Teaching _Do The Right Thing_

Inevitably, at least once a semester in one of my classes, I show Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. It's a fantastically well made film, in terms of everything important in film making. The exposition of the characters isn't overly long, it's an ensemble piece, the cinematography is breathtaking, the music fits so well, the attention to how the film affects it's audience throughout, and so on, and so on...

It is also alienating. I watch my students sit quietly and struggle through the film, not entirely certain if they are getting anything from it. I often talk about how my hope for classes like Film and Culture is that I throw lots of different ideas at them and hope that something sticks - but I never really get to know what takes a hold in their minds and what they dismiss as being irrelevant.

Can I prepare them better? I don't think so. I think the nature of Do The Right Thing is to be in your face, to confront issues of race and racism and not let the audience up to breathe. The best approach I find is to talk about the history of black film making and black film makers, then watch the film, then try to talk about it afterwards. Sometimes the discussions are interesting and heated, and other times the discussions are quiet and require more prompting on my part to end up anywhere.

I don't plan on changing this film out for another any time soon.

Film and Culture: Week 2 - Film Form

Film and Culture Week 2

ñ  Pre-class survey or quiz on difficult parts of the textbook that need expanding.

◦   Use polleverywhere.com

ñ  Discussion of Pelada

ñ  Demonstrate online discussion

ñ  Film form lecture

◦   Mise En Scene

▪   Use shot from Kagemusha

◦   Shot – Scene – Sequence

◦   Cinematography

▪   Clip from intro video?

◦   Editing

▪   Three purposes of editing

ñ  Continuity

ñ  Meaning

ñ  Deception

▪   Kuleshov Effect

◦   Sound Design

▪   Room Tone Track

▪   Score

▪   ADR

◦   Diagetic elements vs non-diagetic elements

◦   Types of Film

▪   Narrative

▪   Documentary

▪   Direct Cinema

▪   Experimental

◦   Genres of film

ñ  Ideology / Cultural studies

◦   Discussion of what the terms in the book mean

◦   Idea of who is in power vs who is not – how they are represented

◦   Def of Culture (values, beliefs, and norms)

◦   Invisibility of Culture

◦   high art / low art

◦   communication model (graphic)

ñ  Studio system

◦   Traditional story structure

◦   “Golden Era” moviemaking

▪   Movie theater experience

▪   Big 5 (majors)

ñ  WB

ñ  MGM

ñ  20^th C Fox

ñ  RKO

ñ  Paramount

▪   Little 3

ñ  Columbia

ñ  Universal

ñ  United Artists (Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin)

ñ  Break!

ñ  Watch The Artist

ñ  Break

ñ  Discuss The Artist

ñ  Online Discussion 

Back to School, week 1

...aaand we are back.

I missed blogging the last few weeks of class mostly because I ran out of energy and time at the end of the semester. Let me alleviate that by showing you a student's final project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9f12u-MsZw

This week is mostly about reading syllabi, orienting ourselves to the content and form, and from my end there is a lot of registration headaches. Waitlists are supposed to make our lives easier and sometimes they just make things more confusing.

My first film and culture class was on Wednesday, this is what they came up with:

More soon - A. 

Intro to Film: Week 5

Intro to Film Week 5

Preclass: Need Steenbeck website, picture, Final Cut Pro picture, Serenity, Kuleshov video

• Discuss Million Dollar Baby particularly in terms of cinematography
• Start talking about final project
  • Proposal and Rubric due July 22^nd
  • Final Project due August 5^th
  • Gallery stroll due at the same time
    • Possibility of visitors
  • Criteria for project
    • Needs to be treated as a capstone worth 30% of final grade
    • Needs to reflect how your understanding of film as a whole has changed throughout the semester
    • Holistic – really should be an assignment that you do for yourself
    • Developing a rubric
      • MUST have following items (at least 10% each)
        • Quality of work
        • Quantity of work
        • Adherence to form
        • Demonstration of understanding
      • (Default rubric is 25% each)
      • Rubric will be used to grade project
      • Will be graded by me during final class period
      • Need to know any performance needs (video, audio, etc)
  • Questions / Discussion
• Editing Lecture
  • What is editing?
    • Physical film – editing table
      • (www.steenbeck.com)
    • Digital editing
      • Final Cut Pro (screenshot)
  • Relationship between Shot, Scene, Sequence
    • Good place for set procedure (shot)
      • Picture is up / Quiet on the set
      • Camera ready?
        • Ready
      • Sound ready?
        • Ready
      • Roll Sound
        • Speed
      • Roll Camera
        • Speed
      • Marker (or slate)
        • 2ac reads and claps
      • (dir only) Action
      • (dir only) Cut
    • Clip from Serenity, Talk about Russian Ark
  • Kinds of transitions
    • Cuts
      • Jump
      • Parallel movement
      • Match
    • Fade
    • Dissolve
    • Wipe
  • Purposes of editing
    • Editing for Continuity
      • Same people in the same place
      • 180-rule
    • Editing for Meaning
      • Kuleshov effect
      • Connecting ideas and people together through similar positioning
        • Match cut, parallel movement cut
    • Editing for deception
      • LOTR: sizes of characters
• Watch for all 3 types of editing in this film.
• Break
• The Social Network

