In class next week I will be asking you to fill out a hard copy of this quiz. Please look it over now and start generating some ideas. Thanks!
Slapstick Comedy, Musical, Western, Film Noir
Genre Assignment Formation Quiz
1. Please rank the genres we are studying in this unit from 1 to 4, with 1 being the genre you are most interested in working on/learning more about (don’t worry—you might change your mind later while working with your group—this is just to get a general sense of your interests). If you don't know enough about each of these genres yet, perhaps take a few moments to do some online research about them.
_____ Slapstick Comedy
_____ Musical
_____Western
_____Film Noir
2. Please rank the following projects from 1 to 8, with 1 being the kind of project you are most interested in undertaking for this assignment, and 8 the least.
___visiting/shaping a project around NYC sites related to film history (such as The Anthology Film Archives, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, etc.)
___Making a short film or doing another kind of creative/visual/performance project (for instance, taking a collection of photographs inspired by Film Noir cinematography at famous Noir locations in New York; performing/filming a re-enactment of a musical number).
___Creating a web resource or blog (for instance, an introduction to Film Musicals of the 1930s, or a blog about contemporary film-makers making films in the Western tradition).
___Primary research—interviewing a film-maker, critic, historian, or other relavant person/group of people; visiting an archive and examining primary documents (letters, scripts, etc.)
___ Getting to know more about technical aspects of film-making, such as film editing, camera work, film music, screenwriting, the transition to sound, filming on location, or the history of film technologies.
___Understanding a genre or its key figures within a historical context (ie. what did Charlie Chaplin inherit from the British Music Hall comedy tradition? How historically accurate was Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin as a depiction of the Russian Revolution? What was San Francisco’s Chinatown like when Orson Welles filmed The Lady from Shanghai there? )
___The relationship between film and literature (ie. How literary and pulp fiction genres like the Western and detective novel influenced film, how film narrative works, what kinds of stories were told in these four genres and what their literary/theatrical antecedents were, etc).
____Learning more about the representation/contribution of groups traditionally under-represented (or misrepresented) in film and film history, such as Chinese Americans, African Americans, women, etc.
3. Which comes closest to describing your thoughts about team projects?
a. I thrive in group projects—I love the energy that results from pooling resources and creativity.
b. I’m good at working in a group—I’m a good team player, and when group projects are good, they can be really rewarding.
c. To be honest, I usually enjoy working on my own the most—so this assignment stretches my natural learning style.
4. Please circle all of the statements you can relate to:
a. I sometimes have a hard time making my voice heard in group work.
b. I naturally gravitate to a leadership role in a group.
c. I am diplomatic and good at finding bridges between different points of view.
d. I am good with attending to the nitty-gritty details of a project.
e. I am a good project manager and can keep a group on track.
f. I am fun to work with.
g. If responsibilities aren’t divided clearly or it I lose my sense of engagement, I tend to slack off.
h. I am a closer—good at finishing things.
i. I am great at generating ideas but sometimes lack attention to detail.
j. Once a project is in motion, I will make sure it gets done.
5. Please circle any of the following skills/areas of strength that you possess:
a. Web design
b. Programming/coding
c. Digital film-making
d. Creative writing
e. Academic research (using databases, library research)
f. Journalistic writing
g. Performance (acting, directing, etc).
h. Fine Arts (drawing, painting,etc.)
i. Interviewing skills (ie. conducting an interview with a research subject)
j. Public speaking skills
k. Project management/organization
Please list here any of the above skills (or others not listed here) that you do not possess yet, but are interested in developing: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. Do you have any special requests you’d like me to consider when forming the groups, or any information that it would be helpful for me to know about? For instance: a friend in the class that you’d like to work with, learning differences/disabilities, scheduling constraints, logistics (you are based out of Lincoln center; you are an athlete and travel frequently).______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. In general, when do you think you would be most available to meet with your group? (Please circle all that apply):
a. Before class (ie. 9 AM to 11:30 AMish on Wednesdays)
b. After class (2:00-4:00 PM on Wednesdays)
c. Weekends
d. Mornings
e. Afternoons
f. Evenings
8. Please generate a few questions here that you think might be a good starting place for a group project.
(for example, “Did actors in Westerns really ride their own horses? When did the safety and protection of horses in Westerns become a concern? Have animal rights activists ever protested the filming of Westerns?” or “How are dance sequences filmed in musicals? Does the camera stay in one place, or does it follow the dancer around? What are the most common styles of filming dance? Which films have been particularly innovative and important in developing the camera style for dance sequences? Did particular star dancers have preferences about how they were filmed?)
9. What ideas do you have now about the kind of group project you’d like to do? (even if you’re not sure this idea is a good one or that it work, please just generate a few ideas here to get the ball rolling…). For instance, if you had generated the line of questions about horses in westerns above, you might write something like this:
Maybe I’d like my group to develop a project about the use of animals in genres. We could just focus on the Western, or we could compare the Western to slapstick comedy. Perhaps we could interview some trainers who work with animals in film today and ask them about their current practices and compare these to the practices of film-makers in the 1930s and 1940s, and see what has changed. Then we could look at the films made in the past and the films made in the present to see how the actual story might be different based on the way the animals are treated. We could write a group essay comparing the two—or we could create a video explaining the differences with clips from old and new films. Maybe we would discover that different genres view/use animals in different ways—or maybe we would discover that the changes in how animals are treated on set has led to changes in the genre itself.
