Film is a visual art and a key bit of advice to all screenwriters and directors is… ‘Show don’t tell’ MISE-EN-SCENE Mise-en-scene refers to anything that the director chooses to film and is a key way in which they can ‘show’ the story. Every element of mise-en-scene is carefully selected to communicate meaning, and mise-en-scene […]
Posts in the Film Elements category:
Representation in Film
Think: Does film reflect the world we live in or shape the way we view the world? Task: Consider the ideas and messages communicated by these two versions of the same character. Use this document to analyse one of the two characters. Key questions to ask about film / media representations: Who, or what, is being represented? […]
Genre Analysis of Pan’s Labyrinth
The Fantasy Genre In this lesson we are going to complete a generic analysis of Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) del Toro 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. So in […]
The Problem with Genre
What? Genre, a problem…? You may be thinking that, ‘If films follow the same generic blueprint (repertoire of elements), why aren’t all genre films exactly the same? Genre films tend to change, tend to evolve. In fact some theorists suggest that genre follow cycles: they are born, become popular, are overused and become predictable (even […]
Genre & The Repertoire of Elements
Genre is like a cake… When you make a cake you follow a recipe, in films the recipe is called the repertoire of elements. Most cakes use the same basic ingredients, same as in a genre film, these same ingredients are called generic conventions. ‘Genre is similarity and difference’ – Altman This deceptively simple idea […]
Our Favourite Films
What’s the best film you have watched this year (so far)? What were the reasons you loved it so much? These reasons often are something to do with these macro features of a film: Independent Study (For Monday) Create a slideshow like the one below. You are quoting someone else in this slideshow and the […]
Welcome to Film Studies
Welcome to a new adventure in Film…Studies. We will give you the opportunity to learn about the key roles in film production in a hands on way. Together we will explore film in a variety of ways and will encourage you to study films that you love. Here is a rough outline of the course. […]