Week 4: Cinnamontography

Intro to Film 8 Week version Week 4

• Extra Credit as Extras!
• Cinematography, DP
• B&W, Color
• Film stock
  • Variables
    • Sensitivity to light, tolerance for lighting conditions
    • Color reproduction
    • Amount / direction of grain
    • Contrast
    • Sharpness
    • Resolving power (ability to descrimintate fine detail)
  • Kodak 5287 – Dark blacks (used in Seven (1995))
  • Kodak 5289 – Manufactured for NASA / Air Force, Vivid primaries, looks “raw” (used in Clockers (1995), Summer of Sam (1999)
• Lenses
  • Shorter vs. Longer focal lengths
• Digital / Film
  • Digital
    • Easier to edit
    • Sharper detail
    • Can use traditional lenses
    • 1080 vs 2k vs 4k vs 8k
  • Film
    • “Cinematic” quality
    • Harder to find + find processing
    • Costlier
• Aspect Ratio / Framing
  • 1.33:1 (Nearly 4:3)
  • 1.85:1 (Nearly 5:4)
  • 2.35:1
  • “Letterboxing”
  • rule of thirds
• angle of camera / movement of the camera / LX
  • 180 degree rule
  • (Use Videos from tutorials)
• Break
• Assign Essay #2
• Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby 

Not film related: Why I love _Timmy Time_...

Timmy Time is a television show by Aardman Animation (Wallace and Grommit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep) geared towards a preschool audience. Their website is here, and the shows are on Netflix and probably available from your local library.

Reasons I <3 Timmy Time:

1. Positive depiction of a male caregiver. One of the preschool teachers is not only a male owl, but also a parent of one of the children. He isn't a buffoon -- he is depicted as a kind and sensitive male role model.

2. The lead character, Timmy, screws up. Often. This isn't a show where the lead is an angelic figure that we should all be more like. Timmy is sometimes mean, sometimes selfish, and reminds me of preschoolers I know.

3. Corollary to #2 - Timmy gets called on his stuff. Often. Timmy often gets caught when he does things that he shouldn't, and he is made to fix whatever he screws up.

4. Timmy shows genuine compassion and caring towards his friends. 

5. There are no words. Like Pingu and silent films, you immediately grasp the story because it's totally being done through visual elements and tone of voice. Timmy says "Baah", Osbourn the Owl (see #1) says "Hoot, hoot", Finlay the Fox says "Yip, yip".

Films I'm considering for Film and Culture in the Fall

Film Folks,

I like to change the films that I use for my classes on a regular basis. I'm starting the process of thinking about what films to show, and this list below is where I'm at right now. Comments, criticism, etc, are appreciated.

In no particular order:

American experience and Introduction: Not sure. I've used In America in the past, but maybe something different this time around.

Veterans: First Blood (Yes, that one.)

Ageism: Harold and Maude

African American representation: Do the Right Thing

Asian American representation: Eat a Bowl of Tea

Latino representation: Zoot Suit

American Indian representation: Smoke Signals

Gender: ....? Need to think about this one.

Class: ...? Last semester were Citizen Kane and Bulworth, need something new...

GLBT issues: Milk - Don't know how I feel about this.

Religion: Arranged - Seems to be my go-to film for this topic.

Disability: Murderball - Used this for the first time last semester, fantastic film, and great discussions afterward.

Thoughts / Comments / Criticisms appreciated!

Thanks,
Alex

[Added July 4th]:

I've gotten some commentary from other sources, and I'm considering a few changes...

For American Experience, I'm considering a soccer film called _Pelada_... I'm thinking about using it to try to discuss the American place in the global diaspora.

African American experience: I need to see _Fruitvale Station_ and think about it. Also _The Soloist_ is under consideration.

