Things You'll Need:
- Projector
- Access to film archives
- Flashlight and pen
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Step 1
Like any artistic form that has been interpolated by or grew out of popular culture, the first step is to break down the “obviousness” or common sense of cinema. First and foremost, film is made up of a series of photographs that take on the illusion of movement. Through careful editing, good filmmakers can tell a story that seems fluid and continuous but is actually made up of big leaps of logic, space and time. If you want to create a historical perspective, go back to early works such as the French short, “La Jetée,” to emphasize the “structure” of film.
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Step 2
Watch a couple scenes from films the kids might be familiar with and break down all the different levels and break down some of the central formal elements: foreground/background relationships, transitions between scenes, close/medium/long shots and others. Now encourage them to go home, watch a few five minutes segments or scenes, and keep a journal of all the different formal elements at play.
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Step 3
After you have established a formal vocabulary, you can move on to what these different formal aspects accomplish in terms of furthering or working against the “plot” or “story.” For example, you can talk about how our relationships to characters change when we always see them at long shots or how establishing shots work to construct the mood or tone of a following confrontation (Westerns are good for this one). Have them write short papers relating a specific formal technique to a more thematic element, such as character development.
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Step 4
While they may struggle with the idea at first, talk about how filmmakers, especially avant-garde ones, play with the expectations of an audience, as well as how more popular film-makers both cater to and construct expectations. For example, you can talk about how every film “genre” has built in reactions based upon what the audience is expecting to feel or see. If you are really feeling bold, have the kids read some of Laura Mulvey’s work on the male gaze in cinema. When the ideas come across, they can be very unsettling and empowering. A central enjoyment of watching films is being passive, after all.
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Step 5
Explore how different “cinematic” or “filmic” traditions have been absorbed by other mediums. For example, you can talk about how more recent, postmodern literature has been strongly effective by the visual and narrative techniques of film making. Poets often talk about short sections of prose as “vignettes,” not unlike the fragmented components of short films.
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Step 6
If by the end of the class you have just made your students aware of a world outside of bid studio productions where independent film-makers or “auteurs” who make a living (barely) testing what the medium of film can achieve, you have done a great job.
