Summary; Writing Topic About Film

Dartmouth Writing Program website talks about the challenges of writing about film. Often we are so familiar with movies that we are lulled into passive viewing and as a result we do not see the camera work, composition, editing, lighting and sound. These “invisible” aspects are what professors ask you to write about. Breaking down the film into these components, you are then able to analyze what you see. The website goes on to say there are several kinds of papers to write about film such as; Formal Analysis, which is breaking down the film into its different components and discuss how those parts contribute to the film. Film History, have a historical content and shows the culture and values of that produced it. Ideological papers support a set of beliefs, which can be political or propaganda. Auteur is an assessment of a film as the creation of a single person and his or her vision.
One of the most important elements I found with Dartmouth Writing Program is the writing strategies it presents. Some of these are the elements of composition which says to be selective to write a good, focused essay. When viewing a film concentrate on the history, genre’, who made it and does it reflect any cultural meaning. The Writing Program gives a brief outline at the end of writing a paper about film and they say to focus on the topic, a strong thesis sentence, structure or body, coherent paragraphs and of course grammar and style. Some of the challenges are also some of the same in writing a paper in our class and these are, summarizing, do not recount the film everyone has already seen, but be conscious of the elements of composition of the film and do not treat it the same way you would treat an English writing essay.
One of the most effective methods I learned is viewing a scene over and over again particularly if it has important information about a subject I am writing about. When I view films more than one time there are certain elements I see that I may have not seen before. Paying attention to who made the film, the title and the content objectively and not subjectively has changed the way I view every film I see which has helped me immensely with my writing.