IB Film Studies

These are the assessment criteria for your comparative video essay…

There are two possible essay titles for your video.

1. How and with what effect are specific film elements of German expressionism used within a contemporary horror film?

   1. This essay is asking you to define German expressionism as well as explain how this film movement had a distinctive visual style; you should use scenes from Nosferatu to illustrate your ideas.
      • You should use some contextual detail from the period/culture in Germany to explain how Expressionism came to the fore.
   2. In the second part of the essay you should use Let The Right One In to show how that style is still used in horror movies today.

2. From Nosferatu to Eli. How has the representation of the vampire changed to suit contemporary values, attitudes and beliefs?

   • The second essay asks you to explore the representation of the two vampire characters. Remember the key to a representation essay is twofold:
     1. What ideologies (values, attitudes, beliefs (fears)) from the period / cultural that made the film are communicated through these ‘monsters’.
     2. How is this ideology communicate through micro features in key scenes.

The work we have done over the last few weeks was designed to help you answer these questions:

Question 1:

• The generic conventions of horror movies
• A narrative analysis of horror movies
• Horror cinematography & sound in Suckablood.

Question 2:

• Representation of Monsters
• Representation of Eli & Nosferatu in key scenes.
• Horror cinematography & sound in Suckablood.

Task: Compile Your Video Essay

The means that you need to plan your video essay and bring together all the materials that you are going to use to answer one of the two questions.

• Review the research we conducted this week.
  • What ideas (quotes) do you want to drop in to your video essay? These will form the center of your argument.
    • You should aim for 3-5 quotes ideas taken from your research
  • Make sure you reference the name of the book and author in the essay.
  • You must also compile a bibliography for your essay (a list of your research sources), which you should submit with your essay
• Select the examples from the films that you going to use in the essay?
  • Choose 2-3 scene from each film and within those scenes select approx 15-30 second clips.
• What terms do you need to use to describe these examples?
• What is the meaning implied, suggested or illustrated in your example?
• How will you link the TEAS to the significance?
  • This means going back to the question, which should be at the top of your video essay & bibliography.

The Script & Voice Over

You should have written a script before you edit. You will be recording this script early next week and will be editing visuals from the film as well as captions of quotes to your voice over.