answered: REMINDER: All work must be submitted as .PDF, .DOC or .DOCX

  

REMINDER: All work must be submitted as .PDF, .DOC or .DOCX files.
You must submit this project before moving forward to the next unit.
(In case you had forgotten, this was the assignment:)
Essay Project: Storytelling Scene Analysis
For this project you will need to pick a book and a movie. The movie must be based on the book (not the other way around.) Be kind to yourself and pick a book/ movie that you like! You will need to read the whole book and see the whole movie.
Because the essay requires you to talk about how your mind visualizes parts of the book, graphic novels and other drawings-based books which impose an artist’s view of the text are not allowed as sources. In addition, plays are not permitted as source material because they contain minimal or no descriptions of environments, locations, or other aspects of reality for you to interpret.
For your essay, begin by comparing and analyzing the ways in which the book and the movie tell their respective stories. Are they telling the same story? Do they both maintain a linear (or non-linear) approach to storytelling? Is the scope of the story different in the two media?
Analyze ways in which the movie makes visual choices in telling the story. Does the movie look the way you imagined it when you read the book? If you saw the film first, does the book have a different visual feel than the film? Are the film’s characters similar to their written descriptions? Are the locations used in the film similar in look and mood to the way they are described in the book? If the book contained only minimal visual descriptions, how did you interpret what you read?
Select a specific scene from the film/chapter from the book. How did you visually imagine the scene in your mind’s eye as you read it? Were specific visuals described in the book? Did you create visuals in your mind, and if so, were they similar to the choices made by the filmmakers? Compare in-depth the way reading the chapter makes you feel with your emotions as opposed to viewing the scene from the film. Do the visuals and the text have a similar rhythm? How is the scene in the movie constructed from a visual perspective? (Do we start by establishing the scene and environs, and then move closer to the characters, or does the scene start close on a person or object, later revealing more?) Does camera movement (or lack thereof) create tension or other emotions? and does it work to convey the scene as it appears in the book? Be specific about the shots you see in the film and the mood created by the lighting, and how they impact your experience watching the scene — and be sure to compare the shots used in the scene with the ‘shots’ your imagination created when you read the chapter. Use the terminology that you are learning in this course when writing your descriptions! Remember to describe in the cinematic terminology of shots, camera angles, movement, and lighting what you envisioned in your mind’s eye when reading the book.
Conclude by relating the scene to the movie/book as a whole, both within the context of the visuals and the way the scene moves the story forward.
If printed, your finished essay should be approximately 2 – 3 pages in length. (double-spaced)
Aspects being Assessed:
I want to be very clear that this is not simply a book vs. film analysis essay. It’s important that you include a cinematographically visual description of the way you imagined the scene when you read it. This description should include specifics about the shots you ‘saw’ in your mind – and these need to be described using appropriate film terminology!
Here’s a rough breakdown of the required elements for the different aspects of the paper:
General Comparison of Book and Movie, particularly aspects such as whether the book and film are telling the story from the same point of view.
Comparison of style, mood, and pacing of selected chapter/scene.
Cinematic description of the way you imagined the chapter when reading it. (How you visualized the written words, completely independent of the way the movie portrayed it.)
Correct use of film terminology in describing stylistic motifs, scenes, and shots. (These are covered in Units 3 & 4)
Any historical/ sociological differences which may have arisen based on the way the period of the book is perceived, and whether the time period of the film is portrayed in the same way as the book.