Teaching Film as Literature - a teacher guide

To begin with, imagine you're teaching a novel.

You’re an English/ELA teacher teaching film as literature (not as part of media studies or filmmaking) but you’ve got the wobbles.  Don’t panic.  The key thing to remember is that you’ll teach that film much as you would a novel study.  You’ll cover:

• Characters (development, relationships etc)

• Setting (and its impact on characters and events)

• Key events (turning points etc)

• Ideas (what’s suggested about human nature, our past, current trends, our possible future)

• Important quotations, and

• Language features

The difference is in the language features.  Instead of analysing the effect of written language techniques, you’ll look at film techniques.

The key thing to remember is that you’ll teach that film much as you would a novel study.

Teaching film as literature is like any novel study, so as you would with a book, watch the film through yourself first, then DO YOURSELF A BIG FAVOUR, by rewatching and making a list of key events/scene and adding the time stamp to each.  This will save your sanity later!  Mark up your summary to note things like the parts that show a turning points and conflicts for characters, or that encapsulate key ideas.  These will become the focus for your shot/scene studies later on (see step four). Trust me, this will become gold.

A scene summary with time stamps will save your sanity!

ONE:  Teach film techniques first.

Create one-pagers for your students to show:

• Shot sizes (from extreme close up (ECU) to extreme long shot (ELS)

• Shot angles (from worm’s eye view to bird’s eye view)

• Camera movement (eg:  zoom, pan, tilt and ped are enough)

Phone Activity

I used to have students create an example of each of these on their phones, and they'd caption these with the correct film technique.  That cemented their understanding and provided a set of digital ‘cue cards’ to flick through for rote-learning while waiting for the bus or whatever (she says hopefully).  With phones now banned in schools, this could be a homework activity.  Have students upload shots/clips to a Google file so you can see them (unless you can sneakily check phones in class - hehe).

Reference information should also be given to students about things like:

• Lighting (side lighting, underlighting, backlighting or simply dim and mote-filled or ultra-bright)

• Colour (including colour in lighting/filters, set, costume)

• Mise-en-scene – my personal fav!

• Sound – including:

  • Dialogue

  • Narration

  • Selective sound – sound edited to make it sound the loudest thing you can hear.  In Falling Sparrows, you’ll notice this technique used with the chirp of sparrows.

  • Sound bridges (sound that moves from one scene to another)

  • Music (priceless – my personal favourite – contrapuntal sound which is when the style of music doesn’t match what you’re seeing on screen at all!)

  • Atmospheric sound

  • Sound effects

• Manipulation of time - including:

  • Long and short takes

  • Flashback and flashforward

  • Cutaway shots (often used in documentaries - eg in an interview, then they cross-cut to 'the scene of the crime' and back again to the interview)

  • Cross-cutting – often used to create a montage - to suggest different events in different places all happening simultaneously. 

  • Slow and accelerated motion.

Activity idea

If you want a great ‘spot the technique’ activity, the film I love the NZ Film Commission's “Falling Sparrows”.  Directed by Murray Keane, it has a tonne of obvious film techniques, it won’t eat into your precious class time too much (12 minutes), and students LOVE it!  You could expand discussion into “mmmm...so why do you think the director used that technique?” to scaffold them into later scene analyses (see step four below).

TWO:  Give students background information about your film’s context

Give students notes and perhaps a few activities to encourage them to find information themselves too (depends how tight you are for time).  For example:

• Gattaca – students need to understand what’s happening in the world of genetic engineering, and to look into class systems and the way we build prejudice against groups.

• Ex Machina – look into where we’re at with the world of robots and Artificial Intelligence.

• Blood Diamond – Fair trade, what blood diamonds are, the Kimberly Agreement.

• Uproar – South Africa’s apartheid system, pressure from the United Nations, the 1981 tour of the South African rugby team (the Springboks) to New Zealand, New Zealand land confiscations.

Prefer a video? Click the image above to learn about teaching film as literature on YouTube.

THREE:  Students watch and just ENJOY the film

No breaks (except when the period ends).  Allow students just to enjoy the film without the teacher talk...cos that’s coming!  This way leads to better engagement in, and understanding of, the film. (And a nice couple of relaxing periods for you!)

