Considerations for Russ3003 Papers Objective of the paper: The goal of this paper is to demonstrate your ability to analyze

cinema. It is not a paper about your understanding of history, politics or language. Although all these things provide a context for films, they will only support your analysis of film; they will not replace it. Since the goal of the paper is analysis, you do not need secondary sources. However, if you want to discuss the context of the film, you should find a secondary source to provide that context. Not only might it catch some errors in your knowledge, it is far more professional and will reflect well on your paper. If you wish to consult a theoretical source, you may, but only in order to engage with it. Secondary sources are not a substitute for your own analysis, which, I add once more, is the goal of the paper. Regarding sources, you may follow either MLA format or Chicago Manual of Style. There are a number of electronic resources to help you with correct formatting. You are entitled to a RefWorks account through MUN. This program, along with the Write-n-Cite plug-in, will allow you to click your way through all your citations and format your bibliography for you in any style required. Zotero is a plug-in for the Firefox browser that tries to do the same sort of thing. Although it had trouble with a large bibliography 4 years ago, I believe these wrinkles have been sorted. Length requirement: The midterm essay should be 6-8 pages in 12-point Times New Roman. This translates roughly to 1700-2250 words and this is what I expect. The final essay should be 10-12 pages in 12-point Times New Roman or approximately 2800-3350 words. The aim of assigning specific lengths to papers is to encourage a certain amount of substance and technique. Paper submission: Papers may be submitted by e-mail to abrookes@mun.ca or alec.brookes@gmail.com until midnight of the due date. You must receive an e-mail confirming my receipt. If you don't have that e-mail, I don't have your paper. I will return the paper to you via e-mail with comments in a .pdf file. You may submit your paper in a number of different formats, although I prefer Word, OpenOffice or .pdf files. You may also of course hand in your paper hard copy. In this case it is due either in class or to the secretary in the German & Russian general office by 4:30pm that day. Advice on the Style and Content of your paper: You should clearly state the thesis of your paper: this will be the claim you are trying to prove with the rest of your paper. The goal is to create a single idea that will act as an umbrella for your analysis. Tell me the order of your argument at the beginning. The content of your argument should prove the claim you make with your thesis in a coherent manner. The content of your argument should contain premises that are supported by examples from the film(s) you are purporting to analyze. A thesis may be given from any perspective (e.g. Structuralist, Freudian, Marxist), but the analysis itself must be based on the tools of Film Analysis, as discussed in Bordwell and Thompson or the Film

Analysis website provided by Yale. As per Roman Jakobson's terminology in his theory of communication, this means some consideration of the code (elements of mise-en-scene, cinematography, medium, etc.), contact (distribution, marketing, screening locations, etc.), context (historical, economic, social, political, technological, art historical, etc.) and the addresser (e.g. filmmakers plus actors) and the addressee (art house crowd, rich, poor, academic, etc.) of the film(s) in question. You should ask yourself how these elements affect the message of the movie. Often this entails considering what effects these elements have on the audience of the film. Back lighting may scare the audience, a high or low angle of a person shot may indicate a power dynamic with the viewer, short takes may produce adrenaline in the audience for various ends, a state-run film industry may have a concentration of resources that allows for enormous productions, Joseph Stalin or Harvey Weinstein may require coherent narratives and pleasant story lines, graphic matches may induce you to either compare or contrast two or more moments in any film or between films. As the course progresses, students should acquire these skills, and this should be demonstrated in the papers appropriate to the material covered in the class, and the Bordwell readings in particular for those of you who are taking a film course for the first time. A paper topic may focus on one film or on a single theme (from the code in particular) that plays a part in the message of several films. General themes include the evolution of shot depth and/or shot length, editing/montage, art-house or avant-garde styles of filmmaking, popular styles of filmmaking, set design, costuming, development of sound and/or colour, etc. As a matter purely of strategy, you will want to begin with a strong point. First impressions are key to a good mark. You can use I in a paper, assuming you are, for example, attributing a belief to yourself. However, sentences beginning with I think and I feel should be avoided. I am particularly uninterested in your feelings in the context of an academic paper. An academic or scholarly paper on film is not a review of a film. A critic, who writes reviews, is focused on the evaluation of a film. While you will no doubt have your own evaluations of the films discussed, as a scholar your orientation in an essay should be towards analysis. Whether a film is good or bad is not your concern in this context. I recommend reading Strunk and White's Elements of Style. I don't think they're right in every case, but they offer the opportunity at least to think about important stylistic issues. They also have important advice, such as don't use cliches. Nothing infuriates me more than cliches in academic papers. Also, on a related note, try to avoid using quotation marks around words you are not attributing to a specific person or persons. At least generally speaking, I consider using quotation marks ironically or sarcastically cheesy and inappropriate in an academic paper. Unattributed quotations also often lack in creativity and lend themselves to cliche. Please approve your topic with me before writing, either by e-mail or in person. Although you may or may not need it, it doesn't hurt to do this quickly and may potentially make you and me happier with the final result. I'm willing to give advice on re-orienting your topic or even giving specific topics based on your interests. If you plagiarize, you will get zero. Besides a bad academic practice, it also means you didn't do the assigned task of analyzing a film yourself.