This website is for sale! Don't miss the opportunity to make hundreds a month!
Film Analysis Essay
Guidelines 
Film Review Guidelines
Film Analysis Terms
Film Review
Guidelines
Paragraph 1: Offer your overall impression
of the film while mentioning the movie's title, director, and key actors.
Paragraph 2: Summarize the plot of the
film
Paragraph 3: How did the actors portray key
character roles? Did they fulfill your expectations given your knowledge
of the original novel or play (if one exists)?
Paragraph 4: Were any particular film
techniques used in key scenes? How did the film techniques anmd music
enhance the setting and themes of the film? You may need two paragraphs to
explain this information.
Paragraph 5: Address how well the film
represents the novel or play. Offer evidence for your opinion. Remember to
mention use of symbols and literary devices. Do they "transfer"
from the novel/play into the movie well?
Paragraph 6: Ending paragraph--your last
opportunity to guide the reader. Offer a clincher that tells the reader to
attend the film or not.
Guidelines by M. Garbis and C. Adams,
Baltimore, 2001.
General Terms
- Shot:
continuous, unedited piece
of film of any length
- Scene: a series of shots that together form a complete
episode or unit of the narrative
- Storyboard: Drawn up when designing a production. Plans AV
text and shows how each shot relates to sound track. (Think comic strip with
directions - like a rough draft or outline for a film.)
- Montage: The editing together of a large number of shots
with no intention of creating a continuous reality. A montage is often used
to compress time, and montage shots are linked through a unified sound -
either a voiceover or a piece of music.
- Parallel action
: narrative
strategy that crosscuts between two or more separate actions to create the
illusion that they are occurring simultaneously
Shots
- Long Shot:
Overall view from a distance of whole scene often
used as an establishing shot - to set scene. Person - will show whole
body.
- Medium or Mid Shot: Middle distance shot - can give
background information while still focusing on subject. Person - usually shows
waist to head.
- Close Up: Focuses on detail / expression / reaction. Person -
shows either head or head and shoulders.
- Tracking shot
: single continuous
shot made with a camera moving along the ground
- Reverse shot
: shot taken at a
180 degree angle from the preceding shot (reverse-shot editing is commonly
used during dialogue, angle is often 120 to 160 degrees)
- Subjective Shot (P.O.V. Shot): Framed from a particular
character's point of view. Audience sees what character sees.
Camera Movement
- Pan:
Camera moves from side to side from a stationary
position
- Tilt:
Movement up or down from a stationary position
- Tracking: The camera moves to follow a moving object or
person
Camera Angles
- Low Angle Camera:
shoots up at subject. Used to increase
size, power, status of subject
- High Angle Camera: shoots down at subject. Used to increase
vulnerability, powerlessness, decrease size
Editing (the way shots are put together)
- Cut:
The ending of a shot. If the cut seems inconsistent with
the next shot, it is called a jump cut.
- Fade in or out: The image appears or disappears gradually.
Often used as a division between scenes.
- Dissolve: One image fades in while another fades out so that
for a few seconds, the two are superimposed.
Sound
- Soundtrack: Consists of dialogue, sound effects and music.
Should reveal something about the scene that visual images don't.
- Score:
musical soundtrack
- Sound effects:
all sounds that
are neither dialogue nor music
- Voice-over
: spoken words laid
over the other tracks in sound mix to comment upon the narrative or to narrate
Film
Analysis Essay Guidelines
Guide to Critical
Assessment of Film
The following questions should help you in your
critical evaluation of your film choice(s) for your assigned essay. Please keep
in mind that sophisticated film, like literature, requires more than one viewing
to begin to appreciate its purpose beyond merely the plot. You will need to view
your film(s) with this in mind. You should use some of these questions to
complete a journal on your film.
BACKGROUND
Who is the writer of the film? Has the screenplay
been adapted from another work?
Who is the director?
When was the film made?
STRUCTURE / FORM
What does the title mean in relation to the film
as a whole?
How are the opening credits presented? Do they
relate to meaning?
Why does the film start in the way that it does?
Are there any motifs (scenes, images) of dialogue
which are repeated? What purpose do they serve?
What three or four sequences are most important
in the film? Why?
Is sound used in any vivid ways either to enhance
the film? (i.e. Enhance drama, heighten tension, disorient the viewer, etc.)
How does the film use color or light/dark to
suggest tone and mood in different scenes?
Are there any striking uses of perspective
(seeing through a character's eyes, camera angle, etc.) How does this relate to
the meaning of the scene?
How and when are scenes cut? Are there any
patterns in the way the cuts function?
What specific scene constitutes the film's
climax? How does this scene resolve the central issue of the film?
Does the film leave any disunities (loose ends)
at the end? If so, what does it suggest?
Why does the film conclude on this particular
image?
THEME
How does this film relate to the issues and
questions evoked by your topic?
Does the film present a clear point-of-view on
your topic? How?
Are there any aspects of theme which are left
ambiguous at the end? Why?
How does this film relate to the other literary
texts you have read on your topic (or in class this year or on your own)?
Many of the
questions above are taken or adapted from Timothy Corrigan's A Short Guide to
Writing About Film and David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An
Introduction (5th ed.) and Kurt Weiler of New Trier High School in Illinois.
.
|