Alex Heller-Nicholas is an established Melbourne-based film critic, and we were lucky enough to have to into class and run a special workshop.
This week, her workshop involved discussing important aspects of film criticism, and applying them to an in-class review we would do later in the session.
She proposed the question ‘what makes a good film critic’ and there were 6 main points she discussed in detail. They were:
- Taste
- Gender/privileges
- Audience
- Scale/detail
- History
- Context
I found the first point—taste – to be particularly interesting. We’ve done lots of writing this semester and have talked a lot about our persona and particular style of writing, however putting taste into the picture gave a whole new perspective when it comes to my writing. Taste is about establishing your view and setting yourself up before you critique.
We watched the 2014 short film directed by Lucas Testro called ‘I’m You Dickhead’, and this was such a fun and interesting exercise. We watched it twice. The first time we watched it, Alex encouraged us to throw ‘word vomit’ onto the screens, just messy, fast notes on whatever comes to mind to refer to later on when writing. However, the first time I watched it, I found it so hard to write notes as I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I thought to myself ‘how can I possibly write on this stupid little film that has no purpose and is so random I don’t even know where to start, plus I need to concentrate I can’t be writing notes while watching!’ So I had nothing writing down. Luckily we watched it a second time. I loved it the second time, and without even realizing, I was jotting down notes faster than I could think. I gathered heaps of little points and elements of the film.
After this, we had 30 minutes to write up a review, keeping in mind the important points Alex discussed at the beginning of class; so make sure to twine in your taste, the attention to detail considering the time limit, and the context of the film.
I was surprisingly happy with the result of mine, considering the short time frame we had to complete it. It was such a great exercise because it forced me to be punctual and fast with decision making, and I am so happy I wrote down all those notes to refer to because without them I wouldn’t be able to start! Such a good lesson in note taking.
We had to swap with the person next to us, so I swapped with Joss. It was so great because we both have such different styles of writing so we were able to apply each other’s knowledge and feedback into our own work. Joss has a very academic style in writing and is very articulate with her words, but I suggested she include more of her personal taste and persona. I described the detail of the film and what I liked/disliked, however she suggested I tap into reasons WHY I did or didn’t etc. to make it even more clear.