Please remember-- we are just in the brainstorming phase now, so sky's the limit and there's no such thing as a bad idea! Feel free to e-mail me in advance of next week if you have questions or ideas you'd like to run by me. [email protected]
Slapstick Comedy, Musical, Western, Film Noir
Genre Assignment Formation Quiz
1. Please rank the genres we are studying in this unit from 1 to 4, with 1 being the genre you are most interested in working on/learning more about (don’t worry—you might change your mind later while working with your group—this is just to get a general sense of your interests). If you don't know enough about each of these genres yet, perhaps take a few moments to do some online research about them.
_____ Slapstick Comedy
_____ Musical
_____Western
_____Film Noir
2. Please rank the following projects from 1 to 8, with 1 being the kind of project you are most interested in undertaking for this assignment, and 8 the least.
___visiting/shaping a project around NYC sites related to film history (such as The Anthology Film Archives, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, etc.)
___Making a short film or doing another kind of creative/visual/performance project (for instance, taking a collection of photographs inspired by Film Noir cinematography at famous Noir locations in New York; performing/filming a re-enactment of a musical number).
___Creating a web resource or blog (for instance, an introduction to Film Musicals of the 1930s, or a blog about contemporary film-makers making films in the Western tradition).
___Primary research—interviewing a film-maker, critic, historian, or other relavant person/group of people; visiting an archive and examining primary documents (letters, scripts, etc.)
___ Getting to know more about technical aspects of film-making, such as film editing, camera work, film music, screenwriting, the transition to sound, filming on location, or the history of film technologies.
___Understanding a genre or its key figures within a historical context (ie. what did Charlie Chaplin inherit from the British Music Hall comedy tradition? How historically accurate was Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin as a depiction of the Russian Revolution? What was San Francisco’s Chinatown like when Orson Welles filmed The Lady from Shanghai there? )
___The relationship between film and literature (ie. How literary and pulp fiction genres like the Western and detective novel influenced film, how film narrative works, what kinds of stories were told in these four genres and what their literary/theatrical antecedents were, etc).
____Learning more about the representation/contribution of groups traditionally under-represented (or misrepresented) in film and film history, such as Chinese Americans, African Americans, women, etc.
3. Which comes closest to describing your thoughts about team projects?
a. I thrive in group projects—I love the energy that results from pooling resources and creativity.
b. I’m good at working in a group—I’m a good team player, and when group projects are good, they can be really rewarding.
c. To be honest, I usually enjoy working on my own the most—so this assignment stretches my natural learning style.
4. Please circle all of the statements you can relate to:
a. I sometimes have a hard time making my voice heard in group work.
b. I naturally gravitate to a leadership role in a group.
c. I am diplomatic and good at finding bridges between different points of view.
d. I am good with attending to the nitty-gritty details of a project.
e. I am a good project manager and can keep a group on track.
f. I am fun to work with.
g. If responsibilities aren’t divided clearly or it I lose my sense of engagement, I tend to slack off.
h. I am a closer—good at finishing things.
i. I am great at generating ideas but sometimes lack attention to detail.
j. Once a project is in motion, I will make sure it gets done.
5. Please circle any of the following skills/areas of strength that you possess:
a. Web design
b. Programming/coding
c. Digital film-making
d. Creative writing
e. Academic research (using databases, library research)
f. Journalistic writing
g. Performance (acting, directing, etc).
h. Fine Arts (drawing, painting,etc.)
i. Interviewing skills (ie. conducting an interview with a research subject)
j. Public speaking skills
k. Project management/organization
Please list here any of the above skills (or others not listed here) that you do not possess yet, but are interested in developing: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. Do you have any special requests you’d like me to consider when forming the groups, or any information that it would be helpful for me to know about? For instance: a friend in the class that you’d like to work with, learning differences/disabilities, scheduling constraints, logistics (you are based out of Lincoln center; you are an athlete and travel frequently).______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. In general, when do you think you would be most available to meet with your group? (Please circle all that apply):
a. Before class (ie. 9 AM to 11:30 AMish on Wednesdays)
b. After class (2:00-4:00 PM on Wednesdays)
c. Weekends
d. Mornings
e. Afternoons
f. Evenings
8. Please generate a few questions here that you think might be a good starting place for a group project.
(for example, “Did actors in Westerns really ride their own horses? When did the safety and protection of horses in Westerns become a concern? Have animal rights activists ever protested the filming of Westerns?” or “How are dance sequences filmed in musicals? Does the camera stay in one place, or does it follow the dancer around? What are the most common styles of filming dance? Which films have been particularly innovative and important in developing the camera style for dance sequences? Did particular star dancers have preferences about how they were filmed?)
9. What ideas do you have now about the kind of group project you’d like to do? (even if you’re not sure this idea is a good one or that it work, please just generate a few ideas here to get the ball rolling…). For instance, if you had generated the line of questions about horses in westerns above, you might write something like this:
Maybe I’d like my group to develop a project about the use of animals in genres. We could just focus on the Western, or we could compare the Western to slapstick comedy. Perhaps we could interview some trainers who work with animals in film today and ask them about their current practices and compare these to the practices of film-makers in the 1930s and 1940s, and see what has changed. Then we could look at the films made in the past and the films made in the present to see how the actual story might be different based on the way the animals are treated. We could write a group essay comparing the two—or we could create a video explaining the differences with clips from old and new films. Maybe we would discover that different genres view/use animals in different ways—or maybe we would discover that the changes in how animals are treated on set has led to changes in the genre itself.
Please remember-- we are just in the brainstorming phase now, so sky's the limit and there's no such thing as a bad idea! Feel free to e-mail me in advance of next week if you have questions or ideas you'd like to run by me. [email protected]