FOUR:  Teach students to analyse a scene, then go for gold.

Screen shots with additional information, or room for students to annotate, are easy to create and teaching gold.

Choose one scene, or even a shot from your movie.  Make it something that’s got a couple of obvious film techniques in it that link to a really obvious main idea!   I like to create a handout that includes a screen shot (especially if you’re looking at mise-en-scene) or screenshots for a short scene so that students can annotate it with film techniques and (hopefully) a few notes about effect.  I get them to do this in pairs or as part of a class discussion.  I will also bring the shot or scene up on my big screen.

Analysing the shot/scene involves:

• Naming the technique (eg: worm’s eye view)

• Describing the example.  I’ve always told my students to imagine explaining what they see to a blind person or someone who hasn’t seen the film at all.  Could they visualise the shot/scene through your description?

• Explaining the effect of that technique in this shot/scene.  Be sure to have students focus on the example rather than the technique (do this for close reading too).  Otherwise, students will talk about the technique in general rather than the effect of that technique in this shot/scene.   

• Explaining how another technique works well with this one.

• Stepping ‘outside’ the text to consider what this suggests about human nature and/or the wider world (history, present trends, possible future) – in other words, the idea(s).  Tip: Have students use the word that when discussing ideas.  Eg:  This shows us that... This illustrates the idea that...

• Director’s purpose.  Tip: Here your key word is to.  Eg:  The director’s purpose is to...

Silly example to give you the idea:

• Technique:  The director uses an extreme close-up. 

• Description:  Millie’s eyes fill the whole screen, and we can see the tears welling up as we hear Jake break up with her. 

• Effect of this technique:  The extreme close-up helps us see a small part of the body in great detail.  NO!  THIS IS YUK, but students do this all the time. Instead...

• Effect in this example:  Forcing us to focus on the tears slowly building up in Millie’s eyes allows us to see that she’s upset, but we can see the tears aren’t falling so it gives us the impression she’s trying to hold back from crying and be brave.  It makes us feel sorry for her and admire her poise.  YES!  THIS IS GREAT!  Focusing on the example (shot) ensures students speak about what’s happening on screen rather than giving us a definition of the technique.

• How another technique works well with this one:  The slow, melancholy music – a single violin – helps us feel the sadness of the situation.  It sounds like an old-fashioned funeral.  We are dragged down with Millie, so in a way, we empathise with her sadness.

• Relate to human behaviour and/or the wider world:  This helps us understand that people pin everything on love and that close relationships and the dream of “forever” is important to us.

• Purpose:  The director wants us to see how devastated, yet poised Millie is, but also understand that relationships have an enormous impact on us.

Rinse and repeat for all the key scenes you like. I find templates to scaffold students through this analysis is the best bet!

Lately, I’ve been using my FETU acronym with close reading, so why not use it for film too?  Ask students, what this helps us:

• Feel (emotionally – eg: hopeful, scared, relief...)

• Experience (with any of the five senses – see, hear, taste, smell – eg: I could almost smell the rotting flesh, physically feel – eg: It was as though I could feel the icey water...I could feel my toes curling). This is a difficult one at times. Leave it out if it's too frustrating.

• Think about (eg: memories of when something similar happened to them, something they saw online)

• Understand (and be sure to have students use the word ‘that’) about people/events from the wider world/other texts.

When students put all this together, they’re easily able to say, “Ah-hah!  So that’s why the director used that technique.  It was to...”.  And there’s your purpose!  Happy days!

FIVE:  Study your film as literature

Through the shot and scene analyses you complete, your students will learn a lot about characters, setting and ideas (and perhaps symbolism or whatever else you find).  Next, give or help students create notes about each of those elements of literature, studying them as you would for a novel.

SIX:  Essays

Usually, the end point for most senior literary studies, is an essay. The way your students structure an essay about their film study will depend on the criteria your school uses.  Here in New Zealand, it’s important for students to riddle their essays with film techniques, embedding reference to them as their evidence.  I always had my students include one film technique AND one quotation in every paragraph.  I know that’s boringly formulaic, but so many of our students need that scaffolding.

Righto!  Hope you’ve found this useful.  Remember, we have a few resources that’ll help guide you through studying a film as literature.  Enjoy!