Assessment rubric used for evaluating audiovisual essays produced by students in the course "From Cinema to Society: Understanding Europe through Film" (Fall 2019). Assignment Prompt: This assignment aims at developing your audiovisual analytical skills following an undergraduate research method. Your essay can be produced in two media: written or audiovisual. The written version follows the conventions of a written academic article at undergraduate level and you need to submit it through Turnitin. The second version—the essay produced as an audiovisual product—follows recent developments in film scholarship towards videocriticism (an audiovisual form of film scholarship) and you need to upload it to a designated folder in the course’s google drive or provide a URL. You only produce one essay in one medium. In any of these versions of the essay, you need to choose a topic, familiarize yourself with publications on your topic and similar films/scenes, and develop a sustained argument about one or two films adopting a relevant approach for this course (see bibliography on how to write about cinema in our e-learning platform). Your work should offer some original insight on a topic and should engage with previous scholarship and film history. The audiovisual essay is accompanied by a process journal. Please find some bibliographic references below.
In order to recognize the importance of audiovisual language and cinematography to our exploration of Hispanic Cinema throughout the semester, students will work in groups of two to create a two-four minute video essay focused on one or two specific cinematography term(s) from the glossary of Cinegogía that we have explored this semester. Using iMovie, screen shots, and voice-over narration, coupled with sound, or music, students will narrate the use of the cinematographic term either back lighting, close-ups, panning, filming from below, etc. The students will use a range of examples from various films that exemplify the term: for example, the use of close-ups (with screen shots from Pelo malo, and Ixcanul); or may choose to closely explore two terms and their use in one film - to explain the use of the term to their audience, and how it becomes a tool in the language of cinema, as well as how it works in the particular film(s) that the student chooses to explore.
As part of our seminar, you will craft an essay that critically analyzes 1-2 films related to one of our seminar topics – indigenous or Afro-descendant representation in contemporary cinema from Latin America. Unlike the traditional writing assignments in other courses, you will present this analysis as an audiovisual essay, also known as video ensayo. The video essay format allows us to write about and analyze movies using the very same audiovisual medium of film to not only say or write what we think but to show our analysis visually. By working with the very images and sounds from the films in question, the video essay opens up new possibilities of expression for our analysis. This is a guide with detailed instructions and guidelines for creating your video essay. The video essay will include a variety of scaffolded components designed to help you complete the project and reflect critically throughout the process about your under- standing of Latin American cinema, from both a personal standpoint and within a broader academic framework.
