Due: Monday April 6th at 5:00 pm, Submit to Canvas

Template

Example

Watch Prof. Tim Bell's four videos:

1. Analyzing Film: The Basics
2. Continuity Editing
3. Film Studies & Formal Analysis
4. Shot Analysis Assignment

Read the Belton-Ch3, and The PDF slides

This assignment asks you to think carefully about the ways film communicates with its audience not only through explicit linguistic means (dialog, narration, text) but also via particular aesthetic strategies.

Watch the following clip, from the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo, through a few times. Drawing on the vocabulary from the lecture and the assigned reading, make notes on the framing, camera movement and editing. You should watch and pause as many times as you need to in order to fill out the worksheet as accurately as possible.

Write a paragraph describing how your understanding of the characters and/or situation are shaped by a combination of specific elements you have identified with at least one element of the mise-en-scène (set, props, lighting, etc.) or sound (music, etc. - excluding dialog). You don’t need to discuss all elements, but you should discuss at least three. A weak analysis will list lots of formal terms but not say much about how they function in the sequence. A good analysis will say how elements work together to create meaning. You will not be graded on whether you are analyzing ‘correctly’ but whether you clearly, aptly and thoughtfully bring formal vocabulary to bear on the sequence.

Grading Criteria

This assignment is worth 30 points:

1. Completes worksheet: 10

2. Accurately uses vocabulary to describe scene: 10

3. Analyzes at least three elements persuasively: 10

NOTE:

1. You need to complete the worksheet. Be sure to address at least 10 shots.

2. Do not forget to write the “Analysis paragraph” at the end of the worksheet.