ENG 1021: Invention Work, Scene Analysis Essay
Invention work is completed to allow you the opportunity to explore ideas and create raw material to possibly use in a formal essay without the pressure of a big grade. It is informal and completely unstructured (and NOT an essay).
After choosing a sci-fi film for the Scene Analysis Essay, you watched the movie and completed a viewer response that allowed you to freewrite and explore ideas about a particular scene. In this freewrite, you should have thought about what you saw as an overall message of the entire film and perhaps chose a scene that you thought best communicated that idea (i.e. a theme). In addition, you should have chosen several film elements that you found allowed the director to construct meaning in that scene and also identified some possible important symbols connected to that theme as well.
Now it is time to explore how the director constructs meaning through the use of these film elements in a bit more detail.
You will need to watch your scene again, making more detailed notes about the three film elements that you chose as well as the director's use of symbolism and foreshadowing in the construction of their narrative. You can creates bullet points or complete freewrites, whichever you prefer.
Your notes should be a minimum of 3 FULL pages and uploaded to Ulearn by class time on the scheduled due date.
-You can make notes about how the director uses camera shots to construct meaning and convey their theme and/or how these or used to aid in creating an overall emotional impact on the viewer. It is not necessary to discuss every camera shot in your scene. Choose several that you think are most impactful and important and discuss why as well as how the director uses them to convey their overall theme or use them to impact the audience in some way.
- You can make notes about how the director uses the various aspects of lighting to construct meaning and convey their theme and/or how these or used to aid in creating an overall emotional impact on the viewer. It is not necessary to discuss the use of lighting in every frame of your scene. Choose several that you think are most impactful and important and discuss why as well as how the director uses them to convey their overall theme or use them to impact the audience in some way.
- You can make notes about how the director uses the various aspects of sound to construct meaning and convey their theme and/or how these or used to aid in creating an overall emotional impact on the viewer. It is not necessary to discuss the use of lighting in every frame of your scene. Choose several that you think are most impactful and important and discuss why as well as how the director uses them to convey their overall theme or use them to impact the audience in some way.
- You can make notes about how the director uses the various aspects of editing to construct meaning and convey their theme and/or how these or used to aid in creating an overall emotional impact on the viewer. It is not necessary to discuss the use of lighting in every frame of your scene. Choose several that you think are most impactful and important and discuss why as well as how the director uses them to convey their overall theme or use them to impact the audience in some way.
-Identify what you see as the three most important symbols in this scene and explain HOW they are connected to the overall theme. What do they communicate or reveal about that idea? Provide detailed explanations for each.
- Choose what you see as the two most important individual STILL frames (not moving) in your scene and examine the mise en scene within each of them (the placement of items in the scene and frame). How does the director use this placement to communicate something about the overall theme you have identified in this scene? See this link as well. Provide detailed explanations of the use of mise en scene in the two frames you have chosen.
NOTE: when discussing mise en scene, you are discussing how many of the individual film elements interact with one another inside of a single frame.
