The focus of FM1 is primarily but not exclusively on micro features
You need to be able to analyse a sequence of film using micro features
Key to this coursework is that you show knowledge of not only the formal systems at work within the film, but knowledge of the interaction between film and spectator, an awareness of your active role as spectators, and thinking about whether the micro features used have had the ‘desired’ effect on you? The extent to which responses derive from the micro features of film and the extent to which they derived from personal and/ or cultural identity will begin to be explored.
Some questions to get you thinking:
How does this sequence create suspense?
- How does the sequence move me emotionally?
- Why do I identify strongly with a particular character?
- Why do I find the message(s) contained in the extract so powerful?
- How universal are responses – even if it seems clear that the filmmakers’ deployment of micro features has been with the precise intention of triggering the same response in all members of the audience?
- How does the film communicate?
What does the sequence require of the spectator?
In this essay you have to go beyond identifying and describing in formal/technical terms how micro elements are deployed. It is necessary to address the question of how the strategies used by the filmmakers impact on the spectator.
You need to be able to explain adequately why a film extract affects you as it does. Start work on an extract by asking:
· What is happening to me as I watch this? Why?
· How far is it the use of one or more micro features that is responsible for my response?
Some Advice
· You are encouraged to use frame grabs to avoid over describing a scene, thus allowing you to produce a more analytical piece of work
· Extracts ideally should be self contained sequences or part of a sequence which in itself has a definable beginning and end point
· Extracts should be of genuine interest to you – so that the work is motivated by a sense of enquiry
· Characteristic feature(s) that are the focus for the analysis should be clearly recognisable within the extract.
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