Teaching Film-Some basic tips and guidelines

Teaching film can be problematic because it needs to be approached with the same amount of rigour and preparation as any other text. Teachers need to have developed close knowledge and understanding about the medium itself before any study of a specific film is examined closely. There are many, many ppts available that outline the basics in terms of camera angles and shots and many other filmic techniques. I have found them to be in the main, to be so basic and poorly produced that they only skim the surface. They can however be useful in taking the best ideas and approaches from what you find and take the time to make your own rather than just go with something already done. Film study however is far more than being able to identify the ingredients in a generalised way. 


This is obvious when marking student responses to a film studied in class, even at the senior level, only to find that they virtually summarise the story and some obvious methods used to communicate this. 
Since I am working on a number of film texts at the moment, I think I will take this opportunity to examine some of the best strategies I have developed over the decades and give some of the excellent sites that are available for teaching film in depth. 

“As students view a film, we want them to pay special attention to those areas of the film we consider important and to draw conclusions from their experience with the film.  Only then does a passive viewer become active; for by thinking about the film’s content, the student is interacting with the film.”

  -Resch and Schnicker

Analysing film is as complex a process as used with any other text, and so it is important to be familiar with the meta-language of film. The layered building blocks  of examining the audio/visual and two dimensional equivalent to words, must be understood if we are to effectively 'read' a film. We might think that students are so familiar with film that details are already intuitively known, but I have found that cinematic representation codes must be understood by teachers as a pre-requisite for teaching film. The following diagram found many years ago that clearly outlines these codes. 

Narrative codes	The way in which the story is put together, and how the sequence you are analysing moves the story along.
Technical codes	How the images are put together - lighting, camera angles, shot composition, editing, any special effects
Representational codes	The thinking behind the images - how settings (location, colour), characters, costumes, props etc (the re-presentation of reality) create meaning
Audio codes	The way in which sound adds to the images through dialogue, music and sound effects.

That is enough of a rant today. I will give some more ideas and strategies for teaching film if people are interested. I must find that blogging is fun but only if you get some feedback to see how useful teachers find the information or ideas that are presented. As such, I would appreciate knowing what teachers would like to tap into for future blogs. 

Might just go and watch 'Road to Perdition' again in the next few days. Every viewing throws up something new and magical about the work of Sam Mendes. It is a wonderful film to use for senior film study in the Preliminary HSC course.

Barbara