Writing About Screen Media

Lisa Patti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351187053
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Writing About Screen Media presents strategies for writing about a broad range of media objects – including film, television, social media, advertising, video games, mobile media, music videos, and digital media – in an equally broad range of formats.

The book's case studies showcase media studies' geographical and industrial breadth, with essays covering topics as varied as: Brazilian telenovelas, K-pop music videos, Bombay cinema credit sequences, global streaming services, film festivals, archives, and more. With the expertise of over forty esteemed media scholars, the collection combines personal reflections about writing with practical advice. Writing About Screen Media reflects the diversity of screen media criticism and encourages both beginning and established writers to experiment with content and form.

Through its unprecedented scope, this volume will engage not only those who may be writing about film and other screen media for the first time but also accomplished writers who are interested in exploring new screen media objects, new approaches to writing about media, and new formats for critical expression.

Part I

New frameworks for writing about screen media

1 Introduction

Lisa Patti

(Still) learning to write about screen media

Like many of my colleagues in the sprawling field of media studies, I followed a long and winding path learning to write about cinema and other media. When I began a Ph.D. program at Cornell University in comparative literature, I planned to study contemporary novels and critical theory. But I was stopped in my tracks almost immediately by one of the first graduate seminars I took – “Sex and the Politics of Representation” – taught by Professor Amy Villarejo who would eventually become my dissertation advisor. In addition to an ambitious reading list, we also watched a feature film every week. Rather than analyzing each film through the critical framework provided by the paired reading assignments, we analyzed all of these texts together, in a critical matrix that opened up many interpretive possibilities.

I was hooked. But I was also stumped. When I began to write my first essay for that seminar, I realized that while I had something to say about the film I was analyzing (Liliana Cavani’s 1974 film The Night Porter), I had no idea how to say it. After spending years learning the specialized language used to describe literary forms (from alliteration to synecdoche), I discovered that I did not know how to describe cinematic form. My professor referred me to one of the most vital reference books in the field – David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art. I immediately bought a well-used copy at the campus bookstore and began to read their detailed explanations of cinematography, sound design, editing, and other elements of film style. My crash course in film aesthetics did not immediately position me to write a sophisticated analysis, but it was a start.

Over the next few years, I took as many film courses and read as much film criticism as possible. Just as I was starting to feel confident as a film critic, I began teaching as an adjunct instructor for Ithaca College’s Department of Cinema and Photography. I co-taught two courses there – “Introduction to Film Aesthetics and Analysis” and “Hollywood and American Film.” Each class meeting included: a lecture, the screening of a feature film and multiple shorts, and a post-screening discussion. During these classes, I learned the value of collaboration. Each instructor analyzed the films we watched from unique vantage points since they too had discovered film through idiosyncratic itineraries that included French literature, theatre, communications, English, and art history. At first, I found the course format to be very intimidating because it was difficult to prepare fully for each class meeting. When we were scheduled to discuss films that were widely available on DVD and VHS (long before the days of widespread online streaming), I would borrow the films from the library and watch them multiple times in order to prepare for lectures and discussions. I would then bring to class typed outlines and detailed screening notes to use as resources. However, the department rented some films from important archives and distributors such as the Museum of Modern Art. These films would typically arrive just before class began so that we barely had enough time to thread the 16mm prints through the projector. We certainly did not have the luxury of advanced screenings to prepare for class. I found myself in the unfamiliar position of participating in post-screening discussions with no preparation, responding to the film we had just watched without an opportunity to plan or refine my observations and arguments. Over time I grew to appreciate this forced spontaneity, and I developed confidence in my observations and interpretations. The relevance and persuasiveness of my interpretations varied, but those post-screening discussions freed me from my anxiety about being wrong and sharpened my analytical instincts.

When I began teaching for the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, I encountered new challenges as a writer and teacher. The first course that I taught at HWS was Introduction to Media and Society. After several years of teaching film, I felt comfortable guiding students through discussions of film aesthetics, history, and theory. At HWS, I was asked to teach an interdisciplinary course with the following description:

This course provides an introduction to various media and their modes, methods, and themes. We will explore the role of media in shaping social consciousness, global economies, and material culture. Examples drawn from film, television, print media, and digital environments will be contextualized, analyzed, and theorized as crucial elements of our media culture. Students will gain an appreciation for the social, cultural, economic, and political influences of global communications while performing close readings of conventional media objects. Writing assignments, exams, presentations, and projects will help to cement insights gained through close investigation of films, TV shows, advertisements, video games, music videos, and more.

Film led a long list of media objects. Hired in May to begin teaching that August, I spent the summer learning as much as I could about “TV shows, advertisements, video games, music videos, and more.” That experience changed not only my teaching but also my writing as I shifted from researching film to a broader focus on screen media. Even the one film course that I teach now – Global Cinema – includes television shows, trailers, and other media objects as supplementary texts; and I have published essays on commercials, video games, and music videos.

