The Formal Differences and Similarities Among Various Works of Art Lead to Questions About How

What this handout is about

This handout introduces moving-picture show analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching moving picture analysis assignments.

Writing the movie assay essay

Writing a flick analysis requires you lot to consider the limerick of the film—the individual parts and choices made that come up together to create the finished piece. Film assay goes across the assay of the film as literature to include camera angles, lighting, set design, sound elements, costume choices, editing, etc. in making an argument. The first step to analyzing the flick is to sentinel information technology with a plan.

Watching the motion-picture show

First it'south of import to lookout man the motion-picture show carefully with a critical eye. Consider why y'all've been assigned to watch a picture show and write an analysis. How does this activity fit into the form? Why have you been assigned this particular film? What are you looking for in connection to the grade content? Let's practice with this clip from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Here are some tips on how to watch the clip critically, only as yous would an entire picture show:

• Give the clip your undivided attention at least in one case. Pay close attending to details and brand observations that might start leading to bigger questions.
• Sentinel the prune a second time. For this viewing, you lot will want to focus specifically on those elements of film analysis that your class has focused on, so review your course notes. For example, from whose perspective is this clip shot? What choices help convey that perspective? What is the overall tone, theme, or effect of this prune?
• Take notes while you lookout for the second time. Notes will help you lot keep track of what you lot noticed and when, if you include timestamps in your notes. Timestamps are vital for citing scenes from a moving-picture show!

For more than data on watching a film, check out the Learning Center's handout on watching moving-picture show analytically. For more resources on researching moving picture, including glossaries of film terms, see UNC Library'south research guide on film & cinema.

Brainstorming ideas

Once you've watched the film twice, it's time to begin some ideas based on your notes. Brainstorming is a major footstep that helps develop and explore ideas. As yous begin, you may desire to cluster your ideas around central topics or themes that sally equally you review your notes. Did y'all ask several questions near color? Were you curious about repeated images? Possibly these are directions you lot can pursue.

If you lot're writing an argumentative essay, you tin utilise the connections that you develop while brainstorming to typhoon a thesis argument. Consider the consignment and prompt when formulating a thesis, besides as what kind of evidence yous volition present to support your claims. Your prove could exist dialogue, sound edits, cinematography decisions, etc. Much of how yous brand these decisions will depend on the type of film analysis you are conducting, an important determination covered in the side by side section.

Afterwards brainstorming, you can draft an outline of your movie assay using the same strategies that you would for other writing assignments. Here are a few more than tips to keep in mind as yous prepare for this stage of the assignment:

• Brand sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to practice. Recollect that this is ultimately an consignment, so your thesis should answer what the prompt asks. Check with your professor if you are unsure.
• In about cases, the managing director's proper name is used to talk nigh the picture as a whole, for instance, "Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo." Withal, some writers may want to include the names of other persons who helped to create the film, including the actors, the cinematographer, and the audio editor, among others.
• When describing a sequence in a motion-picture show, utilise the literary nowadays. An example could exist, "In Vertigo, Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection."
• Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save yous fourth dimension when compiling citations. But keep in listen that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual production (and these differences might be a topic of give-and-take!).
• Go across describing bones film elements past articulating the significance of these elements in support of your particular position. For case, you may take an estimation of the striking colour green in Vertigo, but yous would only mention this if it was relevant to your argument. For more help on using evidence finer, see the section on "using bear witness" in our prove handout.

Also be certain to avoid confusing the terms shot, scene, and sequence. Remember, a shot ends every fourth dimension the camera cuts; a scene can exist composed of several related shots; and a sequence is a ready of related scenes.

Different types of pic analysis

As y'all consider your notes, outline, and general thesis about a film, the majority of your assignment volition depend on what type of pic analysis y'all are conducting. This section explores some of the different types of moving picture analyses you may accept been assigned to write.

Semiotic assay

Semiotic analysis is the estimation of signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters within a picture show. Considering symbols have several meanings, writers frequently demand to make up one's mind what a particular symbol means in the film and in a broader cultural or historical context.

For case, a writer could explore the symbolism of the flowers in Vertigo by connecting the images of them falling autonomously to the vulnerability of the heroine.

