Upcoming Essay:

Part of my job as your teacher is to make sure that this class meets certain transferable requirements. In other words, if you transfer to CSU Stanislaus next fall and want the units of this Film Appreciation course to transfer with you, then the assumption is that this class does the same thing (more or less) as their class down there. And this applies to how much you write and what you write.

With this in mind, we have to get moving on another essay that will be due on March 25^th; that’s in two weeks. (A third essay on cultures will be due on April 8^th.)

I’ll get to the range of topics in a moment, but first here are some other points:

• You must review your first essay and all of my instructions that I gave you on your tapes. This second essay is your opportunity to demonstrate that you learned some things from that tape.
  • And so, turn this second essay in with…
    •  your first essay
    • the transcript and boo-boo page;
    •  the cassette tape (all cued up to fresh tape);
    •  plus a “Dear Jimbo” letter that lets me know how things are going for you.

• The format of this essay is the standard, formal one: intro, body paragraphs (with transition sentences), concluding paragraph. You don’t have to do any outside research, so you don’t need a “Works Cited” page.

• Topics: You can choose your own, as long as it’s a topic that allows your brain to analyze and observe and make connections. The thing you don’t want to do is just to summarize plot. Here are some possible topics:

• Story: What are the many different ways that a story gets told? Using a wide range of examples from the movies we’ve watched, and using the terminology from the book, explain the diverse strategies at work in the telling of a narrative.

• Technique: (This is like the first essay.) Many techniques have to come together in film to create an experience for the viewer. For this essay, you can approach it in one of two ways:

• Look at one technique (like editing) and show it works in different ways in a range of different movies;
• Look at one scene in one movie and write about how the many technical elements we’ve studied—mise en scene, cinematography, editing, sound, acting, costumes,…--have to come together to make that scene work.

• Historical: Write about the development of films, all the way from the Lumiere Brothers up to the modern movies, like Amelie, that we’ve seen lately.

·         Genre or theme: Take a look at how one idea or character is treated in a number of movies that span the last 100 years.