LA Confidential Still Frame Analysis

Step One: Choose two images from the folder LA Confidential Stills under Files in Canvas that show transformation of a character or idea. 

Step Two: For the first frame, consider what the audience is supposed to understand about the subject of the image. What do you feel is the point of using that shot? Next, analyze how the details of framing, lighting, camera angle, camera focal length, foreground and background contribute that effect or meaning to the image. Focus on those features you feel contribute most to the shot, or contribute a unique quality to the meaning of the shot.

Step Three: write out your observations, analysis. This should be between a half page to a page long.

Step Four: Now study the second image. for this image write out how you understand the transformation taking shape in the image. This will be more of a comparison with the first image than straight analysis. Consider the following questions: 

What is the transformation that takes shape?

Where do you see transformation taking shape compared to the first image? 
How do the details in the shot create that movement?
What is the point of the transformation?

You will work on this tomorrow in class on your iPads--be sure you know which iPads you used yesterday.

If you were absent, begin with the first image tonight and you will work on the second image in class tomorrow.

Hold on to them until Thursday when I get back and I will tell you how to turn it in then.

Week of Oct. 1

On Monday, you have the 2nd draft of the Oedipus Essay due. Let's turn it in through Canvas again. You will have until 6pm tomorrow to send it in.

This week we will work on LA Confidential and doing close reading of both images and scenes.  In the 'Files' section you will find a folder for LA Confidential with both stills and scenes. We'll give the iPads a go again this week and see if we can get them to work.

In addition to that, we will be working on a draft of a college essay. On Tuesday you will bring in a prompt for an essay you have to write (or have started to write) and we'll spend that day talking about different prompts and some strategies to get you started. If you have already written your essays and have no others to work on, bring it in and we can work on a revision if you need.

Oedipus Parallel Lives Assignment

Lit/Film

Oedipus the King Essay

            According to Aristotle, readers/viewers of the play should feel terror – not the terror of confronting the fallen blind king, Oedipus, but rather the terror of facing the proud, blind person within each of us.  Come on, look deep within; you’ll see that person staring back.

Instead of a literary analysis of the play, let’s try something a little different.  Choose a passage – an exchange of dialogue from the text, perhaps – as a spring-board to write about a time in your life when you faced a similar philosophical crisis to that of Oedipus.  (Hopefully you won’t have killed your father or married your mother).  Rather, think about a time you pressed on and discovered unsettling information; write about a time you discovered who you were; write about a time you felt influenced by the advice/suggestion (read:  prophecy) of another person; write about a time you went public with information that should have stayed private (You’d need to divulge the information again in your paper, or your readers would be up in arms); write about a time you refused to see something that now seems obvious, even when you were given ample evidence to see the truth from the beginning.  Or, find some other resemblance between you and Oedipus.  With college deadlines and graduation less than a year away, surely you’ve recently thought to yourself, “I am agony” (239, line 1443).

Your essay should be 2-3 pages in length.  Start with the quote/exchange from the play, and use it as your epigraph.  Then write a fully developed story about the event in your life.  End with a commentary on how the story relates (is similar to and is different from Oedipus’s predicament). A draft will be due on Tuesday September 25^th.

Weekend Photo Assignment

Don't Forget! Tuesday is Film Night at the Wilmette 
Theatre. LA Confidential! Film begins at 6:30 should end by 8:30.

Photo Assignment:

With a digital or phone camera take several different pictures placing your subject on the intersections around the middle frame. Experiment with capturing both foreground and background. Then frame your subject within the frame of the camera—find objects to make a frame within a frame. As you take your own shots consider how background and foreground inform your subject, and how their placement in the frame changes how we understand the situation.Take 5-10 pictures and post them to your blog with a short description for each that explains an effect of your framing.

Under Files in the folder labeled Assignments First Quarter you will see a document entitled Introduction to Framing. Read that before taking your pictures. Your pictures should be blogged by Monday night so we can talk about them Tuesday.

Explanation:

Introduction to Framing:

Focal length (camera distance from subject) and angle and framing are all different concepts when it comes to film. How far the camera is from the subject, at what angle the camera is placed and what details end up in the frame all contribute to the meaning of a shot, but all can be analyzed differently.

The frame of a shot is where the subject is located in the frame of the camera. In order to understand this, consider the frame—what area of the picture you see—overlaid with a tic-tac-toe grid of 9 squares. The middle frame is what photographers and directors call the lazy frame—it’s where professionals don’t want their subjects to end up. Instead the subjects are most often placed on one of the interstices—where two lines meet, usually left or right, top or bottom of the lazy frame.  Notice the photo below:

The subject—the bee’s head is to the right of the lazy frame. While part of the body lands in the middle frame, it’s not the part of the subject we are most interested in. This concept is called the rule of thirds. Compare to this still from Minority Report (Spielberg,  2002):

Notice the hands on the tie are to the left and below the middle frame. The subject’s eyes are above the middle frame.