Gender needs to be broken into gender identity, and women in film. Thinking about _Thelma and Lousie_, but I'm coming up against a need to find more and more modern films. They (students) just don't relate as well to older films and don't find them as relevant. _Miss Representation_ is a possibility there... Gender Identity is hard because most of the really good films on this topic aren't American.

[Added July 5th]

I had forgotten about _Win Win_ for Masculinity. Also, perhaps _Hannah_ for women in film, and something else for gender ID.

Also forgot about _Walkout_ for Latino. _Reel Injun_ for Indian.

Intro to Film Week 3: Acting and Filmmaking

Friends,

This week was one of those teaching anomalies where a lesson plan in one class didn't work, then I tried it again in my other class and it did work. I don't think it had anything to do with the plan itself, but more the audience - something to always keep in mind. My monday night class is predominantly gen-ed students, but my Tues/Thurs class has a few students who are in the Film Production program. Same material, night and day response. In some cases I'd consider tweaking it, but talking about how acting and filmmaking are somewhat central to my learning goals... in this case, they just had to deal.

• Discuss Citizen Kane
  • Moving Camera in boarding house
  • Camera in the floor
  • Three-focus shot
• So you want to make a film
  • Preproduction
    • Writer: Outline, Synopsis or Treatment - storyboard
    • Rights
    • Funding / Budget
    • Directing
    • Equipment / Insurance
    • Casting
  • Production
    • Shooting script (script supervisor)
    • Shooting schedule
    • Shooting
      • Hours / Minors (12 hours rest daily)
    • Dailies
  • Post-Production
    • Editing
    • Sound
      • ADR
    • SFX
    • Reshooting
    • Clearing with rightholders / producers
    • Exhibition

• So you want to be an actor
  • Training
  • Opportunity
  • Historical
    • Stanislavski + The system
      • Physical action + magic “if”
      • Imagination
      • Concentration of attention: 3 circles
        • Self
        • Others
        • Outside
    • Straasberg + the Method
      • Using magic “if” to create emotional memory
      • Puts the self through circumstances similar to that of the character
    • Meisner + the Meisner Technique
      • Return to physical action
      • Imagination
      • Given circumstances of a text
      • Resists playing an action or an emotion – emotion is the job of the audience
  • Business
    • Screen
      • SAG http://www.sag.org/content/getting-started-actor-faq
      • Child actors and the Coogan Law
        • 15% of wages must go into a trust, accessable at 21
        • The money earned by a child actor belongs to them, legally
    • Stage
      • Equity
• Break
• Film: The Artist

Week 2: Audience Expectations and Physics

Week 2 Lesson Plan

Intro to Film 8 Week

• Review / Discuss Ran
• Film Form and Expectations of the Audience
  • Often connected to the Director
  • Logical plot progression
    • Exposition
    • Rising action
    • Climax
    • Falling action
    • Denoument
    • Conclusion / Closure
  • Major Dramatic Question
  • MacGuffin
  • Characterizations
    • Clear objectives
    • Stock Characters
    • (Romantic comedy – good example of stock characters)
  • Film formula – Genres (Genre group activity)
  • Types of films (larger groupings)
    • Narrative
    • Documentary
    • Experimental
• First Break (10 min)
• Physics of Film
  • Phi Phenomenon (sequence of images cause illusion of motion – flipbook)
  • Critical flicker fusion (strobing light appears constant)
  • Illusion of Movement (no real movement happening, folks)
  • Manipulation of Space
    • Off-screen space
    • Perspective shifting
      • LOTR a good example for this
    • Modern 3-D
  • Manipulation of Time
    • Cinematic Time vs real elapsed time
• Assign Essay #1
  • Short writing lecture
    • Good strong thesis statement
    • What is a paragraph?
    • Writing to engage / interest the reader
    • Taking risks in writing
• Second Break (longer)
• Why Citizen Kane?
• Citizen Kane
• (Discussion) – Assign Online Discussion

