BAJA'S BLOG

Interim Online Review 16/02/2010

Hey Baja,

There's NOTHING ON YOUR BLOG!!!! :-( Except for a post about car blue-prints (?!) which, while of interest to you, does not enrich or promote your understanding or appreciation of you write a decent 3 act one minute animated short...

I literally cannot help you. Which is your loss, I guess and a bit dumb. I just hope that you're working hard and making interesting work. If you don't post your work and keep up - how do you expect to get the most from your tutors or build creative working relationships with your classmates? I need you to stop 'zoning out', Baja - I need you 'on message', 'in the room' and 'in the game'... perhaps that's enough cliches, but I hope you get my point.

I find you very frustrating! You have to communicate and you have to be more 'in the world' and within the course and its culture.

See the next post for guidance re. the essay for Unit 4 - you really need to improve your essay writing, so please take notice of all the advice available to you here - especially the advice. re. cultivating a more formal style; it's what you need to improve in this area.

“1,500 word written assignment that analyses critically one film in terms of the relationship between story and structure; you should consider camera movement, editing, and the order of scenes”


While the essay questions asks you to analyse one film in terms of the relationship between story and structure, you are nonetheless expected to contextualise your analysis – and that means you have to widen your frame of reference to include discussion of other, related films and associated ideas – and also the ‘time-line’ within which your case-study sits.

So, for example, if you are focusing on a scene in a contemporary film which makes dramatic use of montage editing and quick-fire juxtaposition of imagery (the fight scenes in Gladiator, the beach landings in Saving Private Ryan, the bird attacks in The Birds…) no discussion of this scene would be complete without you first demonstrating your knowledge of the wider context for your analysis – i.e., the ‘invisible editing’ approach as championed by W.D. Griffith, and the alternate ‘Eisensteinian’ collisions adopted by Russian filmmakers (and now absorbed into the grammar of mainstream movies). In order to further demonstrate your appreciation for the ‘time-line’ of editing and its conventions, you should make reference to key sequences in key films – ‘The Odessa Steps sequence’ from Sergei Eistenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (as in scene in the Cutting Edge documentary, but also viewable here in full

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-v-kZzfec

Also – if further proof were needed of the influence of this scene, watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH1tO2D3LCI&feature=related

The Cutting Edge documentary, as shown on Monday 15th Feb, is viewable on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcQgQHR78Q

If you choose to quote from any of the ‘talking head’ sections (Ridley Scott, Walter Murch etc.), in support of your discussion, ensure you put the documentary’s original details in your bibliography (as opposed to the You Tube url). For official title and release date etc. visit

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cutting-Edge-Magic-Editing-Region/dp/B0009PVZEG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1266311784&sr=1-1

Put simply, whatever film you choose to discuss, you will need to link it to its ‘ancestors’ and also, where appropriate, to its ‘children’ – i.e., what influenced it/what it influenced.

Regarding the ‘language of editing etc.’ the following site is useful – if ugly!

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html

I suggest you use it only as a starting point for focusing your research parameters – not as the fount of all knowledge (it isn’t!).

Something that keeps coming up is how to cite websites using the Harvard Method:

GO HERE!!!!! IT’S GOT ALL THE ANSWERS!

http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=25881