducted by 100 points for each week after the due date. A take home Final will
be worth 200 points that is due on the 6th weekend.” In this class you have to turn off your headphones, pagers, cell phones, ect. Also you leave your laptop in the back. Later in the website it breaks down week by week and session by session of what they will be studying, watching, and learning about in the class. I’m not sure how long each session is but you get a lot done in one session. I know taking a class like this would be a lot of fun but also challenging. It would make you think harder and challenge your thinking when watching films.
The first link I chose was the "U of Iowa Film Studies." From there I went under "Specialized & Topical Cinema Resources" and went to Feminist Film Reviews. The 'Aladdin and Home Alone' article is the one I read. Linda Lopez McAlister describes 'Home Alone' to be a very bad influence on children in this article. She goes on to explain a comparison that she thought up about how this movie is a lot like a cartoon in that characters are abused throughout the tale and that kids may not know the difference between cartoons and movies with real characters such as this one. Both motion pictures show characters that "suffer incredible mayhem," as she puts it. For instance, 'Home Alone' shows bricks falling on the 'bad guys' and paint cans flying at their heads and other traps after traps just as a cartoon like Daffy Duck. Kids may think that abusive behavior is okay since its not a cartoon and it's real people. Linda thinks that kids know whats wrong and right from a cartoon but they may not know that for a movie or show with real people playing the characters' parts. Linda also talks about the movie "Aladdin" but I don't think she has a very good point about this movie because she is really just explaining that she didn't like it and that's about it.
The second link I chose is the "Study Guide Film Analysis Link." This links tells you how to write a review for a movie in steps; paragraph by paragraph. For instance, the first paragraph should be about what you think of the movie you saw. The second is to "Summarize the plot of the film," the third to explain the actors and what you thought of them, etc...mainly to explain the film in depth. The ending paragraph should be about whether you think the reader should go see the movie. After this, the link goes on to explain and define some movie terms, like shot, scene, montage, and parallel action. The link even describes some different types of shots later on and different ways and techniques and their terms in filming. The end to the link mainly is just a list of questions you can ask yourself when you write your film review paper.
The third link I looked at is the "Greatest Films of All-Time," where I went to a sub-link called "Great Chick Flicks." The introductions starts out to explain their definition of what a chick flick movie is by saying that they are "trite, sappy, emotional, soap-opera-ish, cliched, melodramatic, weepy, and trivial." Then after that this link lists some of the most typical actors and actresses seen in chick flicks. After the introduction there is a graph that shows "Memorable and Great 'Chick' Flicks." The graph includes the movie title, pictures from the movie, and a tagline and/or memorable quotes. The list of movies starts way back from 1934 and goes all the way to the year 2008.
For my first link I chose the U of South Dakota Film studies because that is where I am going to go to college, so it caught my attention. The site is basically telling about the minor of film studies at the U. The site states the objective of the course consists of studying the impact of the cinema on society and culture as well as to make a short film of their own. This link is useful to my understanding of film analysis in that if I were to take this course, it would open my eyes to a wider spectrum of how movies relate to different societies and different cultures. Taking this course would further my ability to analyze movies while considering how they relate to society and culture, as well as basically make me a more intelligent person. I also understand that simply being in college I will have to be an exceptional critical thinker just because of the high bar that college is set at and I understand that I would have to have many lenses to succeed. A little info that I find particularly useful and interesting is "the Film Studies Minor will study the impact of the cinema on society and how cultural values are communicated through the film medium."
For my second link I chose the Los Angeles Mount St. Mary's College Film Studies. This site is a professor's syllabus, which is very interesting to look at. This link offers course objectives, as well as grading requirements and a guideline to when the students will be studying what. This link is very useful when it comes to our film unit. This site gives you a feel of what would be in store for you if you were to take a film study course and exactly what a prof would be expecting from you. I like how I have this raw copy of a syllabus. Looking at this syllabus also helps me to understand exactly what college profs would be expecting of me. I also like looking at the college grading scale as apposed to the high school grading scale. The college grading scale is based on points, and 250 of the points for this class you get my having perfect attendance which is very interesting to me. A bit of information that caught my eye was, "COURSE OBJECTIVES:
To expose the students to ten different genre beginning with the Silent Era to the
character driven Sleeper films. To develop an understanding of the language of the
camera, and how it tells a story."
For my third and final link I chose the U of Colorado Film studies link. What the link/site consists of is as follows: It describes the history of the course, as well as the future hopes for the course. It also has a few facts about the course and tools used in the course. This site will help me to understand the accomplishments that can be made after taking it, where I could go with a film degree. It would also help me to understand different things used in a film study course. It lists all of the equipment they have for the course, and they have a lot. On a collegate level, this site helps me to see almost how much more trust you are given in college, on this site it is saying students have access to 16 mm film prints as well as a wide array of cameras, film and digital video editing equipment and optical priinters just to name a few. Something I found interesting on this site was, "Film Studies explores narrative, documentary, avant-garde cinema and fine arts animation."
I chose "Deconstructin 'The Lion King'" because it is a classic film and at first thought I wonder how on earth could such a funny, scatter-brained film could have any meaning other than entertainment. This link describes how both the students and the teachers in college cannot simply sit in the classroom and stare at the wall; they must concentrate, become engaged and learn to look beyond the moving animal pictures on the screen. In addition, the link mentioned that the described assignment would be given three days of work time. This shows that you would not be able to write five words about a certain character and be done with it. It shows that you must look deeper and write, not only several sentences, but several paragraph on one character alone. Then comparing notes and asking questions are essential to perhaps realizing something about a particular scene, line or character that you did not notice but find fascinating and enlightening. Deconstructing simple, once-thought-of-merely-entertaining film such as The Lion King can show that every film can be deconstructed and seen in a whole new light.
"Feminist Film Theory" was my second choice. For centuries women have been fighting for the right to be seen equal to men. In many movies women were simply seen as accessories to men; they merely stand in view of the camera and are expected to look pretty. Women are ofter protrayed as weak, helpless and incapable of virtually anything requiring brains or bravery. Recently I have noticed that the commen "damsal in destress" female characters in many Disney movie are show to be very strong, smart, clever, stubborn, and independent. If that is the case, then why are they being shown to wait for "Prince Charming" to rescue them? Why not solve to problem or save the days themselves? They have the power to create their own "fairy tale endings" but they are not giving the chance. Movies are still guilty to the crime of steryotyping women, however, it is becoming less frequent and less severe. We are finally being shown as equals to men; on and off of the screen.
My final choice was the "Greatest Films of All-Time" link. Who decides which films are the greatest of all time? The viewers do of course. Movies that are entertaining to some, may repulse others. Or some movies could make perfect sense to me, yet my family is clueless on the point of the plot. But does a movie need a plot? Technically yes, however, it does not have to be a set plot. Film series often are the talk of the town when they are complete; whether it is good talk or bad is another story. "The Lord of the Rings" has always been popular because it follows closely to how the story is told in the books. "Pirates of the Caribbean" may have left some viewers angry with the seemingly tragic ending to the final movie of the series. The viewer has their own opinion and it is important to respect what they think of the movies; just as we wish for them to respect our own points of view.
The first website I looked at was Film Analysis at Yale University. This web site has a ton of useful information including terms, cinematography, editing notes, and sound notes. Some words that I read on this page were mise-en-scene, which includes “all the things that are put in the scene.” the setting, decor, lighting, costumes and the performances are all part of the mise-en-scene. I also learned how much the lighting can affect the scene. The intensity, quality, and direction of the lighting can focus your eyes on what you are supposed to look at. There are many clips on this website that show examples of what they are talking about. In the section about editing, there are clips showing each type of editing technique they are using. Although I don’t think that the editing is the most important part of a movie, it does make a difference of how one scene is led into another scene.
The second web site I read was Study Guide Film Analysis. I liked this website because it breaks down how someone could write a six paragraph paper about analyzing a film. I’m sure that I can modify that and use that for part of my essay. This website also has definitions for different film terms and I hope to use some of them in my essay also. One word that I learned from this site was voice over, which means that the spoken words are laid over the other tracks in sound mix to comment over the narrative or to narrate. This is important for my essay because there is a lot of narration in my movie. Also on this page are questions to ask yourself while analyzing your essay. One question that jumped out at me was: Are there any aspects which are left ambiguous at the end? Why? This is important for me to think about because in The Notebook, there is not a clear ending. We are not sure what happens in the very end. Do they die together? Or are they just sleeping? The viewer gets the opportunity to make their own conclusions.
The final website I read through was on Web English Teacher. From that site I clicked on Film in The Classroom, and from there to Adaptation From Novel To Film. I was interested in this part of the web site because the film I chose to do, The Notebook, was based on the novel written by Nicholas Sparks. It is said on the web site that the main part of the narration from the novel is lost in the movie’s adaptation. I liked that in The Notebook, the narrator is still a main part of the movie, and we don’t lose that aspect from the translation from novel to film. The question is asked about how closely related the film should be with the original novel. The author of this web page says that “the film maker is an independent artist, not a translator for an established author, but a new author in his own right." I agree with what he says, the movie should not be exactly the same as the book, otherwise we wouldn’t care to watch it. Its nice to have a little change in the movie.
*Study Guide Film Analysis
*Deconstructing the Lion King
*Feminist Film Theory
1. I liked the Study Guide Film Analysis link because it was simple and to the point. It gave you an outline of what a paper should look like and what each paragraph should consist of, I thought that was very helpful. This website could be very beneficial and useful when I write my paper. The different general terms and types of shots that are given help too. Knowing these things makes you more knowledgable and help when analyzing your film choices. The way shots are put together and different angles are nice to have access to on this site. I think this site is very helpful in a variety of ways.
2. Next, I chose the Deconstructing the Lion King website link. I chose this link because the Lion King is a classic and a movie loved by almost every child or adult. The Lion King is an awesome movie to deconstruct and analyze because there is so much symbolism and meaning behind it you do not get as a kid watching it. On this site it shows that paying close attention to the characters and little things is very important. "Emphasize that this exercise is not about watching a movie casually. They will have to pay close attention and think critically about the story, how the characters are depicted in the film, and come up with some ideas about the main messages of the film." This site also encourages students to group together and discuss the movie and what they analyzed.
3. The last one I chose was the Feminist Film Theory, because I am a female and this pertains to me. "Initial attempts in the United States in the early 1970’s were generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women." I think that females and the way they are portrayed has changed greatly for the good and bad, depending on the way you look at it. Women have gained more respect and are treated more fairly than in the past, but at the same time women especially in films these days are portrayed as objects of lust. They are sex symbols and that is not always a good thing. On this site it explains the stereotypes society has of females. Thinking critically and analyzing certain films with a "feminist lens" is beneficial and makes you more knowledgeable. Whether you are a female or male, feminist film theories impact both and it is important to use your "feminist lens". On this site I like the part under The gaze and the female spectator, it points out the "male gaze" and how women in movies bring visual pleasure to men. Other times though, when a woman plays a strong looked up to figure that is respected it is nice to look at the feminist side of things and appreciate it. This site gets down to the simple Hollywood filmmaking, and I like that.
The first link I chose was Study Guide Film Analysis. This website is absolutely golden. It has everything anyone could ever want to write an analytical paper about a film. It has a link where it even has guidelines to writing a good essay. It has questions like “Why does the film start in the way that it does?” and “What three or four sequences are most important in the film? Why?”; all things that are perfect questions that should be asked when writing a paper about a film. There is also a Film Analysis Terms list very similar to the handout we were given in class. It has things like Shot, Camera Movement, Camera Angles, Editing, and Sound; all things that should be covered as to why a movie is desirable to a viewer. There is even a paragraph by paragraph guideline of what a good paper should look like. There are also sample assignments that one can do to help prepare him/herself to write a paper, and a guideline to the MLA format and your Works Cited page. The second website I chose was Web English Teacher Film Study. This has a whole mess of different pages that someone can use as guidelines to writing a good paper. It asks similar questions about camera angles that we would, and if you click on that link, it answers those questions. A student can easily access answers to vital questions. One link is The Grammar of Television and Film, and this talks in great detail about camera angles, editing, sound, lighting, and many other things. It goes into great detail about camera angles and the different types and what scenes they are best used for and why. It also talks a lot about camera movement, panning left and right, fading in and out, and tilting up and down. It even talks about breaks in the plot like flashbacks or slow motion shooting. The third and final link I chose was the best of all; it was also the first on the list. This was, A Short Guide to Writing about Film. This is an absolute goldmine for anyone who wants to write a paper on a film. It breaks it down into different chapters and pretty much outlines how a paper should look. Chapter 1 is the pre-game stuff; it talks about the movie reviews and preparing yourself to write a paper. Chapter 2 is asking questions and forming a general outline for your paper. Chapter 3 is different film terminology. Chapter 4 is a list of six different ways you can write about a film: Film History, National Cinemas, Genres, Auteurs, Formalism, and Ideology. Chapter 5 is all about making your paper better, changing some of the boring verbs to more gripping ones and making sure your sentences don’t drag on and on. Chapter 6 is about outside sources: books, websites, or magazines. He finishes with Chapter 7 which is just the classic 1” margin, double space, indent, all the grammatical stuff everyone should already know.
L. Maassen
1. Feminist Film Theory
“Feminist film theory is theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analysed and their theoretical underpinnings.” This website offers the history of feminist film theory, and also the key themes of feminist film theory which are the gaze and the female spectrum and realism and counter cinema. The site offers three perspectives on how films sexually objectify women. The first is the perspecitve of the male character and how he percieves and treats the female character. The second is the perspective of the of the viewer as they watch the female character. And the third perspective joins the first two look together, it is the male viewers perspective of the male character in the film. This last perspective allows the male viewers to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate to the male character in the film. I think these three perspectives will help me to better understand the romantic comedy that I am deconstructing, The Holiday. They will help me to see through my feminist lens more clearly, and help me to see whether or not the female characters in the film are being objectified.
2. A short guide to writing about film
“We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.”This website talks about how to write a paper on film and film terms and topics. The website offers six approaches to writing about film. The first approach is Film History, which is one of the most popular methods used in film criticism. The second approach is National Cinemas. This approach talks about how movies differ from country to country, and about how culture effects ways of portraying the world in the movies. The next approach is Genre, a discussion of genre is a sufficient way to begin analyzing how a film organizes its story and its viewer’s expectations. The fourth approach is Auteurs. By using this approach a person would examine a movie by associating it with a director and the big time actors in the film. The next approach is formalism, which involves matters of structure and style in a film. The last approach is ideology, which is more or less politics. Some ideological approaches are: Hollywood Hegemony, Feminist studies, race studies, class studies, post colonial studies, and queer theory. All these approaches will help me to write my paper more scholarly. I will particularly be focusing on the genre, auteurs, and ideological approaches while writing my paper over The Holiday; because it is in a specific genre-romantic comedy, it has a famous director and four huge stars, and also has some ideological messages concerning feminism.
3. Web English Teacher Film Study
This website offers a wide variety of links on the home page. Some of these links include: camera angles, city of cranes, the director in the classroom, film in the classroom, finding inspiration in literature and movies, the grammar of television and films, greatest films, etc. I chose the link camera angles. “Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. You need a straightforward set of key terms to describe them.” The camera angle page talks about the different types of camera shots. There is the extreme long shot, the long shot, the medium shot, the close-up, and the extreme close-up. The site also discusses camera angles. The types of camera angles include: the birds-eye view, high angle, eye level, low angle, and oblique angle. The page also talks about the seven basic methods of camera movement, which are: pans, tilts, dolly shots, hand-held shots, crane shots, zoom lenses, and aerial shot. By studying these angles, shots, and movements I will be able to recognize them in my film and note the significant effect they have on the feel of the scene.
Samantha Hagen 3
I found the first link was very useful from Corrigan, which is a short guide to writing about film. It takes you through the first process of film reviews. Then it goes into The theoretical essay which is used to explain the more complex structure of cinemas. The critical essay falls between the theoretical essay and the movie review. Opinions and Evaluations are important when writing a film but don’t stick to them. Corrigan says its important to take notes in the first showing, make sure to take down key shots and narrative facts. Learning the different types of focusing and lighting will help you deconstruct your film better. Learning all of the characters and the main story and view points will help you get a better grasp on the topics. Once you watch the movie once and get a good feel watch it a second time and really take detailed notes of everything you can and finally watch a third time to catch anything you might have missed.
The second link I chose was Web English Teacher, the link talks about different genres of films and how they appeal to different people. You will usually ask your self what is this film about? You need to say who is play a certain character once in your paper in the beginning, you do that by listing them in brackets. The setting in the film is very important it adds so much to the film as does the soundtrack. The soundtrack adds to the mood of the film it can intensify sadness or horror. Special effects are huge and special to each type of movie. Distances and angles of a camera can make and object appear very different. There are many different shots including low, eye level, high, worm’s eye, canted and birds eye theses are used to get the effect you desire. Different focuses of lenses and witnesses of lenses also makes a differences.
I liked the Films Glossary Link because it reminded me of some of the important parts of movies. Such as the Climax which is the high point of the movie. There is many movie terns I didn’t know before like beat with is a smaller dramatic unit within a scene; a scene within a scene; a change in direction of scene content. Coverage-the camera angles a director needs for dramatizing values in a scene and for effective editing. For example, a full shot, over-shoulder shots, close-ups. Denouement A brief period of calm following the climax, in which a state of relative equilibrium returns (resolution)Leitmotif A motif or theme associated with specific person, situation, or idea; usually reprised for dramatic effect. Leitmotif is some intentionally repeated element (sound, shot, dialogue, music, etc.) that helps unify a film by reminding the viewer of its earlier appearance. All of these definitions will help make my paper better.
The first link i selected was the deconstructing the 300 movie poster and it hits big on color schemes used, atmosphere created, the emotion and lust for battle showed by the dude on it, body language, objects in it, camera angles etc. i thought it was very interesting i enjoyed it.
The 2nd link i read was the greatest movie series. This was a great read i found the criteria of how they selected slightly controversial but good (the number of films in the series, The combined gross box office and popularity). I mean no matter what any greatest film series list is going to be controversial its all how the writer percieves and well how the writer likes the movies, This list is pretty good though touching on planet of the apes james bond and starwars this is a great link !
Finally i read the new ways to teach cinema link and this was an interesting article, anything about new teaching methods is pretty cool its new ways to appeal to students and different ways to hook interest i was a little confused reading it but still i found it very good.
Ashley Wise 8
The first link i chose was the deconstrustion of the the 300 Poster. I chose this one because personally I found the movie absolutely boring, but all the guys I know love this movie with a passion. I want to know a little more why, so i chose this link. It goes through the steps of analyzing the poster very well, and very thoroughly. Each little subtitle has something written underneath it, and it's tearing apart the poster. The biggest paragraphs were under objects, color, body language and setting. In objects, one example of the deconstructing,is he points out the sheild. It says the because of how he is holding the sheild he must be in battle. In Settings, it says that the setting looks like a mean place because it is very gray. In Body Language, it says that his mouth is wide open showing that he is shouting. And in color, it says that the two main colors are red and gray, which both point to blood and despair.
The next link i chose was U of South Dakota Link. In this it describes the class as like an 18 hour class. You can see that with all the choices you must pick from, it'll be longer than 18 hours. However, film studies is only a minor here. They do have requirements. 6 Hour's of Film, Genre, and culture, or/and film history. Non-Requirements include 6 hours of Film Appreciation or/and World Cinema: Film and Culture. Electives include 6 Hours of American Indians in Films, US West History in Film, Video Production, Directiong for Video and Film, Introduction to Acting and Directing. Even though this is a minor it still offers alot for students i think.
The Third link i chose was Boston College Film Studies. Here, you can both major or minor in Film Studies. The major in Film studies here came about in 1999. Some the classes are Russian Cinema, Poltical Fiction Film, History of European Cinema, and introduction to Film Art. These are just four on a list that contains over 30 classes. With that type of choice you can pick and choose how you want your career to go.
1. Web English Teacher Film Study
This page on camera angles also tells us about camera movements and then gives you other options on what to look at on this website such as sound and using you camera. If you are really analyzing camera angles in you paper this would be a great website to look at because it gives you many options and examples. This link includes points about the use of sound, lighting and narration. I think this site is useful for both my individual paper and my group presentation because it includes information about films and film language. One thing, specifically, that I learned from this site that will help with my group presentation is the term “backlighting” from the link, the grammar of television and film.
2. Study Guide Film Analysis
This website has terms you can use that can make you sound more professional and more technical. This website also has a list of questions that it is telling us to look for in our movie. It can help us get started on writing our paper. It gives us ideas about what to put in our paper. These questions helped me get started on my paper. The questions involve background, theme, and structure/form. I believe this website will be useful in writing my paper because this website gave me an idea on how to write my paragraphs and what to put in them, but I believe it would have been more useful to me if it had shown examples of the terms it was explaining.
3. Teaching Film Studies
This site provides many links to other websites and pages that could teach you about film studies and could also help teach someone else to teach a class about film studies and research. On the top of the page are six areas in which the site provides information to teach about film studies. These areas are: theory and criticism, genres, film production, film history, general resources and teaching film studies. Each group has links that take you to other websites about these topics. This website is very useful for individual papers because it gives you information about different areas and if ideas are needed you can come here and look through the different sites to easily give you information on topics you have questions about.
A Short Guide to Writing about Film
When you grow up you just watch movies and you don’t really think about them you just watch them. This site said that there is a lot of different ways to watch a film. Every time you watch a film you have a choice to make, “to watch” or “not to watch”. If you watch and may attention then you are going to pay attention and be more likely to read more deeply into the film. If you want to watch and analyze a movie you can look at reviews and see if it is worth your time because reviews are a type of analysis. But there is also a difference between opinion and observation, because what is entertaining isn’t always the best movie is analyze. “Remember there is pleasure in analysis, in unraveling, in thinking”. When I use to watch movies I only really cared about the plot and maybe who was in it, other wise I didn’t really care and I didn’t think that the music to the movie would bother me. But the music to the movie almost has a greater effect on us the the movie its self. But because we learn by more then site and sound both of them help us to learn what is happening and help us to feel how the people in the movie would feel if it was really happening. Movies can involve a lot of different things not just music but what the director chooses to involve has a great effect on a film and who watches it. If you don’t like football you aren’t going to watch the movie but the sounds of the helmets hitting could give someone that likes football a huge advantage to liking the movie. To people in football that sound could be like ok lets go play some football others might cringe at the sound it depends on the people and who the director wants to target.
Deconstruction of a 300 Film Poster
Film posters also say a lot about the movie, if the poster is bad you are more then likely not going to want to see the movie because the poster looks like crap how could the movie look good?! Setting, objects, body language, everything is a factor in what the poster is saying about the movie. Lens choices are also a huge deal because how you see the movie, and weather or not you like the movie.
New Ways to Teach Cinema
When you watch a movie usually there is a formula on how the movie will work. Some directors change is up because they want to leave you guessing and make you stay till the end of the movie. Everyone has there own say if a movie is good or not. The plot also has an effect on the viewer and any part of a film can help you deconstruct a film and help you to like it or not like it.
Andrea Maassen
I found the Timothy Corrigan website very helpful. I really liked how he went into depth about film deconstruction. Especially the following part:
“Film can help you 1) to understand your own response to a movie better, 2) to convince others why you like or dislike a film, 3) to explain or introduce something about a movie, a filmmaker, or a group of movies, 4) to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others as a way of understanding them better, and 5) to make connections between a movie and other areas of culture”
These are very good film explanations. I do admit that these websites help a lot with the professional ideas. He goes into talking about different ways to write about a film. Whether it is critical or an opinion paper, he gives pointers to help. He even goes into theatrical film terms, with an example picture of each, which could be very helpful in writing our papers too. The website has seven chapters from his book, all of which very critical. He goes from a chapter over beginning to write, to style and structure in writing. This website could be very helpful with writing and analyzing my film.
