“Extra Credit Dartmouth’s Writing Program on Writing About Film”
By Daye Richardson April 23, 2011
English 100 Section # 8736 Instructor: Servais
"Other cultures and nations have different values and so produce different sorts of films. Sometimes these films baffle us. We might watch a French film, for example, and wonder why it's funny. Or we might watch a Russian film and wonder why the director never calls for a close up. These observations are in fact excellent starting places. Consider differences. Find out if these differences reflect something about the national character, or if they reflect trends in the national cinema. You may find that you have something interesting to say."
—Dartmouth Writing Program, Writing about Film
In this extra credit assignment I took a look at Dartmouth’s writing program on writing about film which I found very helpful. This program contains a number of materials that answer a very important question about what an academic paper is as well as provide information on researching topics for writing.
I found it useful that this program was designed in categories of writing and getting to know glossary terms. The categories included: writing academically academically which was about starting the paper and having a critical eye, in humanities which explains how to write with tools for a art history-English-film-music-religion or philosophy paper, in social sciences gives great hints on the biology and chemistry of the paper, writing about sciences explains a lot of the same tools and advice for social science but without a social environment, and finally in special tasks which basically gives you hints on using English as a second language in writing, overcoming disabilities, how to write for a job or professional audience and which I found interesting was the writing a graduate school application.
This glossary of categories is referred back to many times throughout the program to use when analyzing movies before, during and after viewing them. This program discusses how to analyze the film in a review and a comprehensive analysis. Different types of film papers that can be written was pointed out, along with analyzing behind the scenes, sequence of parts of the film, the lighting and the history of the film to use in writing a paper about film.
The program talks about writing tips, which I found a great tool to store for myself and how not to write the paper as a review by using the word “I” and do not limit as you write in discussion of plot characters.
Throughout this program I learned at ways to look at and analyze movies and how the author suggests doing research on writing a paper. What I found is that looking at the reviews of certain films and what the director’s style is in film making was critical in analyzing a film to write a paper.
I found it helpful and well noted for future use on the information given on writing about film and the suggestions on writing from fellow students which to me is using the critiquing to help write a final paper. This program also addressed how to come up with a topic for a paper, developing your thesis, structure with logic and argument which were main points that I reviewed in this program and will take with me for future use.
Concluding that the main helpful tips of this program for me were the writing tips in writing about film being no different than other kinds of humanities papers was very useful and they included Don’t simply summarize a film or summarize camera angles or editing techniques, don’t limit yourself in talking about plot and characters, and lastly avoid using “I” so that you don’t fall into a review in writing your paper.
The last point that was stated was as prevalent that film is in our lives when writing about it we must find a familiarity with the film or this will present the greatest challenge when writing a paper. We also must recognize the invisible aspects about the film and then proceed as I mentioned above in writing the kind of paper you want to write about the film.
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