CI 5472: Entry 4.2 Strategies for Teaching Film and Editing Techniques

I find this film analysis stuff challenging because I find it so easy. I know that made no sense so allow me to explain. I am a visual person and a more-or-less self-taught professional photographer. And I have always found it easy to write papers. So everything about film analysis seems, to me, completely intuitive. Without any instruction or guidance I just CAN make sense of what a shot is doing and how it makes me feel and why. So anyway, because I find it so natural, it will likely be challenging to give my students the tools to do the same thinking.

My suggestion to myself (and anyone who cares to listen) is to start very very small. With art. One still image. First talk about that. Brainstorm a list of vocabulary students can use to talk about art like balance, color, hue, contrast, saturation, high-key, low-key, depth of field. Then talk about still art in series, how one to three images work together. Then and only then throw in some film vocabulary, establishing shot, close up, high angle, low angle, bird's eye. Maybe look at film stills to talk about the types of emotions the different shots create. Now you are ready for a short scene.