Criteria:
1. Specificity and Focus • Narrow your focus down to a workable aspect of the film element you are dealing with. Mise-en-scen,e, for example involves lighting, .4r.i.c)r.ink abo sition as. and so on. You might Tu what you will f very well deal with only one of these topics. Think on and why • Narrow your focus down to a specific part of the teeic hefilm in question. In many cases this th means a particular scene or. depending on even a single shot. How you figure out how to do the narrowing isac and mraena’tivet very ehscene. you could talk and ve important aspect of this assignment. If you were dealing with a single shot about lighting, composition, costumes. props, etc. But you might ig want to choose two different scenes and talk only about the significant differences in lighting between them. • These choices depend a lot on the film element you are dealing with, the particular film, and your own interests. But I look hart, at now effectively and e xPllcittY you have focused and thenusnspec detail. • As a general rule, make sure your analysis gets Into very specific detail about at least ono scene in the film. I’ , i.. work at it, you will be amazed at how much you can write about even one shut. Generally the more tightly focused these analyses are the better, since the tight focus allows for more specific development.
2. Connect your specific focus to your ideas about the film’s larger meaning or impact • After you have described the specific technique at work in the film (or while you’re describing it) you should also be discussing how it works to generate meaning in the scene and how it fits into the larger context of the movie. • This is the payoff, the reason for the technical description. You don’t have to come up with a single or a highly definite idea here: speculation is good too. but make sure you are thinking and talking about the meaning and the larger context for what you are analyzing. Your sense of this should be introduced in the beginning of the essay.