As I moved from teaching and writing about film to teaching and writing about screen media, I often found myself without the reference tools that had guided my earlier disciplinary turns. Film studies scholars may consult several excellent reference volumes for writers. Film scholar Timothy Corrigan’s book A Short Guide to Writing about Film (now in its ninth edition) provides a comprehensive overview of relevant methods and resources. For example, the book includes in its discussion of note-taking a useful guide for developing a shorthand system for taking notes (for example, “cu”= “close-up”). The more recent book Writing about Movies (already in its fifth edition) similarly combines suggestions for writing about film with more general advice about academic writing. For example, the book contains both a comprehensive “thesis statement checklist” and an illustrated glossary of film terms. Combined with Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art (now in its eleventh edition), these books provide aspiring film critics with the critical tools necessary for writing both reviews and scholarly essays about cinema. I had a difficult time, however, finding similar books to guide me through the transition to teaching and writing about other screen media. Media scholars have published important books that provide critical foundations for analyzing specific media objects – including, for example, Carol Vernallis’ Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context and Jeremy Butler’s Television: Critical Methods and Applications. However, no single volume covers writing about the many different media objects students analyze in Media and Society classes.

I simultaneously realized that writing itself was morphing into different formats. My first forays into writing about film were unsteady as I experimented with using terms like mise-en-scène and high key lighting for the first time, but I was writing in a familiar format – the scholarly essay – where my experience as a literature student – generating close readings, structuring an argument, and citing sources – remained relevant. As I continued to write and assign scholarly essays, the field of media studies started to change. I assigned more and more blog posts, podcast episodes, video essays, and practitioner interviews as required “readings.” I also expanded the “writing” assignments in my classes to include different formats for critical inquiry – for example, screencasts, trailer remixes, and blogs. I found wonderful sources that addressed specific writing formats, such as Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell’s book The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound & Image, a co-authored guide to creating video essays, and the dossier “In Focus: The Practioner Interviewer” in Cinema Journal, a collection of articles edited by media scholar Christine Cornea that introduces scholars to methods for interviewing directors and other media artists and practitioners. The idea for this book emerged from my desire to have a reference volume that would gather this expertise – providing insight and guidance about the growing array of media objects that we encounter in our field and the range of formats in which we might analyze those objects.

How to read this book

Digital distribution challenges the divisions between film, television, and new media as objects of critical inquiry. As new media platforms have expanded the range of exhibition environments in which audiences encounter media content, new publication formats and platforms for scholars and critics have emerged in turn. This book reflects media studies’ heterogeneity and encourages writers to experiment across formats and platforms.

In the first part of the book – “New frameworks for writing about screen media” – I offer general strategies for writing about screen media. In this chapter, I introduce my experience as a writer and provide an overview of the book. In Chapter 2 – “The big picture: Strategies for writing about screen media” – I encourage readers to adopt four writing practices – collaborating, framing, curating, and following up – that can be used to analyze any screen media object. In Chapter 3 – “From screen aesthetics to site design: Analyzing form across screen media” – I discuss the value of taking screening notes and present case studies for the analysis of form across screen media, expanding formal analysis to include the design of digital spaces. In Chapter 4 – “Entering the conversation: How and where to develop a critical argument” – I explain how to develop a critical argument in the context of various writing projects – from a traditional written essay to a video essay to a podcast. The chapter discusses free writing, outlines, introductions, evidence, and conclusions. Finally, in Chapter 5 – “From notebook to network: When and how to use digital tools” – I discuss digital resources for watching, reading about, and writing about screen media and compare them to their print counterparts. The chapter also explores best practices for citation and considers the fair use of copyrighted material in media criticism.

The second part of the book – “Writers on writing about screen media” – includes short chapters from several dozen media scholars. Featuring emerging and established scholars from a wide range of disciplinary and geographic locations, this part of the book explores different media objects from the perspective of writers who have produced some of the most exciting recent work in their respective fields. Each contributor discusses one media object (for example, music videos or film credit sequences) or writing format (for example, film reviews or video essays), combining personal reflections about writing with practical advice. This part of the book includes three sections: “Objects and events” features chapters that focus on specific media texts (such as found footage films or television shows) or media events (such as film festivals or video gameplay); “Methods and locations” includes chapters that present specific media studies methodologies (such as ethnographic interviews or data analysis) and spaces (such as media archives or streaming platforms); and “Forms and formats” presents chapters that consider different modes of critical expression (such as podcasts and blurbs).

You may opt to read this book in a linear fashion, from cover to cover, to gain an overview of different approaches to writing about screen media. However, the book also enables modular reading. Below you will find a series of proposed units – collections of several chapters that allow you to explore a particular topic from multiple vantage points. These units make visible the points of intersection and tension between and among the chapters. Each writer pays careful attention to the contexts in which they write – the personal, historical, cultural, and institutional factors that have led them to write about screen media in particular ways. Combining these chapters affords you an opportunity to consider key topics within different writing contexts.

While Writing About Screen Media provides an extensive survey of writing about screen media, this book is not exhaustive or comprehensive. As a reader, you can expand the scope of the book by following each chapter’s lead to other examples and resources. In a recent article in Cinema Journal (since renamed the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies), media scholar Jennifer Malkowski (one of the contributors to this volume), argues in favor of exploring the breadth of media studies. They write,

Cinema and media studies has grown so vast that none of us sees its whole panorama anymore, if we ever could. That doesn’t excuse us from making the effort of climbing at least a few stories skyward to get a better vantage point.

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Whether you are a student who is about to write about screen media for the first time or an accomplished writer who would lik...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• PART I: New frameworks for writing about screen media
• PART II: Writers on writing about screen media