In New Ways to Teach Cinema, I found the hypermedia tools very intriguing. The hypermedia access is very beneficial to students. It is similar to a forum session, where different film experts comment on the film and the student can read them while watching the topic of analysis. It gives you helpful tools that you can be used in the film analysis paper and our group presentations. I found the concept maps toward the bottom of the website very helpful as a visual aid. These could be used in our group presentations to help people understand what we are talking about even better. This could especially help since many people are visual learners. The organized structure of this website helped save time and it was easy to find things. It helped me by explaining deconstruction and reconstruction. After deconstructing a film, we can reconstruct it to get even more involved in the meanings of the film.
The last website database I chose to study is, The Greatest Films of All-Time. This could be very helpful with the film analysis paper and the group presentation. It has a very large list of movies with the cover picture of the film that you can click on. When you click on a film, it has a summary of the film, characters, themes, and much more useful information. It has 100 films at least. On the homepage of the website it has links to certain things/types of movies you may be studying, which could be very helpful in group presentations if you had a special theme.
JOEY BRANNAN P.5
The first website I choose was Study Guide Film Analysis. When looking through this website I realized that it will help me with my paper. There is a list of general terms about sound, camera angles, camera movement. These terms can make you sound more “scholarly” in your paper and make it sound more realistic. This website also has a list of questions that it is telling us to look for in our movie. It can help us get started on writing our paper. It gives us ideas about what to put in our paper and how to anylize it more thoroughly. These questions will help me get started on my paper and how to do it more proplerly. The few questions that I would not have thought about answering. are, What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole? How are the opening credits presented? Do they relate to meaning? Why does the film start in the way that it does? I now know that these are questions that I can add to make my paper sound intelligent.
The next website I decided to write about was A Short Guide to Writing About Film. The title says a short guide but it realy wants us to get the meaning that it is more helpful information. This website split up into different groups; from abbreviations, some questions and how to make the paper proper enough to turn in. They talked about abbreviations and what they mean.This helps me understand how to do this the correct way. They tell the definition and an example of each term, which helps me understand what it means. They had some questions about sound and theme of the movie. . This website shows some ideas to look for when watching the movie as well for example, theme, camera angles, sound, lighting and why the movie was named that way. When thinking about the costumes they are trying to portray the character a certain way, show the audience what the film makers what us to see. I know for sure that this website will be very helpful in writing my paper. This link will help me to get going on my paper and understand how to do it the right way in order to receive a good grade.
The final link I looked at was Web English Teacher. When you first enter this link you get a page that has different links to view and study from. I choose to click on Study Feature Films. This website talks about characters, setting, music, sound effects. When they talk about characters this website tells you what you should write and not write it helps me understand how I am supposed to analyze my chacters in my film so it isn't just thrown together. They say to only tell the actors name once and possibly in brackets. Talk about the characters gestures, habits of speech and favorite sayings; it should give you a pretty good mental picture. They say that the music/ soundtrack is important for the mood of the film, and I agree. Playing the wrong music can make a movie decrease in likeability very fast, but in some movies there is no sound track which is ok also its just saying if you have music in a film it needs to flow and conncet to the movie that it is being played in. This website talks about special effects also. This is one topic I forgot about. I can talk about the special effects in my paper now. They say that the special effects can contribute much to our enjoyment of a film. This website will also help in writing my paper.
One of the links that I chose was Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. This website was very helpful. I found it helpful because it explains the main aspects that you need to use in your paper, and how to use them. I found the camera angle abbreviations to be interesting also. I am surprised at how few there are! I thought that, based on watching movies, that their would of been many, many more than what was shown. And I think this will be extremely helpful for me. It also shows you how look, and what to look for in a film to make a great essay. I would certainly recommend this website to others, and I hope they will be able to find it as helpful as I did, and find that it will help you along the way as they write their essays.
The second was New ways to teach cinema using hypermedia tools. I also found this website helpful because it explains new ways to deconstruct a film using hypermedia tools. A hypermedia tool consists of an editor and optionally a high level language for creating hypermedia systems. This website is similar to the first link I chose, but way different. It is different because it does not offer camera angle abbreviations, and go into depth like the other one, but similar because it also explains the main aspects that you need to use in your paper. It does not go as much in depth as the first link I chose, but will still be helpful in writing my paper. This website also gave us ways that we could use to help deconstruct our film as a group, or in our own papers. This web site could seem to help with presentations also.
The third link that I want to talk about is Film Terms Glossary. I really found this one helpful because it also has a ton of film terms that that I did not know up till today. I would most definitely be using this web site, along with my first chosen web site, to help me, and to make my paper better, in order to help me reach college level writing standards. This site relates to well the first link I chose because they both break down film terms, and they both have camera angle abbreviations, and (as mentioned before) has a ton of film definitions that directors use to construct great films, which will help my group on making a great presentation, and will help me further deconstruct films because I will know what to look for in a film to see if they use all these terms, or how few terms that they use
all these blogs are too much! we already have a huge presentation and a huge paper due! lay off a little please!!!! this is out of control. we are in high school and have jobs and sports to worry about too!
“The film review is a type of film analysis which aims at the broadest possible audience.” This is from “Short Guide to Writing About a Film.” This helps out writing an essay because this shows me what movie go towards. For my film the director is focusing on teenagers that have troubles and need a way out. This website also has “Elementary questions to ask when watching a film are” which will help in many ways. These questions help out with the basics for analyzing a film, but with that I can use it as a start and further more help my paper grow in intensity and to the move important elements.
Next is from the “Web English Teacher Film Study” link. I choose the camera angles because this helps realize what the angles mean in the movie. The long shot is first; this comes up various times in my movie and in many movies; “and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot.” Like in mine and other movies most of the shots show you where the location is or the feeling it gives you. In my movie when Jake goes to school the first time it is a wide shot, he goes through the crowed hallways to his class. This helps show the viewer that he is not important and blends in with the rest of the crowd. “High angles make the object photographed seem smaller, and less significant. The object or character often gets swallowed up by their stetting- they become part of a wider picture.” This helps in my movie because at the final battle the camera angle is above, this helps show the fact that the main characters are important; but to also show how the crowed has grown. The growing size affects the movie because of how important this final fight truly is.
“Study Guide Film analysis” is what I choose next. Throughout this page I came across “Soundtrack: Consists of dialogue, sound effects and music. Should reveal something about the scene that visual images don't.” Soundtracks are very important for movies; they make you feel what you should be feeling at that time. From song lyrics to song melodies help play into the feeling when watching a film. Most love stories have an up beat feel because you know that is will be a happy ending. Where as action movie have an intense beat to give the feeling that something exciting is about to happen. Scary movie though to me have the best songs, they make that intense freighting feeling. The viewer knows that something will happen especially when the music goes form slow to fast or no music at all. Scary movies try to appeal to the surprise factor and soundtracks help with that.
The first link that I clicked on is called “A Short Guide to Writing about Film.” One of the first things that I noticed was that there is a short list of things that film can help you do. It can help you to understand your own response to a movie better; to convince others why you like or dislike a film; to explain or introduce something about a movie, filmmaker, or a group of movies; to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others as a way of understanding them better; and to make connections between a movie and other areas of culture. I believe that all of these things are true. I especially like the statement about the fact that film helps you to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others. In my film essay, I could compare Up to other Disney movies that have a similar theme. I will also remember to keep my audience in mind at all times, like this page suggests.
I then selected the link “Study Guide Film Analysis.” This website has a list of questions to consider when writing a film analysis essay. The writer of the website mentions that you should “keep in mind that sophisticated film, like literature, requires more than one viewing to begin to appreciate its purpose beyond merely the plot.” I plan on watching my film, Up, at least three times so I can be sure to notice every little thought that the director put in to making the movie as good as it is. Some background information that should be included is the writer of the film, whether the screenplay has been adapted from another work, the director, and when the film was made. Some other things that I will include are an analysis of why the film starts in the way that it does and how the film uses color or light/dark to suggest tone and mood in different scenes.
The next link that I chose is called “Web English Teacher Film Study.” I clicked on “Camera Angles” because I will need to analyze the different camera angles that the director of Up uses in making the film better as a whole. The website says that camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order, and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. Some different kinds of shot lengths are extreme long shot, long shot, medium shot, close-up, and extreme close-up. I plan to analyze when and why those shot lengths are used in my film, Up. Some different kinds of camera angles are bird’s-eye view, high angle, eye level, low angle, and oblique/canted angle. I will also analyze when, how, and why the different kinds of camera angles are used in my film. Different kinds of camera movement are pans, tilts, dolly shots, hand-held shots, crane shots, zoom lenses, and the aerial shot. I will analyze those kinds of camera movement in my film analysis essay. It’s interesting that I am analyzing an animated film, so there really isn’t anyone holding a camera thinking about the angles. The film is made on a computer, but the types of shots are still used.
The first website i looked at was studyguide.org it is a website about how to right a film review and film analysis. The website helps people who want to write like film analysis but don't really know how to write one. It tells you what you should put in the paper like who director was when it was written and by who wrote it. It doesn't tell you were to put them but only asks you questions. Like for a structure/form question "what does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole?" it also asks you other questions but is very helpful to people looking to do film analysis but don't know where to start.
The second website i looked at is about Jeol and Eath Coen. The website goes into detail about where they were born and where they grew up and how they became such good team. It also says that they do things in different ways then most detectors. It says that the Coen brothers like to combine eccentricity, wry humor, arch irony, and brutal violence in there films which we saw in No Country for Old Men. The move has most of these if not all of them. It also says that the Coen brothers like the us classic American movie genres but they keep them postmodern feel to them. Which again we saw in No Country for Old Men.
The last website i am looking at is Rob Ager. He deconstructions films like blade runner and pulp fiction and many more. I think this website is helpful to give us examples of what someone who does this a lot would look like doing it. It helps show that we are not the only ones doing this. It helps bring our thinking to a new and higher level by reading someone else work and helps us become smarter to. It also helps us maybe pick a movie that we would not normally pick. By reading someone else work we might want to see the movie after reading it and doing a film analysis paper on the movie our self instead of a film we have seen 10 times.
The first website i looked at was studyguide.org it is a website about how to right a film review and film analysis. The website helps people who want to write like film analysis but don't really know how to write one. It tells you what you should put in the paper like who director was when it was written and by who wrote it. It doesn't tell you were to put them but only asks you questions. Like for a structure/form question "what does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole?" it also asks you other questions but is very helpful to people looking to do film analysis but don't know where to start.
The second website i looked at is about Jeol and Eath Coen. The website goes into detail about where they were born and where they grew up and how they became such good team. It also says that they do things in different ways then most detectors. It says that the Coen brothers like to combine eccentricity, wry humor, arch irony, and brutal violence in there films which we saw in No Country for Old Men. The move has most of these if not all of them. It also says that the Coen brothers like the us classic American movie genres but they keep them postmodern feel to them. Which again we saw in No Country for Old Men.
The last website i am looking at is Rob Ager. He deconstructions films like blade runner and pulp fiction and many more. I think this website is helpful to give us examples of what someone who does this a lot would look like doing it. It helps show that we are not the only ones doing this. It helps bring our thinking to a new and higher level by reading someone else work and helps us become smarter to. It also helps us maybe pick a movie that we would not normally pick. By reading someone else work we might want to see the movie after reading it and doing a film analysis paper on the movie our self instead of a film we have seen 10 times.
The first link that I wrote about was the “A Short Guide to Writing About a Film”. This website tells the reader what to focus on when writing about their film. The website notes that when writing about a film, it is essential to keep the audience in mind at all times. You want the audience to be interested in the paper or presentation so that it flows better and you can interact with them. When the audience is involved, you can agree or disagree on certain things and it keeps them attentive and intrigued. The website also mentions to keep in my why a movie starts and ends the way it does. The link shows you the different camera angles that movies use and has examples of each of them. This website is helpful because it talks about the different things to look for in movies to write about. This website will help me with my essay because I know what to look for and to get into detail more about.
The next link that I used was the “Darthmouth Film Studies and Glossary of Film Terms”. This site asks the question, “What’s so hard about writing about film?” Later it explains that movies capture the viewers’ interest and they get lost in the entertainment of the movie. And as a result, certain aspects of a film become “invisible”. Because of the gripping entertainment, the viewer tends to miss the camera work, lighting, editing, and sound that all goes into making the movie possible. But when people are supposed to write about a movie, the “invisible” things are the things that you want to focus on the most. These little things are crucial to movie making and make the movie. Without professionals doing all of the hard work of putting the movie together with the different camera angles, lighting, and everything else, the movie wouldn’t have the same effect to the viewers’ experience. It mentions to not write a review of the film. A review is usually a viewer’s response to the film. An analytical paper over a movie is breaking it down and noticing every little aspect that is put into making the film. This website is very helpful and I plan to use it for my paper as well as the team presentation.
The last link that I’m writing about is the “U of South Dakota Film Studies” link. This website explains what this course offers and what to expect in taking this course. I found it interesting that the way that they’re studying movies is also a way of seeing how a culture was during that time period. This class also gives the students the opportunity to make a short film. I think this would be a fun thing to do because it’s a way of expressing yourself. But some people may find that they like making films and maybe start a career in the film making industry. You never know how something is until you give it a try. So you really don’t know what you’re good at unless you give it a try. There could be a lot of talented moviemakers that don’t know it yet. One of the things that are offered in the class is Introduction to Acting. Some moviemakers might be good at acting as well. This class exposes the full 360-degree angle of movies. This class lets students learn about culture through movies, they get to learn how all of the directing ties into making a movie, as well as acting in the movies. They even get the opportunity of making their own short films. This class sounds interesting to be a part of and it’d probably be fun.
My first film link I clicked on was 100 greatest films of all time.It's good because it tells you what films are the greatest films of all time. They separate into different parts and they have some that have reviews with them. They give you insights on what the film is about and what year that it came out.They also give ratings on the film.I like how they lay everything out and they tell about the awards.I think that it is very important to be informed of these things, because it will help you deconstruct in the future, and thus you become a smarter person. I notice across the top of the page they have info about history, scenes, generes, oscars, quotes and the whole mess. That shows that these people put in alot of time and care about what they have put together. My second link that I picked was New Ways To Teach Cinema. Hypermedia uses something similar to a cine forum session where different people can introduce a film and put their feedback in at the end of it. They take advantage in new ways that show changes on how films have changed and how films keep changing ove time. We understand this by watching these films and their pictues. Repetition means different perception of the film and will
probably modify our film language. Furthermore, now people want to know more and more about the films they
watch. The increasing amount of complementary materials added to DVDs is a good example of this tendency.Deconstruction is a way that shows us how we can enjoy a movie without being! "Lazy"! This also shows that we can get more out the first time if we take lots of notes and pay attention to what we are doing when we watch these films.My final link that I chose to pick is Deconstructing the Lion King because, I'll always love that movie it's a good one. I notice the two separate columns that they have made up iwth teacher and student.It's good that it tells you to watch the film a few times before you decide to start the deconstruction. I like how they tell you to pick out a few certain characters and start with what you notice about them, their lives, and what they do everyday.Using assessment also help you in ways that you are teaching yourself something that you don't usually understand, unless maybe you were a teacher. Showing yourself that you can pick things out of something such as a movie can also help you in group projects and furthermore later in your own life. Ask questions about what you don't understand and you should be on you way to a good deconstruction and a happy teacher/professor. I also like the whole thing where you shouldn't overlook things either because that can cost you sometimes.
ReannaMennis_6
Melissa Bendixen
Pd. 6
The first link I chose to view is titled “Teaching Film Studies”. This site provides many links to other websites and pages that could teach you about film studies and could also help teach someone else to teach a class about film studies and research. On the top of the page are six areas in which the site provides information to teach about film studies. These areas are: theory and criticism, genres, film production, film history, general resources and teaching film studies. For each link on this website, they list other websites or pages that provide information about each area. The link, theory and criticism, for example includes areas such as feminist approaches, postcolonial theory, postmodernism, psychoanalytical theory and other theories. Each group has links that take you to other websites about these topics. I think that this website is useful for my individual paper because it provides information about many different areas and if I need ideas for my paper, I can come here and click through the links they have and easily add information.
The second web site I read was "Study Guide Film Analysis". I liked this website because it breaks down how someone could write a six paragraph paper about analyzing a film. I’m sure that I can modify that and use that for part of my essay. This website also has definitions for different film terms and I hope to use some of them in my essay also. One word that I learned from this site was voice over, which means that the spoken words are laid over the other tracks in sound mix to comment over the narrative or to narrate. Also on this page are questions to ask yourself while analyzing your essay. One question that jumped out at me was: What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole? I can use this question because the title is Gran Torino. When you think of that title you think of racing and nice cars and one of the main things in the movie is the old mans car that everyone wants - but it turns out that the person he trusted the least in the beginning - he trusted the most in the end and received the car.
My third link was "Feminist Film Theory". “Feminist film theory is theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analysed and their theoretical underpinnings.” This website offers the history of feminist film theory, and also the key themes of feminist film theory which are the gaze and the female spectrum and realism and counter cinema. The site offers three perspectives on how films sexually objectify women. The first is the perspecitve of the male character and how he percieves and treats the female character. The second is the perspective of the of the viewer as they watch the female character. And the third perspective joins the first two look together, it is the male viewers perspective of the male character in the film. This last perspective allows the male viewers to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate to the male character in the film. This will help me with my movie, Gran Torino. In this movie his wife dies and he becomes more sheltered and angry - makes her glorified. Also, a vietnemese girl is raped and beaten. They will help me to see through my feminist lens more clearly, and help me to see whether or not the female characters in the film are being objectified.
One of the sites i chose was from boston college and in there information they stated The Film Studies Program has arisen out of a need and desire to assist students in developing critical and technical skills in the area of film. Which shows that film studying has become a large part of are culture today. It shows that more and more students are interested in the study of films since it was becoming a need and many students wanted it because it was also desired. Also while majoring in film studies at boston college you explore the culture and historic periods of the films and it also shows the difference between the old and the new ways of filming it also provides all students with a more dominant understanding of the media today. With everything we do nowadays it involves the media somehow or the movie industry cause they are including so much more now such as ads in movie to get people to buy the stuff celebritys are using.
My second choice is the Syllabus from edison community college. it descripes the course and also has some set goals to tell you what you will get out of the class, also core values and the topic outline. The course description tells you that you will be introduced to the film language and survey of the important periods of film history. In the course goals it has a lot of the same stuff that we are doing in class now such as discussing movies in class, recognizing such genres and examining the various cultures depicted in the film we are also looking at things that are in the film and asking why was that put there and what is its purpose of being there. It also shows that college classes are more of anaylizeing things rather than grammar it will get you to think harder and make you think of a lot of things that you wouldve never thought of before. My third choice was a film glossary which shows all the different types of words that a film maker will use. if learning more about film making and the language they use this will be a great website cause it lists all the terms for the film even what the climax is and other terms. if you were in need of finding a term this would be a great website to use cause it shows how much of an art film making is with all the different things needed to make a film and how many terms you need to know just to do the job they are doing. for other uses of this website it is not very useful i believe cause it is just terms it does not tell you about film history or what they are trying to get at besides a large list of vocabulary terms for films.
Martinmaas_5
Chelsea Mattson pd. 7
For my fist link I picked the very first one on the page called “a short guide to writing about film” I found this useful because it says the three main reason we watch movies are to “1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.” I think there is definitely some truth to that and something I can definitely consider while presenting in my group presentation or my essay. I also thought this website was very useful because it explained all the different types of shots, so I will know how to correctly refer the them in my paper, before checking out this website I didn’t know the difference between a whole shot or a half shot, and I didn’t even know there were such terms as a crane shot or a tracking shot. It’s really helpful since it gives specific picture examples of each one, I can also use it out of school, just watching movies in general, and use the terms to sound more educated. It even gets into the photographic properties of film! Tips on sound, filming techniques, and different camera focuses will also be very useful.
For my second link I choose film terms glossary since it was extremely helpful, I’m not familiar with most film terminology, except the simple stuff. It was easy to use since it just listed off the definitions, there was of helpful words from cinema to cutaways to composition. It was interesting to also find out about something called a mise en scène [mizA~sEn] which refers to everything that appears before the camera, and its arrangement, from props to actors, to actions. It quite literally means “put into the scene”. I found this kink of weird but interesting, since I’m not really sure how to pronounce it correctly. It went on and on, I really had no idea there was so much film terminology, guess I am definitely best off not getting into the career of film production, I never really imagined how much knowledge had to be acquired by the directors, producers, and actors of a film, I didn’t realized you could go into analyzing film knowledge, something I will definitely consider for my paper.
For my last I selected the Web English teacher film study because I really liked the way it was layed out to begin with(good advertising technique). But the most useful was definitely the links, they really went into detail. There was quite a bit of detail for a few techniques. I found a ton of useful info under the camera angels tab. I found the camera movement info at the bottom of the page very helpful. It can help you describe angels, and better understand how they were created. I also was intrigued by the studying feature films link, it explained that the word media stemmed from a Latin word meaning “which explains its irregular ending”. It explained the general film requirements of media study. All of which I will be able to use in my essay and my presentation.
Joe Egge P.5
the first link i took was the Feminist Film Theory one. i found it quite interesting because i am i guy and i do not stop to think about the female side of things. inside the link there is a story about how women's role in films has changed over the years, "from reverence to rape," which in my "feminist lens" i can tell that women's roles got more and more degrading. it is interesting to think about that mainly because it is sad but also the truth!.... this page also helped me exercise my different types of "lens" that you have been teaching throughout the year.
the second link i took was the greatest films of all time link. To me, this link is like the "Library of the Movie Decontruction Unit." if i wanted to go look up what made a certain film the greatest, i would go to this link. this will help me write my paper, in the long run, to point out pointers that i should point out in my decontruction analysis of The Hangover. It will help me see the main artifacts that make a film appealing to the human brain, that are sometimes difficult to distinctly see.
The final link I am going to blog about is the Web english teacher film study link. if i were a professor, or mr. c or even presenting in a college bound english 12 class in march(haha, this website would be helpful in explaining the movie. for instance, camera angles. if i were to focus on teaching students what angle and shot MAKES a film, this link would help. i know that mr. c has read all these links, but i don't think i have the words to stress enough HOW MUCH THIS LINK COULD POTENTIALLY HELP US IN OUR FILM ANALYSIS! USE THIS LINK!
1. Deconstructing The Lion King. Could possibly be one of the best movies to deconstruct. It has so many different meanings. And when they made it they put all kinds of little secrets and hidden messages in it, that a lot of younger kids wont see until they grow up and show it to there kids. Giving each student a character even if it is not a major one. will help them realize and understand the movie. (Also emphasize that part of deconstruction is to notice “bipolar oppositions” in a text). Showing the lion king at this age would show the true meaning of the movie. The movie shows friendship at the best it can be and how no matter what comes between two friends they are always there for each other even if they are a warthog and rat. It shows how no matter how you look or what you do for fun there is always someone out there for you to be best friends with and make memories.
2. Teaching Film Studies, teaching about films benefit you in every way you can think of. Sure some times i can ruin a movie a little bit but when you go through and analyze it you get the true meaning you don't just stair at the tv and become stupid and fill your head with nothing. You find the hidden messages that the producer wants you to find. You learn about the film and what the true meaning of the movie is. You learn to use your mind and look and think about what the little things could mean. You become more then just a average person. you get more knowledge. (film and food are subjects difficult for analysis.) Anyone can analyze a magazine or book but if you can also do a movie you could be considered valuable.
