The Screening Journal is a compilation of notes and responses you make to each of the moving image works discussed as part of our program work. You should make your entries in your sketchbook. Some entries will be your notes on the readings. Entries in response to things viewed should have three parts, with an optional fourth:
1) Part 1 includes the title, director and year of each moving image work screened in class or as part of assigned outside viewing. This part should also include your notes of the introductory comments made about the work in lecture. These introductory remarks usually will provide information about the artist or producer, inspirations or concepts that they were working with, the historical conditions in which the piece was made, and the reasons we are viewing it in this program.
2) Part 2 will consist of your notes written during the screening. These only need to be legible to yourself as you will be writing them in the dark. Get into the habit of writing without looking at your paper. These notes will help you remember what you saw, heard and felt and in what order.
3) After the screening of each work you will have several minutes to review notes you wrote before and during the screening, make them more legible to you, and write a paragraph in response to the work. Consider how it makes you feel, ideas you get from it and elements that bring other experiences, artwork, learning or program concepts to mind. Avoid “reviewing” the work by judging whether it’s “good” or “bad”. Instead, focus on what meaning and insights you get from it, and the connections you can make between it and other program activities and materials.
4) During discussion after the screening, other people’s comments or questions may strike you as insightful. Note those as well.
- Students in the Drawing Track must supplement these entries with visual notes or sketches of characters, design motifs, shot sequences or screen choreography (paths of action) from the works.
- In week 7 you will be asked to transcribe your notes and paragraphs about a few specific works from your Screening Journal into a document that you will turn in Monday of Week 9. Format: double spaced, 10 point type and stapled with your name in the header.
- The entire Screening Journal and Sketchbook is due with your portfolio at the end of winter quarter.