Brielle is Famous!

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/05/27/i-just-started-sobbing-2-military-brothers-surprise-sister-school

Film Final 2015

This year, the film final will require all of you to assemble a portfolio and to shoot, edit, and publish a 5-7 minute video essay. The completed portfolio and video essay will count as a major fourth marking period assignment (100 points in total) as well as your grade for the final exam.

Portfolio Requirements:

• 2 thematic analysis essays
• 1 film review
• 2 completed short films (You may submit any short films you participated in creating this year)
• 1 poster for one of the submitted short films (It can be the poster your group created)
• 1 music video
• 1 film production resume

• Each of the aforementioned components are worth 7 points [70 total]
• In lieu of any of the aforementioned requirements, you may opt to show a film (or clips from several films) and teach a lesson on the film or concept. If you plan on doing this, you must submit your idea by this Friday, May 22nd.

Video Essay Requirements:

• If the essay has been, for thousands of years, a means for writers to figure something out on the page, the video essay is that, too, on the screen. These works can be short and song-like--or they can take their time, turning gradually inward. Regardless of runtime, the video essay requires  a story. What are you trying to say? What is it you want to say/share/feel about something in particular? That story may take the form of a narrative, a sequence of events, or it may be a mediation in which "the story" is really the tension generated--by an author working through some mental knot.
• The image does not exist merely to illustrate the text; the text does not merely illustrate the image. Instead, there is a degree of distance between what is said and what is shown and what is heard, and within that distance, the audience is allowed its own ample share of imaginative space.
• Examples: "Notes on Liberty"; "F is for Fake (1973) - How to Structure a Video Essay"
• You may complete your video essay in groups of 3-4; you may also choose to work alone.
• The completed video essay is worth 30 points.

This is a digital assignment. You need to share all of the aforementioned components via Google Drive to Mr. Clark, Mr. Hearn, and Mr. Lockwood by Wednesday, June 3rd.

No Country for Any Men: The Tragic Westerns of the 20th century

The Ringo Kid (1939)

Ethan Edwards (1956)

William Munny (1992)

Walt Kowalski (2008)

No Country For Old Men (2007): Llewelyn, Bell, and Anton

Stagecoach, The Searchers, Unforgiven, Gran Torino, and No Country for Old Men all depict lone, "cowboy" heroes forging ahead in an inhospitable land: the United States, a land undergoing an ever-changing sense of identity. Some of the aforementioned films are literally westerns; some are westerns in only a thematic and symbolic manner.

Before beginning our college level writing task, we will begin by reading and discussing an essay on the last film we watched, No Country For Old Men, a philosophical, neo-western-noir flick. The essay, entitled "No Country for Old Men: The Coens' Tragic Western," approaches the film as both a western and a tragedy. 

We will use this same lens to analyze all of the "westerns" we have watched thus far: they are all tragic; they all convey a sense that this country--this land--is hard on its people.

Your Task: Select 1 character from No Country for Old Men and any 2 characters from the other films listed above. Compose an essay in which you explore the following:

• How does each character and film portray the lone hero/cowboy figure?
• How does each convey a sense of tragedy and the "west?"
• Compare and contrast each character, noting how the characters/films represent a shifting national identity.

Your essay must include multiple specific references to the Richard Gilmore essay, "No Country for Old Men: The Coens' Tragic Western." These references must be cited using MLA formatting.

Your completed essay must be at least 3 pages in length: double-spaced, size 12 Times New Roman.

We will review formatting in class in the weeks to come.

Due Wednesday, May 20th.