Final Projects

Hey Folks!
I hope you are working hard on your final projects. If you need any help during this last week of Winter Break, send me an email: daulik@madison.k12.wi.us

Remember that we will regroup on the projects and focus on the PowerPoints the week following Break. I will be available for full assistance on Monday and Tuesday, but I will be at an inservice on W,Th,F. Please plan accordingly.

I am looking forward to the project presentations staring on January 10th.

2010-11 School Year

Starting in the 2010-2011 academic year, this class curriculum will be spread over three quarters (second, third, and fourth). This change will allow for deepening the curriculum even more than this year. We will also have more time to devote to each quarter's final project, allowing more in-class reading and research time. The course will further emphasize a foundation of information literacy using the topic of motion picture history.

Cinema Due Dates

Project Resource #1 -- Due Wed., May 5
Project Resource #2 -- Due Monday, May 10
Project Resources #3&4 in Sources list -- Due Monday, May 17
Project Outlines -- Due Wed., May 19
Projects Due May 28
Presentations begin June 1

Other small assignments will be required along the way.

What assignments am I missing?

A few students are missing the following assignment:

PowerPoint Slides on the 1950s. (Get these in as soon as possible, so we can show the PowerPoint presentation in class.)

Final Projects

We are reaching the end of the quarter. Your final curiosity research projects are due on Thursday, March 18.

Also due this week:

• Wednesday, March 17 -- Outline for Project Presentation / Paper / Zine

• Wednesday, March 17 -- Rough Bibliography (must have at least 4 resource citations)

Friday, March 19 -- Absolute Deadline for all Work and Projects -- No work accepted after this date.

Due this Week -- March 1-5

• Read the handouts on Film & Sound -- take notes (your own style)
• Define your final project topic / question / articulation format -- contract due Tuesday, March 2
• Begin your own research on your topic
  
• Review Film Timeline -- 1930s
• Watch and discuss Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Student Curiosity Questions #1

Students generated the following Curiosity Questions while viewing Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

• How did Scorsese’s childhood environment influence his film (directorial) style?
• How did the different studio styles affect Scorsese and other industry stakeholders?
• How did other art forms affect Scorsese (and other industry stakeholders)?
• How did politics affect directors’ throughout hard economic and war-torn times?
• What are culturally-correct films?
• What tools were involved/used in the process of making film?
• Are feature films made up of thousands/millions of photos put together?
• What does it mean to embrace the technology as it appears?
• Is one’s creative genius embraced or denied when working in Hollywood?
• How did Scorsese decide to become a movie critic?
• Did color film take away from the “art” of black and white movies?
• Why were studios in the 1930s afraid of breaking awy from their formulas and story content?
• What kind of movies (genres) were the most popular throughout the decades, and how does that correlate to what was going on in history during the time?
• How did power in the movie industry shift away from the producers?
• How did the iconoclasts of the early years of movie making influence the industry?
• How did the growth of film affect the need for jobs in the industry?
• How did camera manipulation and tech. advances change film?
• What different camera shot styles were typically used and for what effect (in a given film, genre, or time period)?
• Why did MGM, Paramount, and Warner Brothers force directors and producers to fit the style of the company? Why were rebels punished so severely?
• How has “movie language” evolved over time?
• How and why did computers become involved in movie making?
• How does one take the risk of inserting innovative camera technology, style, or language?
• How did large corporations take over the film industry?
• What role did music play in the development of film?
• Who makes the decisions about color, music, or other technological features in a film?
• How and when did non-white, non-mainstream actors enter the film industry? Who were the break-through artists? How and when did non-mainstream directors find a place in the industry.
• What makes a great director or film?
• How have film editing trends changed over time and how have they influenced the industry?
• How did companies like MGM and Paramount gain so much power in the industry?
• How has the funding system for movie making changed since the birth of the industry?
• What did the actors have to do to successfully transfer from silent to sound films?
  

Course Syllabus

Cinema History
Course Guidelines – Quarter Three – 2009-10

In this course, participants will explore, analyze, and discuss film history, movie technology, and the cultural context of cinema by the decades from the late 1800s to WWII. As a group, we will travel through moving picture history to get brief glimpses into the development of this popular media form. This class is not intended to cover all cinema history in depth. It is a survey and discovery class intended to allow students and staff to find areas of interest in film which may lead to further application and research outside of the course.

Course Goals:
• Students will increase their understanding of the cinema industry’s contributions to cultural history in the United States.
• Student will increase their understanding of visual texts in areas of persuasion, metaphorical imagery, and the connection of text to historical and social context.
• Students will increase research, discussion, and writing skills.
• Students will increase academic organization and study skills.

