tātari kiriata
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer
te ao Māori principles
There are key principals that we, as an English Department, consider important as part of a holistic study at school.
- Mana – The prestige and authority of the writer. Writers can build mana through impactful stories that uplift readers.
- Whanaungatanga – The connections and relationships between characters, writers, and readers. Literature brings people together.
- Kaitiakitanga – Guardianship and protection of stories, language, and knowledge. Writers have a duty to share stories responsibly.
- Wairuatanga – The spirituality and deeper meanings conveyed through literature. Stories can be profound and moving.
- Mauri – The essential life force or vitality of the writer coming through in their work. Writing with purpose and energy.
- Aroha – The empathy, compassion, and love writers show through their words. Literature builds understanding between people.
- Tikanga – The customs, protocols and values upheld through storytelling. Writers adhere to cultural principles.
Key Terms
| Narrative | a spoken or written account of connected events; a story. |
| Structure | the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. |
| Organisation | the way in which the elements of a whole are arranged. |
| Production | a film, record, play, etc., viewed in terms of its making or staging. |
| Design | the art or action of conceiving of and producing a plan or drawing of something before it is made. |
| Props | formally known as (theatrical) property, is an object actors use on stage or screen during a performance or screen production. |
| Foreground | the part of a view that is nearest to the observer, especially in a picture or photograph. |
| Background | the part of a picture, scene, or design that forms a setting for the main figures or objects, or appears furthest from the viewer. |
| Editing | prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. |
| Composition | the nature of something’s ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up. |
| Framing | make or construct (something) by fitting parts together or in accordance with a plan. |
| Mise-en-scene | the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film. |
| Acting | the art or occupation of performing fictional roles in plays, films, or television. |
| Make Up | cosmetics such as lipstick or powder applied to the face, used to enhance or alter the appearance. |
| Costuming | dress (someone) in a particular set of clothes. |
| Dialogue | a conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or film. |
| Jump Cut | (in film or television) an abrupt transition from one scene to another. |
| Continuity Editing | the process of ensuring that within a sequence of cuts, each shot shows the same information. |
| Motif | a dominant or recurring idea in an artistic work. |
Learning Objectives
- To closely examine a selection of sequences and scenes within the film.
- To allocate the technical language associated with film study to the studied text.
Exercises
Spelling
| Jan. (January) | Feb. (February) | Approx. (Approximately) | Ave. (Avenue) | Blvd. (Boulevard) |
| Mr. (Mister) | Mrs. (Missus) | Ms. | Dr. (Doctor) | g. (gram) |
| kg. (kilogram) | cm. (centimetre) | hr. (hour) | min. (minute) | sec. (second) |
| lb. (pound) | pm (post-meridiem) | am (ante-meridiem) | etc. (etcetera) | misc. (miscellaneous) |
Summary Builder
Below is a piece of writing that you should attempt to summarise into around 100 words.
The Science of Habit Formation
Understanding the psychology behind how habits form provides insights into building good routines and breaking bad ones.
Habits form through a three-step loop – the cue, behaviour, and reward. A trigger in the environment cues our brain to perform a learned action that provided past reward. Repetition reinforces habit neuropathways.
To build habits, tie new behaviours to existing routines with implementation intentions like “After morning coffee, I will meditate for 10 minutes.” Consistency is key – new habits require sustained practice to stick.
The two-minute rule lowers barriers by shrinking a habit into a small first step that takes little motivation to start. From there, habits can be built up.
Temptation bundling associates activities you want to do more of with ones you don’t to motivate behaviour. For example, listen to favourite podcasts only during runs.
Stacking habits chains simple routines into sequenced progressions. Making your bed every morning cues you to get dressed right after. This builds momentum.
Understanding the habit cycle empowers us to circumvent old patterns. We can design lives intentionally populated by routines promoting health, productivity and happiness.
Film Analysis
tātari kiriata
This week will be isolating the key scenes with significant plot points or characterisational moments.
Analysing the shot
You will learn through the course that film is a complicated art form with many technical and expressive aspects, and one of the key problems in analysing motion pictures is that that their images are in fact in motion.
So to simplify things here at the beginning of the course, try the following exercise:
Find a verison of your studied film. Fast forward to any point you choose, and then freeze-frame the image.
You are now looking at a single frame of a single shot. What do you notice about its mise-en-scene? Properly speaking, since this is a static image, a single frame, you are being asked to notice elements of its composition rather than the totality of expressive content in an entire shot. Remember what mise-en-scene means: all of the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed: settings, props, lighting, costumes, makeup, and figure behavior (meaning actors, their gestures, and their facial expressions). And composition: the relationship of lines, volumes, masses, and shapes at a single instant. Composition is relatively static; mise-en-scene is dynamic.
Your assignment is to notice the various compositional elements in the image. Write them down in the form of a list, and be as descriptive as possible. (Instead of saying simply “Julia Roberts,” for instance, describe in detail what Julia Roberts looks like—the color of her hair, the color and style of her costume, and so on.) Describe the room or the landscape in terms of its colors. How well lit is the room or outdoors space? Is it day, night, dusk, or dawn? What kind of furniture is in the room, or what landscape elements are in the image? Is the shot taken at eye level or low angle? Is it a close-up or a long shot? Is there anything you notice about the composition?
Put all of your observations into words, and be as clear as possible.
Here is an example, drawn from Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999—Chapter 9, minute 21:54):
FIGURE 1.15 The unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) of Fight Club (1999) (frame enlargement).
- Close-up, eye-level
- Man, about 30 years old, blandly handsome
- Dark hair
- Top of gray suit jacket
- White collar of dress shirt
- Man is centered on the screen
- Top part of head cut out of image
- Airplane interior
- Blue seat with white headrest
- Man in focus; background out of focus
- Blue curtains center-left of image in background
- Bright curved windows on right in background
Structurally
- Aspect ratio—wide rectangle
- Man in row behind, out of focus—no other people
- Light on forehead and nose of man in close-up
- Eyes in shadow
- Dark circles under eyes
- He is staring straight ahead
WRITING ABOUT THE IMAGE
The first step in writing about film is to translate the content of film images into words using the new technical vocabulary you are learning. So your first writing assignment is a simple one: take the detailed description of the shot you created above and turn it into a coherent paragraph. Don’t worry about forming a thesis statement or making any sort of argument. Forget about assigning meanings to what you see onscreen or discussing the symbolism of anything. Concentrate instead on creating a single paragraph of prose that succeeds in translating an image into words
Here is an example:
The various techniques of film
Like the shot example above, it is important to show a range of techniques as you approach your film essay preparation.
This refers mainly to the ‘Genre Specific Techniques’ part of the essay structure. Let’s revisit this more in the next week.
Incorporation of te ao Māori
Look closely at the various elements of te ao Māori at the top of the page and consider how they could apply to the characters, settings, situations, conflicts, or events within your chosen film.
This will be an expected part of your response.
Ko te reo te tuakiri | Language is my identity.
Ko te reo tōku ahurei | Language is my uniqueness.
Ko te reo te ora. | Language is life.