Test your understanding of analyzing film and television
The chapter begins with "We Write Because We Have Something to Say," emphasizing that films and television are created to communicate ideas, messages, morals, worldviews, and personalities - not just for commercial or entertainment purposes.
The chapter states that "Just like novels, film and television are media for communicating our ideas" and that "Film and television have different methods of communicating ideas, but their overall goals are the same."
The chapter lists four benefits: learning story structure, learning literary vocabulary, responding emotionally and academically to reading, and finding the main idea. Becoming a professional critic is not mentioned as a goal.
The chapter states that "the basic method of film criticism is simple. It has two steps: Describe what you see, Ask 'Why?'" This simplicity makes the method accessible to all learners.
The first step is to "Describe what you see. This could be a scene, a setting, a costume, an actor, or even a single shot." Observation comes before analysis.
The chapter emphasizes detailed observation: "Give details. See how much you can say about what you noticed." Rich description is the foundation for meaningful analysis.
The chapter emphasizes: "Remember, everything in this movie is a choice. Try to get at why the writers/directors made these choices." This principle helps students understand that all elements are intentional and worthy of analysis.
The chapter gives examples of analytical questions about creative choices: lighting ("Why is the movie so dark?"), cinematography ("Why did they use that camera angle?"), and performance ("Why did the actor give that look?"). Budget questions aren't part of the basic analytical method.
The targeted method for finding themes has three steps: 1) "Summarize the major story beats (you can use your story arc vocabulary for this)," 2) Ask what the goals are for these major points, 3) Simplify your answer to make it as short as possible.
The final step in finding themes is to "Simplify your answer to make it as short as possible." This distillation process helps identify the core theme or message rather than getting lost in details.