Tips for responding to Film

This is the first blog post for a week as I have been doing teacher and student workshops in regional NSW. Film has become such a key part of junior and senior curriculum, it is important that we get the most out of the unit time we can spend on it. Here are a few tried and tested approaches. The genre clip site posted at the moment is a lot of fun to use in getting students to discuss and explore filmic genre conventions. 


Film Viewing Tips and Strategies

• Before watching a film to be studied, show a film techniques clip or ppt to revise cinematography basics such as camera angles and shots
• Discuss popular film genres such as the ones found in video stores and brainstorm the main conventions of each
• Watch a trailer for the film to begin discussion about initial impressions and expectations
• Watch the chosen film as a whole without any attempt to stop and analyse-mimic the theatre experience (you could give out a series of questions for students to familiarise themselves with prior to post viewing discussion)
• Identify any evident genres and their conventions within the film
• Isolate a key scene and view/discuss with a specific focus on filmic and narrative elements.
• Isolate a camera technique or feature such as lighting or sound and discuss how it helps shape our perceptions of what is happening.  
• Examine mise en scene elements in a key scene, looking at what is actually included such as props, framing. Discuss their relevance.
• Focus on the three layers of sound individually, diagetic and non-diagetic or features like voice-over or recurring audio motifs or musical themes such as the Amish anthem found in ‘Witness’ and discuss how that shapes interpretation.  
• Turn the sound down and watch as well as turn the vision off and focus on the sound and see how that impacts on audience reception.
• Capture important film stills and mix up their order on a worksheet and have students annotate as many filmic elements as they can to show how they communicate information and then try to put them back into shooting sequence. 
• Annotate important film stills in order to highlight key points of interest and use in a ppt presentation. Alternatively, have the students focus on different aspects of the film and present their own ppt presentations. 
• Short films such as 'Tropfest' are excellent for this sort of thing prior to studying a full length film.

The following clip offers an amusing look at film genre conventions. Works really well in class.

http://vimeo.com/26090987