Proposal

Please complete this Google Form to outline your initial ideas for the comparative project.

Recording Your Research

Over the next week in lessons and for independent study you must conduct some independent research into:

• Your film focus
• Your two films

You need to aim to find approx 5 research sources that helped you understand your film focus and analyse your own films/sequences using that approach:

These sources should include:

1. A quote from the teachers’ research notes.
2. Reviews of your films
3. One Book
4. Magazine articles
5. Websites
6. Other video essays

This research must be recorded and referenced using the Harvard System.

One way in which you can record this research is to use a slide show, with a slide per source. Here is a slide show template you can use.

Task:

Research one of the following film theories:

• Feminist Film Theory
• Marxist Film Theory
• Soviet Montage
• Structuralism & Film
• Postmodern Film

1. Find a short definition that sums up the theoretical approach.
2. Name  an important theorist.
3. Identify 3 films which are considered important within that theory.
4. Identify 3 recent films which might be explored using the theory.

Our Research

Watch this

From this video choose one film movement which you would like to learn more about.

Find a secondary research source that introduces and explain the film movement you have chosen and list 5 films that came out of your film movement.

Write a one sentence definition for that film movement, which describes it’s look and intentions.

1. British New Wave
2. Scandinavian Revival
3. Japanese Golden Age
4. New Queer Cinema
5. Third Cinema
6. Italian Neorealism
7. German Expressionism
8. Soviet Montage – ME
9. Golden Age of Hollywood
10. La Nouvelle Vague

Our Research

Genre Analysis

Sound easy? Well it is! Genre analysis is done in three steps.

1 Define the corpus.

That is, agree on a group of films that you think are ‘pure’ example of the genre.

This definition may be done in combination with secondary research.

So: Fantasy Corpus:

1. Lord of the Rings
2. Harry Potter
3. Shrek

2 Decide what features of those films are conventional in terms of their genre.

This means agreeing on a Repertoire of Elements, which are similar across the corpus and indeed necessary for a film to be given a genre label. In this case ‘Fantasy Film’.

• That means agreeing some ball park rules or a conventional features. A theorist Nick Lacey gives these broad topics to focus your analysis.

An Example analysis of the fantasy genre

3 Analyse your text using those defined conventions

Once you’ve defined those conventions, you need to consider how far your film is similar and/or different compared to those conventional features.

So, after all that, your film focus genre question becomes…

What are the generic conventions of a given genre and how similar and/or different is a given film?

TASK:

Choose three films you would love to study.

Some advice:

1. Avoid big franchises movies
2. Use films that have been on your watch list for a while.
3. Find films which have won awards or been critically well received.
4. Find directors who go against the mainstream. Who are working as independents.
5. Think of the sorts of films we have studied on the course.
6. Choose films by a director you admire
7. Perhaps a foreign language film?

Restrictions:

You cannot choose a film we have studied together during the course or in any other part of your IB studies (Extended Essay). So that means Pan’s Labyrinth, The Dark Knight, Nosferatu, Let The Right One In & all the films we studies for the textual analysis are off limits!

Some ideas:

Key Information

Here is the guidance  from the IB Film Specification Guide

The Comparative Video Essay.

Here is the assessment criteria

 Dates and Deadline

• Script Deadline – Monday 26th November
• Draft 1 Deadline – Monday 10th December
• Final Deadline – Friday 21st December

Schedule:

Week 1

• Introduction to film focus:
  • Genre & Style
  • Film Theory
  • Film Movements
• Select Focus Film and/or Film Focus

Week 2

• Select comparative film & film focus
  • Comparative film must have different cultural context.
• Research into movement, theory, genre…
• Research into focus film (critical reception)
• Teacher meeting 1.
  • Develop research question

Week 3

• Scripting
• Assembling task components

Week 4

• Teacher meeting 2 – Group Seminars
  • Read / discuss draft scripts

Week 5

• Record Commentary
• Assembly video
• Draft 1

Week 6

• Teacher meeting 3
  • Formative Feedback

Week 7

• Final Draft & Deadline