Contextual  Analysis  

Deadline:  Monday  2  June  2014  by  12pm  

This  piece  of  work  is  designed  to  address  the  following  two  learning  outcomes:  Ø Complete  an  individual  exegesis  (criEcal  explanaEon/interpretaEon)  addressing  the  final  pracEcal  producEon  and  the  way  in  which  it  integrates  the  research  quesEon  and  theoreEcal  work  with  their  own  pracEce.  

Learning  outcomes  

Contextual  Analysis  is  worth  20%  of  your  final  mark.  This  is  broken  down:    Ø Level  of  analysis  and  reflecEon  -­‐  40%  Ø Level  and  depth  of  knowledge  demonstrated  -­‐30%  

Ø Structure  &  wriRen  communicaEon  skills  -­‐  30%  

Marking  Breakdown  

Submit  an  electronic  copy  to  the  TurniEn  Link  by  Monday  2nd  June  by  12pm.    Studentcentral  >  LB306  Final  Individual  Project  >  Module  Assignments  >  Contextual  Analysis  Link  

Submission  InformaEon  

Ø The  contextual  analysis  is  exactly  as  it  states:  your  opportunity  to  demonstrate  what  you  have  learnt  in  the  research  and  producEon  processes,  by  analysing  and  evaluaEng  your  work  within  the  theories  you  were  quesEoning  in  your  report.    

What  it  is  

Ø Can  be  a  good  way  of  analysing  the  other  side  of  an  argument  you  had  in  your  Research  Report.  

Ø Think  about  how  your  research  quesEon  affected  pre-­‐producEon,  producEon  and  post-­‐producEon.  

Ø What  experiences  in  your  producEon  and  your  evaluaEon  of  the  final  work  bring  out  issues  in  your  research?  

Ø Note  the  new  ideas  you  have  about  the  research.  

Your  argument  

TO BE CRITICAL…

To be critical means that you are required to: Ø  ask questions about the ideas and information

Ø  to comment thoughtfully by engaging in a process of evaluating or;

Ø  making judgements about the validity or relevance of ideas and theories in relation to developing, making and the final artefact.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY PROCESS

1.  Understand and analyse the ideas and arguments on your topic.

2.  Create questions

3.  Develop these questions into a written response by analysing what you created and from your research (other people’s ideas). Use evidence (quoting, paraphrasing; close analysis of your work).

4.  Consider evaluating the ideas: the significance and relevance of this idea.

5.  Develop a number of thoughtful points and conclusions about the ideas/theories/arguments from developing and producing your work.

6.  Write your contextual analysis.

 

STEP ONE – CREATE QUESTIONS FROM RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

The first thing to do is to create questions to help you create a comment. The best way to do this is to:

Ø  use the information from your research and question it in relation to your work and what you were exploring

But you may find questions by also reflecting back on the process and the final film and considering:

Ø  issues or ideas you had in the production process and use them to question what you aimed to do

Use both approaches to conclude (based on evidence) those ideas/theories/arguments you have researched.

 

QUESTIONS THAT HELP EVALUATE IDEAS…

Create questions that help to establish a problem or the aim of an idea or theory to be able to discuss the extent the aim has been achieved. Ø  How logical is the idea or argument supporting the hypothesis? How is the argument supported? Is it supported well? Ø  How relevant is the idea you applied to your work? Provide brief overview of what you aimed to do. Ø  Is the evidence valid? Is the evidence accurate and relevant? Ø  What conclusions are drawn by you on the basis of the finding? Do you consider that these are justified by the results or have you made unjustifiable conclusions?

Ø The  contextual  analysis  should  not  be  a  descripEon  of  the  processes  that  you  have  gone  through  –  avoid  lengthy  descripEons  of  any  elements  of  the  work.  

Ø Don’t  discuss  issues  that  are  not  related  to  your  research  quesEon.    

Ø The  contextual  analysis  should  also  not  be  a  forum  for  you  to  place  blame  on  equipment/people/procedures  for  elements  of  the  work  that  you  may  be  unhappy  with.  