Assessment:
To earn credit in the course, students must:

1. maintain a positive attendance record in the class;

2. pro-actively participate in class discussions on a consistent basis;

Attendance and Participation Check-ins will be completed on a regular basis.

3. respect the film viewing process; (Students discovered sleeping, talking, listening to music, or playing with phone or game devices during film viewing will automatically be marked absent for the class period. Consider this your warning!)

4. complete short assignments in a timely manner according to established guidelines; (Short assignments may take the form of notetaking, short jigsawed reading and sharing sessions, journal entries, discussion questions, observation cards, online resource exploration notes, etc.)

5. complete an independent research project and presentation on a chosen aspect of film history in a timely manner according to established guidelines. (Full Project guidelines will be distributed by Week 4 of the quarter.) Student should expect to do research project homework.

6. follow guidelines for academic integrity. All resources used for research projects or other assignments must be clearly cited and credited. (See note below on plagiarism.)

Plagiarism:
• When a student uses information (words, paper organization, and/or central ideas) from another source without proper citation it is called plagiarism. “You are therefore cautioned (1) against using, word for word, without acknowledgment, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc., from the printed [or online material] of others; (2) against using with only slight changes the materials of another; and (3) against using the general plan, the main headings, or a rewritten form of someone else's material. These cautions apply to the work of other students as well as to the published work of professional writers [either in print or online].” If it is discovered that students “borrow” text from other book reviews, essays, papers, or classmates, it will be considered direct plagiarism and intellectual theft. Such action is in violation of the MMSD Student Code of Conduct and basic guidelines of this course. Students who choose to take such inappropriate action will be required to conference with Denise (and possibly with Aric and parents) and may receive a No Credit grade/evaluation in the course. Policy Source: Weiser, Irwin. “Academic Honesty Statement.” Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism. Online. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource

Course Organization:

Week One: Pre-10s -- Intro to Class; Scorsese’s Film Retrospective; Historical Outline; Birth of the Industry

Week Two: 1910s -- Early Film Technology; Edison, Lumiere, Melies, Porter, various clips

Week Three: 1920s -- New Technologies; The Silent Film Era; 1920s Historical Context;
Murnau’s Nosferatu, Chaplin’s The Kid, Frank Lloyd’s The Freshman

Week Four: 1920s -- Project Brainstorming; Lang's Metropolis; Sound and Color; Development of the Industry

Week Five: 1930s – Project Questions Due, 1920s/30s Culture Activity, Parent Confs., SWEIO

Week Six: 1930s – Hollywood & the Production Code, Capra film (TBA), Academy Awards, Project Resource #1 due

Week Seven: early 1940s -- World Context and Influence on Style, Academy Awards, Wells’s Citizen Kane, Project Resource #2 due

Week Eight: Project Work (Resources 3&4 + Outline + Final Product) and Presentations

Week Nine: Finish Presentations, Evals, Course Closure

Basic Class Stuff
Work Completion:
• Students must complete ALL assignments within the task guidelines to earn credit, unless otherwise noted by Denise. Due dates are firm in this class. If a grace period is needed, a student must confer with Denise before the due date to work out a strategic plan for assignment completion. Due date extension agreements are made on a case by case basis. (Students with documented special education writing concerns must have a dialogue with Denise about those concerns in the first week of the course. Permission for extensions must be in line with a student’s IEP.)

Attendance Requirements:
• It is each student’s responsibility to ask for any assignments or responsibilities missed due to absences. Please do this on the day you return to class.

• The Shabazz attendance policy will be strictly enforced in all classes. Remember that all tardies are accounted for (3 tardies = 1 absence). Students arriving more than 15 minutes late will be marked absent. Students accruing more than 6 absences will no longer be eligible for credit in the class. Because this course is discussion, participation, and limited-film-viewing-based, DELAYED CREDIT IS NOT POSSIBLE.

COMING SOON . . .

New course guidelines and expectations for the Cinema History class to be offered Q3 -- 5th hour.

Course Closure

Thank you to all participants of this class. It has been a fun quarter. Although we only got through the 1950s with our exploration of cinema history, I believed we learned a tremendous amount about culture, socio-political influences on the media, and movie technology. Next year, I will split the course into two quarters (birth - 1950s & 1950s-today). That shift should allow for a slower pace in viewing, analysis, and research for individual curiosity projects.

Snaps to all who presented their final projects this week. I enjoyed them and learned quite a bit from them, as well.

Final Project Deadline Changes

Due to limitations in resources available to students, I will be extending the due date of the projects to the last Monday of the quarter -- Monday, March 23.