3. Greatest films of all time, Most of the good films are he ones that don't lead you on in the end. They let you know that the next one is going to be just as good. They keep the end hard and not soft they make sure that ending is good or people might think the next one is going to end like that. some americans don't like the different endings. They like the same old happily ever after. So if they can end it with that but also with a lot of excitement people will want to come back and see the next one. this will help them by people going out and telling them to see it. ( A remarkable and rich reference source for all film buffs). Every movie that is going to be like and said to be a great one and even make the 100 greatest films, will usually have more then just one. They will make a second even if its not as good. And if they plan on making a third they make sure the second is better then the first.
1. The first link I clicked on was the Greatest films of all time. It lists mostly great film franchises that have been around for the past forty years. It says in order to be a great film franchise it must pass 3 points. 1. there usually is three films. 2. They usually have a combined revenue of 400 million dollars. 3. They also must have a huge popularity and usually a big budget. This sight also has a complete plot summary of any of the movies. This is very helpful if you want another persons input on what they movie was about or if you didn't understand a certain part. The summaries are very detailed. Last I looked on the page for The lord of the rings the two towers and at the bottom it showed film notables like budget, gross, awards and etc. I found this sight to be very helpful if you were researching a big name movie.
2. The next link I looked at was New ways to teach Cinema. It talks about how with new ways of watching movies we can get more out of it. One method they talked about was watching a movie and then having a forum on it. This is similar to what we do in class but I think it is a good idea. Also this person encourages repetition of watching movies to get more out of it. The more you watch a movie the more you get out of it. Also it says that people now a days want to get more out of movies than ever before. With DVD's we can do it with all of the extra features in it. This link is helpful because it teaches people how to deconstruct movies and how to take the most out of it. It is a very helpful site and would teach the class a lot about deconstructing films
3. The last site I looked at was Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist. This is a site where a person has shown people samples of his work in film analysis. This is very helpful for people who are unsure of how to deconstruct a film. They can simply look at a few of his and get some inspiration. There are also film reviews and other such stuff. But this is very helpful for people in our class. This author obviously understands what he is doing and sets good examples for us. His analysis' are good and thorough. He even uses clips to help get his points across. That benefits someone who learns better with visual aids. Also a lot of the stuff he teaches affects all of us. One thing he looked at was race issues. That strikes deep to a lot of people and is a very controversial topic. All in all this is a good site to visit if you are a student who needs help deconstructing.
Lyle Hall_6
The first link that I picked was Feminist Film Theory. In this they explain how through time women and men have become more sensitive to how women are portrayed in films, books, and other articles. They were even stressed on how much show time a women got compared to a man and the roles or lines that the women took or had to say. Actually the feminist movement started in England and then came to the United States of America. There were and are many writers, mostly women, who write entire books about feminism and how it affects everyone. Most recently, scholars are explaining the roles of women in the everyday TV programs and how their role makes people think or feel the way that they do. Women are key factors in persuading someone to think a certain way or how they view the movie or TV show.
The next one I chose was TV Tropes- Amazing analysis. It gave many tips on writing fiction. It did not give you glitches to write a paper or how to cheat out of writing something that might fool your teacher or professor but it teaches you how good writing can be picked out of a large group of people by just simply writing well and using proper English helps. This page also shows how writing about a movie or many movies together is much different than writing a paper about an ad or book. A movie has more realism and life lessons to them then other things because they seam more real and connect with the viewer in ways that books or ads just can not do on their own. This page also brags on how it is much better than Wikipedia saying that Wikipedia has people how do not know what they are talking about.
My third and last chose is the U of Colorado Film Studies. It started in 1972 and has only grown from then. This school is known for its commitment to interdisciplinary teaching with a special emphasis on study of film and the visual arts. The ex-teacher Stan Brakhage taught there for over twenty years and he has left a legacy behind him for all future students to step into his shoes and explain why things happen the way they do in movies and films. It says here that they have a new film study building that cost over 34 million dollars devoted all to the studies of film in the world. If people are spending that great of amount of money just to study films how important are movies to us? Very important that is how much. They center people life and entertain too.
the first link i chose was the greatest film franchises in this link it descibes all the major trilogy's/cequalles and more. for each indaviduale movie/trilogy's it has a prief description about the film had what the plot is and many pictures of the main characters and cast member's. towards the middle half of this link it has a section called popular section. here is where you can find many different links to go to that have even more and exciting great film's to chose from. At the very bottom of the page it tells you about there site,where it tells you haow there webpage works called Filmsite.org.
At the very top of this webpage it has a triva question of the day and this question changes everyday to keep you in tacked with there page and make you want to answer there question so it can take you to another linked page were they try and get you to but some of the product.
The second link i chose was mad max movies .com but when i first clicked on this link i was hopeing to be about mad max the movies which are one of my favorite set of movies to watch. At the top of this webpage is show mad max and i nice old soupped up car and to the left of this image there is a coulum of different links that you can go to and read about mad max's history, soundtrack, DVD clips/trailers and many more.If you were to scroll down you would see dates in which the movie will be coming out and different blog chats so to say about all different types of movies coming out and prief descriptions about them and a link you could go to to get the full story or background to the whole movie plus pictures of the main characters and cast crew.
The third link i chose was Web English Teacher this link was set up to help students learn more about many differences between two or more things and to help them understand how things work and how to deconstruc many different film's. to the left side of this web page is a coulum that has many catagories that one could chose from if they were looking for a certian type of movie to deconstruc there is drama/media/mythology and many more. In the middle of this webpage is different head lines that are links and under each of these links have a prief question or statemeant and a quite sentece telling you all about the link. In this link the creature of this webpage knows many students around the world us either twitter or facebook so on this webpage the creature has a facebook link and a twitter link so you could be on either or and still get to this webpage from there so it would be more benafical to students/teen's.
The First link I chose was a short guide to writing about films and it tells what the author thinks about how films can be written about. It starts out by telling the 4 most common reasons that people watch movies: to think, not to think, to stare at them and to write about them. The different types of writing that you can do are the movie review, the theoretical essay, the critical essay, and the opinion and evaluation. When doing the movie review your main goal is to target the biggest audience possible. The theoretical essay goes deeper into the movie and uncover meaning you would not find without some thought. The critical essay is more for people who are familiar with the movie and it reviews the key themes of the movie so basically it is less descriptive than the theoretical essay but is somewhat more descriptive than the movie review. The opinion and evaluation is your opinion of it. The link recommends that you not linger on how bad or good you think it is but try to go deeper into it and supports your opinion of it.
The next link I chose was the Boston College link. They offer a wide variety of courses based on all kinds of different types of films. Here they assist students in developing critical and technical skills to deconstruct movies. They offer courses from Film Making I to Teaching Assistantship. Whatever they want to learn they can enroll in. A major or minor degree can be earned in this course. The major applies the liberal arts to out present day culture of images and technology and it enables students active, selective and ethical participants in a world dominated by media and communication. Their studies explore the influence of films and their diverse cultures and historic periods. They gain a familiarity with several great films and film makers to provide a basis so that they can understand the difference between contemporary artists and industrial society. They have an opportunity to apply their knowledge to the experience of film making and exhibition through programs in scripting, photography, and internship program in the Boston area.
The third link that I chose was the film terms glossary because what the point of trying to learn about film making without knowing what some of the terms mean like climax which is the point where you can feel the tension and it cannot get any higher and it just makes you want to keep watching to see how it gets resolved. Another interesting one is coverage because it gives the camera a certain angle so it adds to the drama of the scene. Another one that I thought is interesting is montage which just puts together a number of different clips and is usually very cool because it is kind of fast paced and a task gets done a lot faster and cooler than it usually would. Another that I liked was stock characters which are very predictable and adds to the popularity of another character who is cooler and you never know what he or she is going to do next.
1. Feminist Film Theory
2. Jefferson College Film Appreciation Course
3. Los Angeles Mount St. Mary's College Film Studies
1. The Feminist Film Theory informed me of lots of things I didn't know before. Such as when in the feminist movement Film Theory was added: the second wave of feminism. People, including men, have written about the importance of film analysis - specifically feminist film analysis. I find it interesting that they chose to write about feminist theory as applied to films. I honestly didn't know it was as big of a deal as it seems to be to some people. I learned that theoreticians in England started critical theory from psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism before America did. I guess that doesn't surprise me much, but it still does leave me a bit surprised. One thing I didn't know was that it was only recently, really, that scholars have decided to include analyzing television and digital media. To me that sounds like something we should have started doing long ago. However, I'm glad that it did start in the first place, as analyzing movies - other than just insightful - it's actually quite fun!
2. At Jefferson College there is a course completely dedicated to film analysis (Film Appreciation). There is no prerequisite, meaning that you don't need any special schooling to go to hit and it examines not just every day films, but the history and basic elements behind them. It teaches the learner about the images they're watching, the sound that they hear (whether they notice it or not I'm guessing), the editing behind the movie, and the aesthetics. To me it looks like an awesome course! It teaches basically what we're learning now, but goes into more depth! I mean, it teaches the students to notice and determine HISTORICAL perspectives, and national perspectives, things that not many people notice, which is actually extremely important especially if the movie being analyzed is either set in a different country or is a foreign film, made in a different country. This course covers, not only American actors, but also Japanese actors. It's not just focusing on US unlike most of the US does. It seems to me that it goes outside of normal people's comfort zones to teach something very important.
3. Professor Lou Fossum at MSMC Weekend College has a class on Film Analysis called "American Film & Culture". In this class the Professor plans to show the students the differences between ten different genres. Many of his reasons have to do with giving the students a form of awareness about films, to create emotional connections from the films, and to demonstrate the power that film has in the American society, and overseas. The Professor is a no-nonsense teacher and if you signed up for his class, he doesn't want you to miss it - and that is very obvious in the grading requirements. I don't blame him because from the outline of what his class will be doing, it's a very important class and missing one day could cause a student to lose a lot of information that is vital to the class. Something I found interesting is that the class will be studying the Silent Era. I guess I never thought of the Silent Era of movies being important, but now that I think of it there's so much you could learn about from watching a silent movie! People understood what was going on due to the music that was played in the room, and didn't need dialogue, unlike people today who are so depended upon dialogue that most young people today would refuse to watch a silent movie. Most young people today refuse to watch a black-and-white movie! I must say that Schindler's List is one of my favorite movies and is in black and white. I wonder if I would really like a silent movie?
the first site i chose to look at was the "Greatest films of all-time". I thought it would be interesting to see what movies have made the most money and been the most popular. it was interesting to see the number of movies they consider to be popular. when i thought about greatest movies of all-time i thought like the top 100 not all the top movies of all time. but i also understand that it is impossible to choose movies based on the amunt they made at the box office since the price of going to movies has risen over time.
the second link i choose was the deconstruction of the Lion King. i choose this link because my group is analyzing other disney movies for our presentation. I also loved the lion king as a child so i thought it would be interesting to learn things that i had missed when i was a child,uninformed of social issues and world matters. i was diappointed in the little amount of actual deconstruction they did.
The last link i checked out was the U of South Dakota website. I thought it would be interesting to see the schedule for the class at one of our state's schools. i also thought it would be interesting to know what they analyze and the hours they put into this class. i also thought it would be nice to see with aspects of their course and what exactly they learn about film.
The first website i choose was "A Short Guide to write about Film." This is a great website to look at before one gets started on a subject such as the one we are doing right now. It first starts off with the different types of writing and explains each one. It states that even though each writing talks about different parts of the film that each one should keep the audience in mind. This will help in my deconstruction paper because it keeps you focused on what to write about and to not get side tracked. It then goes through how you should take notes on the movie and what you should be thinking about to deeply root out content. Then it talks about questions you should ask yourself about the movie when trying to analyze what it truly means. They basically deal with "why that is there", "why they are doing that", and "what are they trying to portray."
Next, I visited "Study Guide Film Analysis." It is generally about how to critically assess a film. They use questions to help the reader try and figure out the deep parts of the film because each one is different and each film could be analyzed different. They state that you must watch the movie more than once to truly gain appreciation for the art and to understand more about how the movie relates to real life. The first questions are about the background of movie meaning the director. Like in real life where people have to understand where they come from to understand what they are and where they are going; knowing the personality and the mind of the director helps understanding where the movie is going and what it means. The second set of questions is about structure and form. This helps deconstruct because the form of the movie and the raw structure of how it is shot tells the true story of the film. The last set of questions is about theme. These questions help relate the message of the movie to issues and morals in real life.
The third website i visited was from the movie studies class at the University of South Dakota. The website talks about what the film studies class with consist of. The students will analyze how a film from a certain time or event the world depicts the culture and what it was really like or what people wanted it to be like. The class also gives the students the opportunity to create their own mini-movie for the class. I found this interesting for many reasons. First, it lets the students have fun and people are more receptive to learning when they are having fun. Second, it gives the students a chance to see a film through a different view. When they create the movie they will see how each camera angle or lighting effect really affects or shapes what they are trying to portray. Third, it gives the students the chance to find something that they may be interested in for life. From creating a movie they may decide that they want to pursue a career in directing, acting, or producing.
1.Film Study at Harvard.
-This website gives information on what the classes offer and what is expected. It also tells you what film analysis is. “…work from the ethnographic to the experimental that interprets the world in images and sounds and expands the expressive potential of audiovisual media.” These are useful because there are quotes that could be used in our papers or presentations. Also, it tells you what exactly to expect of the class (or in our case our paper). This is a high ranked school so therefore any student should trust the information given. Looking at the quote, it is important to know how images and sounds are interpreted because then we can really understand the meaning of why directors go through so much work and spend so much money to create certain illusions and feeling in a movie. Also, the website offers resources that other students could use to get research. A student could look for those resources (since they tell of local and campus resources) to make their paper more interesting and more enlightening.
2.study guide-film study
-This website offers and outline that students can follow and terminology that will make a student’s paper better and stronger. This is all useful because if a student is stuck on where to start as far as a paper goes, they can look at the outline and know what information they need to make their paper better. This website also tells you what some camera angles show or mean. This is important because if we know what the angle shows then we can explain why the director chose that shot or scene. Or why the director chose that camera angle. The website has guidelines, terms and questions you can answer to get good content in your paper. Students need these resources to make outstanding papers and make educational papers. All of these resources will make our papers stronger and more intelligent. These are all things that I am sure are useful in this paper.
3.Yale Film Studies
-This site offers terms, which will help us understand what is being said about a movie and also give us more educational vocabulary to make our papers more intelligent. It talks about how quality and whether a movie is in color or black and white can affect the feel or mood of a movie. It also talks about the significance of each and why a producer or director might choose each option. It tells you have sometimes colors have significance and other times they do not. The website also talks about the process of making, filming, and producing a movie. This is important so that students know the hard work and how long it takes to make a movie amazing and inspirational. It talks about how décor in a room can set a scene, such as location or time period. This is important because if you know the time period of location you can better understand what was going on in the world at the time of the film or during the setting of the film. This makes it easier to relate to characters or situations.
The first link that i read was the link to Timothy Corrigan's "A Short Guide to Writing About Film."
In this link i found some opinions on why people go to movies and how to write movie reviews and essays about films. this is very useful because of our movie analysis paper that is due soon. In this link Corrigan states that when writing about a film your personal opinions and tastes play a large factor in your arguments. I agree with this because if it wasn't for different opinions and tastes people would be very homogenous in their personalities and everyone would see a movie in the same way. Thankfully this is not the case because of everyones different experiences throughout life. And so, using your opinions Corrigan states that you should form a solid position on an objective observation that you have made. I also found that on this site it gives you examples of different camera angles and shots that each have different purposes and uses, such as close ups that can be used to show somebody's emotions or meaningful parts of their appearance.
The second link i looked into was the link to wikipedia about Feminist film theory. while this link did not turn out to be very useful to my film that i am deconstructing i did find it interesting to read about the history of the feminist lens of analyzing films. Its interesting to me how Feminists began their film studies in the early seventies with how women were showed in movies as either active or passive and the amount of screen time they were given in the movies. I also found it intriguing to see that Feminist film theory integrated studies from many different forms of critical thinking such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics. with these it was seen that the ways that a movie is made affects the representation of women and defends sexism.
The third Link that i went to was the link to berkley's film studies and then to the review of the book "Screening Sex." This book is about how American movies have "grown up" since the beginning of film. It looks at how untill the 1960s the most sexual content that would be involved in a movie would be a kiss. During the sixties a "sexual revolution" occurred and movies became more sexual and have continued to become more and more sexual since. Since the '60s and'70s movies have evolved from having a little bit of sexual references to having sex involved in practically all movies including movies focused on children. This evolution is very dramatic considering that in the early 1900s sex was considered a dirty topic that was kept behind closed doors, in the dark, and actually somewhat taboo. ALOT has changed. and a question that should definitely be asked is, is it really for the better? Especially when the goal for society is to improve civilization. is a loss of morals an improvement?
The first link I have chosen for this blog assignment is the A Short Guide to Writing about Film link. It says we go to movies for many reasons. The four main reasons would be to think, to not think, to stare at them, or to write about them. I completely agree with this statement because it all depends on what your mood is when you go watch a movie. Sometimes I want to think about what I am watching but other times I just do not want to think, I just want to sit and stare and do nothing else. Other times it is fun to write about them because you learn more about them and become more scholarly by doing so. It also states how when you write about a film, personal opinion and taste will become part of your argument for why it is so good or why it is not good. If you are dull person you would not very much enjoy action movies or comedy movies. If you are happy all the time you will like romantic movies and comedies. It all depends on what kind of personality you have.
The second link that I have chosen for this assignment is the Film Analysis Sample Essay. It is very thorough and provides some details on why they use music where they do. They chose the very famous Beethoven and Rossini to inspire dreams of mayhem and destruction in which you have to use the best of the best music for that type of scene. Senseless violence with senseless and crazy music. It all links together. It also says that the film this essay is writing about is that although the film is futuristic, it is a critique of contemporary society. The clothes and settings are futuristic but it still relates to us quite a bit. Using surreal technique to a futuristic setting and plot helps us relate to the story and sympathize or hate a character. Also the use of music that should not be there confuses us purposefully and also points out how different and odd the scene is.
Finally, the third link I will be using is the Study Guide Film Analysis. Basically this link tells what different kinds of camera angles and shots there are in making a film. It also describes those different angles and shots on what they mean. For example the medium or mid shot is used to give background information while still focusing on a subject. This link will probably help me write a whole paragraph for my four page paper on Avatar. For the camera angles like the low angle camera shot, it shoots up at the subject. This is used to increase size, power, and status of the subject. No the opposite high angle camera shoots down at the subject. In which shows the increase of vulnerability, powerlessness, and decrease in size. Also the use of camera movement helps us think we are part of the movie if it is in first person or if the camera is following along side the character which helps people think they are right next to them.
Danny Sellers
1) My first website I looked at was A Short Guide to Writing about Film. This website starts out talking about why we go to the movies and exactly what we get out of these movies. Most of the time we dont just go to a movie to say we saw or have seen it, for me I wouldnt go to the notebook or ps i love you they arent "for" me were as like 300 or war movies are for me. It also says that you go to get the expirience which i completely agree.
2) For my second i picked deconstruction of the 300 poster. to me this poster shows Leonidis as the "ultimate BA" he is holding a shield that is defending him from the arrows of his enemies or the rain. Also the determination on his face says that he will never give up never surrender, Death before defeat i think is a fitting name for the spartans. Also if you look at the 300 logo it is made to look like it is made out of blood and there is blood dripping off of the 300 that is symbolizing a fresh kill. The scar on his face also makes him look like a battle veteran.
3) For my final I choose deconstructing the Lion King. In the movie there is a point when scar took over he has all of the hijenas marchin raising their hands towards him and also they are walking straight legged, could this be reference to Hitler? Another is when scar takes over and all the liones dont like him and the "good land" went from looking hevenly to looking like hell, this symbolizes that scar is the devil and that symba is god and meant to rule.
The first link that I chose was Dartmouth Film Studies and Glossary of film terms. I found this link extremely helpful. The first part of the page is devoted to the challenges of writing about films. It tells us that we should not just review the movie in our paper but ask important questions about why the film is the way it is. The link then talks about five different types of film analysis papers. This was kind of surprising to me because I did not think there were so many different types of film papers. The dartmouth link then explains what should be in the paper and tips about writing. Also it explains what should not be in a film analysis paper. This site also has a glossary of film terms which I find helpful. It describes the many different movie techniques that I was not familar with. This link is not just useful for writing about films. There are also links to other writing topics like music papers, religion papers, and philosophy papers.
The second link that I looked at was A Short Guide to Writing about Film. The page starts off the four reasons why people watch movies: "1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them". Then it asks elementary questions that you should ask as you watch a film. I liked the questions because they made me think of things that I probably would have never though of. It then has a list of technical film terms. I liked this list because it had pictures along with it. Other glossarys just list the terms and meanings which is not as helpful. I learn better if I can actually see what the term means. One example of this is the terms deep focus and shallow focus. If I would have just read the meanings I would not have fully understood what they meant but since this site shows what they mean I can now easily use them in my paper. This site also stresses the importance of the thesis statement in a paper. Next it goes into the six approaches to writing about film. The six approaches are film history, national cinemas, genres, auteurs, formalism and ideology.
The third link that I looked at was the Rob Ager link. This was a very helpful link because the author clearly knows what he is doing. There is a list of great films which he has reviewed. This can help people who are still struggling to find a good movie. Also, this provides us even more examples of what we should include in our papers. There are movie clips for each of the movies Ager has analyzed. There is a link to how to deconstuct a film It list what you should be doing during each viewing of your movie.
The first link I chose was the greatest films of all time. Then from there I clicked the 100 greatest films. I think it is important to look back through the years of film making. It is important to do that so you can improve and learn from mistakes that may have been made or simply learn from the greatest. A lot of the movies on the list I have never seen or even heard of before I looked on this website. It seems that many of the films that are on this top one hundred list were and still are books. They were books made into movies that appeal to the older generation more than the younger generation. Some of the movies listed were: ET, Disney’s Fantasia, The Godfather part I and II, and last but not least Jaws.
The second link I went to was the Feminist film theory. I like that it states that Feminists have many approaches to film analysis, regarding anything else. Saying that taking a feminist approach on things you consider more than what is in front of your face or what you are seeing on the screen in front of you. You are more aware of everything and the emotion that comes along with you being aware. I like that having a feminist outlook reinforces the beliefs and sexism towards women in general. For example if women just take what they see in a movie as being hot and nothing else where is the pride in that. If anyone puts that in to their heads that’s when there becomes problems. I am glad that this website shows there are classes devoted strictly to this study.
The third and last link I chose to write about was Roger Ebert, among the best. I chose this link because when we were in the lab and finding reviews I really liked the way Roger Ebert reviewed and gave his opinion on movies. He was blunt, honest and truthful even if in some cases the truth hurt the movie. I respect the way he uses comparisons to movies. For example he compared the movie I am writing my paper on which is Cast Away starring Tom Hanks; He said people like Cast Away because they knew what they were going to see. It was that comfort that people liked, with no surprise endings. With that he compared Cast Away to McDonalds, people like it there because they know the menu, they know what the food tastes like and it is not a risk for the common everyday person.
