Handout 13 - Working with Film
1 Viewing and Interpreting
Watch the scene or the short film through from beginning to end without interruption. View a second time with direction. Useful areas upon which to concentrate include:
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1. Music and Soundtrack
2. Lighting/Colour, Costumes/clothes/fashion
3. Gestures, Expressions & Body Language
4. Setting and Props
5. Use of the Camera/Point of View
6. Three Most Important Lines
7. Transitions & Contrasts
8. Obvious Symbols or Symbolic Gestures or Motifs
9. Striking Images or Images for Freeze Framing
10. Others texts you are reminded of in viewing this one.
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Ask students to work in pairs or groups of three. Use a Dialogic Teaching approach to generate discussion and the development of ideas. Some of these areas will be more important than others in any given text. Record ideas and build upon ideas to form a coherent line of enquiry and interpretation.
2 Exploring Story and Plot
You can also view a scene or a short film with view to establishing how it works as a story. In this case, the students are directed to view with one or more of the elements of plot in mind. These plot-focussed questions will help students to recognise the way in which the narrative is structured:
What is the Setting (Location & Characters)?
What is the Situation of the central character?
What is the Trigger that drives the plot?
Outline the Chain of Events - action – consequence
Is there a Crisis or Conflict?
Where does the Climax occur?
What is the Aftermath or Resolution?
3 Writing from Film
The White Dress offers a good opportunity for creative writing. If we begin at the end of the film, we can develop the story by:
Creating a second character
Invite students to concentrate on the final shot of the young girl, sitting on side of bed. Working in pairs, ask the students to consider:
Who is she waiting for?
Who will enter?
Describe the new character in terms of gender, age, relationship to the girl…
Describing the encounter between the girl and the new character
Write a few lines of dialogue. The dialogue should:
· Reveal something important about the central character
· Create a dilemma of some kind
Describe the aftermath of the encounter or the resolution of the situation
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