F634 Evaluation Help
Note the exam board’s advice:
“The critical evaluation should not be a description of how the realisation was made, but an analysis of the text produced alongside a contextualisation in relation to the candidate's research. Critical analysis skills developed throughout units F631, F632, and F633 should be employed by candidates to explore how their learning, both taught and independently acquired, has influenced their practice”.
Your evaluation should be between 1000-1250 words. 20 Marks.
Deadline: Friday 23rd January
Level 4 Criteria
•Excellent, sophisticated analysis of the text produced, detailed, reflective and insightful.
•Excellent, detailed and insightful evidence of knowledge and understanding of:
- relevant wider issues that impact on the textual messages; the role of genre and narrative;
- issues of representation;
- the use of film language, cinematography, sound, mise-en-scène and editing, and the impact these have in creating meaning.
•Excellent, sophisticated contextualisation of the creative realisation in relation to the
candidate's research.
•Excellent evaluation of the success of the sequence in relation to its aims, including content,form, style and audience.
•Excellent, frequent and confident use of appropriate terminology.
•Excellent knowledge of and confident application of critical approaches.
•Excellent, clear and insightful exploration of how their learning has influenced their practice.
•Excellent ability to communicate, accurate construction and expression, and very few, if any, errors.
Advice
1.Plan your essay and use the PEE system
2. When providing evidence for your product reference key films you have watched/analysed for your critical investigation. Example:
I utilised the same frenzied editing technique as Hitchcock in order to create an energised and destabilising feel for the audience. Like Hitchcock’s infamous shower scene I significantly ramped up the editing tempo of my final confrontation between the films antagonist and protagonist moving from one frame per to seconds to a quick succession of ten frames that deploy an array of varied shot types. Like Hitchcock's Psycho my short moves from long shot to close up POv to silhouetted mid shots of the antagonist - the intended effect was to disorientate the audience.
3. Make sure that you analyse your product. The above provides an excellent example of how this could be achieved. Another example might include:
“Greenaway uses colour as an extension of his antagonists’ character. His use of red overlays, and red detail within the set, props and costume during the restaurant scene of The Cook, The Thief and His Lover work in a manner that informs the audience of the central antagonist’s masculine energy. Greenaway’s intention here is firstly to reward active viewing and secondly to persuade the audience of Michael Gambon’s masculine strength. I took this scene as a my cue for my film’s first murder sequence in which I deliberately asked my actors to style their hair and wear red clothing (see the still below) - like Greenaway I was deliberately placing visual cues within the shot to reward an active viewing. I also used colour to help convey the feminist subtext and intentions of my text.”
4. Respond to the theoretical research you have encountered:
An important moment in my research was when I encountered the work of Barbara Creed and her concept of the ‘monstrous feminine’. her ideas concerning the changing use of female stereotypes provided an interesting direction for the development of my film’s antagonist. Creed identified the ways in which films constructed female antagonists - her central argument is Freudian in the sense that it suggests that directors are giving vent to the psychological influence and anxieties caused by ‘mothers’. In constructing my female antagonist I deliberately crafted her as a mother figure by using stereotypical props and costume that referenced ‘mothers’.
Some key questions to help you construct your evaluation.
Please be aware that this is not an essay plan. Use some of the following to construct your response. How did your critical investigation help you construct the following?
1. Characters: talk about antagonist/protagonist construction, stereotypes used, deployment of character conventions that are genre specific. How successfully were your characters? How did mise en scene, dialogue, acting help create these character types? Where? Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
2. Representations: what are the conventional representations created within your chosen genre? Gender based representations? Audience expectations of representations? Were they maintained or subverted? Why? Where? Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
3. Narrative structure: traditional narrative structure, experimental narrative structure, linear narrative, flash forward, flashback, disorientating, fragmented. Where? Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
4. Cinematographic style. Colour, mise en scene, camera styles, costume, props, setting, Discuss where relevant the following: camera styles, lighting, mise en scene. Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
5. Editing style deployed: tempo, pace, graphic matches, parallel editing, cross cutting. Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
6. Sound: diegetic sound, dialogue, non diegetic. Analyse key scenes and discuss the intended effect on your target audience. What moments in your critical research texts were influential and how?
7. Restrictions: how did a lack of technology/equipment/personnel/resources restrict your from creating the desired effect achieved in your inspiration texts? In other words what did you not do that you would like to have done and why not?
8. Product strengths and weakness: what did you not do well? What were you particularly proud of? What is the effect of these moments on your audience? Perhaps pick two moments that are strong, one weak moment and analyse them.
9. The process: what were the key moments in your planning and what effect did they have on your product? Where did it go right? Wrong?