Participation Week 8
Publish a review of a link to an article or academic writing
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2014/05/18/caught-in-the-acts-2/
This week’s link is to a piece of writing on David Bordwell’s blog regarding the structure of hollywood screenwriting and the template of writing commonplace in Hollywood in what he describes as the ‘three-act structure’. The piece titled ‘Caught in the Act’, begins with Bordwell’s personalized commentary asserting Field’s implied statement of the a classic three-act structure utilized in Hollywood scriptwriting
Bordwell continues from here to evaluate the practice from a perspective that sees it rather as something that might have arose implicitly, or rather something that was developed with intention throughout the evolution of Hollywood and thus passed on to future generation of Screenwriters.
By referring to arguments set by various different proponents of Hollywood Scriptwriting, Bordwell utilizes the Fieldian Framework of the 120 minute script as a deductive lens through which a series of films are evaluated to observe this possible employed methodology. Contrasting to the week’s reading, a large motivation for my choice of this Bordwell piece was driven by the contrast of the rigid objectivity of Bordwell’s film writing to the very abstract and experientially driven writing of David Shields.
Personal Assessment Matrix
| WEEK | Analysis | Execution | Reflection | Learning | Total |
| 8 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
Provide a link to single form of Multimedia
For the sake of mixing flavors, I have decided the link for this week to be the full video of the animated film ‘La Planete Sauvage’ by Rolan Topor & Rene Laloux. The film is an experimental feature that contextualizes itself in a strange world with no relational positions apart from a sentient human like species that appears to hold prominence in the narrative’s world. What stands interesting about the piece is the almost ‘observatory’ nature in which the author has constructed the animation to depict the series of events almost like an expose into the differing reality. With an overt narration that portrays itself as such, the film acts contradictory to this apparent observational mode by providing a linear construction of visual rhetoric which portrays the story of a human-like ant captured by its relatively goliath like captors. It is almost a narrative film with core premises of observational documentary whilst lacing together its story through these moments of ‘apparent’ observation (which in its core work to actual progress the story). All in all it is truly enjoyable and mind bending experience.