Narrative Theory – 1

Click for the PDF… obvs!

Hi everyone… finally managed to sit down with an internet connection!

Here’s part one of the Narrative slides. Remember, you have a rundown of what Narrative means in the Key Aspects Booklet (with Spielberg on the cover)…

Also, at the bottom of this post, you’ll find the Word Version of the Assignment Handbook. I’d recommend downloading it and having a skim through it. We’ll go through the important parts in class next week so don’t feel too intimidated by it. (Yes, it does represent a massive amount of work, but if you keep on top of it, it’s very do-able!)

We discussed in class a few films that I wasn’t sure whether you had seen or not… and it’s a sign of my age that there are many that I know and love that you haven’t heard of! Just tell me… however, the ones I was mentioning in particular with regards Narrative, include The Usual Suspects, E.T. – The Extra-Terrestial, and Jaws. Unusually, I’m not going to link to them because (and especially The Usual Suspects), the real joy is in seeing it without knowing what is going to happen. yes, you can look up the plot, but don’t… you’ll only get one chance to see it for the first time and it is worth it!

Obviously, I’m interested in hearing which films you have seen and rate as well… I’m always keen for suggestions and many of my favourite films have been recommendations or suggestions from pupils so, go for it!

More to come over the weekend, but for now, here’s the Assignment Booklet. We’ll go through it in class as soon as I get the hard copies. 🙂

Guess what happens when you click on Hitchcock!

IMDB Quick Research Guide

Hi class…

Just a quick step-by-step to finding things on IMDB. 🙂

1. Go to IMDB.com (duh!)

2. Search for the film you are researching:

3. Er… look. You’ve found the page! 

4. Scroll down the page until you see “Company Credits”. Click “See more >>” to get fuller details.

5. The first part of this section (Production Companies) tells you who actually produced (made) the film. As a general guide, more production companies usually suggest a smaller/independent film. The risk is spread across more people, and they each put up less money in the first place.

P.S. Consider the difference between Atomic Blonde‘s list of production companies with Cars 3…

You can often find more information about the film on Wikipedia, or a film’s official website, or newspaper articles, or Rotten Tomatoes, or… well, you get the idea! 🙂

Next up will be a wee bit help with part 2 of the homework. In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for Edmodo.com.

And They’re Off…

The videos we watched in class today were:

And the Independent article about the video is here: The Story Behind Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’

We also looked at:

Yes, it is as bad as it looks. Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia, Spiderman, Hidden Figures) should know better…

And lastly, Evan:

We were using the Handbook  (<= Click the word to find the PDF version. It’s the first one, but you will likely want all of them at some point!) to direct our thinking. We’ll be developing this in class tomorrow. For now, if you have time, have another look at one of the videos and see if you can spot some of the denotations and connotations it uses… Enjoy!