1000 word minimum (about 5 pages double-spaced) not including title, name, etc.
For your second essay, expand on your initial topic of what has most interested you thus far from your first essay and how this particular focus is continually developing. How are you continuing to watch, think about, and discuss films differently or more deeply now? Continue to take your innate understanding of film and media, and develop your ability toexplainit. How are you understanding your own responses to a particular film better? What connections are you making between a film and other arenas of social culture in order to illuminate both the culture and the film it produces? This can take a couple of different approaches.
If, for example, you explored the use of sound inHis Girl Friday, you could now add another film we've screened to that analysis. So your second essay would focus on primarily say,Chungking Expressand its use of sound. You may tie back in themes and explorations to your first essay. You should also make use of newly learned vocabulary and perspectives since Week 4. So you should incorporate investigations of narrative structure and editing techniques and how they implicate various choices and strategies in the use of sound in your continued analysis.
Another approach could be sticking with your original film, in this caseHis Girl Friday, and now re-evaluating it through another lens that has piqued your interest: narrative structure, editing, and/or the film's social and historical development within the history of film. Tying back into your first essay in this case will be crucial. You should consider scenes or examples you dissected from your particular angle of analysis, in this case an interrogation of sound technique, and see how a re-evaluation of these same scenes in the context of editing choices and narrative structure build additional awareness to your understanding of the film's total construction.
A third option is to move on completely from a film choice or analytical theme. Here you might choose to discontinue your exploration of bothHis Girl Fridayand sound, and move on to an exploration of editing technique inStrike!What is important here is to ground your personal growth in the critical viewing and analysis of films in whole. How are you continuing to watch and think about films differently, or more deeply? This is a much looser connection than the previous two options, however it is still important for it to read as cohesive with your first essay. This option will read more like a separate chapter in a longer analytical work rather than a linear continuation.
As before, reference the readings that are pertinent to your topic. Be sure to incorporate references from other chapters, or even other texts. Use film examples from class or your own viewing experience to specifically illustrate particular concepts, but make sure to at least reference films screened in class even if you choose to focus on a film we haven't screened. Make sure to continue your use of newly learned and appropriate vocabularies such asmatch on actionandelliptical editing.
Again, the specific topic is up to you. You have fairly free reign here once again. As long as we've covered it in some detail in class, you may write about it. The point of this second essay is more deeply expanding and developing your critical viewing and thinking of film. Explore how what you've continued to learn or been exposed to thus far in this course is affecting your approach to media consumption.