This week we will be broadcasting the radio shows live on ds106radio, but in the meantime we are going to ask you to start ramping up for video portion of class that we will be immersed in for another 2 weeks beyond.
By Sunday, March 18th at midnight you will need to complete both of the following assignments (a and b).
a) Assignment- Analyze a Movie
Pick a favorite movie that in your mind, represents the qualities of a compelling film- writing, acting, set design, camera work, audio, etc. If you are new to thinking about movies as art, check out the AFI’s list of the 100 Best movies of all time for inspiration. You cannot go wrong with any of these as examples.
Write a blog post that explain your selection by identifying key scenes that use some of the elements described by Roger Ebert in his article “How to Read a Movie” essay link to below.
Identify the film genre and justify your choice with supporting evidence from the film, and then relate it to the most relevant specific genre from the TV tropes site (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/
Readings
From Roger Ebert’s “How to Read a Movie:”
“In simplistic terms: Right is more positive, left more negative. Movement to the right seems more favorable; to the left, less so. The future seems to live on the right, the past on the left. The top is dominant over the bottom. The foreground is stronger than the background. Symmetrical compositions seem at rest. Diagonals in a composition seem to “move” in the direction of the sharpest angle they form, even though of course they may not move at all. Therefore, a composition could lead us into a background that becomes dominant over a foreground. Tilt shots of course put everything on a diagonal, implying the world is out of balance. I have the impression that more tilts are down to the right than to the left, perhaps suggesting the characters are sliding perilously into their futures. Left tilts to me suggest helplessness, sadness, resignation. Few tilts feel positive. Movement is dominant over things that are still. A POV above a character’s eyeline reduces him; below the eyeline, enhances him. Extreme high angle shots make characters into pawns; low angles make them into gods. Brighter areas tend to be dominant over darker areas, but far from always: Within the context, you can seek the “dominant contrast,” which is the area we are drawn toward. Sometimes it will be darker, further back, lower, and so on. It can be as effective to go against intrinsic weightings as to follow them.”
References on Film Genres:
AMC Film Genres
http://www.filmsite.org/
IMDb Film genres
http://www.imdb.com/genre
Green Cince Genre Primers
http://www.greencine.com/
Tv Tropes
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/
b) A Little bit of Pre-Prouction First
Before we set you loose on the Video Assignments, many of which require some knowledge of video editing tools an techniques we would like to focus on some pre-production.
You will be required to do at least three Daily Creates this week, and the Daily Create on Wednesday, March 14th, is required of everyone. What’s more, we would like you to complete at least two of the following video pre-assignments that would be the prep for completing the entire assignment next week. Please blog about each one individually using the tag “preproduction” (no quotes).
- Select a trailer or movie segment you can use for Return to the Silent Era, outline the things you can add to make it more like silent movie style, or write the bits you will use on the screens that display dialogue as text.
- Identify an educational video you could use to create their own; create a script and set of media needs to complete the Vintage Educational Video Assignment http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/vintage-educational-video/
- Find a YouTube clip of a video you can use for the Opening Credits assignment and describe how you would re-do it. http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/opening-credits-redux/
- Write script and record audio you can for the Play by Play assignment http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/play-by-play/
- Write script and record audio you can use for the Plnkett Review Assignment http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/plinkett-review/
- Outline and describe what you would need to do for the Make a Scene from a Horror Film assignment http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/make-a-scene-from-a-horror-film/
- Write and record audio for the Redub a Movie assignment http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/redub-the-audio/
- Or choose any other video assignment, and document all you would need to do before going into editing
Bill Genereux
This article was just published on the Chronicle of Higher Ed. on the importance and relevance of teaching and learning video. http://jobs.chronicle.com/article/Every-Monograph-a-Movie/131106/ The author is a historian, but I think his arguments apply to all fields of knowledge.