As a student in the English cohort, I tried to think of this assignment in terms of how I could teach video analysis while also incorporating literature.
For this specific assignment, I am incorporating the book Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, in comparison to the Disney cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland from 1951. For this specific assignment, I am having them closely examine just one scene, instead of the whole novel versus the whole film, because I feel that would be too much information to absorb. This is a good introduction to film analysis when they have a specific scene to focus on in detail.
I would first have the students read the novel. After that, we would go back and closely examine the scene in which Alice enters the realm into Wonderland. I would the students pay attention to imagery, detail, dialogue, voice, and tone in the text. From there, we would watch the movie (I’ve included a clip of this scene from the film). Similar to after completing the novel, after watching the whole movie we would go back and back specific attention the scene in which Alice enters Wonderland and pay attention to and critique things such as detail, music, character voice and pitch, camera angles, tone, dialogue, and drawing technique (since it is a cartoon).
After re-watching this scene, I would have them make a venn diagram of the similarities and differences between the novel and film (using the notes they took from the elements of the book and the movie). From here, we would have a discussion for the reasons behind changing the story in the book for the film adaptation. This would help them tone their analysis skills of film and force them to think of the important structures and tools used in film creation and the purpose behind those choices.
A swell idea, Leigh. I love the Venn diagram idea.
ReplyDeleteI do have a question: Are you going to ask that students write down some of their initial observations on imagery, detail, dialogue, voice, and tone in the text? I feel like they might need some time to digest it and somewhere to spit it out before they take on the next piece.
Leigh, really like this example for use in analyzing film adaptations and how the film alters or attempts to capture the meaning of the literary text--something we discuss at the end of the course. I like your focus on a specific scene of Alice going into Wonderland as a point of comparison--so that students could reflect on their own responses to the text version (how they envision that in their minds) compared to the film version--how the images, sounds, shots portray that scene. One crucial aspect of this is the idea of consider these forms as "different" versus one being better than the other--focusing on differences gets students to attend to the features of each mode.
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