You do still need to get clips to me for preview by Friday, March 20th -- if not before.

Presentations will still being on Monday, March 23. All need to be ready to go at that time.

Projects

Final Project Resource Selections

Third Resource is due on Wednesday, March 11, 2009.

Work time for projects available on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Outlines / draft plans for presentations/papers due on Friday this week.

Think about: How is the film High Noon representative of the historical context of 1952 (year of its theatre release)?

Final Project Resource Selections

Choose (and obtain) your first resource (min. 3 for project). Write down the citation information on your orange sheet for Denise to check in.

Due Friday, March 6 at start of class.

Second Resource selection is due on Monday, March 9.

Elia Kazan Accepting Life-Time Achievement Oscar

Please take a look at this short clip of Elia Kazan accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1999 71st Academy Awards. Still controversial more than 40 years after acting as a "friendly informant" to the HUAC, audience members chose to be silent in censure.

McCarthyism and Hollywood

The Hollywood Ten ....
Two short videos highlighting the background of 10 writers/film directors arrested for un-American activities during the McCarthy Era.

Video 1 of 2:


Video 2 of 2:

Final Project Topic Questions are Due

All final project topic questions are due on Friday, February 27. The question is the thick or deep question on which you will complete independent research in the next three weeks. You will also need to contract your "articulation" format (how you will show the answer to your question to your instructor and classmates).

Possible articulation formats:

1. traditional essay (min. 5 pages)
2. PowerPoint presentation (min. 15 slides, incl. title and citation slides)
3. Traditional verbal presentation to class (no more than 15 min.) with appropriate visuals
4. Original short video presentation
5. Blog Page (guidelines must be worked out with Denise)

Can't think of a topic question? Refer to earlier posts on this Blogspot -- curiosity question lists from the short reading chapters on Birth of the Industry, The Silent Era, Movies Find a Voice.

Still stuck? Here are a few ideas:

• What is the history of the annual Academy Awards? (structure, decisions, trends, past winners)
• How did McCarthyism affect Hollywood?
• What are some of the most famous scandals of the early years of Cinema (birth to 40s)?
• How did Hollywood change with the rebellious culture of the 50s, 60s, and 70s?
• What are considered the most influential films of all time (and why?)?
• How did (insert actor/actress/director name here) affect the cinema industry?

The Oscars

Questions arose . . .

Heath Ledger was not included in the "Passed Away" montage because he had been included in last year's goodbye sequence. He died 13 months ago.

Yes, Angelina Jolie's emeralds were real.

Dustin Lance Black is 34, not 30.

Sophia Loren is 74 years old.

Mickey Rourke has led a colorful life: boxer to actor to boxer to actor, again. He is a dog lover. Best known for his roles in Sin City, 9 1/2 Weeks, Barfly, The Pope of Greenwich Village, and Body Heat.

This Week -- Feb. 9 - 13

What's up for the week?

• Monday - finish Chaplin's "The Kid" -- discussion / Curiosity Questions Due for Silent Era/Sound Technology readings.
• Tuesday -- discussion / computer acivity (?)
• Wed. -- Harold Lloyd's "The Freshman"
• Thurs. -- Harold Lloyd's "The Freshman"
• Fri -- Finish "The Freshman" / Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

What Are We Doing Today -- February 2 - 6

• If you were absent at all last week, make sure you catch up on your homework -- have it ready to go on Monday.
• 
  
• Monday, February 2 -- Finish with jigsaw share of very early years of cinema; Edison shorts
• Tuesday, February 3 -- Edison shorts,
• Wednesday, February 4 -- Video examples of Lumier, Porter, Melies; HOMEWORK: chapter on Silent Film Era and Sound technology (prepare curiosity question).
• Thursday, February 5 -- Chaplin's The Kid (1921)
  
• Friday, February 6 -- Lang's Metropolis (1927)

What Are We Doing Today?

• Tuesday, January 27 -- Intro to Class
• Wednesday, 28th -- Paperwork (contact/individ info); Birth of the Industry; -- FINISH THE ARTICLE AS HOMEWORK & prepare your Curiosity Question (that comes from information in the article).
  
• Thursday, 29th -- Discuss questions -- Early Cinema Year by Year (Jigsaw share on Friday)



• Monday, February 2 -- Finish Early Years of Cinema sharing -- Clips -- Early stuff -- Edison, Lumiere, Milies, Porter

SNAPS TO ALL OF MY STUDENTS FOR THE GREAT CURIOSITY QUESTIONS THEY PRESENTED ON THURSDAY IN CLASS.