Intro to Film Summer 13 Week 1

Intro to Film Summer 13 Week 1

• Take care of registration issues at first break
• Introduce Self
  • About Me
  • How to survive classes
  • Assignments and agenda always on whiteboard
  • Suggest good notetaking
  • My lesson plans on blog
• Pedagogical ideas
  • Watch RSA video
  • Talk about constructivism
  • Watch a Vision of Students Today
• Look at Canvas
• Review Syllabus
  • Clarify text issues
• Break (10 min)
• Purposes of film mini-lecture
  • Brainstorm meanings of “film”
    • Means to power
    • art form
    • business
    • shared experience
    • system of communication
      • shared expectations and language of a film
    • clarify “film” vs. “movie” vs. “cinema”
  • Terms used: Cinematic Language
  • Transition to Mise-En-Scene: what makes film different than other art forms?
• Introduce idea of Mise-En-Scene
  • All Choices are intentional
  • Introduce ideas about staging:
    • Use picture from Kagemusha
    • Position
      • Rule of Thirds
    • Lighting
    • Color
    • Camera Position
    • Framing
      • Tight groupings vs Loose groupings
    • Use of on-screen / off-screen space
    • Open / Closed framing
  • Give ideas about what to think about while watching Ran
  • Talk about why I chose Ran
    • Use of color, space, light, dark, sound
    • Perspective of a visual artist – show paintings
• Long break (20-30 min)
• Ran
• Break (10 min)
• Discussion
  • What did the visual elements tell you about the story?
  • How did the visual elements assist you in understanding the narrative?
• Online discussion forum
• Due next week

Nearing the end of the semester: many things wrapped in one.

The semester ends next week. I'm already thinking about what to change for summer -- what went well this semester, and what needs to change.

Intro to Film
This week we are watching Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Our discussions are going to lean toward how film as a medium can make historical change, and how film changes through the lens of history.

Next week are final projects. I've tried something new this semester: open ended final projects. Students were given full reign over their assignments, including how they were graded. My only major requirement was that their project somehow demonstrates their understanding of film. I am looking forward to seeing what my students have come up with.

Film and Culture
Last week we watched Murderball and discussed how American culture treats people with disabilities. This week is the last week for this class (Friday classes meet one week less than others) so we are doing final presentations. Students are doing a similar presentation to my Intro class where they need to demonstrate their understanding of diversity.

Next Semester Prep
I'm teaching two sections of Intro to Film over the summer. I'm considering going from a point-based grading system to giving letter grades for assignments. The upside would be quick grading without having to figure out the math. The downside would be less nuanced grading for assignments.

I've also got to pare down 15 weeks of material to fit 8 weeks. This is not as challenging as it seems - I just figure out what the major understandings I want them to have are and get rid of anything that doesn't fit that.

Film and Culture: The Field Trip

In our course schedule, this is the week where my Film and Culture class takes a break from the classroom and goes out to something that's a first-run film in a movie theater.

We've spent the semester talking about race, class, and gender so far, and this is an opportunity to apply our cultural criticism skills on something that is very current.

We'll watch the film, then have a discussion about it in the lobby of the theater. I'm on my toes as well, because I don't know what we are going to go see. We will determine that in class through a (somewhat) democratic process.

Intro: Blade Runner

I'm working this thing backwards.

Blade Runner is one of my all-time favorite films, and one that influenced me heavily as a teenager. There is something compelling about the story of someone killing inhuman creatures that themselves speak so heavily of humanity.

Then there is Ridley Scott's visuals. If you want to talk about a completely thought out universe to live in that isn't entirely explained or handed to you - this is the film. Dystopian future, yep. Incredibly densely layered mise-en-scene. And so on.

I wanted to approach the topic from what I described in the syllabus as a "film criticism" section of the course. I think we flip that on it's head, though. Normally the game is new idea, then film, then analyze, but I think in this case, because of the nature of the film, we start with the film. Then give them the opportunity to analyze in a casual assignment.

This is going to be a synthesis of what they've learned in terms of formal criticism, but also a look at new ways to think about films and their social impact.

 We've got this film and then some film history, final projects, then all done. Film criticism was kind of an afterthought, one that I'm glad to include, but I don't want to beat them upside the head with it.

The shot above of Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten...

...is impossible.

Anyone know why, and how it was done?

Film and Culture: Feminism and Joss Whedon

We're looking this week at how women are treated in film. This is an extremely complex subject, and one that I have a tendency in this course to reduce to basic elements for clarity's sake.

Our text, Benshoff and Griffin's America On Film spends one chapter on women in classical Hollywood filmmaking, and then another on how women are framed visually in film. This week's film, Serenity, is a useful tool for talking about how women are treated in modern filmmaking and how action-adventure and science fiction films frame women.

First off, we look at what gender actually is. This is the basic gender studies lecture about how sex and gender are separate. Usually the part about there being more than two possible genetic sexes and more than two genders causes some heads to explode. I use the genderbread person to help explain rudimentary ideas about gender and it's construction.

Then we talk about women in film specifically, using the other selections from this semester and using the Bechdel test to talk about how roles for men and women are treated differently both by Hollywood filmmakers and the viewing audience.