The first link I clicked on was A Short Guide to Writing About a Film. I picked this one not only because it was first on the list but because I though it would be a great website to look at for help on writing my film analysis paper. It turns out i was right. This website gives you different types of reviews to use when you are writing about a film. Who knew there were different types of reviews? I sure didn't I thought that you could either review and deconstruct a movie or just watch it for entertainment. This website also tells you what to look for while watching the film such as; the story, the acting, the editing, and even the music. I like how this website shows you examples and gives you terms to use in your paper. They give you a real picture of what it will look like and what it is called. What i found very useful are the sample questions they include. They practically are telling you what you should write about which is helpful to me since i can't always come up with what to look for in the first place. This website doesn't just tell you to look at the angles and editing it shows you what about the editing, angles, lighting, and music to look for. At the bottom of the page they tell you how to write your paper as for grammer and structure. It tells you about how you should have a thesis statement, concrete language, denotation and connotation, tone, repetitions, and how to write effective sentences.
The paragraph I find very useful is the following;The “pre-writing” stage consists of taking good notes. The next most critical element of the essay is a clearly focused topic—a thesis—that will allow you to get at the film or films from a workable angle. Even if your instructor presents you with a general topic, you will usually have to refocus it so that is more specific and personal. Another central task of the first stage of writing is outlining your topic. Outlines can provide real assistance with the logic of an argument. When the paper is written, it will probably depart from the outline and will certainly become more defined and more specific. Yet, an outline of any kind can be the foundation on which you build more complex ideas.
This paragraph tells you how to get started on writing your paper which is what i find to be the hardest part.
The second website I clicked on was Web English Teacher. I chose this one because when it first opened i noticed it had links to a bunch of other pages too. I like how it has all of the sources you would need to write a great paper all on one site. The first one they show is camera angles. Camera angles are important in a film because they give a cool effect and guides your judgement about what is going on. The camera angle can hide things from you so when something happens it is a surprise. I also liked how there is a link to a website that gives you the grammar of films with an easy to read definition and pictures so you can actually understand what it is and so you can use it in your paper. My favorite link is probably the greatest films link just because I have had a hard time picking a film to deconstruct. There are so many good movies out there! Also, you not only get a list of the great movies but also a film analysis on them that can give you good ideas. The paragraph I like on the greatest links site is; Detailed plot synopses, review commentary and film reference material are just some of the features available on the site. The site also contains film analysis, original content, information on the top films and most memorable movie scenes, "best of…" articles, and the most popular film quotes in all genres of film.
I like it because there are so many different things to look at about the film that they provide to you.
continued......
The third link i chose was Rob Ager Expert Film Deconstructionist. After getting on his website i clicked on film analysis. From there i scrolled down and clicked on 'How to Deconstruct A Movie a step by step guide.' When you go under his film analysis list the first thing you see are the movies he thinks are good ones to deconstruct. Of course this is a nice thing to have because it help you know which ones are good to pick. He also includes videos with some of them which is a great idea! On his step by step guide he tells you what to do when you watch it the first, second, and third time. He also tells you what to research further to help you research the personal and professional histories of the key players involved in the making of the film. The sentences I like from this website are; Identify recurring themes in their other film projects. Identify who / where the funding for the project came from and research those sources. Read other reviews and articles on the film to see if anybody else can explain aspects of the film that you could not decipher. Research the marketing campaigns that were used to promote the film.
I think this is an excellent idea! If you watch other films by the people that made the film you will have a better idea of what they like to use and how to interpret it. Also reading other people's reviews besides your own will help you see things that you might've missed. It could also help you to contradict yourself and give reasons for both sides.
-This link is full of information about films. It has all the techniques about films to the angles, of shots, the sound, tone, and goes into film history. He also explains on writing about films, what we are doing in class. This link states “We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.” I believe that in many ways, we do go for all those reasons. To think goes with writing about them and analyzing them as we do in class. And not thinking and staring at them is for entertainment, but everyone always talks about the film after to each other and I think that is one effective way for analyzing films is with the people your with and get different views on the movie. This link also describes three writing ways. One is a movie review, which is for the broadest audience where they will recommend or not recommend the movie. Then he has theoretical essay that explains some of the larger and more complex structures. This way target the audience that consists often of advance students or people who teach film studies. The next one is the critical essay. This is a cross between the movie review and the theoretical essay. These people assume that the reader has seen or is familiar with the movie. The writer will remind the reader of the key themes and the elements of the plot. These writers use cinema terms and choose specific parts of the film and analyzes them. The last is the Opinion and Evaluation way. You personal opinion and taste will become part or most of your argument. But it will provide a solid critical observation. I think that this one is the most effective because it will show things in a different view to everyone else and make them think in a different way. By expressing your opinion and how you look at things will and can make a difference on how others feel about the subject or movie, book, anything in general.
Deconstructing “The Lion King”
-This link describes a way to deconstruct a film with a class. I chose this one because it is about the Lion King and that got my attention because it is a childhood movie. This movie is a good movie to deconstruct with a class because everyone knows the movie, and the presenters would have their chance to have people look at the movie in a different view. This link shows a teacher’s and a student’s view and instructions to the reader about how to go about analyzing and deconstructing this movie that can give ideas to analyze and deconstruct other movies, which is relevant to what we are doing in class. This link is just like a preparation for you to do your own film. The teacher states “Divide the students into groups of four. Hand out The Lion King Handout to each student. Then have each group select one character to focus on as they watch the film. You should have characters pre-selected that have rich, central roles in the film. Don’t overlook the hyenas or the “bad” characters. Their accents and depictions leave much to deconstruct in terms of underlying messages.” I think dividing the students into groups and giving them instructions to a handout by answering questions about one character is a good idea. This can help the students focus on what they are looking for and will be able to answer the questions on the handout. By not overlooking the hyenas or the “bad character” as the teacher states, is a good idea, because its true that the accents and depictions already have it deconstructed. They choose the voices and people to do the movie because the all have the voice that they are looking for. This is a good link if people would want an idea how to do their presentation over films such as “The Lion King”.
Feminist film theory
-this link goes to the Wikipedia and goes through the history, key themes and a list of notable feminist film theorists and critics. The history goes through the studies of women and the feminism of society. This link talks about some movies that show how women are discriminated against and treated. These movies relate to the broader historical context, the stereotypes depicted, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the about of screen time is given to women. Movies can really show how society degrades women and portray them as just an object or not an human being.
((the last post was "a short guide to writing about film"))
The first link I looked at was the “A Short Guide to Writing about Film” link. I thought this link was very interesting and also very informative. I especially liked the different camera angle examples. I think these will be a great help in the deconstruction of my movie. I can use the correct terms for describing the angle I notice in my film. This site really clears up any questions about camera angles and styles of analyzing. This site also goes through the steps to help you analyze your film. These steps would be a great resource when writing my paper, I could go through step by step and follow this guide. I am sure if I followed it, my paper would be a collegiate paper, sure to be an A. This site also discusses the effects film makers use in their films. I think I could use these.
The next link I checked out was the “Deconstructing The Lion King” link. The way I understand it this is a college level assignment. I think it is interesting and a little bit funny that this assignment seems very similar to what we are doing in class right now. This just goes to show that we are getting a jump start for next year. It will be a big advantage to have experience in deconstructing and analyzing films for next year. I did think it was interesting in this assignment that the students were only supposed to analyze one character. I think this is a good idea because you can get much deeper into the character if you are only looking at one. If you look at multiple characters I think you would get more surface value and less depth. I also thought that it was funny that on the teacher column it sais “Emphasize that this exercise is not about watching a movie casually” This statement is 100% true and I think in this handout is the most important instruction.
The third site I looked at was the “Study Guide Film Analysis” link. This site is really really good. This basically lays out our entire paper for us. I am going to use this site when I write my paper, for sure. This site lays out the terms needed to deconstruct a film; it gives all the important camera angles, and even discusses soundtracks. The main thing I like about this site is the fact that it step by step tells you how to write your paper. I think this site is written by my hero.
The three links that I visited are: Web English Teacher, Wisconsin Film Festival, and Feminist Film Theory.
“Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. You need a straightforward set of key terms to describe them.” This is just one of the many helpful ways that the Wed English Teacher described camera angles. I liked this site because they used terms that were simple to understand but did not skimp on information. It also gave helpful insight on films that you should see and categorize them by what makes them great. Information is also given on how you can explain film analyzing to others; teaching is scientifically proven to be the best way to understand something.
The Wisconsin Film Festival link gave information about the University of Wisconsin-Madison Art Institute and how they incorporate film study into their student’s everyday lives. Their mission statement really shows how much they care about the understanding of film analysis and how they collaborate with other studies like Art History. Their vision is that students will experience the arts in all aspects of their education, and will be imbued with the importance of the arts to their academic life. I can relate this to our College Bound English Class because by analyzing films now it will make me more prepared for college level thinking.
The Feminist Film Theory link has information about the history of the feminist theory was developed. I will use this link to get ideas of how to explain the importance of the Feminism Lenz in my film The Holiday. It shows how women are portrayed as objects and significantly less important than male roles seem to be in films. It may be brutal at times and make men look bad but they can really act like scum towards girls. I don’t know now men think they can rule every aspect of life or control how female/male relationships work in life or on the big screen. I think that some men need a wakeup call, they need to think with their brain and shrink down their ego!Although alot they can not have full credit for all of their idiotic ideas, alot of influence come from the media. So I feel that the media may need to change and soon guys may follow.
Blog by Justin Gabbert
One of the links I studied was Film Terms Glossary. The reason I chose this link was because in order to deconstruct a movie who have to understand it first. By starting with a basis for films a person can get really into depth with a scene. With proper film edicate a person would sound extreamly educated in that field. Terms also help give a basic understanding. By starting from the beginning of how a film works we can then move on to deeper and more collegient thinking. Terms such as film itself can help someone analyze with more depth. Through sheer understanding of the beginning we can work our way to a better end. More complicated terms like denouement and leitmotif can easily be included into a paper. By the writer giving more of an incite to the reader thier paper will be more complete and efficient.
My second link was New Ways to Teach Cinema. This link helped give a basic understanding of what we do in class and what we will do in college. We deconstruct films. By deconstruct we mean looking at each literary scene possible and breaking it down into two possibilities, the common surface and deep analysis. The obvious or common surface is what the film is to a common glance. Weather its a guy standing in a window our a girl walking in the rain. With deeper analysis the guy in the window could be reflecting on his life and the choices hes made. The girl could be walking through here sins while the rain represents the tears she shed through those sins. With deconstruction there is also reconstruction. Reconstruction is putting a film together after you break it down into parts. After you break it down try putting other parts of the film together. Try to relate the beginning with the end and see if they compliment each other. There are many things that go into a film. Not a single detail is passed. Directors spend tons of money to help entertain viewers and prove themselves. The art of film making is a delicate and patient career. Not everyone is meant to direct, reconstruct and deconstruct films.
My final link was Web English Teacher Film Study. This site showed me an overal view of film studying. It made me start thinking why films are given awards. Actors strive to win an oscar. Do we have oscars in order to create better and more dedicated actors? Every year awards are given for films. What makes a film elegible for an award? How are films awarded? We give films awards for best picture and greatest roles and themes. Film making is an art and like every piece of art it needs to be consulted. Recognize thoses who work so hard to give something to the community. Weather its an escape or a way to expand our imagination. Film making deserves to be awarded for their dedication and service to everyone who likes films or not.
On the first link on the right ‘A Short Guide To Writing About Film’ I found it very interesting that not only does the site deconstruct the films but they also specify the different types of writings about the films. This is helpful if you are to write a specific type of literature on a film and it gives the criteria for each subtype. Also, I like how there is a glossary of terms that are normal jargon in the film industry that most people would not know or use. Helpful in all to the common folk. The pictures alongside the terms helps too, but I’m personally more of a visual learner. The information about photography is cool too, how different shots and effects on images can make the viewer feel different ways and respond how the movie maker wants them to. All in all, a good site, useful and interesting.
The link ‘new ways to teach cinema’ grabbed my attention, most of the other links are about college course offerings, this one caught my eye. This site offers much detailed information about the mechanics of film making. I like how they literally deconstruct the word ‘deconstruct’ and use the simplest for of its meaning to figure out films. Also, the technical stuff like writing code for images HTML –I get that so it’s cool to read about, not often do you think of code being used in movies, generally just on websites or still images. Here they take the art of film deconstruction and put it into a step by step process….you just have to follow their guidelines to do it, making a person feel as though anybody is capable of doing such detail oriented excavating work. The visuals are a nice touch too.
Another link I found particularly interesting was the link called ‘study guide film analysis’ Everything in me tells me to disagree with the format of a movie review. I don’t think that there is any all good go-to formula to writing anything! There are multiple effective ways. I feel that having such guidelines put a constraint on the writer…because if the writer were to think of something truly ingenious but it was not inhabited in the guidelines or directions would not make it into the paper. There you may lose some valuable, thoughtful information Basically I think that this ‘study guide’ seems like it would be for a very undeveloped class, it seems too generic for my taste, there are so many more things that could be added to it, making it better, more in depth. I just don’t understand why a personal reaction should be a one size fits all criteria. I don’t think it works like that – it leaves to many unanswered questions and unfulfilled wonders.
For my first article, I selected Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. This article was extremely help by pointing out things to look for and to explain the differences between certain types of camera angles, shots, and the abbreviations for these. They also go into detail about the methods that the director and advertisers use to promote the movie to the general public, and also to specified groups of people like teenagers, the middle class, and the mentalists. Corrigan focus on how the movie, regardless of who created it is a piece of art the movies for two hours, one must have a well trained eye to pick out these symbols, irony, foreshadowing, and metaphors. Also, remember that film technology, production, and distribution are commercial and economic enterprises. Hence, no film is intrinsically good or bad because of its commercial or economic constraints and freedoms. For some African and Latin-American films, the rough and unpolished look of a film may be a byproduct of financial constraints, but also a conscious political choice to distinguish it from the glossy products of Hollywood. On the other hand, commercial Hollywood films may have gargantuan budgets that prevent them from taking too many risks that might alienate their audiences. In both cases, one has to be open-minded and flexible." Movies regardless of budget or outlook are art.
For my second article I chose Deconstruction of 300 film poster. Leonidis seems to be hungry for the blood of men that he is about to slay. The poster also tells us that he is about to engage in epic battle with an unstoppable enemy. They use gray as the main color to appear that the Spartans had no chance against the army of millions of Persians. In the poster, he is wear next to nothing which tells us he is confident in his agility, and fighting skills to keep him alive. He also doesn't want the weight of the armor to slow him down for combat. The atmosphere around the man suggests that he is raised to fight and die for his country. "The lighting symbolises death and danger. The rain symbolises an unfriendly environment. The sky is also grey which makes it look like there is something unusual going on.", this goes to show the extent the lengths him and his men are willing to go to; to insure the safety of their country and their people.
For my third article I picked Feminist Film Theory. In most films women are usually viewed as being dependant, objects of sexual lust, and suppliers for men's needs at home. Women are also stereotyped in horror movies to be the ones who can't defend themselves and are usually victimized. Most movies seem to use stereotypes about women to build to their plot and how in most movies women take a minor role in the film. I completely disagree with the unjust stereotyping that they do in Hollywood towards women. It seems for any women to get a major role in Hollywood, she as to be willing to expose herself, or be absolutely gorgeous. However there are movies that are about women empowerment, like Underworld; were she is the hero, and fights off all the lychans. Horror movies in my opinion exploit women the most by using very sexist thoughts. ”Mulvey argues that Freud's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society." , women are being used in a male dominated industry to show people that it is alright to believe stereotypes when it really isn't.
Ryan Hansen Pd. 7
For my first article, I selected Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. This article was extremely help by pointing out things to look for and to explain the differences between certain types of camera angles, shots, and the abbreviations for these. They also go into detail about the methods that the director and advertisers use to promote the movie to the general public, and also to specified groups of people like teenagers, the middle class, and the mentalists. Corrigan focus on how the movie, regardless of who created it is a piece of art the movies for two hours, one must have a well trained eye to pick out these symbols, irony, foreshadowing, and metaphors. Also, remember that film technology, production, and distribution are commercial and economic enterprises. Hence, no film is intrinsically good or bad because of its commercial or economic constraints and freedoms. For some African and Latin-American films, the rough and unpolished look of a film may be a byproduct of financial constraints, but also a conscious political choice to distinguish it from the glossy products of Hollywood. On the other hand, commercial Hollywood films may have gargantuan budgets that prevent them from taking too many risks that might alienate their audiences. In both cases, one has to be open-minded and flexible." Movies regardless of budget or outlook are art.
For my second article I chose Deconstruction of 300 film poster. Leonidis seems to be hungry for the blood of men that he is about to slay. The poster also tells us that he is about to engage in epic battle with an unstoppable enemy. They use gray as the main color to appear that the Spartans had no chance against the army of millions of Persians. In the poster, he is wear next to nothing which tells us he is confident in his agility, and fighting skills to keep him alive. He also doesn't want the weight of the armor to slow him down for combat. The atmosphere around the man suggests that he is raised to fight and die for his country. "The lighting symbolises death and danger. The rain symbolises an unfriendly environment. The sky is also grey which makes it look like there is something unusual going on.", this goes to show the extent the lengths him and his men are willing to go to; to insure the safety of their country and their people.
For my third article I picked Feminist Film Theory. In most films women are usually viewed as being dependant, objects of sexual lust, and suppliers for men's needs at home. Women are also stereotyped in horror movies to be the ones who can't defend themselves and are usually victimized. Most movies seem to use stereotypes about women to build to their plot and how in most movies women take a minor role in the film. I completely disagree with the unjust stereotyping that they do in Hollywood towards women. It seems for any women to get a major role in Hollywood, she as to be willing to expose herself, or be absolutely gorgeous. However there are movies that are about women empowerment, like Underworld; were she is the hero, and fights off all the lychans. Horror movies in my opinion exploit women the most by using very sexist thoughts. ”Mulvey argues that Freud's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society." , women are being used in a male dominated industry to show people that it is alright to believe stereotypes when it really isn't.
Ryan Hansen Pd. 7
Stanley Kubrick: Film art genius. I found this site very interesting. I specificaly looked at the question and anwser. It anwsers many questions intelligently with adequate deph. I noticed not only was he a visionary in the scenes he set up and brought to screen. But also with many camera techniques to better convey his message. These include shooting by candlelight, steadicam, motion control, on-screen merchandise and Front Projection. This pioneering proves that he was truly commited to convey his message in the most effective and intelligent way.
Robert Egert, among the best. Robert Egert is a very briliant man when it comes to film studies. I am using some words of him for my deconstruction of "The Hurt Locker". Even though cancer has taken his voice, people have a hard time silencing him. His reviews and analysis are highly regarded nationwide. He even has his own film festival for intelligent, small budget films. He is an icon in american film reviewing.
Deconstruction of the slasher:
The slasher is a predominantly 1980s genre with a certain formula to what happens to the characters. A summarized version of a slasher film would go as followed: psychotic killer ( normally kills teens), they are seeking revenge for themself or a loved one, often take place in a (teen) setting, slasher is non-sexual, the lone female survivor (known as final girl) is the only one who can stand up against the killer because she has not joined in sexual activity with her friends thus keeping her wits about her. This is very interesting because in a sense it is saying that sex and drugs and (fun)activities sets teens back, which is true, but it is saying it in a cool way (a.k.a. killing people)
The first link I chose was A Short Guide to Writing About Film. The reason why I chose this link is because I thought it could possibly help me understand films better by looking at the big picture then the smaller details in the movie. It breaks down the seven different steps that might help you while writing your paper. I find it also helpful that this website also gives some technical film terms, right across from the terms they give you pictures so you know what they mean. With these terms it will really help me with writing my paper instead of using dull boring words. Also on this website it has some words that are in red then has the definition behind it incase your not sure what they are talking about. Besides that its somewhat the same as other websites and handouts we have been given in class this website also shows and tells us to watch for lighting, camera angles, and sound. After hearing and reading this, these things are one of the main things in a movie and they matter the most. I will definitely refer back to this website for my paper.
The Second link that caught my attention was Study Guide Film Analysis. This website will also be really helpful for my paper. It gives three main headings, Film Review Guideline, General Terms, Film Analysis Essay Guidelines. One of the questions they prefer you to put in your paper is Were any particular film techniques used in key scenes? How did the film techniques anmd music enhance the setting and themes of the film? How did the actors portray key character roles? Did they fulfill your expectations given your knowledge of the original novel or play (if one exists)? Going further down the website the general terms will come in handy It gives you a list of words such as shot, scene storyboard, montage, parallel action. While reading these terms it will be helpful when talking about the techniques in my paper. Finally the last tip they talk about is essay guidelines. Questions they have on there are background, structure/form, theme. By looking at these it will make it easier while writing the paper because they give you ideas and questions under each topic.
The Last one that I chose was Feminist Theory. One of the main things feminist focus on is the “function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and the stereotypes as a reflection of society’s view of men.” These days women are portrayed more then men are. This link helps us seek into why women are portrayed. It also mentions that without women you cant have 90% that our out today, because most of the movies need women unless the movies would get boring from having all guys in them. This website also points out that they look to see if the women are being degraded and if by being degraded it sends out a message to the viewers. Mainly this website helps us pay attention to women in films to see how they are being treated and judged also looked upon.
The three links I choose are the A Short Guide to Writing about Film, Dartmouth Writing Program, and Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist.
In the first link it gives tips and hints on how to watch the movie. That it is crucial that you take notes and watch the movie multiple times. The first time just watch the movie and take general notes. After that watch one scene over and over again examining every angle of the scenes and taking notes on every aspect of the scene. That your opinion is going to be part of your argument but not to linger on it. The page than gives you a long list of technical film terms with examples of what each one means and a picture of what it is. I will definitely use a lot of these terms throughout my paper. When I write my paper the web site says that I should use concrete language. And that connotation and denotation. I shouldn’t use words like “thing” and “aspect” which I tend to do a lot in my papers so this is something I need to start shying away from. It compares the introductory paragraph to the first ten minutes of a film. If you don’t catch the readers/viewers in the beginning of the paper/movie they aren’t going to want to read/watch it.
In the second link it talks about the challenges of writing about film. When you write about film you don’t just want to start writing about the plot of the movie. That when we view we are lulled into a passive mood. We miss certain aspects of the film that are “invisible”. You need to pay attention to the way that the camera moves. Consider the elements that make the film. When viewing the film I should annotate each shot sequence. Label each shot such as a establishing shot, a dolly shot, a medium shot or a reverse angle subjective close-up shot. By annotating it will allow me to see a pattern of camera movement and editing decisions. And when I research my paper not to rely on just the internet but to get my hands on journals and books on film analysis. This site like many other film study sites gives a list of film terms.
The third link I used tells you how to deconstruct a film while viewing it. In the first view I should Write down roughly what happens, to whom, by whom and in what order. Formulate some basic questions about the narrative. Identify gaps, contradictions and unexplained aspects of the story. Just get a feel for the movie on the first viewing. Then on the second one start breaking down the symbols in the movie. Look for anything unusual scene by scene. Like use of music and sound effects. Than look for any subliminal messages that might be hidden throughout the movie. Then on the third viewing look for further evidence that supports any theories you might have developed about the movie. Continue looking for symbols and listen to the narrative of the movie. When researching the movie look into the history of the movie as well as the history of the actors and director. Look for recurring themes in their film productions.
Shoemaker_5
The first website that I chose to look into was the “The Short Guide to Writing about a Film.” This guide is given in three chapters, which each talk about different things. The first chapter talks about the different ways people write about films. In class we are writing about films in a critical essay format. This professor seems to like the critical format more than any of the others because he has a lot more depth to it. Giving me the other options on writing films showed exactly what I should be trying to write about and what I should be staying away from. When the professor movies on to chapter two and three he begins talking about various camera angles and ways to look and study things. He gave questions to ask myself as I am writing my paper. This helped me think through the various ways that I can write my essay and which way would be best with the kind of film I am writing about. This professor sounds a lot like Mr. Christensen.