   

What  it  is  not  

Ø  The  analysis  should  be  clearly  structured.  You  should  briefly  introduce  the  project  and  select  and  state  some  key  areas  of  the  work  that  you  will  discuss  in  more  depth.  These  should  be  both  posiEve  and  negaEve  aspects  of  the  work.  

Ø  You  should  definitely  refer  back  to  your  research  report  when  you  are  discussing  how  the  research  that  you  undertook  has  informed  your  pracEce,  but  do  not  reiterate  what  you  have  wri/en  in  the  report,  instead  refer  to  page/secEon  numbers,  i.e.  ‘…as  discussed  in  secEon  2,  page  6  of  my  research  report’.  

Ø  Each  paragraph  should  be  a  new  point  with  the  first  or  second  line  clearly  explaining  the  point  and  then  going  into  more  detail.  

Structure  

Ø It  is  a  more  personal  account  than  your  research  report  and  so  can  be  wriRen  in  the  first  person,  i.e.  ‘I  will  be  discussing  both  the  posiEve  and  negaEve  aspects  of  my  producEon  work’.  

Ø   You  should  be  cri5cal  of  your  work  and  always  back  up  and  evidence  any  statements  that  you  make.  This  can  either  be  by  direct  quotaEon  (using  the  Harvard  referencing  system)  from  a  text  or  by  referencing  current  industry  pracEces  or  standards.    

   

Style  

Ø Avoid  making  statements  such  as  ‘I  think  my  work  is  good’  –  you  need  to  state  why  this  is  the  case  in  the  wider  context  of  Broadcast  Media  –  acknowledge  the  benchmarks  on  which  you  make  judgements  such  as  this.  

Ø Don’t  look  for  hard  and  fastened  answers.    It’s  about  your  experience  in  relaEon  to  the  issues  with  your  research.  

   

Style  

Ø You  can  use  images/screen  grabs  in  your  analysis  to  help  you  when  you  are  referring  to  the  different  elements  of  your  work  –  this  is  a  much  beRer  method  than  using  words  to  describe  them.  You  may  also  want  to  include  audio/video  footage  on  a  disc  as  an  appendix  for  this  reason  (this  could  be  to  show  sample  rushes/alternate  takes/experimental  footage).  

 

   

SupporEng  material  

Ø Be  criEcal  –  look  for  weaknesses  and  posiEves  in  your  work  in  relaEon  to  your  research.  

Ø Examine  your  work  taking  some  notes,  constantly  thinking  about  how  your  work  tests  the  quesEon  you  were  exploring.  

Ø When  wriEng  up  cut  anything  about  your  work  (producEon  or  the  final  work)  that  does  not  deal  directly  with  your  research  quesEon.  

 

   

Studying  your  work  

QuesEon:  Why  are  films  that  go  against  the  conven3ons  of  dialogue  in  screenwri3ng  s3ll  successful?      I  made  a  short  film  that  was  mainly  dialogue  led  and  locaEons,  characters,  were  limited.    

Example  1  

IntenEon:  I  wanted  to  inves-gate  whether  breaking  screenwri-ng  conven-ons  of  dialogue  could  s-ll  make  an  engaging  film.    Issues:    Ø Struggled  in  pre-­‐producEon  to  combine  the  various  things;  dialogue  was  difficult  to  achieve;  Ø NoEced  that  turning  points  in  dialogue  sEll  relied  on  convenEons  of  story-­‐telling  (beats,  surprises,  expectaEons)  Ø Saw  other  side  of  argument:  dialogue  works  in  combinaEon  of  the  film  of  a  form  (locaEons,  characters,  ediEng,  pauses,  silence)  Ø Good  dialogue  can  be  what  you  leave  out  as  well  as  what  you  put  in  Ø Suggested  that  convenEons  are  genre  specific  and  perhaps  screenwriEng  texts  should  not  be  so  heavy  handed  in  their  advice.    

Example  1  

 

Example  2  

QuesEon:    How  and  why  has  the  role  of  the  father  figure  changed  in  situa3on  comedies?      I  made  a  short  sitcom  about  I  dad  who  loses  his  job  and  has  to  face  up  with  a  new  role  in  the  family.      

