STOP PRESS Changes to the test

1
STOP PRESS!!Changes to the test

• Rather than discussing one sequence from a course
  screening, you will now be required to discuss
  five sequences, from five of the screenings.

2
Requirements for the test

• The test will ask you to show that you have
• Learnt and can use the key vocabulary from the
  course
• Seen the screenings

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SMST 101Lecture 8

• Moving Image Analysis and Evaluation
• and
• preparing for the essay

4
Final EssayDue 430pm Friday 2nd June

• An analysis of aspects of either a film,
  television programme, magazine, computer game or
  website utilising the concepts you have learnt
  over the course of the semester.
• (MIN 1500 words)
• CREDIT 25 of final mark.

5
Moving Image Synthesis!

• During the first half of the course you were
  given a set of terms
• These are tools with which you will complete the
  last two pieces of assessment - the test and the
  essay
• This lecture will help you to put it all together

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So far

• Spectacle
• Composition
• Narrative structure
• Cause and effect
• Film as a language
• Subjectivity

• The frame
• Still images
• Sound
• Space and Time
• Pleasures and Meanings
• Editing

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And now

• Amelie!

8
Clip One

• Set up (lecture 6)

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Some techniques used

• Voice-over narration
• Close-ups and medium shots
• Zoom shots
• Panning
• Flashbacks
• Black and white footage

• Omniscience
• Direct address
• Colour palette - green and red
• Sound inserts
• Vectors
• Montage

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Narrative

• Part of the set up of the narration
• Humour
• Small details
• Omniscience

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Clip TwoInciting incident

• Camera follows Amelie
• Camera crosses the line
• POV shots
• Music as box opened

• Date
• Is this important?
• Turns off tv
• Why? To what effect?
• The hole in the wall
• Does this represent anything?

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Clip ThreeClimax

• Depth of field
• Sound
• bell and phone precipitate action
• music and silence
• sound effects
• Contrast between colours inside and outside

• Cat
• Amelies fantasy
• change in grocers behaviour
• Video
• black and white
• reappearance of the television
• and of the neighbour

13

• What is the key action
• in Clip 3?

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Clip 4Narrative closure

• Recurring motifs and techniques
• Red and green
• Nuns bats, car, flower, clothing, suitcase
• Characters
• Glass man, chicken man, father, writer
• Locations
• Fathers house, fun fair
• Voyeurism

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Recurring motifs and techniques(cont.)

• Camera techniques
• High angles, zoom shots, panning
• Music
• Montage
• Direct address
• Narrator
• Omniscience
• More stories of unknown strangers

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Amelie and the essay

• Argument
• What are you trying to argue?
• What are you trying to say about Amelie?
• What is the framework you will use for your
  essay?

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What is Amelie about?

• Is it a fairytale?
• A search for love or happiness?
• How everyone can make a difference?
• How everyone is connected?
• Isolation?
• Voyeurism or Nosiness?

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Amelie is a fairytale

• Omission of graffiti, people of colour and
  unsavoury elements of Paris
• High degree of narrative closure (happily ever
  after)
• The use of a narrator
• Spectacle
• Digital manipulation

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Hulk and the essay

• Background research
• The translation of a comic book on to the screen
• Lee displayed multiple shots in a single frame,
  providing different angles of the same scene like
  comic book paneling.
• from http//actionadventure.about.com

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Comic techniques in Hulk

• Split screen
• Changing frame size
• Transitions
• Multiple angles
• Inserts

• Low depth of field/sharp focus
• CGI
• Cartoonish?
• Undies!

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Hulk -framing the essay

• Statement
• Hulk is more than just a film adaptation of a
  comic book.

• Question
• Is Hulk more than just a film adaptation of a
  comic book?

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Research

• Over 100 takes for some shots/sequences, using
  multiple camera angles
• Why do we have to cut and intercut? (Ang Lee)

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Further research

• "The origins of the Hulk are in the Cold War, and
  we had to find a way to update these anxieties,
  but not duplicate them.
• Ang Lee, NY Times, 22/6/03

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And

• Military complex
• Technologys capacity to mutate and destroy
• Lees attempts to imbue the story with deeper
  themes

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Tying the essay together

• Some possible discussion points
• Pleasures, meanings and spectacle
• Editing techniques (success/failure of)
• The use of sound
• Narrative structure
• The space constructed in the film

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Keywords from the essay question

• Referencing
• Five images
• At least two references from texts in the library
  
• One reference from an appropriate web site

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Essay expectations

• A coherent argument/framework
• Relevant use of terms from the course
• Relevant research

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Essay writing

• Your introduction needs to highlight your main
  themes
• Every paragraph needs to have a main point
• and lead on to the next paragraph
• Your conclusion should summarise and re-state
  your main points