The second website I looked at was the “Deconstruction of 300 Film Poster.” This deconstruction of the 300 film poster talks about the various colors, lighting, and framing of it. This information is very helpful in my study of film deconstruction. Even though this deconstruction is specifically about a poster, a still image can still be looked at through a moving picture. In a film you can press ‘pause’ and analyze the frozen screen the same way you do when you analyze a poster. It talks about the certain colors make the picture look more intense and how his face gives you the desire to fight like he does. The same thing goes with films when you look at a certain scene or even a certain shot. The certain colors and angles make a viewer feel a certain way.
The third website that I had decided to examine and look at is the Ohio State University site. I never really knew that people went to college to study films and become professionals about. I know that Mr. Christensen said things about people doing nothing but examining films deeply and analytically. This website helped me realize that this stuff actually happens and there are people who go into this for a profession. The studies are about history and theory of films. I also didn’t know there was so many different ways to look at films. You can study in different languages such as Italian and Portuguese. What is interesting is they make sure to tell the students that they are not a film school, but they also tell students that their school can help prepare them to go on to a university that would provide more classes and information for them. This didn’t exactly help me think more analytically but I did find it interesting.
I chose these links; Yale Film Studies, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, and New Ways to Teach Cinema. All of these links are similar in that they are all a sort of guide to analyzing films, yet different in the type of information that they offer.
1. The Yale Film Studies link is mostly about a film analysis guide. It was developed to meet the needs of faculty and students at Yale who are interested in becoming familiar with the vocabulary of film studies and the techniques of cinema. What I like about this film analysis guide is the fact that it has tabs that are labeled with all the main parts of analyzing a film. So if I have a problem with one certain area I can click on that tab and not have to look through all the information before finding what I need. It is efficient and convenient. The film analysis guide is broken into six parts corresponding to the major divisions within cinema technique and film studies. These six sections are also broken down into smaller subsections then eventually broken down into definitions for terms. For help with my paper I will choose the tab labeled sound. The sound tab is broken into 3 major sections. The three major sections are then broken down into smaller subsections. I will be using this tab to help me understand off-screen sounds, the sound track, sound perspective, and direct sound.
2. A Short Guide to Writing About Film is another guide just like the Yale Film Studies link. However these two are different. The Yale Film Studies guide only had six main chapters; A Short Guide to Writing About Film has seven main chapters. The seven main chapters are; chapter one: Writing About the Movies, chapter two: Beginning to Think, Preparing to Watch, and Starting to Write, chapter three: Film Terms and Topics for Film Analysis and Writing, chapter four: Six Approaches to Writing About Film, chapter five: Style and Structure in Writing, chapter six: Researching the Movies, and finally chapter seven: Manuscript Form. All of these chapters are highly informative and I will most likely use all of the chapters to perfect my paper. I especially like chapter seven. It tells me how to make my paper look perfect and have no flaws. It tells me what kind of paper I should use, what kind of font I should use, and more. Another thing that I really like about this link, it shows examples of certain camera angles. Example; the close up, the pan shot, and many more. All in all I do believe this will be an excellent link to help me with my paper.
3. The New Ways to Teach Cinema link is also a sort of guide. Just like the other two this is also broken down into sections however it is only broken down into four sections and does not offer as much information as the other two links. The four sections of this link are the introduction, deconstruction and reconstruction, system’s architecture, and the conclusions. What this link has that the other two do not is graphs. The graphs consist of four flow charts showing how the deconstruction and recompostion process works and ect. I do not think that I enjoy this site as much as the other two sites. This site seems to use big words that I and most likely other high school students can not grasp. This site does not appeal to me as much as the other two because of the lack of color used, the big words they used, and the lack of information provided. I do not believe that I will be using this site to help me on my paper.
Over all I do believe that by reading through these links I have gain knowledge of how to analyze more accurately.
Sara Barnes
Pd. 6
The first link that I chose is the one on helping students write papers on movies. This link is similar to some of the worksheets we received in class, proposing questions that you should ask yourself before the movie, how to take notes and other useful items to consider before analytically watching a movie. This article also mentions the credits of a movie. Of course, every movie has some sort of credits, but are they mostly at the beginning or end of the movie? Are there certain images in the background? Or is there a certain music playing while the credits are rolling? What does this have to do with the movie as a whole? These are all important things to ask yourself when watching a movie, and most of it gets overlooked. Corrigan also proposes a very important question to all. What does the movie make you feel like at the end? Happy? Sad? Confused? Why? Certain movies are made to make people feel a certain way; this is why all of the little parts are put into it. If you leave the movie theatre feeling the way that the makers wanted you to, then they know that they achieved their ultimate goal.
“The images one sees on film are the product of certain influences and conditions. Also, since images are constantly moving, one has to determine which images are special or worth noting. Images that are perplexing or unfamiliar, as well as images that are repeated for emphasis probably fit into this category.”
I found my next link on my own, using Google. I found the Dartmouth writing program website and it had some interesting information on it. The author states that film is so familiar in our lives that we watch it too passively, and do not notice the little things in the movie. I thought that this was interesting because of the debate everyone is having about films are for pure entertainment not to be analyzed and such. The website also offered an extensive list of tips to writing about a film, stressing the history of the film or the era in which it was made or produced. Some other tips include who made the film, does the film appeal to a certain culture, is the film supposed to mirror a certain time in history, ext. I will definitely use this website to help me put my paper together.
“But it's precisely our familiarity with film that presents us with our greatest writing challenge. Film is so familiar and so prevalent in our lives that we are often lulled into passive viewing (at worst) or into simple entertainment (at best). As a result, certain aspects of a film are often "invisible." Caught up in the entertainment, we sometimes don't "see" the camera work, composition, editing, lighting, and sound. Nor do we "see" the production struggles that accompany every film - including the script's many rewrites, the drama of getting the project financed, the casting challenges, and so on.”
The final film deconstructing site that I looked at also mentioned tips on deconstructing films, but mentioned things that I have not thought of before. The website tells us to sometimes freeze the frames or scenes to really see how things are set up. If there are many people in the scene who is standing by whom and why is it like that? It mentions to look at the film extras and ask yourself why they took it out or added something in place of that. Look at the time frame of the movie and consider if it is too long or short or if one scene could be longer, or shorter. It also mentions opinions, try not to judge the film by what you have heard someone saying about it, form your own opinions when you are watching it (as you should anyways).
• “Why was the specific title chosen (were there any other alternatives considered?), and how do the credits establish a tone or mood?
• What are the first sounds and images in the film?
• Can you find any motifs in the credits?
• Do the end credits have any unusual features (e.g., out-takes, gags, additional footage, etc.). “
Tschetter_6
The three links I choose to read and to help me with my paper were 'Ohio State U Film Study,' 'Harvard Film Studies,' and chapter 1 of 'A Short Guide To Writing about Film'.
I chose Ohio State U Film Study because they really study cinima in the major and minor ways. The students study the theory, history, and film analysis. The departments of study they have are close but not. The different languages, the arts, and the literatures give a film a meaning. It shows me that while I'm writing my paper, I don't just have to watch it and take notes to write a paper. I can talk about the history's of vampire movies and what really goes on. I can write about the meaning with some of the accents Edward uses.
The reason I choose Harvard Film Studies as my second choice is because it is close to Ohio State but a little bit different. Harvard went into the origin (the place), where the film was shot and almost why the film was there. such as was there a meaning or was it just good scenery. They gave an example of a film along with a book a Professor wrote. The students get to choose what modes they want to study. When the Harvard students graduate they don't just watch a film. They are reshaped and disciplined into knowing what films are made for and why and how. I can put my film into catagories that can possibly change the whole effect that the movie is trying to portray. Such as Edward is just sweetening Bella up for the kill. Protecting her so she feels safe and can let her gaurd down around him.
A Short Guide to Writing about Film was my third chose and I only choose chapter 1:"Writing About the Movies." I liked this one because you have many choices when watching a movie. You get to decide which part is the best, which scene needed work and what you think should have or did happen that went well. When you read the back of a movie you can almost tell if the movie is going to be good. The movie reviews can tell you it is amazing or lame but really it should be you that watches it and decides for yourself. You never know if something is what it is made to be by just hearing about it. Besides we are now film analysers and know what is good from bad and why they did what they did. The theoretical essay helps those advance filmogrophers what it is like. A critical essay is a mix. It helps you know the plot while letting you decide what to do and think of it. In the end it is your decision on if you like a movie or not. Don't let someone come along and ruin it for you.
Charlie Sellers_6
The first link that I clicked on was a short guide to writing about a film. It is telling you why we go to movies. You either just watch them or you write about them. In it, it tells you what a movie review is, what a theoretical and critical essay is, and also it tells you about opinion and evaluation. Also, it shows you what exactly to write on, like the dance, the music, the architecture and other things to look at in the film. It also shows you some questions you can look at while writing a paper, which will really help. The link shows you different camera shots that you can say why they shot the camera that way. Also, it tells you about the lighting and how it illuminates different things or characters which really brings that thing of character out. It says how framing shots can be used in different distances. The website tells you how to edit two different pieces of film.
The next link I clicked on was David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson: Two of the Best Film Analysts. In it is basically goes on about upcoming activities about films and also news about films and what Kristin and David are doing. On the left hand side of the page, it gives you different kinds of books that you can look at and also essays, articles and book reports. On the right hand side of the page it gives you different websites to go to about different links of movies and what people write about them. Going down the page it shows you different books and such, like film theory and criticism. Some of these books have essays written by David and Kristin. This website is basically telling you to look at these books, and you will get a lot of information about movies and how to write about the movie.
The last link that i clicked on was Study Guide Film Analysis. I find this link very helpful because it gives you guidelines on every single paragraph that you have to right. Also it shows you the general terms about a movie, like scene, storyboard and montage. It also shows you the different types of shots there are in a movie, like long shot, close up, and subjective shot. On the website it shows you what different camera movements and angles that there are. Another thing is that it gives you film analysis essay guidelines, or guide to critical assessment of film. Throughout the guidelines, it just gives you questions that you can answer and put it in you essay, starting with the background and ending in theme questions. At the end of the page, you can ask a question and other people will answer it, and you can also answer questions that people have already asked.
Swenson_7
Web English teacher film study
With this particular link I chose the camera angles link which supplied me with information all about the different camera angles and views directors use throughout films. Such as with the framing or shot length; the extreme long shot, taken as much as a quarter of a mile away, the long shot, which usually shows the actor/character actual size from head to toe, the medium shot which is from the knee/waist up, the close up, which emphasizes one person or object to signify his/her/its importance, and the extreme close up, which magnifies beyond how we would normally view things. Then it went on to explain to me the camera angles directors use like; bird’s eye view, directly overhead, high angle, elevated view, eye level which is just that, low angle which increases height, and canted angle which is used to show point of view shots. It also mentioned camera movement, like Pans which scans the scene horizontally, titles which is when the movement is vertical, dolly shots when the camera is generally following a moving figure/object, hand held shots which create a more choppy scene and make the audience feel as though they are a part of it, the crane shot which is similar to a dolly shot in the air and can move in any direction, then there are the zoom lenses which change the magnification of an image either quickly or drastically or slowly and minimally, and last but not least the aerial shot usually taken in a helicopter looking out or down at an object or person. I think that with all this provided information it will help me as a student understand even more of the message within the film and also provide me with a greater emotional effect by giving me more depth and views throughout the film.
Interesting insight: “Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence.”
Study guide film analysis
Greatest series and film franchises of all time explained to me different box office hit movies within different eras and informed me what kind of criteria they had to make in order to become a box office smash. They usually have at least 3 films within the series, usually have combined revenue income of 400 million, and they are usually horror, fantasy or sci-fi. They go on to debate which series and franchise has obtained the number 1 spot but mention how its almost impossible to decide because so many new one come out and become hits. The film deconstruction guide also mentions certain movies such as the Austin Powers series, Batman series, and Alien series. It explained to me why they are so popular and I realized if you look at the genres and see that sci-fi and fantasy are among the top three its pretty easy to understand why, because society likes an escape from their reality. They pay 8$ to be provided with a laugh, scare, or happy ever after ending they cant obtain in their own lives.
Deconstruction of a300 film poster
This particular film deconstruction link provided me with very helpful things to look out for while I watch my film. Such as, symbolic codes, colors, objects, settings, body language, clothing, angles, lenses, framing, shutter speeds, depth of field, lighting and written codes. All very small details hidden within films but looked at separately can say a lot about a scene, what emotion its portraying along with helping make the importance of the message stand out more for us as viewers by triggering certain emotions the directors want us to feel. After reading these film deconstruction guides and tips it almost feels like I have a cheat sheet while deconstructing my film. I find them very useful and helpful for me as a student not yet fully understanding all the symbols and meanings within the cinema world.
Cody San Miguel P.5
I think studying the most popular media forms from the last decade or two to the most current popular media forms is very useful the uc berkeley website suggests. this way you can compare and contrast the ways that the media forms are different and similar. for instance the lighting and camera techniques have changed dramatically over the last ten years. also the use of animation in films is used almost in any film you can think of.
The boston college website says that they teach film studies out of need and desire to teach students. I think this is very true. films have become such a big part of our culture these days. people express themselves through films. the film industry has become its own unique form of art with ultimately endless possibilities to use. everywhere from special effects, lighting techniques, animated effects and actors are used to make an ordinary peice of art...to a masterpeice.
I think the feminist film theory was a very important part of the film industry as a whole. Most people dont or cant see how woman are subjugated to stereotypes in almost every film. women are commonly used as sex symbols, most are blonde, alot were the stay at home mom. now films try to individualize women in thier films. the once common stereotypes shown in movies are now being thrown out for individual, strong willed, and strong minded women. yes movies still tell how women should or try to be but we are seeing a higher number of independant women figures in films
Deconstructing “The Lion King”
This link is about a teacher and a student talking back and forth. They are discussing the correct way to analyze a film for an analistic film presentation. I choose this link because when I was growing up Lion King was the movie I would watch repeatedly. Lion King is definitely my childhood growing up. The teacher and student advise one group of students focus on one character in the Lion King. They are also to analyze all of the actions and emotions of the character. At the end of the movie the groups can come together and talk about what they had noticed about the different characters. They can also see each other’s points of view and why the director does so many things certain ways. This shows that a group can divide and conquer. A group of people can better analyze a single movie than just a single person.
Once students have completed their handouts, have them share their findings with the class.
A short guide to writing about film
This link shows many different types of shots and many types of angles a film may have in it. This link also shows the different ways to write an essay about analyzing films. There is a movie review which basically summarizes the movie’s plot. A theoretical essay is basically thinking more in depth with the movie and more geared toward people in film studies. The opinion is a little bit about theoretical essay and movie review. We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them. I believe that all of these ways are completely true. I think some people do actually go to the theatre to think. Those kinds of people are they type of people who like to write about analyzing movies. I also think that people like to go to movies not to think and stare at the movie screen. This isn’t entirely true because a lot of people talk about the movie after wards to their companions and they share their opinion with each other giving each one a different view and it could change or turn around the movie completely for an individual if the hear different opinions and beliefs about the films.
Feminist film theory
I those this link about the feminist film theory because I believe females do have power and have the same rights as men. This link goes into the history of feminism and how women are portrayed in society and traces back into the past. This also lists some movies that show the daily diffifculties that they had to encounter in daily activities.
The Treatment of Women in Movies (1974) analyzed how the women portrayed in film related to the broader historical context, the stereotypes depicted, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the amount of screen time given to women.
Back then women were never given much screen time now they are the onews to get pbig parts because they are societys sex symbolsnbecause they attraqct men not onlhy men but also women because they want to be like and look like the women which society portrays women how they should be and they are not. That is why people got to movies to get into a world unlike their own and be someone else than themselves.
Dartmouth Films Studies
The Dartmouth films program is right that most people that live in America could tell you the plot of Independence Day easier than a person could understand the Declaration of Independence. The website talks about how it is hard to write about films because people get caught up in the entertainment and forget to deconstruct the film. The film teachers/professors want to see the invisible aspects of the film. They also want the deconstructors to notice how the camera focuses/moves. They also want to see how you notice the lighting. The teacher wants to see some of the plot in the paper but not to much.
Stanley Kubrick: Film art genious
Stanley Kubrick was considered one of the greatest directors of the 20th Century. He is known for having his actors/actresses react several scenes to have them perfect. I thought the questions and answers segment that Kubrick answered was very interesting. The site talks about a combination of great horror films throughout history combined into what Kubrick created in the film The Shining.
USD film studies
I found it interesting how many courses USD had in film studies. In the classes they talk about cultural values that are communicated thoughout the films. Students have the oppurtunities to write about films and create their own films. The courses USD ofers for film studies are: Film, Genre and Culture; Film History; Film Appreciation; World Cinema, film and culture; American Indians in Film; US West History in Film; Video Production; Directing for Video and Film; Introduction to Acting; and Directing. So to simply put it USD takes film studies seriously.
A.J. Plummer PD.3
The first link I read was “Deconstructing films: New ways to teach cinema using hypermedia tools”, written by Guillermo Ibáñez, José Jesús GarcÃa Rueda of the University of Madrid, Spain. In this article he, Senor Rueda, discussed new technology that helps aiding in the deconstruction process. The new technology uses concept mapping software, interactive analysis writing, and tests over what the students have been taught. “It is well known that the film language is learnt (Monaco, J., How to read a film, DVD ROM)”. This statement by Mr. Monaco is a perfect example on why our English class learns how to deconstruct films prior going to college; the knowledge we gain before college is so valuable because we have learned the basics of “film language” we are able to build upon the knowledge further gained in high school to better understand what is being taught at the collegiate level. Another important reason to use new technology is because of the increasing popularity of viewers trying to better understand the underlying themes and motives throughout the films being viewed; with this asset our group would also benefit greatly because it would make the organization go so much smoother, even if we can’t use this software, we would still be able to make something close to it, like a flow chart or another type of graphical organizer.
The second link I read was “A Short Guide to Writing about Film”. This article is very prominent in information needed to write a very collegiate deconstruction essay. This link is very well organized, is easy to read, and easy to understand. The article also discusses the various camera angles along with various pictures that help better illustrate the camera angle. In this article, there is so much more helpful information on this article. Another thing that is not on the hand-outs we received in class is the description of how your research paper should be written and about the style on how a deconstruction essay should be written in. This portion of the article is by far one of the most important of the entire article; if your essay was not structured correctly, it would not have the flow that is so important in a scholarly essay. Overall I believe that this was the most helpful article out of the links on the blog page.
The third link that I decided to read was “Film Analysis Guide”, in this article it describes how to write confidently when writing this essay. The article describes what type of questions you should pose when writing and other ideas to keep in mind when writing a rough draft or in a written conversation. This article definitely builds upon the questions posed in Mr. Christensen’s “Film Deconstruction Paper”; however it is not a substitute for the Mr. Christensen’s questions but should be considered. The guide can also be useful when you are looking at different technical aspects of movies; however like I said earlier, this article is by no means a replacement for the hand-outs over the technical aspects filming we received earlier this semester but an additional asset we are able to use. Overall, I would use this asset with the other hand-outs but not just only that source.
-Matt Thompson pd 6
Ashley Mork
The first link I clicked on was the film term glossary one. The link has alot of the terms that you would want to use in your paper like climax, internal conflict, motif, point of view, all of these terms would be very helpful. Also if you come across a word that you don't quite know what it means you can always go to this website and look it up. It seems to have just about every word pertaining to films. The site also has a dictionary and thesaurus that you can type in a word and it will tell you what it means. At the top of the site it has links that you can click on to take you to different pages about different types of film like comedys, death, sex, and communism.
The next link I clicked on was Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist. On this site there is alot of links you can click on like one that says FILM ANALYSIS. When you click on it, it takes you to a new page with a list of a few movies to click on like Full Metal Jacket and The Exorcist. When you click on them it pulls up a video of the movie with Rob Ager talking about the movie and analyzing it. Although he doesn't have many movies on his site, the few movies he does analyze could be very helpful if you are analyzing one of the particular movies he does on here.
The third link I clicked on was Dartmouth Film Studies and classary of film terms. This website talks about the challenges of writing about films. Yeah, we watch movies all the time but we dont think about the camera work, composition, editing, lighting, and sound. Also we dont think about the struggles that come with making every film like the script and how many times it has to be rewritten and the money and the casting of people. The site also talks about all the different types of film papers like a formal analysis and the history of the film. It gives you some prewriting strategies too. It talks about shot sequences and thinking beyond the frame like who made the film, history of the film, what did the critics think of the film. This is a good site to go to for research tips and writing tips too.
The first website i chose to analyze was teh harvard film studies site. The website talks about their new PHD in film and visual studies, and other parts about the program. I believe that is just awesome people who pursue this degree can call themselves an expert in movie watching! what could be better than that? I think it shows how important deconstructing films have become to our society because harvard our nations first institution is implementing a doctoral program focused on it. There website seems very trendy and creative something you really wouldnt expect from a harvard website but then again film deconstructing is the new thing, instead of reading a book to be inspired intellectually one can watch a movie with all the same benefits and not have to worry about the tedious page turning and keeping track of where your at. Harvard has embraced the future, and so should every school by offering more and more courses and degree programs on film studies.
The next website i chose to look at was Roger Ebert's film festival website.. how cool is this the man has dedicated his career to being a movie critic made some serious cash, a helluva lot of publicity and has his own film festival to show for it. We need more dedicated people like him in this world to open our eyes to the artistic value in movies, and with more critics more people can read reviews on movie, and be offered an intellectual perspective about that film and be stimulated enough to where they want to see it for themselves and compare their thoughts and ideas with what the critic wrote. I think this would be ones of the best jobs a person could have taking apart a movie piece by piece and analyzing every single movement and camera angle the director puts in there, and the traits of the characters, plus the word association that most of us never recognize in movies. If we could all think critically like this though then would there even be a need for film critics? Probably not so good thing for them most americans arent taking the initiative to become more aware of the insight offered by most films.
The last website that caught my attention was the wisconsin film festival website. The website is all about the Wisconsin film festival. I think this looks incredibly awesome and want to go ot it. The film festival is for independant american and world cinema(narrative, documentary, experimental, and shorts) restorations and revivals, and locally made pictures from Wisconsin filmmakers. I think film festivals like this really show some of the true artists in film making the people who dont have the big time funding and are doing with the cheapest production as possible but still make pure magic. My personal favorite type of movie is a documentary, for the biggest reasons that its real and still has creative license in it. I would love to see home grown documentaries about all sorts of issues because you can get an individuals view on things, and you can gain insight to their thought process when debating an issue. Most documentaries never hit the movie theatres because they are cheap production and more of an informative thing, and people are paying nine bucks to be entertained and watch 5 million dollar explosions last thiry seconds. I think as a good class project we could get into groups and make documentaries about issues facing us and have our own college bound english film festival.
Dan Nelson
The fist link that i chose from the list of links in the "film Deconstruction Links" area was the 300 movie poster link. I really liked this web site i think because of the fact that i really really love the movie three hundered but also because the web site pointed out some good things about the poster such as how the lightening made the spartan's battlefield seem more dangerous and intense. But i also did not really like this aspect because it seemed very vague, basic and boring. Who ever wrote this web site decided not to put much effort forth and really just pointed out the obvious but what they should have said was the way the spartan was standing it seemed more like he was battling gods than he was battling his main enemies. But i did like this web site because it just explained alot about the poster, just nothing too scholarly.