We then talk about Joss Whedon and his self identification as a feminist. What does it mean to have a popular cisgendered heterosexual white male self-define as a feminist filmmaker, and in looking at his work, does this idea pan out?

Then Serenity, which for the filmmaking crowd in the class is a treat visually. I often show the continuous shot inside the ship near the start of the film in my Intro classes as a demonstration of a long tracking shot that works well.

Then discussion, which in this class often goes to where it needs to. I am lucky to have a very diverse class this semester where students are quick to voice their opinions about the films and the subjects that we discuss. I am hoping to push the discussion towards analyzing female characters in the film as well as how Whedon frames/depicts women.

Intro: Moulin Rouge

Lets put things in context of the semester. We're about to come back from spring break. Major assignments are getting handed back (I am working on the pile of grading inbetween breaks to prep). I'm making lists of things to talk to students about regarding their essay writing. We've done a good chunk of work on the technical aspects of film and how they relate to the viewing experience.

Now, musicals. I've structured the course in the past to be roughly along the lines of Barsam and Monahan's textbook Looking at Movies, but this semester I've added some things in that I really want to talk about but don't ever get to. We're going to look at musicals and musical theater (this course is crosslisted as theater...), then academic and popular criticism, then some film history at the end.

We're going to look at a bit of Turandot first. We're going to talk about the connections between opera and musical theater - the difference between high art, low art, and even lower art (film). My copy of Turandot was filmed in the Forbidden City of Beijing, and is a fantastic look at the intersection of art, history, and performance.

Why musicals? Why do some people hate them so much? What can you do in a musical that doesn't make sense in a straight film? What's with Baz Lurhman? Does his cinematography help or hinder the telling of the story? Are jukebox musicals effective?

How does the music tell the story?

Alex

The basic method...

I follow a method in teaching film that has worked for me and seems to get students engaged and talking to each other. It is simple, straightforward, and can be adapted for any level of students. It is also not anything new, educators have been talking about this kind of method for years. Some call it Understanding by Design, some are using plan-do-review, some call it something else -- to me, it's all the same thing.

Step one: New knowledge. This happens in many different ways. Sometimes it's a reading followed by discussion, sometimes lecture, sometimes descriptive clips. Somehow, we introduce the new concept.

Step two: The Film. Sometimes this is integrated with step one (usually in Film and Culture, almost never in Intro...) but is often separate. We watch the film together (I think the communal nature of film viewing is very important) and look for the applications of the new knowledge in the film.

Step three: Class discussion. First, the opportunity to get gut-level reactions out there. "I liked it" / "I hated it" sort of stuff. Then go a bit deeper -- where did you see the new idea? How does the new idea explain this week's concept?

Step four: Online discussion. Now, a slightly more formal prompt. Extend the floor of the classroom. This is a particularly important step for purposes of differentiating instruction - some students aren't comfortable speaking in class but they are more comfortable posting online.

Step five: Formal application. There is usually some sort of essay assignment or formal assessment that students have to use their new knowledge and apply it in some sort of thoughtful way. They usually have a choice in new ideas to work with (depending on the semester, three to four ideas) and a choice in films. Hopefully the structure of the assignment keeps plagiarism at bay - there is always a component of how the viewer responds to the film, which is often personal and easy to catch when it isn't.

Introduction, purpose, etcetera

So.

(It's the first line of Beowulf -- it's a good enough start to my blog, right?)

My name is Alex Langshall. I'm entering my third year of teaching film as an adjunct at Salt Lake Community College. I hold a Master of Arts in Teaching degree and a B.A. in English, both from Westminster College.

I am feeling a definite lack of teaching community right now. I'm hoping that by posting some of what I'm doing in the classroom, and some thinking about what I'm teaching and how I'm teaching, I can start to generate the kind of community I'm looking for. I'm also hoping that by posting about my experiences that I can help generate some ideas about how to teach the subjects I'm teaching, and also maybe get some insights from others about things that are working.

I'm starting this during spring break, so you'll be getting an insight during the middle of the semester. This semester I'm teaching three courses: one section of Introduction to Film, one of Film and Culture, and a section of Elements of Effective Communication. The two film classes I've taught numerous times, the communication course is new to me, and by far the largest struggle.

I'm hoping to include this blog as part of my prep, fleshing out my teaching ideas in a narrative format. I hope that's something that works well for me, and we'll see how it goes.

Syllabi for my film classes are available at http://slcc.academia.edu/AlexanderLangshall

Thanks for stopping by!

Alex