FILM ART

FILM ART

Curated Program + Notes (10%)
This assignment will allow you to exercise your capacity for making critical creative choices around a theme, thinking about current moving image work in relation to historical work, and writing and programming for an audience.

Youcomplete this assignment by yourself (program 5 works with 500-word Program note).

1. The Program:

• In this assignment, you will come up with a program of FIVE film/video/digital works that focus on a particular theme.
• Find short works or excerpts, each no more than 3 minutes long.
• At least ONE piece on your program should be taken from the excellent collection at York’s Sound and Moving Image Library. There are discs of early cinema on reserve at SMIL and a wide range of other discs that can be found on-line.

o To prove that you have visited SMIL, take a selfie in SMIL with the cover of the DVD or VHS tape in the selfie

• At least TWO selections must be an early cinema film (original film made before 1915).
• Try to find works from a variety of sources. Many options are listed on page 2 of the instructions.

o Do not choose more than one work by the same artist.
o Do not choose any work that we’ve screened in class.
o You must choose at least one work not directed by men (i.e., seek out work directed by women or trans artists)
o You must choose at least one work not directed by a white person (i.e., seek out directed by visible minorities and/or Indigenous persons).

o You can upload the works to a private Vimeo or YouTube channel (both are free).
o You can provide a list of the works with instructions on how to access them. For example:

▪ URL to online source: e.g., https://vimeo.com/77920469

▪ Give title of film and start and stop time of your clip, e.g., His Girl Friday 15:34 – 17:40 o You may discuss other options with your tutorial leader.

1. Program Notes:

• This should be submitted as a digital file and posted to Moodle. The written aspect of this assignment is a program note, which consists of two parts, described below.

1. List of Films:
   o Make a list of the films/excerpts in your program in the correct order you would show them with the following information (artist,

production company (if applicable), date of release, country, length (including where they appear in the original if it’s an

excerpt), and format).
o Tell us where you found each one so that we can get it independently (cite the URL or disc appropriately, using the Chicago

citation style in A Manual for Writers…).
o You are encouraged to include photographs, drawings, or screengrabs to illustrate your program. o Include the URL for your Vimeo or YouTube compilation and the program essay, described below.

2. Program Essay:

• Write an essay (of approximately 500 words for a student working aloneexplaining the themes that run through your program and how the films you have chosen fit together.
• Your program notes essay should have a THESIS, which I’d like you to bold. For example, your theme may be “great action sequences in films through film history,” but your thesis must address WHY they are “great”? e.g., “Here are five great action sequences in science fiction films that are notable because of the ways they use camera movement to create a sense of spectacle relating to the film’s science fiction universe,” or “the sequences show very different relationships between central characters and the obstacles they are fighting, contrasting violence and vulnerability” or…
• In the program note, you may consider the following questions:

o What is your major theme?

o What trends do you see running through these works?
o What common questions do they examine?
o What similar motifs or formal structures do they utilize?
o How do the works “speak” to each other through those questions, themes, formal structures?

o How do they speak to each other within a particular historical period – or across historical periods?
o How does this similar time frame (or range of historical periods) help to explain their content, the ways in which they’re made,

and the questions they’re concerned with?
o What format are they originally made on/presented on – and how does that affect our viewing?
o What was the decision-making process like? What did you look at and why did you decide to choose these clips? o Why this particular order?

• Don’t forget to give brief, but well-written, descriptions of the works you chose.
• You must include at least ONE appropriately cited quotation in your essay. This can be a quotation that encapsulates your theme, perhaps from one of the filmmakers you’ve chosen or from a scholar.
• You are also encouraged to pay attention to the design of your program note: how might the visual aspect of your program note/essay enhance an audience member’s understanding and appreciation of your program?
• Cite all sources you use, as you would for any essay, in footnotes and bibliography. Use Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.

• The Sound and Moving Image Library at the Scott Library has an excellent collection of work.
• Early cinema DVD Collections at SMIL (look them up on-line for descriptions of what they contain; streaming videos can be accessed off library site)

o Animation Legend Winsor McCay
o Biograph Shorts – streaming
o Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers
o Edison: The Invention of the Movies I, II, III, IV – streaming
o Gaumont Treasures 1897-1913 Discs 1, 2, 3
o Gaumont Treasures Vol. 2 Discs 1, 2, 3
o George Melies, first wizard of cinema, Discs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
o Grotesqueries
o Landmarks of Early Film
o Landmarks of Early Film Vol 2: The Magic of Melies
o Lumiere Brothers’ First Films
o Magic of Melies – streaming
o Movies Begin: A treasury of early cinema, V.1 The Great Train Robbery and other, V. 2: The European Pioneers,
o V. 3: Experimentation and Discovery, V.4: The Magic of Melies, V.5: Comedy, Spectacle, and New Horizons,
o Origins of Film. Disc One. African American Cinema, Disc two. Origins of American animation + Origins of the fantasy feature o Disc three. America’s first women filmmakers; Origins of the gangster film
o Saved from the Flames. Discs 1, 2, 3
o Treasures from the American Film Archives: Programs 1, 2, 3, 4,
o More Treasures from the American Film Archives: Programs 1, 2, 3
o Treasures 3: Program 1: The City Reformed, Program 2: New Women, Program 3: Toil and TyrannyProgram
o 4: Americans in the Making
oTreasures 4: American Avant-Garde Film, Programs 1+2
o Treasures 5: The West, Programs 1, 2, 3

• A sampling of other possible DVD Compilations that can be found at SMIL (These are NOT on reserve. Please do an on-line search to find out what’s on them and find other discs!)

o Animatrix
o Anxious Animation
o Avant-Garde, Vol 1, 2, 3
o Before Mickey: An Animated Anthology
oThe Videos of Sadie Benning, Vol 1 + 2
o Best of Bulgarian Animation
o By Brakhage
o The Cameraman’s Revenge and Other Fantastic Tales: The Amazing Puppet Animation of Ladislaw Starewicz o Cartoons that Time Forgot
o Cinema 16: World Short Films
oThe Films of Martha Colburn
o Dada Cinema
o Different Cinema. Volume 1, 2, 3
o The Films of Oskar Fishinger
o Flux Film
o Helen Hill Film Collection
oThe Hubely Collection
oThe Short Animations of Larry Jordan
o Leonard Maltin’s Animation Favorites from the NFB – streaming
o Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Discs 1, 2, 3, 4

Resources:

o Made by Hand
oNorman McLaren, the master’s edition.
o National Film Board of Canada Collection – streaming
o Paris, jet’aime
o Pistolary! Films and Videos of Peggy Ahwesh
o Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé
o Surveying the First Decade – Video art compilations (multiple discs) o Walt Disney On the Front Lines: The War Years.
o William Wegman – Video Works, 1970-1999

• Websites:
  o Library of Congress Early Cinema http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListSome.php?format=Motion+Picture o UBU is a website that has a large number of experimental work on-line http://www.ubu.com
  o Vimeo.com
  o Archive http://archive.org/details/movie
  o Criterion-on-demand (available through York Library website)
  o Edited By: Women Film Editors: http://womenfilmeditors.princeton.edu/