The second link that i decided to look at was the link for mad max trilogy: brilliant filmmaking. First off i would like to point out that i feel as though i am one of the very few students to even see the mad max movies. i really enjoyed them and i think that more people should see them. But i really liked this web site because it seemed like alot of work went into making the web site look nice and i just think it was an entertaining one to examine. I also enjoyed seeing pictures of replicas of max's car and other types of things. But really i think that this was a great web site for people that are true die hard mad max fans because it shows what is going on in the world with anything even slightly related to mad max. Any actor or actress or even the director, if they had anything going on it would show it on this web site and i just enjoyed how it had all the dates and showed everything that was happening on this web site. I would highly recommend visiting this web site.
The third and final link that i decided to choose from the list was the link for the greatest films of all-time. I think that i picked this link do to the fact that it was such an intense opionionated suggestion. Upon entering the web site, the first thing that came across to me was a pop up, and i did NOT enjoy this. But once the pop- up went away, my annoyance did not either. This web site was kind of a disappointment for me. I was expecting to see a list of movies and a reason with statistics for each one for why they were "the greatest movies of all time" but there was barely anything like that. But upon further examining the web site i did enjoy how it had quotes from movies and other interesting movie facts. This web site is certainly more of a basic movie information web site. It is nothing like a web site such as IMDB but it was still more enjoyable to view in depth. I would suggest this web site to people who like to read about different movies and random stuff about different movies.
-Dan Nelson Period number 6
I found study guide film analysis to be very helpful for writing my paper. There is one section that has guidelines on how to write your paper. It tells what you should include in paragraphs one through six. For example, in paragraph one, it says to offer your overall impression of the film while mentioning the movie’s title, director, and key actors. In paragraph two, it says to summarize the plot of the film. This website also has different camara shots, such as subjective and close up, that tell you what the shots consist of. This would be very useful in writing your paper, because you can describe the camara angles in your movie. There is also a question and answer section, as well as a comment section, which is useful. This is the information that I find particularly useful: What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole? Are there any motifs (scenes, images) of dialogue which are repeated? What purpose do they serve? There are many questions on this website that really give you a lot to think about when writing a paper.
I think a short guide to writing about film was a useful link. It says how taking notes the first time is important to recognize the shots, facts, and key sequences. The website continues on to show many different types of shots from extreme close-up to high angle. This is useful because it has pictures from movies so you know what to look for when watching your own movie. There are also many questions on this website that really make you think hard about your movie. It also talks about how film is similar to literature. When talking about film, you use vocabulary such as plot, characters, and point of view. It also talks about how sound is used in films. There can be background music or dialogue or noise, depending on the film. This is the information that I find particularly interesting: There are at least six approaches to writing about film: film history, national cinemas, genres, auteurs, formalism, and ideology.
Finally, Dartmouth film studies and glossary of film terms was an interesting website. It starts out by asking what is so hard about writing about films, considering we all “know” them. The problem is that most people will be passive viewers or watch for simple entertainment. It says how you should consider the elements that make up the film. Instead of writing a review, analyse the film by research. Just by watching the credits at the end, you see how many people contributed to the movie and what they did. This wesite also has what not to do for your paper. You shouldn’t simply summarize what happens, or just have a discussion about the plot and characters. Also, avoid “I” in your paper, otherwise it will just sound like a review. What I found particularly helpful and interesting was the glossary of film terms. They provide so many different terms, that by just looking at them you can get really good ideas for your paper.
the First website I decided to go look at was Stanley Kubrick: Film Art Genius. It talks about Kurbricks life and what he did for the film industry that made it what it is today. he first started as a producer, writer, director and photographer of films. He is regarded as one of the top film makers of the last century. Many of his films won amards and he made film making a true art that everyone enjoys. Many of his films were very detailed and every part of his films were very important. Stanley Kubrick showed everyone that film making was a great art and that it is a art for everyone to enjoy. He also showed people that everything that happens and the setting are all important to the film and they all have meaning. I will use what Stanley Kubrick taught all viewers and try to talk about the details in my film that i feel are the most important.
The next website i went to was deconstruction of a 300 poster. That website didnt have so much information on how to deconstruct a film/movie poster. It did show me tho that there is a lot to deconstruct. That is just a movie poster that doest change or talk. They got a lot from that individual poster. The old saying is a picture is worth a 1000 words. If that is true a movie has millions upon millions of words to describe it. There is so much to look at for each scene. "The lens choice in this picture is a medium one that allows the person to see only the top half of the body and the shield. It also does not let us see the left arm with the sword in it. This makes us focus on the fact that the person is more on the defensive than the offensive. It also makes us focus on the face rather than the legs." I would have never thought to think about a lens type for a movie. Even though this is just a poster it still shows what needs to be analyzed in a movie and what all can be analyzed. By looking at what was analyzed in this movie ad it will further what I look at in my movie and will help me to know what makes a good deconstruction of a movie.
The third website looked at was the syllabus for georgia state. I found this one interesting in that he does firmly believe that everything in a film is there for a reason. I believe to an extent that everything in a film is for a reason. They do employ a lot of people to look at every detail. It just seems hard to fathom that a 2 hour movie is so precise for every detail that it is all for a reason. Reading through the article though does show me again that a movie is an art and that each scence and object and bit of dialoge is thought through in great detail and has meaning. By looking through was the professor has said i will look to analyze every detail and prove that it is important to the movie.
CJ Wachter
The first article i chose was the feminist film theory. I like using a feminist lens mainly becuase im a woman. "In considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to the "male gaze" that predominates in classical Hollywood filmmaking." I definatley agree with this. In almost all films the males are always hot, smart, and basically the "gaze" character. As for the woman they are portrayed as a slut, dumb blonde, and ect. Most Hollywood movies always sexually objectify women. I like how they talk about the three perspectives that occur in films. The frist one talks about how the male character perceives teh female character. Which in most movies is once again as a sex object. The second perspective is the one of the spectator and how they view the females. That one goes hand in hand with how the male characters do, sex object. The third perspective allows the male audience to take the female charact as his own personal sex object. We all know that 80% of men also do this in real life today.
The second article i chose was the Smith film sudies one. I like how they like to focus on the history of the movies. It is fun to go back and see how the movie was made, when it was made, and everything else dated back. I also like studying about the differnt theorys the movie could have and the criticism of the film. "The Program's primary goal is to expose students to a wide range of cinematic works, styles and movements in order to cultivate critical understanding of the medium's significance as an art form, as a means of cultural and political expression, and as a reflection of social ideologies and mentalities." I think having students student and understand the different ways of looking at movies is very important. I also think that film classes would be a nice break from the college life, you can just relax, watch a movie, then right about it.
The third article i chose was the first one about film studies. I like how it expalins what the movie review really does. It is basically an analysis which helps pick out what type of audience should be watching the film, who is recommended and who is'nt. It will also be a big help for us when we are writing our film deconstruction papers. They tell you about how to begin to think and prepare to watch and start writing about your film. It is some what hard to just watch a movie and come up with a scholarly paper on some films. It reminds you that taking notes will help you remember things and make you think back and discover more things as your mind focuses on the topic.
1. Deconstructing The Lion King. The Lion King is one of my favorite Disney films. This particular site lets the teacher and the student know what to do when deconstructing a film. It tells the teacher different ways to give the students a specific task and how it will help them understand what that means in the film. It also gives a student an idea of how to analyze the film correctly. The best advice is to know that we cannot just watch the movie for fun, but we have to take notes, watch and think critically in order to be successful. I think it is awesome that this site tells the teacher to give handouts. I use my handouts everyday, and they are so helpful on every aspect of our group presentations and our paper. Another good tip is to share ideas with the class. When my peers asked questions about the movie I got a good idea of what I need to include into my paper, and also helped me realize some more things I could look for while watching Friday Night Lights.
2. A Short Guide to Writing About Film caught my eye, because short and simple go into the same hand. Not that I don’t enjoy the challenge of this assignment but since it is new to me, handouts, guides, and these links can help us analyze our movies to the best of our ability. The first chapter of this link explains different writing essay ideas and explains their details. The second chapter explains how to watch the movies you analyze, the questions to ask while taking notes, and how to take successful notes. It also includes Film Terms like the ones we have on our yellow handout. The third chapter tries to connect the film to more of an artistic level, and asks questions that will help you answer what the film is actually about on a more critical level. It also includes more helpful film terms and pictures that show good examples. Then the fourth chapter gives six approaches to writing about films, and the fifth structure and style. Chapter six gives tips on researching the movies. I thought this tip was very useful – “Research always improves any piece of writing. The more you know about a subject and the issues related to it, the more satisfying it will be to write about it. Research can be used in a number of ways. It can be integrated into your essay to support your own points with the authority of other writers, or it can be used to introduce a common perception against which you wish to argue.” This is a great site for new beginners. It explains everything and is very helpful. I will use this when writing my paper.
3. The Greatest Films of All Time caught my attention. Obviously everyone has different opinions but these movies are on here for a reason. So why do critics like these movies? That is what you can ask yourself when analyzing a film.. Why would a critic like this? The point of this site is to countdown 100 of the greatest films of all time, but there are also many other links that you can choose from like best kisses, scariest scenes, and the best movies of certain genres. What about these movies captivates us and makes them so much better than some of the others. It is an excellent source for film lovers if you want honest and true reviews. It is a good place to read synopses and also if you want to choose a good scene for you and your group to present to your class in the presentations, this site has memorable scenes. What makes a scene memorable? Find out at this site, which will come in useful for my essay.
Laura Hieb pd.5
The first link I chose was Study Guide Film Analysis. I knew I liked this site right away because it was easy to understand. It has an easy to understand outline that will help me when writing my paper. It helps me know what I should be writing about and what should be in my paragraphs. I also liked how it explained the different types of camera shots because it helps me know how to do it in my own films. I also liked how they have the general film terms. These terms will help me understand words I don’t normally use when they show up in film reviews. I would definitely recommend using this website when writing this paper. It gives us step by step directions and guidance to make our papers collegiate. I know I will be using this website to get me going on this paper to avoid procrastination
The second link I chose was A Short Guide to Writing About Film. I really like the first line in the article. We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them. This statement is totally true. You think about what it would like to be in the movie and why they do the things they do. You go to a movie and not think, just to relax. You go to a movie for something to do, not necessarily because you WANT to watch it. Or you go to a movie to analyze and write about, like we have been learning about. The article also says you need to keep the audience in mind at all times. This is true because the audience is going to be the ones criticizing and analyzing your writing. You need to make the paper understandable to them and spark their interest and keep them thinking. I also liked how they defined and gave examples of film terms. The examples show me what to look for in the films and how to identify them.
The third link I chose was Deconstruction of a 300 poster. This caught my eye because I really like the movie 300 and I know it would be a good one to analyze. They explain the reasoning for the colors, objects, setting, body language, and many other things. Just looking at this poster, I would not think of any of the things that they said. But after reading their analysis, I can see how these things affect the viewer. This also helps me take a better look at my movie and advertisements for it. I never would have picked out that they make everything in the picture a shade of gray, and make the title bright red so we would think of blood and gore.
Rozell
The first website I chose was the Study Guide Film Analysis. I like the simple layout of this website because it makes it easily to find the information you are looking for. I also like how it gives suggestions on what to put in your paragraphs. It is like a layout for you paper which is very helpful. I also find it extremely helpful that this website gives you general terms of films and different shots, camera angle types, camera movement, editing different shots, and different sounds there are. It is not such a hassel to flip through pages to find a certain word. This is the most useful website to make your paper flow and be intrigueing.
For the second website, I chose the Feminist film theory link. With a feminist lens we uncover how women are portrayed in movies. We look at the context of the film, if women are shown as active or passive, stereotypes, and how much screen time women are given. This website shows the history behind the feminist theory. It will help me further my thinking process and gain a better understanding of what it is I am studying. I think it is interesting learning about how different people dissect the same film or aspect of a film so differently. Not only are women seen as sex objects but they are viewed lower to the male actors. Without women there wouldn't be much of a movie. Would there be? I think women are needed just as much if not more then men in the movie business. It makes us think of why and how women strengthen films.
The last website I chose was A short guide to writing about film. I like this website because it says the main reasons we watch movies are to “1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them.” I think this is definitely true because sometimes I just want to get lost in a movie and not think about how they made that shot or the symbolism behind that scene. I think we have a nice contrast to thinking and not thinking during movies if we wanted them. There are some people that get so caught up in movies they actually think it is reality. I wish it was that easy, for some movies anyways. I also like this statement. "Film can help you 1) to understand your own response to a movie better, 2) to convince others why you like or dislike a film, 3) to explain or introduce something about a movie, a filmmaker, or a group of movies, 4) to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others as a way of understanding them better, and 5) to make connections between a movie and other areas of culture." Movies create an enormous amount of opinions and views to all types of people. Writing about movies could be the easiest thing to do if you know what you are looking for and these websites definitely help.
1) The first link I chose was “Film Glossary”. The reason I chose this one was that it will help me find other things than just the ordinary. Also using this in my essay and in class will make me sound more educated. In class I hear you saying some words that I don’t even know. After looking at this now I can understand more. The word montage I have herd that word many times over but now I know what it actually means. But it’s still really confusing, but it sure will help a lot. One thing I don’t get is stock characters. What is the difference between a stock character and a minor character? What would a minor character be described as. When watching a movie most minor characters are completely predictable?
2) The second link I chose was “University of South Dakota Film Studies”. The reason I chose this was because I have been thinking about going there and also it’s a South Dakota school. Going to this college may mean I might take this class and it will give me an edge on other students because I know what we will be talking about. Under the film directing it tought me a lot of things. It takes a lot of work to direct a movie because the whole movie is in your hands. Things such as composition, movement, and temp-rhythm. Also Script analysis and scene presentation form the core of the course. Another thing it teaches you about the text in films and that everything in the movie including the text has a purpose in a GREAT film.
3)The last website I choose was A Short Guide to Writing about films. I choose this site because I thought it would help me understand what to write about in my paper without totally confusing myself, which it came very useful. This site offers a lot of information about film abbreviations, how to write an excellent movie analysis paper, and how to deconstruct a movie correctly. It also gives you a short explanation of why so many people go to movies. Because people like to think, not to think, to stare at them and also to deconstruct them. Its actually kind of funny because these reasons go to everyone. Personally I go to think and relax at the same time. In a suspenseful movie you want to think but at the same time you’re going out to just enjoy the day and relax as you eat that whole bag of popcorn. In all this is a great sight to research on and found a lot of useful information and I may go back to it and use some of that information in my essay.
Shad Smith, per 3
"A Short Guide to Writing about Film" was one of the links i chose to read. I think it proves some interesting points. I like that it mentions the fact that the writer's liking toward the film can greatly influence the paper. That's something I got from the reading, anyway. This is very true. If a writer doesn't like the movie he or she is writing about, they could just mention how poorly things are done in the film. In my opinion, these film analysis papers should be written on the value of things done right in the movies. That's why I also believe we should do the papers on movies we enjoy. "It is important to take notes of some kind during the first and only showing. Recognize key sequences, shots, or narrative facts." This is a very useful tip. I think taking notes will help with the paper's layout. Also, we will be able to catch key elements and write about them with great detail.
I also read "Deconstruction of a 300 Film Poster". I was impressed by how many aspects of this picture the writer payed attention to. Great thought was put into studying the lighting, camera angle, clothing, and even the little trinkets the character is wearing. Sites like these are good for us to take a look at because it gives us ideas on what to observe and study. When I first looked at the picture, it gave me a sense of defense and struggle. It didn't look like this man was about to rage out at a bunch of dudes and just murder them. Sure enough, while I was reading the analysis, it was explained to me why I got these impressions from the picture. I don't think I ever would have noticed that the character's sword isn't shown for these reasons, or that he is wearing a homemade necklace with symbolism that he is fighting for the home he loves.
"Deconstructing the Slasher Film" is the last one i read. I was excited to find out the thing was about Tarantino! I haven't seen either one of the Grindhouse movies but now I definately want to, especially Death Proof. Tarantino was actually the one talking most about slasher films on this site. "I never do proper genre movies. It's like using the fact that Reservoir Dogs isn't a proper heist film even though it fits in the genre, as a slag against it. And what is so good about slasher films is they are all the same. This is why they are so much fun to write subtextual film criticism about, because all your arguments really work for a vast majority of films. And if you try to monkey about just a little too much with it then now you're not even really making a slasher film." Thats something Tarantino said and I definately like that he said it. We all know his fims aren't the generic, cookie cutter movies that clog up the theaters. When it comes to Tarantino's movies, nothing can be said to describe every single one of them, with the exception of maybe his music choices. But back to slashers, Tarantino is right. So many movies follow what seems like the same criteria. That just gets repetitive and after a while, it's almost impossible to find anything worth mentioning while deconstructing. It's all been done over 1,000 times! Anything "under the surface" really just comes into a viewers head and is nothing but another repeat of what they found in the last five slasher movies they watched.
Lindsay Dohrman
The first link i chose was "A Short Guide to Writing About Film."
The first sentence i read on this page i completely agree with. "We go to the movies for many reasons: 1) to think, 2) not to think, 3) to stare at them, or 4) to write about them. " - this is so true. We either go to them because we're bored and want something to do, or we go to them to gain knowledge. It also says, when writing about films, it is important to keep your audience in mind at all times. The film reviews aim at the broadest possible audience. It introduces an unfamiliar film, and people either recommend the or don't recommend them. I learned from this site that when I write about films my personal opinion becomes part of my argument. I also learned on this site, when I take notes i should only take them on the first showing - recognize key sequences, shots and narrative facts.
The second link i chose was the film analysis study guide. This website is going to help me out a lot with my paper. It tells me what to include in my film. It asks How did the actors portray key character roles? Did they fulfill your expectations? Were any particular film techniques used in key scenes. How did the film techniques and music enhance the setting.. The music in my movie (walk the line) and definitely enhances the movie, which i plan on writing a lot about that. It also asks the question "what does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole. - in walk the line, this has a lot to do with johnny cash's life. He wrote a song called walk the line. June had told Johnny and many of the other artists on their tour that they can't "walk the line" (as the men were sitting on the stage practicing for their tour, making fools of themselves and being alcoholics/ druggies, which promotes Cash to write the song "I walk the line."
The last link that caught my attention was "Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist." I clicked on film analysis. On that page it had many other links about rob Ager talking about movies that he has analyzed. Including full medal jacket. He has scenes from the movie playing, as he analyzes them at talks about the importance of that scene. My favorite was the first clip he talked about in the exorcist. He talks about superstition and good versus evil. He also talks about how you can figure out the mystery of someone being killed with all of the clues. This link can be helpful to anyone who is writing about a movie. He tells you what to look for, and how you know its coming, especially in horror movies.
Anderson_7
1. The first link i chose to view is titled "Study Guide film analysis". I really enjoyed this website because it broke down a film anaylsis paper paragraph by paragraph on how to write it, which i found very useful. Anouther thing i found helpfull was about how it explained general filmmaking terms and then went farther in depth with them. This website goes further into giving you questions to consider while writing your paper. The questions associate with the background, theme, and structure/form. One thing lacking on this website is it did not mention or show examples on the differnt camera angles or terms used in film making. Other than that I strongly belive this website will be extremlly useful in writing my paper. This website gave me ideas on how to write my paragraphs and what to put in them. One of the main things i liked on the website is that you can ask question on the website and people can anser you back with the answer or suggestions on what to discuss in your paper.
2. I also choosed the website "WEb english Teacher". When i first clicked on the link it brought me to a page with other links to choose from. I chosed the Camera Anles because i do not know that much about the Camera angles and wanted to learn more about them. It explained how the extreme close up shots are used for dramatic effect: with such a tight focus the slightest camera shake will be noticeable. This certain type of camera angle woult take a lot of hard work to pull it off. Anouther uniqe shot is the Aerial shot. It is mostly used in the beginning of the film to establish the setting and movement. It is usally shot up in a helicopter because it can go anywhere and keep up with anything. A close-up shot is used to concentrate on a face or a specific detail of the scene. Useally the background is blurred out and the shot magnifies the object and shows the improtance of what you are looking at.
3. The link that stood out the most to me is, the Feminist Film Theory link. It helps further my knowledge of how to use my feminst lens, and teaches me new ways in which i could apply to my paper. beacuse I plan on using a feminist point of view in my paper. The Feminist film theory was acquired from feminsti politics. It starts back when women were fighting for the right to be seen equal to men. In many moive women were simply seen as accessoris to men. The stood in view of the camera and are expected to look pretty. Women were often protrayed as weak, helpless and incapble of virtually anything that required brains or bravery. In moives i mostly realise the "damsal in destress" female chacters in many Disney moives are shown to be very strong, smart, clever, stubborn, and independent. If that is the case, then why are they being shown to wait for their Prince Charming to rescue them? Why not solve the problem or save the day themselves I think that is more attaracive today to men than being hopeless. They all have the power to create their own "fairy tale endings" but they are not giving the chance. Moives are steryotyping women allt he time. For expample Mean Girls, i do not where close on sertain days with my friends, I also dont look at myself in the mirror and just wonder what is wrong with myself. If we girls start doing that we will loose touch on who we really are to who we would want to be.
The first link that stood out to me was the Study Guide Film Analysis. This link most likely stood out to me due to the fact that I enjoy having study guides especially for big projects such as Film analysis papers. It turns out that this website was pretty well thought out and a useful tool. This site provides you with a list of questions that help you to understand the movie you are analyzing. The site also allows you to post a Question or Leave a comment in a Q&A spot at the bottom of the page which is a great way to see how other people think and analyze films. One question that sort of stuck out to me was under the structure / form section. The question asked: “How and when are scenes cut? Are there any patterns in the way the cuts function?” When I read this question / suggestion I was sort of surprised that I did not think of that initially. When you do think about it more thoroughly it begins to make sense as to how important that could be to the importance of movies.
The second Link I chose to write about was “A short Guide to writing about Films,” not because it was the first link in the list, but because the title of the link suggested that it would (and was) be helpful to me as I attempt to write my paper on film deconstruction. The link includes a brief description of camera shots, how to correctly write about a move properly, technical terms, and why movies are so important to the viewer. One of the tools included on this site that I found the most interesting was the technical film terms descriptions. It was a table consisting of a description and abbreviations of a technical film term fallowed by an example picture. This was extremely useful in showing me what each shot truly is in films. One sentence that I liked within this site was “Research should be done with an open and discriminating mind,” under the how to begin research tab. This statement is extremely true because if you begin analyzing movies with a pre-set mind about most things within the movie, you are not digging deeper and creating new thoughts and ideas about the film and its messages being portrayed.
And finally the third link I chose was “New ways to Teach Cinema”. One characteristic I noticed about this page immediately was the fact that it was clean and easy to comprehend, which is a plus while studying links. This link walks the viewer through deconstruction and reconstruction of films. The maker of this page does this in a great way; he or she includes paragraphs of helpful information and tactics used for deconstruction and also fun diagrams that give the viewer a visual to what the author is describing. These helpful visuals are sort of maps that are meant to help us break down the knowledge we have obtained throughout our analysis and begin to use it in an organized structure for a finished product. One point that the Author brought up in this link was the re-composition or reconstruction after deconstruction. I was impressed by this brilliant idea because I believe that re-composition after deconstruction would allow us to achieve a deeper understanding of the movie being analyzed. This link was a great tool I look forward to continue using.
Brandon Olson Pd.5
The first link i checked out was the deconstruction of lion king. I really enjoyed this link and how it instructed you in a new and unique way of deconstructing a film. For example assigning certain students to crucial but single characters and have them study that charcter through out the film and write down what they analyze from the film. At the end of the movie share each others ideas and thoughts of character and compare them. I think its a unique way of deconstructing a film and perhaps we shall try it sometime our selves. It was a neat thinking method i thought and the focusing on one character is a great example for deconstructing the single character of a film.
