Edusites Sample Student Guide Film Representation

Below is an example of 5 lessons taken from OCR H410 Unit 2 of 5 Representation. Each Unit contains the following:

• Teacher Guide
• Student Workbook
• Online Lesson by Lesson Slides

Edusites offers more than 150 lessons covering Film Language, Film Representation, Film Audience, Film Genre & Institutions and Film Values and Ideology. Each of these Units contains 25 outstanding lessons.

Student Workbook Representation Lessons 1-5

This is the Workbook for use with Edusites H410 Unit 2 OCR GCE A Level Film Studies. All of the notes refer to the content of this unit of work. You need to keep in mind at all times the examination board Assessment Objectives that your work is to be assessed with:

AO1

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of elements of film

AO2

• Apply knowledge and understanding of elements of film to:

1. analyse and compare films, including through the use of critical approaches
2. evaluate the significance of critical approaches
3. analyse and evaluate own work in relation to other professionally produced work

AO3

• Apply knowledge and understanding of elements of film to the production of a film or screenplay.

Film Language is the building block of all our study.

Film Language is the start of your tool kit. It is the acquisition of a set of terms, ideas, approaches that will enable you to talk about the film framework in a way that is clearly understood by examiners. It enables you to have precision in your working and in the construction of your NEA portfolio of media products. It provides the ability to discuss media products so that your ideas and thinking are clearly communicated and enables speed and clarity in your writing in the examination papers.

More than this, it will enable you, your class, your teacher, to discuss the media and allow you to access the many books, websites and ideas that you will need as part of your individual research. The work on film representation builds and evolves this learning and understanding.

Lesson One

What We See

The study of film involves the study of a theoretical framework that can be divided into:

• Film language
• Film representations
• Film audiences
• Film institutions

These are the divisions Edusites have chosen as a means of breaking the work up into more easily digestible units of study. As we explore each unit we then link those ideas into the specific examination requirements of your examination board – OCR

Within our work, we might further include the idea of three significant areas of study:

• Film language (mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography)
• Meaning and response (representations, audience, ideology)
• Contexts (institutions, social and political eras)

Film studies involves the recognition that films are made: they are constructed using a range of elements – cinematography, mise-en-scène, sound, editing and performance – which are additionally organised structurally in terms of their narrative and their perceived genre. How filmmakers use such elements makes up our study of film as a form.

Equally important is how spectators respond to the work filmmakers create, each audience interpreting films with reference to a wider spectator response, the prevailing relevant contexts of watching, the current critical ideas (reviews) and debates. This is our study of film as a product.

Meaning and response

In making sense of film, we must explore how film functions as a medium of representation.

• how film creates meaning and generates response through cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, sound and performance (including staging and direction)
• how all aspects of film form including narrative contribute to the representations of cultures and societies (gender, ethnicity and age), including the ideological nature of those representations

Films are shaped by the contexts in which they are produced. They are better understood by placing them within two important contextual frames:

(1) The broader contexts of a film at the time it was produced – its social, cultural and political contexts, either current or historical.

• social factors surrounding a film’s production e.g. debates of ethnicity, gender etc.
• cultural factors surrounding production e.g. significant film or artistic movements
• political factors surrounding production e.g. restrictions on freedom of expression or a major movement for political change