Student Resources
Looking at Movies DVDs
- Free with every new copy of the text
- Buy now, with Writing About Movies booklet:
Two included DVDs feature nearly four hours of moving-image content.
Disc 1 offers content corresponding to each chapter in the text, including:
- Film clips and frame sequences, with voiceover commentary by Dave Monahan (University of North Carolina, Wilmington). These short tutorials elaborate on key concepts in the text, helping you see what the text describes.
- Original footage produced exclusively for Looking at Movies. This footage provides brief overviews of the technical aspects of filmmaking: camera angles, moving-camera effects, and others.
Disc 2 includes an anthology of 12 short films, ranging from 5 to 30 minutes in length. These short films are entertaining examples of the form, and most of the films are accompanied by optional audio commentary from the directors recorded specifically for Looking at Movies.
Student Web Site
- Visit the student Web site
- Free with every new copy of the text
The student Web site provides material to help you review and study effectively, including chapter outlines, self-grading quizzes, and a glossary. The Web site also contains 24 short illustrated essays—signaled in the text by web icons—that provide further explorations of a wide range of topics that emphasize historical and cultural contexts. Sample film analyses by Richard Barsam provide models for your own writing, as well as essential background for screenings.
Writing About Movies Booklet
- Free with every new copy of the text
- Buy now, with Looking at Movies DVDs:
Writing About Movies
Karen Gocsik, Richard Barsam
Most of us could recite the plot of Independence Day more easily than we could recite the Declaration of Independence. We know more about the characters who perished on Cameron’s Titanic than we know about many of the people who inhabit our own lives. It’s precisely our familiarity with film, however, that presents our greatest writing challenge. Film is so familiar and so prevalent in our lives that we are often lulled into passive viewing (at worst) or simple entertainment (at best). As a result, certain aspects of a film are often “invisible.” Caught up in the entertainment, we sometimes don’t “see” the camera work, composition, editing, or lighting. Nor do we “hear” the sound design.
Writing About Movies helps you consider the elements that make up the film. How do they function, separately and together? It helps you think about the film in the context of when it was made, how, and by whom. It will help you break down the film into its constituent parts, and then be able to analyze what you see. Writing About Movies will help you to write a paper that transforms your thoughts and responses into writing that is appropriately academic.