Second i chose the deconstucting of the 300 poster which brilliantly they deconsrtucted the hidden art behind this mystical poster. The necklace he wears shows that he still cares bout some one or home and reminds him probably that he blongs to whomever he recieved it from. The sheild shows that he is capable of battle and is ready for anyone to come his way and he will deffend until death upon him. His savage facial expression shows that he is blood thirsty and all that is man. As he roars the chant "This is Sparta!!" He is not wearing much armour which makes him unprotecting and has guts but it helps their speed and adjileness in battle. I do not think i ever want to run into him.
Third I looked at the Syllabus for Film studies at Georgia State. This is what they questioned: Why are we spending so much time finding new meanings in something as insignificant as a movie? Aren't we just "reading into" the film? I think its important that we get into analyzing and deconstructing of the films because it gets us to understand why we watch them; why is the film made that way; and how is this grasping and creating our thoughts. Films are more than just the average film, they are causing us to think and feel things we can not normally experience in our everyday lives or maybe it does relate to us and we like the feeling of it. Movies you could compare to as a theme park and theres different kinds of rides. Theres roller coaster rides(movies that hold you to the edge of your feet) and calm marry-go-arounds (movies that are controling but take you along for the ride). Why we dig deep into films you ask? Because they are in our lives more frequently that you think. We Americans own the film past-time. We watch movies,tv, and ads everyday! Its all around us thats why we need to study it.
The first link i chose was "film Terms Glassary". this link contains many many terms used in film making and film art. the title of this page is film glossary because that is exactly what it is, it is a giant page full of all the terms you need to know when studying films or in a film class. this page would be very usefull because it would help explain the situation in the movie using words or using one word. instead of using a whole story to explain a scene in a movie by using these words you could cut that whole story down into a sentece or two. with these 97 words of wisdom you could summarize each scene,camara angle, characer switch, and action scene in a movie using one word. to me that seems pretty cool the instead of trying to find ways to explain the story you have words that mean things that will tell the person your telling the story to exactly what the movie was about or what was in it.
the next link i chose was "Greatest films of all-time". this website is exactly what the link says it is. it will give you the titles of what people have put down as what they think are the greatest movies of all time. there are even catagories you can choose from to get specific result on the greatest movies like: 100 greatest film, 101-200 greatest films, 201-300 greatest film, 200 greatest films by decade, 300 greatest films by decade, top 100 box office of all-time, greatest films by category, greatest films by criteria, greatest american movies AFI series, and other great films. all of these catagories will list and tell you what are the best movies out there so you dont have to waist your time watching bad movies. this will help me annalize/study movies because i will be able to see peoples reviews on movies and get scoops on things that i didnt catch watchin the film and i will also be able to watch films that will keep me on my feet and not bore me.
the final link i chose was "mad max trilogy: brilliant filmmaking". this link takes you directly to a mad max films website. this website tells you everything you will need to know about mad max films. you can research all of the films, the soudtracks, the trailer, his car "the interceptor", see where they films the movies, get a look at the cast and crew, and buy merchandise. this website if for mad max fanatics, it even tells you upcomming events related to mad max. this web site would be useful if i was analyzing a mad max film because it has everything i need to analyze the film, i wouldnt even have to watch the film and i could write an essay just on the website itself and be able to write about the movie without watching it because i could find enough info about it on the website for me to write about.
Lexi Fontana Pd. 6
The first link I chose was called “A short guide to writing about films.” It was exactly that; an in depth guide on the use of film analysis, how to start analyzing, what to look for, and even specific terms used in filming. I loved how the author said, “we go to movies for many reasons.” He stated some he thought of but didn’t list them all. Made us as the reader try to think of our own ideas as well. The author also gave readers very helpful question suggestions to answer. I will definitely use them in my film analysis. One that stuck out in my mind was, “why are the opening credits presented in such a manner against this particular background?” which made me think back to my film, and in Juno there is about 3-5 min of opening credits. There’s music and loads of sketches, going from one to another, and is continued throughout the movie. Also, on this website contained abbreviations for note-taking on camera angles. Not only did it literally give you abbreviations but also gave the definition of the abbreviation and a picture example to go with it. This guide will help me with my film analysis and I recommend it to anyone else who is having trouble starting their analysis.
The second link I chose was Joel & Ethan Coen, Film Art Geniuses. In this website it talks about the Coen Brothers, Joel being the older one and Ethan the younger. It also states that Joel went to school for Film and TV, in New York City, while Ethan went to Princeton and majored in philosophy. The Coen brothers grew up in St. Louis Park, MN. I feel that that is important because society makes viewers believe that you have to be from a big city to ‘make it big’. Here’s proof that the Coen Brothers are from Minnesota and are very successful. The stereotype is broken. This website also shares information about all of the films the Coen Brothers created. Their debut was Blood Simple according to Rebecca Flint, the author of this website. Most of their films attract the same type of audiences and are very similar. But when you find something that works you stick with that plan. Here is a perfect example of that.
Lastly, the third link I chose was the Wisconsin Film Festival. It takes place on April 15 – April 18. This will be the festival’s 12th year doing the film festival. Also, this festival is possibly the largest on-campus held film festival in the United States. Independent films can be held at this festival. There’s anything from narrative, documentaries, experimental, shorts, and even photos from local Wisconsin film makers. Eight theaters play these films during the festival. The festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts Institute. On this website they are advertising for the Wisconsin film festival, but there is also another link so show a list of any other film events in the surround area of the festival. With this website you can order tickets to the film festival, sign up to be on a e-mail list for more or upcoming information. They even have a twitter bar on the site so you can be basically on two sites at once without clicking back and forth. This isn’t just a put together festival; it is well thought out, rules for films and has to be turned in at a certain time. If anyone got into this festival it wouldn’t be as important and it is now.
The first link I chose to explore was Los Angeles Mount St. Mary's College Film Studies. This link is about the Film Studies course offered at the university. This course looks at the ten different genres ranging from Silent films to character driven Sleeper films. Also, understand the language of the camera and how it tells a story. Something that I found interesting about the class was that it is graded on a 1400 point scale. Showing up every day and having perfect attendance, you will receive 250 points, but if you miss a session, then you lose 100 points each time. Finally at the end of the semester, there is an eight page paper about one of the genres discussed during the semester. This paper is worth 500 points. Some of the topics they cover in this class are war, horror, musical, and silent films. I think that this is a very interesting course that looks like it explains and goes in-depth into almost every genre film in production today.
The second link that I chose was the Study Guide Film Analysis tab. This link is extremely helpful for getting started with writing a film analysis paper. It explains how to set up the paragraphs and what information each should contain. Though it says that it is a film review guideline, I think that the same information can and should be used when writing an analysis of the film. Further along, there are definitions of different and important terms one should use to create a great paper. Some of the definitions are about camera angles, shot techniques, and the soundtrack. Near the end of the page, there are critical film analysis questions for one to use to create an extravagant essay. There are questions about the background, structure/form and theme, all major parts of the film and are the most interesting and deconstructable. Finally, at the bottom of the page, there is a question and answer section where people can ask questions and leave comments to other questions.
The third and final link that I looked at was the Edison Community College Syllabus. This college course is going over almost exactly the same things we are right now in College Bound English. The objective of this course is to make students appreciate films as art forms. As with what Mr. C is doing right now, the instructor is providing the students with a basic understanding of film analysis. The students are becoming more familiar with film terminology and describe film techniques through class critiques, which I would compare to the team projects we are doing. Also, the students are to discuss moral, psychological, and social meanings of films, compare film to other art forms, and examine the cultures depicted in the film, which is what we are to do in our individual film essays. From what I can tell, Mr. C I practically running a free pre-college English course, similar to a pre-K type of setting in which you do the same thing as the next level, just not as strict of rules and regulations. Thank you Mr. Christensen!!
For my first i chose Teaching Film Studies
I learned what to look for in a video. What kind of feelings are portrayed and when and why they are portrayed at that certain time. It makes you look for what events make you feel joyful and how that makes the film better in the leading up to the other types of feelings in the movie. If there is joy in the film there has to be some sort of at least small tragedy because thats what makes you care about the film. As i thought about this i found out how true it was in every film that i have seen goin in depth with the films and realizing that there has to be a contrast to the main feeling of the movie otherwise it would never keep my attention and make me care for the characters and what they are going throught.. The link was extremely helpful in what to take notes on as well and what the look for in the movie to help be a more insightful thinker on movies.
The second was from the link Web English Teacher Film Study.
This link had another link that led to all types of film angles and shot shown in movies. We already have a handout like this but this went more in depth with the way that directors create these camera angles. How much work it takes to put in a single shot with a crane for instance. Directors believe that this is well worth the effort and time because it adds so much to the film and how you view the film. If every shot was from the same angle and showed the same view you would not get nearly the effect that the director is trying to accomplish.. A director can tell a whole story just by a few different shot in a rapid succession with one another. This gives the viewer a greater look into the movie and what the director is trying to get across as a whole.
The third link I chose was Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist.
In this, Ager goes into detail in how he deconstructs a film. He tells how he looks for things and basically writes a sample essay. By reading this essay you can learn how to use quotes and scenes in the film along with a brief description in the film. He sees how the film maker is using certain scenes to build into a ending that is bigger than itself. He shows the conflict of Man vs. Himself and how he goes through a battle that is greater than himself. He tells how the character fights for himself and then realizes that it is more than himself and is about a family tradition. The film uses a symbol of the family that is given down from generation to generation. It takes you through how the character learns and how his thought process changes into him realizing that it is more than just himself he is building pride for. It is for his family and the past generations that established the pride.
Wright_7
The first link I chose was the film analysis sample essay. This will be an ideal example towards my own individual paper and will give me great insight and wisdom on how to construct it. The writer, David Gouldstone, compares art to violence in Stanley Kubrick's _A Clockwork Orange_. Helpful and noticeable hints are included off to the left side of this essay (centering your title, top/bottom/right/left margins = 1-1.5 inches, intro contains historical/critical context, double-spaced, reference to a particular scene within the movie, intensified focus on that scene, conclusion summarizing main point without plagiarizing, etc.). Gouldstone mentions aesthetic associations and a metaphor to Christianity in his paper. He also shares how the film appears on a surface level as well as on a scholarly level (seems to be about x, but is really about y). Finally, Gouldstone analyzes the layers of betrayal, destruction, freedom, and overall salvation that arrive hand in hand with a scholarly viewing of _A Clockwork Orange_.
The second link I chose to view was the film terms glossary page. Here I found a plethora of film terms that will help our group presentation and my individual essay immensely. By using these terms, my group and I will sound scholarly/collegiate and will at least give off the impression that we know what we're talking about. My favorite term found on this page would most likely be polyphony, merely because it sounds unique and its name reminds me of Polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclops that is outsmarted in the Odyssey. I also took appeal to internal conflict and reaction shot, two terms our group will most likely mention in our presentation. It seems that there are a lot of terms regarding French or European background (AUTEUR, LEITMOTIF, Mise en Scene, Denotation, etc.). Perhaps this is because the film industry originated in Europe/France, or Europe/France has a rich background of film/film studies? It is difficult to say...yet that would be my guess.
My third and final link that I chose was the Greatest Films of All Time page. This was enlightening and inspiring to glance over, as I have seen many of these life-changing movies. These movies are on this list for a reason: they inspire us, make us laugh like no other, scare us far away from our comfort zone, make us wish we could live (in an alternate dimension, that time period, that lifestyle, etc.), make us feel tougher (007, Godfather, MI III, etc.), makes us reinforce our love for superheroes, and gives us hope (Rocky). I agree with almost every movie listing on this page; however, I can not agree that the Alien series should be ranked alongside Star Wars, Austin Powers, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Godfather, etc. Seeing this list gives me a sense of pride as a moviegoer and reinforces my urge to watch great movies, again and again.
Interesting info =
SCREEN DIRECTION The consistent pattern of movement from angle to angle: left to right or right to left.
STYLE A director's personal pattern of treating material, including staging of camera and performers, script elements, and music.
SECONDARY MOTION Camera motion, including pan, tilt, pedestrian, crane or boom, dolly, truck, arc and zoom.
SCENE A clearly identifiable, organic part of an event. It is a small structural (action) or thematic (story) unit, usually consisting of several shots.
SEQUENCE The sum of several scenes (or shots) that compose an organic whole.
SETTING The time and place in which the film's story takes place, including all of the complex factors that come packaged with a given time and place: climate, terrain, population density, social structures and economic factors, customs, moral attitudes, and codes of behavior. Also, see Exposition
I first chose the U of South Dakotas Link for Film Studies Minor and this link basically tells you that this course will let the student realize the impact that cinema has on society and how its cultural values are communicated through the film. It says it's an 18 hour course but Department requirements is 6 hours, non-department is 6 and the elective is 6 also. There are many courses it looks like that you can take for Film Minors. The course is recommended for students interested in become a film maker/director. It starts with explaining film history, culture, and genres. It has US history, video production, introduction in to acting, and than directing of course. Taking these courses would definitely add to a persons knowledge and ability to analyze films and/or direct them. I believe this would be a very interesting course and a very intelligent course to take for Film Minors in college, definitely a considerable choice.
The next link i chose was the Yale Film Studies link. This class of Film Analysis 2.0 will help students learn film vocabulary and the techniques of cinema. The "guide" it explains about on this site helps you look through the course and gives you a run through on what is all offered in the course with: basic terms, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound, and than the final analysis. The site lets you go though and read definitions of the term with examples and also explains what each subject is about and what it includes to study and learn about. It gives you the run through and what to use, where and how to use it and than what effect it has on a film you made be editing or analyzing. The final project of this class is to take a film and deconstruct it like we happen to be doing in class right now, it gives you examples and shows you how it was broken down and analyzed. The final analysis I believe would help out our classmates/students in writing their paper.
The third and final link I chose to look at was the Teaching Film Studies link. This link offers teachers and/or students examples and ideas for deconstructing films, but also gives teachers a better look at how to help students in their deconstructing. I clicked on Prof. Anatoly Antohin's (last name is pretty close to Antohins Sugurs name) link to his website. This prof. teaches at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and his site is about teaching film studies. He starts out with explaining how analyzing things or topics is difficult but you have to break your habit of consuming the movie into really getting in depth of it and realizing what it is actually trying to tell you or show you. He goes into explaining by saying that "to teach film without having a fully discovered theory is like teaching physics without basic laws." This basically saying, that if you don't know jack about film studies, than why bother to teach it in the first place. I personally think on my own level of knowledge that if you were to go through this mans site and read and learn about what he says and shows you, than you're going to come out on top of a lot of other people who just think they know what they're doing when they really don't. This is definitly a site to look at and possibly tell your students and/or classmates about and have them take a look at it themselves.
The link leading me to Ohio state university (http://film-studies.osu.edu/) reminds me to not only analyze the way this movie affects me or those close around me, but to put myself in the mindset of others from around the globe. Movies come in All different types, genres, and ages, and when you have your favorite it is hard to step out of a certain mindset to see others. The movie I am analyzing is targeted towards kids, teenagers(possibly), and Families. It also can target anyone who enjoys animated films and or penguins :) This website does not offer a gigantic amount of information of terms or anything of that nature, it more tells you what is going to go down in that class for the semester or year that it is offered.
“film analysis, history, and theory, and then go on to take classes in early cinema, a multicultural component, film electives,”
Once I realized there was a link explaining more Film terms. . .I quickly clicked! I am guessing that brushing up on some cinema terms would be in my best interest since I will be writing a paper on a film. And making it sound like I know what I am talking about is probably a best priority. Anyways. . . I looked through the immense list of Film terms.. . .and considering my movie I believe I will use these ones the most often.
“Flashback Moving temporarily backwards in time; a cinematic past tense that soon becomes an ongoing present.
Rushes Unedited raw footage as it appears after shooting.
SETTING The time and place in which the film's story takes place, including all of the complex factors that come packaged with a given time and place: climate, terrain, population density, social structures and economic factors, customs, moral attitudes, and codes of behavior. Also, see Exposition
STYLE A director's personal pattern of treating material, including staging of camera and performers, script elements, and music.”
This website is an abundant catalog of film terms, which will become very handy. Many times in the film “Surf's Up” does it use flashbacks to the beginning to build the main and supporting characters characteristics such as Reggie Belafonte, Cody Maverick, and Big Z. Also it starts out looking as if the film was a jumble rushes(I was excited to find out there is a word meaning “raw footage”). This style of movies really intrigues the viewer because they feel as if they were the ones interviewing the real talking penguins and chickens....( Mr. C have you seen this movie yet? “Surf's Up”? Let me know if not I could lend it to you. It is a great kids movie and I believe you and your family would love it! Not to mention your wonderful kids would probably adore it.)
Lastly I decided to click on the http://vega.jeffco.edu/lvinyard/course_syllabi/eng122.pdf website. This website is helpful with knowing expectations of a college course of film appreciation. This useful website reviews an exemplary amount of things, such as film history, film movements, sounds, aesthetics, and ideology and theory. This website is a syllabus and show the grading scale. Returnig to the top of the syllabus, in the description, it says “This course contains important communications and media influences so critical essays and research papers are often required. Film Appreciation will partially fulfill the humanities requirement for the associate degree.” This statement reminds me that not only are movies works of art but they are forms of communication. “Recognize film as an art form as well as an entertainment vehicle.” A film analysis class would effeminately not be complete fun and games. Noticing the reason for all the camera angles, songs, sounds, would be extremely challenging. I find that half the battle would be the terms section of the course! All those terms for so thought simple shots.
I have a question/thought at random. I almost wonder if you have as write so many words so that we do not make conjunctions (ie. Don't, can't, wouldn't, ect.). Just a thought.. . .it definitely gets me thinking about utilizing the most words as possible and not using contractions would be a pretty good way to get there. Oh and it also helps for our papers because we cannot use contractions there right? And how in the world do you get all of these blogs read? That is just crazy talk?!
For one of my sources, I chose the studyguide.org site which had many good tips for the guidelines for my paper and very useful terms that I can use.
This information will greatly help how I organize and present my paper. I will make sure not to do Paragraph 2, which was strongly not advised to do. I will also make sure to notice the many film techniques in key scenes, which will help me grow and become more knowledgeable. Thus, get me ready for college. I will also stray away from talking about the movie too much, and keep on the analysis of the scenes and the reasoning behind them. When I do my final paragraph, I will make sure to do as the site says, guide the reader and make sure the audience really wants to see my movie. It may not be the best site, but it gave me some good tips.
For my second source, I picked the first film terms glossary, because I thought it would have useful terms I might find potentially useful. There is a very long and detailed list of many film terms that will give me a larger vocabulary and allow me to analyze my movie and its’ scenes more efficiently and effectively than ever before. Although some of these terms are common sense, others are very unique and odd, like you would have to be a professional to really understand how they really work. The use of abbreviations will also help me make my paper look better and more professional. I never realized how many different ways to describe a camera motion. I never would have thought every camera angle had a specific name and every little technique famous director’s use had a very specific word for everything. For example, a Controlling point of view is the psychological perspective (a character's or the storyteller's) from which a particular scene is shown. I never would have guessed what controlling point of view meant that, I mean, who comes up with this stuff? It’s actually quite intriguing.
The feminist film theory, even though it’s from Wikipedia, will definitely help me analyze why women in my movie act and try to do things as they do, rather than in an abnormal way. I will make sure to notice that women are more like possessions, rather than human beings and men are always in control, rather than possessions. Many people still believe this, which is sad in our society, but a fact nonetheless. I will also make sure to notice how the woman’s feelings aren’t even considered in making a decision and their input isn’t respected because it’s from a female, rather than an “all powerful” male. This will be a major reason to notice why women do what they do in many movies, but not all. Some movies break the norm, which is exactly what this site is saying, not all women are portrayed so harshly, some have respect and are happy.
http://cinemaroll.com/action/deconstruction-of-300-film-poster/
First of all I found this website annoying and repetitive. Other than that I find that it’s quite useful how the author goes through every single aspect of the movie cover or poster. It reads into the colors, setting, clothing, body language and even the lens choice. The website goes into every aspect that the movie cover or poster of 300 depicts. It analyzes how the setting is in a stormy battle of the ancient times. It goes into how the clothing he’s wearing, which isn’t much, shows that he is looking for more agile speedy attacks than walking into battle in a clumsy, solid, slow suit of armor. Yet he has a shield in the poster instead of a sword saying that he’s more in defense of something he cares about instead of on the offence taking something. It also goes into shutter speed and the focus and lighting that all points to the man’s shouting face and his defensive shield protecting Sparta.
http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20matrix%20review.html
This website ROCKED! I watched the analysis of the movie The Matrix and it is filled with tons of parallels to our own world and society. It went through many points that people are getting too attached to technology and that people can actually become completely dependent on it. It also goes over how there are a lot of religious references to many different religions and actually how some people’s name in the movie also relate to technology and its effects. Some characters in the movie are named Link and Switch, they were created by the Matrix. Other characters were born outside of the Matrix and their names are Tank and Bulldozer. Tank and Bulldozer are in much better physical shape compared to Link and Switch which tells you that technology actually takes away or sucks away from its host like a parasite. The movie seems to be about fighting the system but it’s really about fighting technology dependence and being more natural instead of digital.
http://www.kubrick.com/
This site went over Kubrick’s movies and answered questions of people that they wondered. It helped me look farther into details and wonder more about the dialog of my own movie. It also helped open my eyes to question more things instead of just merely noticing them. This site also helped me really think about what a genius Kubrick was because he had so much detail and required so much from his actors. It has also really intrigued me to go and watch more of his movies. I’ve seen parts of Apocalypse Now but definitely want to see the entire film. I’ve also always heard great things about 2001: A Space Odyssey and also really want to see that. In these studies of Kubrick’s films I should be able to apply this to my own movie and I should also be able to apply this to our group presentation helping us to notice more and analyze better.
The first website i decided to analyse is -Web English Teacher Film Study. This website helped me hav a better understanding of how what is a camara angle.
"Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. You need a straightforward set of key terms to describe them".
I learned that there is many kind of camara angle for example: The Bird's-Eye view, High Angle, Eye Level, Low Angle, Oblique/Canted Angle,Camera Movement, Pans, Tilts, Dolly Shots, Hand-held shots, Crane Shots ect. This effect are very use when making a movie. The bird's eye view its a scene showen from diretly overhead shot. This angle gives us the audience a godlike position, looking donw on what is happening down under but it doesnt give a unrecognisable view at some bjects like for example umbrellas in a growed and dancers' legs. The next shot that is very interesting is dolly shots because the camara is place on a moving vehicle and moves alongside the acion, mostly it always follows the moving abject. this camara angle is mostly used in action movies and adventure films. It gives us the view that puts us in the movie. The final film making angle is camara movement is about a when a director choosesto move action along by telling the story as a series of cuts, going from one shot to another.
The second website scand throught was Yale Film Studies.
"Sound in the cinema does not necessarily match the image, nor does it have to be continuous"
I wanted to analyse sometihing about sounds, so i found a many useful knowledge about sound. for example i didn know what sound bridge was, but now i know what it is. Sound bridge can lead in out a scene. This sound effect can occur at beginning of one scene so it can make the scene more imotional or make it have more effect on the scene. sound bridges are one of the most common transitions in the continity edting style. Other sound effect is sonc flashback this is sound from one diegetic time is heard over images froma a later time. this often carries morals emotonal overtoe, making a character's motivation exlplicit. This last sound effect that will help me analyse my paper is source this kind of effec is the most basically, this atergory refersto the place of a sound in relation to the frame and to the world of the film.