Another concept important to framing is foreground and background. Notice in the Minority Report still, the background provides a rich shot filled with detail that the viewer can see and helps to define character. It also balances the subject so that the subject is framed within the frame, between the woman tying his tie and the table and lamp.

Consider how individual shots in film are framed—and how a character is framed within it. The frame helps define the character, creates a sense of place, and guides us to what the director wants us to understand about the scene.

Week of Sept. 10

This week we will focus on the language of film. We will begin with shots and then progress to scenes and read a script and then write our own script. The script assignment is here.

The script from Minority Report is here.

For Monday

With a digital or phone camera take several pictures using different focal lengths—Long, Medium, Close, and Extra Close. Take also an establishing shot, high and low angle shot, and a depth of field shot. Consider where the subject is in the frame of your camera and how much light there is.

Once you have all your pictures post them on your blogs with labels for each.

If you need the descriptions, click here or you can access it under files in Canvas.

Have fun!

For Wednesday

In class today we discussed parallels within Oedipus. We broke into groups and found specific instances of where ideas, words, themes recurred. Tomorrow groups will share what they have found and we will connect these through the text. Here is the assignment we worked on today:

Literature and Film

Trovato

Oedipus Parallelisms

Parallels are places in the text where a similar or identical word, image or idea occurs more than once. Look for parallels in Oedipus that have to do with the following

Blindness (literal or figurative)

Revelation

Power

Crossroads

Betrayal

Curse/plague

Find as many parallels as you can in the section of the text assigned to you, list their page numbers and provide a brief explanation as to why you see them as parallels and what the purpose of the parallel is. In groups, pour over the pages assigned and each person should mark their own text for each parallel found and write the brief explanation in their notebooks. Each group will report back to the class on their findings and be prepared to defend their explanations. The group will receive a grade on how many they found and how well they can explain 5 of them. As a class we will then take notes on each section.

Pages 162-173—group 1

Pages 174-185—group 2

Pages 186-198—group 3

Pages 199-210—group 4

Pages 211-223—group 5

Pages 224-235—group 6

Pages 236-251—group 7

Blog Post 1:

Think about the idea of fate as you saw in Oedipus and Minority Report. Where do you stand on the ideas of fate, free will, personal responsibility and brain chemistry? Do we have control of our selves and our actions? Can there exist a combination of fate and free will? For our first major blog post think on your past—do you see evidence of fate guiding you, or has it been a long string of coincidences? Include examples from your life that connect with Oedipus and/or John Anderton. Finally come to a conclusion about what you think of this cosmic question.

Close Reading of Oedipus

Lit Film
Oedipus Questions
Trovato

 

How does Sophocles want us to understand Oedipus at the beginning of the story?

How does Oedipus want his audience to perceive him? What does he say or do that makes you think this?

Is Oedipus credible at the beginning of the play? What makes him so or not so?

Identify the tone or tones you hear from the different sides at the beginning of the play—consult your list.

Make a list of 10-15 words you find to be significant. Consider significance having to do with repetition, theme, foreshadow....

Why do you think Sophocles has Oedipus turn on Tiresias and Creon? What purpose does this serve in the play?

Consider pace—how does it work in language. Look at speeches by Oedipus, Priest, and then the conversation between Oedipus and Tiresias. What do you notice about pacing?

Summer Reading Questions

Answer the following questions either typed or neatly handwritten to be turned in during the first week of class. Consider the questions and develop your answers thoughtfully. Much of the first weeks of school will be taken up with the play and the film, so be sure you have read and watched carefully!

1. To what extent is Oedipus responsible for his own fate in the play? Be prepared to discuss at least two examples from the text which lead you to believe he is or is not responsible.
    
2. How good a king is Oedipus?  In what ways does he excel as a leader?  In what ways does he fall short?
    
3. Since Oedipus is considered the quintessential tragic hero, then what would you argue is his tragic mistake?  In other words, what in his own character/personality or what wrong-headed action does he take which leads him to his ultimate downfall? Choose a particular flaw or action and explain its relation to his disgrace and exile.
    
4. If we agree that Oedipus the King is about the role of fate and humans’ inability to escape destiny, in what ways does Minority Report, and the character of John Anderton in particular, support or refute Oedipus’ notion of destiny?  Think of two scenes that support your position.
    
5. The eyes are often associated not just with the act of seeing but also of revealing oneself to others. In the film, explain the different ways that eyes or the act of seeing are used for:  1. The Precogs, 2. John Anderton, 3. The culture of the world of the film.
    
6. The story upon which the movie is based was written in the 1950's.  The movie came out in 2002 but is set in 2054.  How much of the events/the attitudes of the movie do you see in contemporary American culture?  Where will be in 44 years?  Speculate on the direction in which our country is headed.  What future contingencies are we preparing for?  To what extent does our attempt to prepare for certain future events determine our own fate?