Here are a few other questions to consider for this type of analysis:

• What objects or images are repeated throughout the film?
• How does the director acquaintance a graphic symbol with minor signs, such as certain colors, clothing, food, or language utilize?
• How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects, that is, what is the relationship between the moving-picture show'southward signs?

Many films are rich with symbolism, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Remember to bring a semiotic analysis back effectually to answering the question "So what?" in your thesis.

Narrative analysis

Narrative assay is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. This type of analysis considers the entirety of the film and the story information technology seeks to tell.

For example, you could accept the same object from the previous instance—the flowers—which meant ane thing in a semiotic analysis, and enquire instead about their narrative role. That is, you might analyze how Hitchcock introduces the flowers at the first of the film in club to return to them later to depict out the completion of the heroine's character arc.

To create this blazon of analysis, yous could consider questions like:

• How does the film correspond to the Three-Act Structure: Human activity One: Setup; Act Ii: Confrontation; and Human activity Iii: Resolution?
• What is the plot of the film? How does this plot differ from the narrative, that is, how the story is told? For case, are events presented out of gild and to what outcome?
• Does the plot revolve effectually one character? Does the plot revolve around multiple characters? How practice these characters develop across the film?

When writing a narrative assay, take intendance not to spend too time on summarizing at the expense of your argument. Run across our handout on summarizing for more than tips on making summary serve analysis.

Cultural/historical analysis

One of the most common types of assay is the test of a film'southward relationship to its broader cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts. Whether films intentionally comment on their context or non, they are always a product of the civilisation or period in which they were created. Past placing the film in a particular context, this blazon of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts different types of relations, whether historical, social, or fifty-fifty theoretical.

For example, the clip from Vertigo depicts a man observing a woman without her knowing it. You could examine how this aspect of the movie addresses a midcentury social business organization almost ascertainment, such as the sexual policing of women, or a political one, such as Cold State of war-era McCarthyism.

A few of the many questions you could ask in this vein include:

• How does the film comment on, reinforce, or even critique social and political issues at the fourth dimension it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
• How might a biographical agreement of the moving-picture show's creators and their historical moment bear on the style you view the moving picture?
• How might a specific motion-picture show theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist Theory, or Marxist Moving-picture show Theory, provide a language or gear up of terms for articulating the attributes of the moving-picture show?

Accept reward of class resources to explore possible approaches to cultural/historical picture analyses, and find out whether you will be expected to do additional research into the film's context.

Mise-en-scène assay

A mise-en-scène analysis attends to how the filmmakers have arranged compositional elements in a flick and specifically inside a scene or even a single shot. This type of analysis organizes the individual elements of a scene to explore how they come up together to produce meaning. You may focus on anything that adds meaning to the formal effect produced by a given scene, including: blocking, lighting, pattern, colour, costume, also every bit how these attributes work in conjunction with decisions related to audio, cinematography, and editing. For example, in the prune from Vertigo, a mise-en-scène analysis might inquire how numerous elements, from lighting to camera angles, work together to present the viewer with the perspective of Jimmy Stewart's character.

To conduct this blazon of analysis, you could ask:

• What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?
• How does this scene stand for the theme of the movie?
• How does a scene work to limited a broader point to the picture show's plot?

This detailed arroyo to analyzing the formal elements of picture show can assistance you come up with concrete evidence for more than full general film assay assignments.

Reviewing your draft

Once you have a draft, information technology's helpful to get feedback on what y'all've written to run into if your analysis holds together and yous've conveyed your point. You may not necessarily demand to find someone who has seen the motion-picture show! Enquire a writing coach, roommate, or family unit member to read over your draft and share key takeaways from what you have written so far.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is non a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own enquiry to notice additional publications. Please practise not use this list as a model for the format of your ain reference listing, every bit it may not friction match the citation style y'all are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please come across the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. Nosotros revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. 1988. L'analyse Des Films. Paris: Nathan.

Media & Design Middle. north.d. "Film and Movie theater Research." UNC Academy Libraries. Last updated Feb ten, 2021. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/filmresearch.

Oxford Royale Academy. n.d. "7 Ways to Watch Film." Oxford Royale Academy. Accessed Apr 2021. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-watch-films-critically/.

Academy of Pennsylvania. "How to 'Read' a Flick." English language Department. https://spider web.english.upenn.edu/~mulready/Handouts/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Film.pdf.

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Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/film-analysis/