The third and final website thati i analyse very carefully is Greates film of all time.
"What was the Best Picture-winning film in the year that the Academy Awards (Oscars) TV show was the most watched, at 55.2 million viewers?"
This website is about what is the best film of all time. this website will help me choose movies to watch and also give me a quick background of the films that have changed the way we see films today. Many films are knowned as great films beacause of the sound effec, camara view and also the story line of a film. i learned many things that i didnt know like i didnt know tat jaws(1975) was the first film to gross over $100 million at the box office. i also learned tha Die Hard(1988) was voted the greatest action movie of all time by both Entertainmnt Weeklyand and Music channel MTV.
One of m favorite film toy story was vote number one film on the top 100 animated featurs of all time.
Tessa Richmond_3
A Short Guide to Writing about Film
This website supported what I have been taught as well as given me knew ideas of what to analyze. I never really thought that the props and costumes were something to analyze. I thought about writing about that in my paper over Cruel Intentions, but I didn't think it would be important. I was listening to the commentary from the prop manager and costume designer and how they were talking about how sometimes they needed to change an entire costume so it would go with the props and how much thought went into figuring out the color scemes of each of the rooms and the costumes that the characters wore in those rooms. This site also reminded me to analyze the time period and the specific audience the movie was trying to reach. I also never thought of analyzing the opening credits and why they were 'presented in such a manner against that particular background.' My attention has been captured by that, but I've never really paid that close of attention to it.
New Ways to Teach Cinema
This article was giving examples of new ways to teach, taking the new technology and running with it. At this university, they use DVD's, DVD's on PC's and PC's. They use the standard, easy-to-run, technology to help in they're film analysis. They use and study different "ology's" based on the beleifs, views, and framework of other professors narrative and structural dimensions of hypermedia. Technology has made film analysis so much easier because when you buy/rent a DVD, it gives you more than just the movie. The making of the movie, the behind the scenes, theatrical trailor, director's commenter, deleted and extended scenes, as well as other features come with the movie. All of those features can help to analyse a film further than ever before. Plus the use of the internet to research reviews of the movie as well as the actors' carreers. YOu don't have to go to the movie theatre and hope that you got everything anymore, you can rent/buy the movie to gain more knowledge about it, plus the special features can usually point out anything missed.
Film Studies for free
I like how the website states that movies should be made like an essay, with no particular ending in mind. The site states that a single detail should be noticed in a movie, the beauty and complexity, should be celebrated. The website is just talking about a movie and an essay that was written about it. It was interesting to read these peoples views about the movie and what was written about it. Reading they're opinions gave me further insight to what I could write about and include in my essay, and presentation. No matter what the movie, there is always a greater, deeper meaning and its up to the audience to analyse, interpret, comprehend, and present that meaning so others can learn what we have. Thats what this site was doing, offering there insight for us viewers to read and learn. For someone who might not have any interest in deconstructing and analysing a film might change there mind after reading some of these analysis' of movies and might want to take it farther to see what they can notice.
Truth and invention, real lives and fiction become indistinct and equal elements, merging with other people's work in the found-footage style, to create a single fabric of random spontaneous expressiveness, not unlike the life that slides by in front of a shop video camera. Each piece of film presents a clue to an inextricable tangle to which everything in the world is connected in its spider web of time, space and chance.
— Excerpt from Serafino Murri, `Chris Petit, Anatomies of the Image', in Afterall - A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Issue 5, February 2002
Chris Kujawa
http://madmaxmovies.com/
I personally love the Mad Max movies but why is this site even on here. Its just a timeline on when different movies are coming out. From reading the bits and pieces that caught my eye there really isnt much for critical thinking on this site. These movies give us a fealing like how its going to be when technology runs out. It is an apocalyptic type of feel that helps us escape our boring reality. Mad Max plays a hero that really does not want to be a hero but he gets stuck in situations that he has no choice but you help others to get what he wants.
http://www.tarantino.info/wiki/index.php/Death_Proof:_Deconstructing_The_Slasher_Film
This is a very useful site on just about every aspect of being able to deconstruct a movie. It talks about the 4 main things in about all 80's slasher films. 1. a psychotic killer is out to stalk and kill people (usually teens). 2. The killer is usualy seeking revenge on something that happened to them in the past. 3. the stories usually take place around summer camps and fraturnities. 4. the killer is usualy not out to get a sexual thrill. another aspect on these movies that this site goes deeply into is the as of The Final Girl. She is most of the time sexually unexperieced giving her the upper hand in dealing with the killer because she is not rapped up in sex and drugs and whatever else. This site will definately help me with my movie just looking at the different aspects to look at throughout the movie.
http://www.filmsite.org/scariestscenes2.html
For what i have looked into from this site it is very helpful on what to look for in a movie. I mainly looked through the scariest scenes and was very surprised to see that Banbi what in there. The part in the movie where the hunter kills bambi's mother and it is signified by his father telling him that she is not coming. It is showing me that a scary scene doesnt have to be bloody and or gory. This site will help me figure out some of the areas in which to look a little deeper for meaning in my film. In district 9 when Wikus first sees that his arm is turning into a prawn arm and he starts to freak out. or when they are about to cut him into pieces to use his body for research. There are many parts in movies that show that type of scene to give the viewer a bit of what the person is feeling. Being scared enough for your life to break free from the chains holding you down and escaping from wherever you are is a perfect way to set the mood for what the character is feeling.
Fisher (emailed to me on time)
The first site that I choose to look at was Joel & Ethan Coen, Film Ar Geniuses. I choose this site because I enjoyed the movie No Country for Old Men. Once you get reading, you get all their accomplishments on their films and what they have done. You learn the background of their lives and what they have done from the very beginning of starting films. It surprised me that these two brothers have worked side by side from the very beginning and are very respected for the types of film they produce. They are known for the "cliff hangers" and the violence. I love films that have alot of gore and brutality. These movies seem to fit what I causally look for in movies and most likely will check out more from them and dig deep into the others as we done in class. Their screenplays definately show us that realitly is brutal and real. That is why I can see them as art geniuses, they do not sugar coat. Its in your face and you get that after watching films such as No Country for Old Men. Its helpful in a sense that you understand what their movies posses that others' don't and can fully get a grip at why they win awards like they do. Truely remarkable producers!
The second site I ended up choosing was the Greatest Films of All-Time. It sounded like a very interesting topic to see what the internet thinks are the top movies. But you get to the site and its not names of films that are rate... but you can choose from various links on which you would care to browse. I just took the link on the big story and it took me to a page talking about Film Francises. They give you really good descriptions on what is a franchise and the qualifications. It also stated movies that you thought would make a franchise really wasn't (ie. Transfomers. For one, there aren't three films to the series yet (a thrid one is rumored to be coming out). But the sequel, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, did not gross as much as expected.) The three big things in looking at a franchise and deciding what is and what is not is: 1. There is at least 3 films to the series. 2. All films combined has a gross box-office revenue income of $400 million dollars. And lastly 3. its based on popularity, genre, well-known stars and a big production budget. I can see why three films would help alot in making it a franchise. One of my favorite series does make the list as being a film franchise, and that's Pirates of the Caribbean. There is three films to the series (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, and At World's End). The series have made well over $400 million dollars. And they have well-known stars (Kierra Knightly, Orlando Bloom, and Johnny Depp). I suggest looking at this list of what is a franchise and what isn't. You most definately would be surprised.
The thrid site I choose was a college site. I choose USD Films Studies because it is really close to SDSU and they might require the same thing, and I am now interested in taking a film deconstruction course. At this site they go into detail about each class you are required to take if you are going for the film minor. It gives a description of each course that they have to offer and what that class is about and how many credits its worth. They also group classes together for how long each is going to take and each requirements that it takes to obtain the credits. It is very useful for people attending the univerisity and minoring in film studies, so they can get a good idea of what might be expected in the course and how long it will take to obtain the minor. It doesn't seem to bad its about 18 hours for each requirement and it would be well paid off for you if you are more interested in the minor instead of a actual course that you wanted to take for just fun. I would look into something like this for SDSU, but just a course. But very very helpful!
Jordan Meyers p.5
The first link that I happened to click on was the Corrigan link. I found this to be interesting because he tells us how we should write our paper and who we are assuming our audience is. It is interesting to me how he explains that when we go to movies we are there to think, not to think, to stare, and/or to write about that film. When Corrigan begins speaking about opinion, I agree with what he is saying, we need to have our opinions in our paper; just not too much. When we are using our opinions of a movie in our paper, we are trying to convince our audience the reasoning behind our theories on the movie; we are also trying to get them to go and see the movie for themselves. Other factors that will help me from this link are that I can compare and contrast my movie to other movies that have been made by the same director. “Film can help you 1) to understand your own response to a movie better, 2) to convince others why you like or dislike a film, 3) to explain or introduce something about a movie, a filmmaker, or a group of movies, 4) to make comparisons and contrasts between one movie and others as a way of understanding them better, and 5) to make connections between a movie and other areas of culture.”-Corrigan
I also found the link Film Analysis Sample Essay to be helpful also because it shows me what I can do with my paper. I am not just told to watch a movie, write notes and theories about it, and then put together my paper. It actually shows me what an “A” paper looks like. I also saw that I should put some information about the director into my paper and also some information about the actors in the film, just to show more about what kind of things that they have done. Another aspect of my essay will be about the music through-out the course of my film. The music plays a large role in what the viewer feels during the happenings of Transformers. “Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel received
the New York Film Critics award for the best film of 1971. It was acclaimed
as much for its aesthetic qualities as for the moral questions that it raised.
Kubrick incorporated music from various classical compositions at critical
moments in the film to highlight the tensions and ambiguities that he wanted
to illustrate. He used the music of Rossini and Beethoven (which inspire
Alex’s dreams of mayhem and destruction) as a background to the senseless
violence that Alex and his friends commit.”
The link for Glossary Film Analysis will help me to write my paper because then I will not feel so ignorant when speaking about different camera angles and different placements of certain songs in certain scenes. Now I will be able to sound very collegiate and be able to explain what I am talking about more efficiently. These three things will all help me to have a well written and well prepared college paper.
1) The first link I clicked on was the Yale Film Studies. On this site there was a list of basic film terms along with three different units. There was also some examples of film analysis. One of the units was about cinematography. Cinematography explores different things about films, such as quality of different elements that play in the shot (black and white/color, contrast, deep focus, etc.), framing of a shot, scales, and movement of the how a scene was shot. I never realized how much went into filming each scene and how much the camera angles mattered. Different things can be stressed and even look different depending on the camera angle, or how much its zoomed in, or how its framed. Also, the use of color is essential. Colors don't always mean the same thing in every movie. Using the color red in one movie might be used to represent passion, while in another its used to represent blood. This site could definately help me with my paper because I don't know all these different things about film. This site could open my eyes to new things and my mind to new ideas and help me write and think more critically.
2) The second link I chose was Film Analysis Study Guide. This link was very helpful. It provided a simple outline of what a film analysis paper should contain and general film terms. This outline wasn't complicated and didn't overload you with a bunch of information that would make your head swim. I think it could definatley be useful for writing my paper. The terms will also be quite useful, mostly because I don't know a lot about film. The terms are also divided into different topics, so if you're looking for a term that has to do with editing or soundtrack, you can just go right to the secion rather than searching through all the other terms to find one that you can use. It also had guidelines and questions to answer to help us have a critical evaluation of our film. The questions had to do with the background of the film, the structure and form, and the themes in the film. These questions will help me get some ideas of what to write about in my paper and also get me thinking, hopefully making me notice things in my film that I hadn't noticed before.
3) The third link I chose was Los Angeles Mount St. Mary's College Film Studies. In this class, there are units on pretty much everything about American Film and Culture. The Silent Era, Musical Films, Horror films, War films, Film Noir, and Race and Sleeper films are all covered. The object of the class is to expose the students to different genres, develop an understanding of the language of the camera, to form an awareness of the film within a historical context, to creat an emotional connection between the students and film, and develop a critical eye for current film methodology and to demonstrate the power of film to mold American culture. I find that a class like this would be very interesting but also challenging. I don't think that I would lose interest in this class because I love movies and learning more about them makes them more enjoyable to me.
Katie Lindner P.7
The first link I chose was entitled, "U of South Dakota Film Studies" upon first entering the site, I viewed the overview of the film studies minor degree at the U. I learned right away that colleges go deep into what cinema actually does to our society and the impacts it causes. I also learned that you could become a better actor/director/appreciator of film by watching great movies and respecting them and learning from them. I also learned that while you watch and enjoy film, you expand your culture horizon and appreciate what you are viewing.
The second link I chose was entitled, "Mad Max Trilogy: Brilliant Filmmaking" and on first viewing the site, I recognized that the entire platform was based around Mad Max. I myself have never even heard of Mad Max, but apparentley others have and love it dearly. What I learned from this site is people can fall in love with cinema and allow it to fill up their lives. The entire site was dedicated to this one trilogy of films, because people truly thought it was brilliant and appreciated it that much. In this site I learned nothing however about collegiate expectations of critical thinking; but I did learn that brilliant filmmaking can change lives.
The third link I chose was entitled, "Yale Film Studies" and on first view, I see a puppy. What a good start. The entire site is dedicated to the students and faculty of yale, to provide them with basic terms and techniques of cinema; which tells me that ivy league schools whom hold some of the most brilliant minds in America, has a film study program. It also informs me that if you are interested in becoming familiar with the film producing business, you need to be very aware of the vocabulary used in filmmaking, and how to dissect and analyze movies for your own benefit. Colleges expect you to be able to analyze anything-especially film- thoroughly and completely and extract components that help you personally,
Austin Sumner
Film Terms Glossary
I like this link because it has every part of a movie defined. These words and definitions will be very useful when i'm writing my paper because I will have the chance to use these "scholarly" words to impress you (Mr. C) and maybe a future professor. I have found words I have never heard before along with things I didn't know even existed in movies. For example Denoucement- the brief period of calmness after the climax. These terms give me more to analyze in my film, creating more quality, scholarly information.
Film Analysis Study Guide
I took this link and then went to film analysis essay guidelines. Here I found questions that will be very helpful for me to construct my paper; they will help me with getting some background on the director and writing and also help me find/analyze signifcant parts in my film. For example, "why does the film start in the way that it does?". This is a critical part in a movie as i have learned from Mr. C in his presentation. It sets the tone and gives you some insight on the main characters. It also will help me with my conclusion. How does the film relate to my topics/thesis statement. I find this cite unique and I am excited to use some of these question in making a quality paper.
USD Film Studies
I chose this link because I thought it might be interesting to learn how these kind of courses work. Being its in SD i thought it might be similar to SDSU course. In this course they learn about how movies impact society. I am interested in this subject because I think film have a greater impact then what we think. In school about every day you will here a quote from a movie. I hear tons from The Hangover. Movies have an impact on how we talk, think, and look at people. When I watch movies I put myself in the shoes of the actors all the time and think about what I would do in their situation. This seems like it would be a fun course to take and I am really interested and will look into when I go to SDSU.
“Rob Ager, Expert Film Deconstructionist” was the first film deconstruction link that I checked out. This website has information about the steps that should be followed to deconstruct a movie well. Ager wrote that you have to view a film at least three times. The first time you watch the film he says to watch it to get an idea of what the movie is about, how and when events happen and who is involved, and in what order things occur. Identifying the many symbols and hidden messages in the film is what to focus on during your second viewing of the movie. After carefully analyzing every scene in the film Ager says you should be able to see any of the underlying themes of the movie. The third time you watch the movie you should try to find out what parts of the movie that show if the symbols you saw during the second viewing could be true or not. You are also supposed to look for more symbols for anything that was not explained well in the film. This link will help me because it lays out the steps, for deconstructing a movie, in a way that is easy to understand. I am sure it will be much easier to analyze The Phantom of The Opera now that I have read Robert Ager’s steps to deconstructing a movie.
The second film deconstruction link that I followed and then read over was the link that is called, “Evan Burchfield, Deconstructionist.” Evan Burchfield wrote numerous short essays and blogs about many different movies that each contains different subjects that are usually analyzed, like feminism, religion, and violence. This website will be useful because it has a lot of topics that Burchfield has analyzed and wrote about, so we can read some of his ideas and be able to think of some of our own that will grow off of the ideas we read in his blogs. It will be probably be good use some of Evan Burchfield’s information and quote some of his blogs in my paper or use them while my team and I are deconstructing the movies of the Twilight saga and Underworld series. These movies are not ones that Evan wrote about, but he still has some of the subjects, that are in these movies, on his website.
The final film deconstruction link that I read over was the one titled, “A Short Guide to Writing about Film.” This last film deconstruction link that I looked at will be very good to go back to and re-read; there is a lot of information on this site, including a list of film terms, which will be useful for writing more scholarly and analytically while I am making my deconstruction paper for The Phantom of The Opera. This website has various strategies for writing deconstruction papers. It even lists six different approaches to writing about films. These six approaches are the film history, national cinemas, genres, auteurs, formalism, and ideology. This will be good for figuring out what parts of The Phantom of The Opera to write about since I can obviously not write about the whole two and a half hour movie because a paper that long would take too much time to write and to much time to read. This website even gives me different writing styles and structures to try while writing my paper. This will be a useful website for pin pointing what I am going to be writing about.
Valerie Beck,p.7
greatest films of all time.
the greatest movies out there tend to have alot of popular actors. which when people see the actors in the preview, that may make them want to see the movie. and thats how some movies make so much money. a movie that i just saw recentally was a movie called the crazies. the reason i wanted to see that movie was because it was based in a small town and it had some actors that i reconized. i think when a movie is based in a area similar to yours it draws you to see that movie. the movies that tend to be somewhat of what are life is like. or what we would want are life to be is the kind of movies that are our favorites. so directors want to make a movies that we want to see. scary movies tend to be the best money makin movies because people get a thrill of being scared. our lives dont have zombies and monsters. we want to be able to live our imaginations. and pretty much the only way to do that is to watch a movie. the greatest movies have accomplished what people want to feel. the directors are just not people that direct there artist.
feminist film theory
Early feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes of women.such fixed and endlessly repeated images of women were considered to be objectionable distortions which would have a negative impact on females. some films show women as weak and not independent. which insults women and sterotypes them. old films always showed women that went back to men that cheated, and that shows them as weak. so if people are seeing films like that, wont they make there lives kinda like that? women have been portrade has something there not, gladly i think its changing, movies now show women more independent. but also i think its getting worse with what women have to look like now. if your not pretty much perfect your not good enough. its the same with men. but i think its a little worse with women. the younger you look the better you are. films dont want women that arent perfect. so its really hard for women that are great actors to get into big time films.
decontrution of the lion king
The mature Simba is young, energetic and calm-looking, with a clear and firm voice, and whenever he appears, except for in the fighting scenes and at night, the background is bright and sun rays shine everywhere. On the other hand, his uncle Scar has a scar just cross his left eye. He is skinny, with a low and secretive voice and a cunning look. Whenever he appears, the background is gray in colour And he always goes to the "shadowy" place where the bad hyenas live.
in the movie the males do all the braggin and no females do. also no males ask for help but the females do. no females take the lead for guidance. and no females show any sign of bravery. also the females role is sededuced to be object to be consumed by male. In many other scenes, it is males who make decision, who take the lead to fight and command. The male dominant society is further reinforced in the mind of the audience.
And the caring relationship between the mother lions and the cubs, and between the lions and lionesses cannot really be seen in real life, where the non-father males will kill other male's offspring and cubs are always abundant and dying of starvation. The relationship, and hence the struggle, depicted is more human in nature.
1.) A short guide to writing about film
This essay is about what to write about if one is writing about a film. It goes into depth discussing the technical terms that describe each shot that directors use to show a person or draw your attention to a specific part of the scene. This essay also tells the reader how to watch the movie, what things to watch for, correlation between the movie and the movie title, opening credits presented in such a way. This essay could be helpful if one did not fully understand the terms that could make your essay much more descriptive. This could also be helpful if the author did not know where to start when writing an essay about a film.
2.) Film Glossary
This informative essay was all about different terms that help one accurately describe anything to do with a film when discussing such a topic. These range from a directors style to dynamic composition, from a relatively simple concept to a much more in depth and descriptive words. This article could assist a person who happens to be writing about a film to sound much more intelligent about the previously stated topic. When writing about a film they can use this vocabulary to precisely describe what they mean. Instead of going into a lengthy discussion of what they mean there is a single word that they can have in their arsenal to use instead.
3.) Film Analysis Essay Guidelines
This article goes into depth on what exactly one should write about while deconstructing a film. What key aspects they should pay attention to. What words to use and how to use them. This lays out the structure that can be helpful while writing an essay. This tells of a few things that one could write about including; camera movement, camera angles, editing, sound, and shots. This can be helpful to an author to help them understand what they should write about. Again this helps one understand the terms that will make their paper sound much more intelligent and thought out.
The first link that I chose was, "Harvard Film Studies". It is a website for Harvard students and it tells all about the class of film studies. It has many links that you can do click to get a better understanding of the class. For example if you clicked on the link called, "about filmstudies" it would give you a history as to how the "art" of film studying came to Harvard. It also gives you a summary of the courses and the three main groups that they fall into. VES offers courses on the history and theory of film as a major medium of modern visual art and culture; language and literature departments, such as East Asian, English, German, and Sanskrit and Indian Studies, present film as a counterpart to literary works and an integral expression of cultural formations; cultural studies departments such as anthropology and sociology consider film’s social functions. You could also click on the link named, "Requirements". This link is helpful for any student that is in or is wanting to take a film studies class. It breaks all of the class that a student can take and sort of rates them on their difficulty. It even has the class divided into ones that just undergraduates and just graduates can take.
The second link that I chose was, "Film Glossary". This link gives you a bunch of definitions of words that you would most likely hear in a film or about films. It also has different topics to pick from such as drama, comedy, postmodern, american age, self, death, script-o-rama, sex, and communism. If you click on one lets say comedy, it gives you a whole page about what comedy really is. At the top of the page there are more links that pertain to different types of comedy or different comedy techniques such as Theatre with Anatoly* Books * Stagematrix.06 * Students * Spectator * Virtual Theatre * Script Analysis * SHOWS * Film Theory * Film Directing * Plays * Write * Web * Classes * Bookmark vTheatre! Mailing List & News -- subscribe yourself * Method Acting for Directors * Acting 101. This site I think will really help anybody who doesn't know much about films or theatre to understand it better because if you don't understand something it is less fun and enjoyable. I mean ask yourself, "What is the point in doing something if you don't even understand what it is that you are doing?" You aren't going to get anything out of it, even if you really want to because you don't comprehend it and that just makes it a lot hard to get focused and get it done.
The third and final link that I chose was, "Greatest Films of All-Time". This link I think is mostly opinion because that is exactly what it is. An opinion. Noboby really knows what films are the greatest of all-time. It is just a personal opinion. This site has a section of links called, "Popular Sections" such as 100 Greatest Films, Greatest Film Quotes, Sex in Cinema, Most Controversial Films, Sexual or Erotic Films, Great Chick Flicks, Best Film Speeches, Scariest Scenes, Best Film Kisses, Best Tearjerkers, Visual/Special Effects, Best Film Editing Sequences, The Oscars, Greatest Film Scenes, Film Genres, Horror Films, Cult Films, Best Film Deaths, Great Plot Twists & Spoilers, Movie Posters, Milestones in Film, Film History by Decade, Film Noir. All of which are complete and total opinions because it doesn't matter what anybody else says it is what you think that really matters.
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