return home

FRAMING FILM

Final Description:

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

FRAMING FILM

SPRING QUARTER, 2005

Framing Film was a full time program in which students learned to analyze films through a study of film movements and genre. Students viewed 24 films, wrote 8 short analytical essays or wrote an extended research study,  participated in seminar discussions, and completed Thinking in Pictures, a storyboarding project.  In addition to Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art and Fabe, Closely Watched Trains, students read essays on Film Noir, the Western, and the Melodrama. 

Class screening films focused on Film Noir, Neo-Realism, Comedy, Screwball Comedy, the Western, Melodrama, and the Woman’s Picture.  Students viewed:  Citizen Kane, M, Out of the Past, Diva, The Bicycle Thief, The Circle, Sherlock Jr., M. Hulot’s Holiday, Black Cat White Cat, His Girl Friday, Desperately Seeking Susan, Rio Bravo, Yojimbo, Written on the Wind, In the Mood for Love, All about Eve, and I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. Each student also watched a third film each week and submitted a short analytical essay.

All students attended the first week of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), viewing at least 15 films for the week, participating in on-site seminar discussions, and summing up their film experience with a Synthesis Essay that drew together their work for the quarter.

Suggested credit equivalencies:  16 total

8—Introduction to Cinema

8—Film Analysis

 

Full time spring quarter program

2 faculty: Caryn Cline (coordinator) and Virginia (Jin) Darney

"Framing Film" refers both to the film process, which "frames" our view of the world, and to the framing that we do as viewers and critics of film as we analyze them. This Spring quarter program will introduce students to the phenomenon of filmmaking and to some of the great films produced in a century of cinema around the world.   Ever since the Lumiere brothers introduced a portable camera/developer/projector and sent camera operators to many countries to take moving pictures and screen them for audiences, film production has been a global project.   While the United States studio system provided a particularly successful example of the industrialization of filmmaking, many other countries, including Germany, Mexico, France, Japan, Britain, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Russia, Sweden and Cuba, have had active film industries.   Great film "movements" such as Russian Social Realism, Italian Neo-Realism, the French New Wave, and Third World/Third Cinema, and genres such as the Western, Film Noir, Melodrama, and Memoir have inspired filmmakers all over the world.    We will take a historical and global look at films and filmmakers, while developing our critical skills to read, write, and talk about film.  

In FRAMING FILM, students will:  

*           learn how to "read" film images and structures

*             understand the fine art and unique aesthetic codes from which film draws

*           become familiar with important filmmakers from around the world

*           read about, write about and discuss films using the vocabulary of historical and contemporary critical approaches to film

*             construct design problems and create projects that explore aspects of the filmmaking process, and

*           attend one week of the Seattle International Film Festival


  FRAMING FILM FIELD TRIP:

THE SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Attendance at the Seattle International Film Festival is a REQUIRED part of FRAMING FILM.   If you cannot arrange your schedule to accommodate one week, full time, in Seattle, do not register for this program .   Our one-week field trip to the festival involves extra expenses.   At this point, we can only provide a rough estimate of what those will be.   They include:

A one-week, full pass to the festival                         $150.00

Per diem expenses 8 days @ 30/day                          240.00

Room at a local hostel       8 days @ $25/day            200.00

Transportation RT Olympia/Seattle                              50.00

Total ESTIMATED expenses                                   $640.00

We will expect) students in   FRAMING FILM to organize themselves for hostel stays at a group discount, and to coordinate free places to stay in Seattle,.    We may be able to secure a group discount on tickets to the festival.  

More details about the field trip will be available as the festival approaches.