Introduction
Over the past few weeks, I’ve moved from a passive moviegoer to an active “reader” of cinema. This journey required me to step out of my comfort zone, analyze the fundamental grammar of film, and apply these methods to my own viewing experiences. Below, you will find a summary of my work, reflections on the process, and a look at the challenges I encountered along the way.
My Work Present
To explore how cinema works, I completed the following assignments:
- Reading Movies (Part II): I deciphered Roger Ebert’s essay on “How to Read a Movie,” where I learned techniques of attentive viewing, cinematic language, and the “stop-action” method.
- Look, Listen, Analyze (Part III): I did a three-part analysis of the training montage scene from Rocky IV to see how editing, music, and framing shapes an audiences viewing experience.
- Video Assignments (Part IV): I observed the anime character Rimuru Tempest and analyzed him in video format to show how I can apply those newly learned techniques in my own media.
- Video Assignment Bank (8 Stars): These are video assignments I put together since they were small. It is apart of Part IV.
Reflection
I learned everything on screen is intentional. This ranges from every camera angle, cut, and sound choice to create the an emotional response from the viewer. I discovered how to find these techniques and how to create proper engagement.
The “stop-action” method was difficult for me to engage with as it felt unnatural to constantly pause a film. This caused me to unengaged from a film as I focus on finding specific things within a scene. While that was hard, The three-part analysis was easier for me. Muting the audio had me find myself instinctively noticing framing and camera angles after reobservation with the scenes.
What drove me crazy was the rubric to create a proper blog for the video assignments since there was so little to go off of. I enjoyed the Listen phase of the analysis. It is fascinating how much of a movie’s emotional heavy lifting is done by sound effects and score. Separating that layer revealed a totally different experience than watching the visuals, which I found to be a very eye-opening exercise.