IntenEon:  I  wanted  to  inves-gate  whether  it  is  possible  to  write  a  sitcom  without  resor-ng  to  the  stereotypes  that  exist  around  the  father  in  modern  comedy  (i.e.  either  the  dominant  man  of  the  house  or  the  buffoon).  Issues:    Ø During  wriEng  process  it  proved  difficult  to  not  fall  back  in  stereotypes  in  order  to  get  laughs;  Ø Characters  had  to  be  drawn  much  more  carefully,  in  20-­‐minutes  this  was  a  challenge;  Ø Actors  had  to  be  cast  not  to  fall  into  these  set  roles  and  then  directed  carefully  in  order  that  their  performances  not  do  so  as  well.  Ø InteresEngly  with  the  unconvenEonal  capable  and  thoughjul  father  figure  –  other  characters  had  to  take  on  comic  roles  in  response  (i.e.  the  mother  became  shrewish,  the  kids  less  capable).  Ø Conclusion:    This  project  serves  to  demonstrate  why  mainstream  Sitcom  so  oken  fall  back  on  these  stereotypes  –  they  are  a  short  hand  and  they  work  but  audiences  will  eventually  want  more.  

 

Example  2  

 

Example  3  

QuesEon:    How  does  the  sound  design  and  soundtrack  effect  the  emo3onal  impact  of  a  scene  in  radio  drama?      I  made  a  short  radio  drama  that  I  produced  two  versions  of:  one  highly  designed  and  with  a  lot  of  detail  and  the  other  more  simple  and  in  the  style  of  a  BBC  radio  drama.      

IntenEon:    To  take  the  same  material  and  see  how  sound  design  effects  the  direcEon  and  character  of  a  scene.    Issues:    Ø Wrote  a  short  drama  that  wasn’t  hugely  dependent  on  sound  or  music  (i.e.  not  an  acEon  scene);  Ø Performed  it  dry  in  the  studio  and  focused  on  the  actors  performances  in  order  to  give  the  text  as  much  life  as  possible;  Ø Produced  one  version  that  was  clear  and  with  simple  sound  design.    When  listening  to  this.    This  version  seems  to  bring  out  the  characters  more  than  the  story,  you  listen  to  the  people  and  think  about  them.  Ø The  designed  version  is  much  more  emoEonally  charged  and  exciEng,  and  it  grabs  your  aRenEon  quickly,  but  then  you  are  not  thinking  so  much  about  the  characters…  more  about  their  situaEon.  Ø Conclusion:    I  realise  that  although  sound  design  and  soundtrack  is  important,  if  you  do  to  much  you  can  obscure  some  important  aspects  of  the  scripts.  

 

Example  3  

 

Example  4  

QuesEon:    How  are  new  technologies  of  produc-on  influenced  the  form  of  documentary  films.    I  made  a  15  minute  documentary  using  a  range  of  modern  techniques  and  taking  advantage  of  cheap  camera  technology.  

IntenEon:    To  prove  that  new  technologies  of  producEon  are  allowing  new  forms  of  documentary  stories  to  be  told,  and  that  these  cheap  technologies  are  opening  up  documentary  a  new  generaEon  of  film  makes.    Issues:    Ø The  producEon  was  complex  to  arrange  and  edit,  I  gave  cameras  to  a  lot  of  subjects  and  in  other  cases  gathered  huge  quanEEes  of  footage.  Ø This  seemed  to  shik  the  difficulty  in  the  producEon  into  the  edit  room,  rather  than  in  shooEng.  Ø I  gathered  some  remarkable  footage  that  I  wouldn’t  have  got  if  I  had  a  film  crew  (i.e.  scene  X  or  scene  Y).  Ø In  the  end  though,  what  really  maRered  were  the  subjects  and  my  research.  Ø Conclusion:    New  tech  opens  up  possibiliEes  but  it  doesn’t  make  life  easier  or  producEons  inherently  ‘beRer’    

Example  4