Some questions about cognition in film education via the international film programme le Cinema cent ans de jeunesse

1. Writing film and the‘cinematic
voice’
Mark Reid, BFI
EMC PGCE 10 January 2018
http://bit.ly/1Vwh2jh

2. AbouttheBFI..
archive and library
cinematheque
festivals
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distribution
publishing

3. And BFI Education

4. Consider the implications of the relationship between
forms of representation for the selection of content in
the school curriculum. Learning to use particular forms
of representation is also learning to think and represent
meaning in particular ways. How broad is the current
distribution? What forms of representation are
emphasized? In what forms are students expected to
become “literate”? What modes of cognition are
stimulated, practiced, and refined by the forms that are
made available?
Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind, 2002

5. PRINT vs FILM

6. • What forms of representation are
emphasized in the curriculum?
• In what forms are students expected to
become “literate”?
• What modes of cognition are stimulated,
practiced, and refined by the forms that
are made available?
EISNER’S QUESTIONS

7. A different curriculum context:
Le Cinema cent ans de jeunesse
• 22 year-old programme
• 12 countries from all over the world
• Dirigiste and French (‘les regles du jeu’)
• ‘cinema of authenticity’: no animating, zooming, ‘pretending’, or
extraneous music;
• ‘the child’s eye view’
• Formal and aesthetic themes: mise en scene; long take; camera
movement; montrer/ cacher
• Watching, making, understanding: ‘film thinking’
• Explicit ‘curriculum’: clips, ‘typology’, exercises, ‘film essai’

8. • What forms of representation are
emphasized in this curriculum?
• In what ways are students expected to
become “literate” in this curriculum?
• What modes of cognition are stimulated,
practiced, and refined by the forms that
are made available?
In CCAJ…

9. http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/
Alain Bergala
L’Hypothesis
Cinema

10. http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/
The Little
Fugitive (Ashley,
Engel, Orkin,
USA 1953)

11. CCAJ 2011 Edition -
montrer/ cacher
‘shown/ hidden’:
how film-makers
withold and reveal
information in film
http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/

13. Different clip?

14. 2011 - Montrer/ Cacher
Typology – Types of Showing/ Hiding
• Hiding in the frame
• Using offscreen space
• Filming actors’ backs
• Using shadows, screens, negative
space
• Narrative ellipsis
• Narrative secrets
• Dramatic irony
http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/

15. 2011 - Montrer/ Cacher
• Cat People (USA, Jacques Tourneur
1942)
• Blackmail (UK, Hitchcock, 1928)
• The Circle (Iran, Jafar Panahi, 2000)
• He Dies at the End (Damian
McCarthy, Youtube)
• Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1982)
• Virus (Simon Hynd, 2002)
• Moonfleet (USA, Fritz Lang, 1955)
• Creature from the Black Lagoon
(USA, Jack Arnold,1954)
and about 40 others!
http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/

16. Montrer/ Cacher - exercises
1 Film an action completely in close-up (total duration no more than
3 minutes and 8 shots maximum). Indicative story line: ‘Person A
moves from space into another adjacent space, then gives
something to Person B. You choose what is given (a codeword; a
kiss; a curse; a gift; a warning) and which spaces you use.
2 Film a complete short scene (maximum 3 minutes) where someone
in shot reacts against something or someone outside the shot,
which we never see but know of through sound, light, reaction
shots and the direction of the gaze, or a reflection
TRANSLATING THE THEME INTO PEDAGOGY

17. •

18. Montrer/ Cacher - ‘film essai’
Scenario: Two secrets, one of which is revealed, the other
withheld.
The main rule, which shouldn’t be given to the students until
after they have scripted their scenario:
Once the scenario has been written, students have to choose
one of the key scenes that will not be shown. The scene should
still play an important role in the story, but won’t be filmed, just
suggested (through an ellipsis, or use of offscreen sound,
reflections, camera movement which hides or reveals, or a
substitution of action in the edit)

20. Different forms of cognition…
What evidence do the quotes offer of different
kinds of thinking?
Of different modes of operation?
Of different kinds of learning?

21. ‘Originally we tried two stories, one about a
girl being bullied, but we thought it
wouldn’t work out because there wouldn’t
be something missing’, ‘so Mrs Liley said
why don't we all go home and write a
storyboard and choose the best’.’ We chose
Darcy’s because we liked it the most, then
we all helped improve it.’

22. ‘originally we put the [opening] shot
in the middle but we thought it was
boring. So we put it at the
beginning to put more tension in.’
‘We put the shot of the bag before
the boy comes past on his bike’.

23. ‘both [groups] edited a version of the
film and we had a vote on which was the
best.’

24. ‘We kept doing [bike] skids, about 20
skids, trying to get it right.’
‘We were told to film each shot 3 times
and choose the best’.
‘We were filming from different
positions all the time’

25. ‘we were going to have him like
gasping, or ‘what’s that doing there?’
but I just thought it, I don’t know why,
he goes past it [the bag] and he goes
back to it’.
‘If you’d had him saying ‘oh what’s
that’ it would have made it sound put
on.’

26. ‘Mr Dickinson showed us how to use the
Macro [lens] .. we thought we’d have a go with
it.. you see Holly in the background, blurred,
and I thought it looked cool.’

27. AGENCY
PLAY
SERIOUSNESS
LOCAL RESOURCES
TOTAL INVESTMENT
CONSTRAINT

28. How (un)like traditional literacy is this?
• Collaborative; a whole story-world generated and sustained
by a group of people (actually 6 people, plus Mrs Liley and Mr
Dickinson, and Luke’s mum).
• Uses resources taken from their world: bedrooms, kitchens,
green space, neighbourhood streets, bikes and school bags
• It requires quite sophisticated (but more and more
accessible) technology
• It shows (and withholds) rather than tells. Film tends
towards showing as a medium, rather than telling.
• The pedagogy of constraints, play and experiment, of re-
taking shots, of trial and error, making different edits
• It’s a complete piece of work, not a story opening or extract

29. Could every child be enabled to tell stories in
this way? And if so, what needs to change?
More live action film work
A wider range of expressive resources
Constraints and learning frameworks
A wider range of viewing

30. Consider the implications of the relationship between
forms of representation for the selection of content in
the school curriculum. Learning to use particular forms
of representation is also learning to think and represent
meaning in particular ways. How broad is the current
distribution? What forms of representation are
emphasized? In what forms are students expected to
become “literate”? What modes of cognition are
stimulated, practiced, and refined by the forms that are
made available?
Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind

31. What if all children were able to tell stories - and share ideas,
and develop arguments - using film, regularly in the
curriculum?
What different kinds of thinking would be made possible?
How would subjects be changed?
What new skills would be developed?
And most of all, what consequences would these changes
have for education, for culture, for us?

32. Cinema Cent Ans de Jeunesse
http://www.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/
http://Markreid1895.wordpress.com
Mark.reid@bfi.org.uk
2017/18: ‘Places and Stories’