The Curious Case of Benjamin

Film: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button You will write a 2-3 page paper about your chosen film with an eye to the mechanics. You will answer all the questions below in your paper. TITLE your paper with the name of your film. 12 pt. font and SINGLE or NORMAL spacing. You can break your paper into bullet points like the ones below in to give your paper some structure or you can write it essay style. First watch your chosen film. I would highly recommend taking detailed notes as you watch to help you in your writings. Look for STORYTELLING – Who is the protagonist? What is their objective? What are their obstacles? If you had to break this film down into three sections: Beginning Middle and End – what would be the three sentences you would use to tell me what is going on? How does the film effectively use the rule of “Show dont tell”? What was particularly brilliant about the storytelling and the films use of visual cues? Remember this is NOT about the acting; “Show dont tell” is when the camera moves to show YOU the audience something that clues you into something significant. [For example the very end of Citizen Kane has a brilliant moment of “show dont tell” by the last image of the film which is a close up of the sled burning in the fire…and we finally see “Rosebud”. There is no acting involved here…its ALL camera work.] What 2 brilliant moments of ACTING did you see in this film? How so? What do you think made it brilliant? (Think about emotional availability movements gestures vocal inflection…) How did the actor bring the character to life? What made them believable? [If you have chosen one of the animated films from the list please talk about the voice acting AND the way the animation of the characters helps to enhance the actors vocal performances] How did they use CINEMATOGRAPHY to tell this story? Choose 3 different shots from the shot list that you learned last week and choose moments in the movie where you can name the shot composition etc. used and why they chose that one. How was the story better because of that choice? What about DESIGN? There are five aspects of design: Costume: Choose a character – what does the costume design tell you about this character? Think about choice of color texture of the material extra bling. Choose 2 outfits and talk about why that choice of costume was perfect for the character. Props: Choose one thing an actor picked up and handled that told you something about their character? How did they treat it? Set: Where was this film set? Do you think it was “on location” or they had a Green screen? What makes you think so? What did the set tell you about the world the characters live in? Choose a setting that was perfect – notice a particular detail about the set that you never saw before. How did noticing that add to the story? Sound: What sort of music was in this film? Think about the instrumentation that you hear. How did it make you feel when the movie started? Was there ever utter silence? How did the music help tell the story? Talk about a moment where you heard music. What about the choice of songs throughout the film? Why did they choose that song? Music lyrics…both? What about the sound effects? Lights: Think about the section on lighting and how it is so important to film. When were there moments of backlight low light deep color saturation washed out colors…how did that make you feel while watching it? Choose 2 moments from the film where you are now really aware of why they made the choice of lighting that they did. Overall Opinion: What have you learned from doing this analysis? Did you enjoy this film? Would you watch this film again? Why or why not? Why should other people watch this film?

Requirements: 2-3 page | .doc file