film portfolio

Description
Film portfolio part 1: an abstract and annotated bibliography

The proposal-an abstract and annotated bibliography–provides the opportunity for students to propose what you plan to do in the film project: contextualize the study, provide the key argument, outline cinematic materials you plan to incorporate in the final project, and emphasize the significance of the study.

Instructions
In your film project report, you are required to do a comparative work on at least two films discussed in class. The purpose of the abstract and annotated bibliography is to motivate you to think about your final paper topic and your selections of films.

In this assignment, you will give a 200-300-word abstract, describing your topic in the film projectyour argument, why the two or more films under discussion are comparable, primary and secondary materials, and your speculative conclusion. The abstract will be followed by a list of bibliography your final paper will engage with. At least two academic sources will be included in the bibliography. Each annotated entry needs to have no less than 100 words, describing the key argument/idea in the academic source and how it is relevant to your paper (how you are going to use it in your paper).

I suggest you start from a vague idea (you may draw inspiration from your sequence paper) and begin to collect relevant academic sources; after you finish the annotation of bibliography, you will have a better idea on the scholarship you will engage with and the significance of your paper. From there, you can start to draft your abstract.

Abstract writing involves reading a large amount of information (both textual and visual information in the context of this course), synthesizing it and then representing in an abstract and digestible way. A good abstract can:

Sell your work;
Draw readers attention and persuade them to read the full article.
An abstract should consist of the following components:

Why it is important (significance)
Why the two films are comparable? (justification on comparability)
What is your argument/thesis statement? (question)
How are you going to approach the question? (methodology)
What is the answer and/or implications? (conclusion)

One brief example of an abstract is given below for your reference (you need to expand based on your specific argument and questions):

Women are widely used as a trope in the history of Chinese cinema, exemplified in ____ and ____  (frame your paper into an overarching significance, and state why the two films are comparable)

In this paper, I aim to examine how the image of women has been incorporated and appropriated into the grand historical discourse of the nation and history by comparing the female figures in ______ (film 1) and ____ (film 2); (question/thesis). To be specific, I will look at how the female figures become the symbol of the suffering nation by examining the lighting, mise-en-scene, the the camera angles in the two films under discussion and the scholarship of femininity and nationalism (methodology), I argue that womens body becomes a powerful trope imbricated into the discourse of national struggle and humiliation… (argument). By comparing ____and ____, I conclude that the women’s image have played an important role in constructing a the suffering of the nation. (conclusion).

Assessment Criteria
Abstract6 points (your abstract will be graded based on how complete you have included the components of an abstract, and how clear and persuasive your abstract writing is.)

Annotated bibliography4 points (2 for each entry)

Late policy: late submissions will be assessed a 10% deduction at each 24-hour period after the due date. Paper submitted three days later will not be accepted and graded.