Film Styles and Genre's remember watching movies in class in primary school as a reward, well i do that every tuesday night between 6 and 10pm. We (Roughly half the pro-athletes at the school it seems, easy class much?, some film nerds and I) gather in a freezing lecture theatre (coz american's don't care about the environment air con and sprinklers are constantly on.) and complete a quiz on the weeks readings, quizzes are big here, if you've done the weeks readings (normally about 80 pages per class per week) it's not so bad. Quizzes make roughly 50% of the grades for all my classes. We discuss the chapter we read, lately it has been broad topics like form, convention, genre and style as well as some more specific things found in movies like depth, function, evaluation, narration and motifs. It's a good class, i've always liked movies, tv and most types of visual productions, this class is a neat way to begin to understand the things you always noticed but never really understood or put a name to. Last night we discussed the intricacy of plot vs story, i like this quote: "Film makers construct the plot from the story whilst the audience constructs the story from the plot. After discussion we watch a movie, typical classics (Citizen Kane, Battleship Potemkin & The Wizard of Oz) as well as more indepth consideration of the concept of Genre (in this class, Western: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blazing Saddles) and Auteurs (Jarmusch's Dead Man & Down By Law). Post viewing discussion normally meanders off topic fairly quickly, the class is a discussion class so that's a fairly good thing, we have a good set of minds from a range of industry as well as some contentious points of view. It makes for a fun class, plus we get to eat snacks and stuff just like a real movie! None of the films so far have really grabbed my attention, i've never been an old movie buff, but i think it's good in that the environment makes you witness, nitpick and analyse them. Even if the film's are not engrossing, looking at them analytically keeps you interested. It compliments my Video Production class as well when looking at how things were shot, lit and edited. If i watched them at home i'd likely alt-tab within the opening credits, it's a problem with watching for films for enjoyment these days, unless at the theatre or with a group of people i often phase out or do something else. I searched around but i couldn't find the article i read a while ago about how the internet has altered the way we process information. It focussed on reading but it applies across all the medium's found on the internet, if something doesn't catch our attention right a way we are unlikely to follow it for more than two to three sentences. Anyway the class is good and learning more about the cogs, nuts and bolts of films is fascinating.
