Starting Your Film Research

Starting your Film research project
The rules for picking your film research focus
1. No Tim Burton, Disney or Anime
2. You must stretch yourself - this means watching films that you haven't seen before
3. Your case study must have three core texts
4. Your case study should refer to a list of secondary films - what might they be?
5. Your research project will also generate the direction for your creative artefact
Places to get film texts


1. Auteur direction questions
Remember auteur theory suggests that filmmakers bring a generic trait, style or message to the films that they are associated with
Ideas
Choose a director, actor, musician, cinematographer, script writer and identify the ways in which they are an auteur explaining why they have followed the path they have carved out
Questions
  • What are the key films of the auteur?
  • What kinds of messages do those films share?
  • Why does the director make those messages? What are their motivations?
  • What impact has the work of the auteur had on the genres they work in?
  • In what ways is the filmmaker an auteur?
  • What personnel does the auteur work and how does this affect the meaning of the films?
  • What kind of critical reception has the auteur been met with?
  • Has the auteur departed from their central direction? Why?
  • What effect has the auteur had on filmmaking generally?
2. Gender approach questions
Remember gender can include: masculinity, femininity, sexuality
Ideas:
  • Choose a genre and discuss gender representation
  • Choose a period of time and discuss gender representation and why those representations have been created
  • Choose a filmmaker (actor, director, scriptwriter) and discuss their contribution towards gender representation and why they constructed those representations
Questions
  • How has gender representation changed?
  • What key films mark those changes?
  • What influences helped mark those changes?
  • What were the filmmakers reacting against?
  • In what ways are the filmmakers creating traditional or progressive representations?
  • How have the filmmakers influenced the works of others?
3. Genre focus
Ideas
  • Choose a film that has been hugely influential in changing a genre and explain why
  • Choose a genre of film that has become resurgent and explain how and why
  • Choose a genre and explain how technological advances have affected the films within that genre
Questions
  • What are the key films in your genre?
  • Who are the key directors/actors who shaped your genre? In what ways?
  • In what ways have technological advances changed your genre?
  • How have the sub textual messages of the films within your genre changed and why?
  • What is the history of your genre?
4. People and places
Remember people and places might include: representations of different countries, regions or cultures. This include an analysis of a specific country's cinematic output (France, Iran, India...). You might also look at how cinema represents different groups: different ethnicities, classes or age/disability related groups (the elderly, teens, Muslims, people with a disability)
Ideas
  • Choose a period of time and explain what representations were created by films during that period
  • Choose an iconic film that changes our perceptions of a specific place or group and explain how and why
  • Choose a genre and look at its treatment of a specific group of people or place within it
Questions
  • What key films have been made that deal with your place or group? And what messages do they send out?
  • What films have offered us an alternative vision of that place or group?
  • What key filmmakers are associated with that place or group?
  • Why has the representation of that place or group changed? What historical changes have prompted those changes?
  • What recent films have dealt with your group or place?