Full Description
Both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide, this brief text introduces students to film terms and the major film theories to enable them to write more critically. With numerous student and professional examples along the way, this engaging and practical guide progresses from taking notes and writing first drafts to creating polished essays and comprehensive research projects. Moving from movie reviews to theoretical and critical essays, the text demonstrates how an analysis of a film becomes more subtle and rigorous as part of a compositional process.
Contents
Each chapter concludes with "Exercises."Preface. 1. Writing About the Movies. Why Write about the Movies?Your Audience and the Aims of Film Criticism.The Movie Review.The Theoretical Essay.The Critical Essay.Opinion and Evaluation.2. Beginning to Think, Preparing to Watch, and Starting to Write. Subject Matter and Meaning.Silent Dialogue: Talking Back to the Movies.Taking Notes.Visual Memory and Reflection.3. Film Terms and Topics for Film Analysis and Writing. Themes.Film and the Other Arts.Narrative.Characters.Point of View.Mise-en-Scene and Realism.Realism.Elements of the Mise-en-Scene.Composition and the Image.The Shot.The Edited Image.Sound.Sample Essay.4. Six Approaches to Writing About Film. Film History.National Cinemas.Genres.Auteurs.Kinds of Formalism.Ideology.Postcolonial Studies and Queer theory.Sample Essays.5. Style and Structure in Writing. The Right Words.Concrete Language.Denotation and Connotation.Tone.Repetitions and Cliches.Effective Sentences.Economy.Varied Sentence Structures.Coherent Paragraphs.Introductory Paragraphs.Concluding Paragraphs.Checklist for Writing an Effective Essay.6. Researching the Movies. How to Begin Research.The Materials of Research.Primary Sources.Video.Scripts.Secondary Sources: Books, Indexes, Journals, and Electronic Sources.Film Research on the Internet.Taking Notes on Secondary Sources.Writing the Paper.Sample Essays.7. Manuscript Form. Manuscript Copy.Last-Minute Corrections.Quotations.Acknowledging Sources.Common Knowledge.Documenting Sources.Notes for Documentation.Works Cited.Notes Supplying Additional Commentary.Common Conventions of Usage.Names.Titles.Foreign Words and Quotation Marks.Sexist Language.Spelling.Last Words.Appendix: Symbols Commonly Used in Marking Papers. Glossary of Film Terms. Works Cited. Credits. Index.
