Extra Credit- Amanda Carman

Before I took this class, image and story were the only things I looked for in film, with story being the most important aspect.  I went to the theatre for the purpose of being drawn into a world peopled by characters with whom I could create some manner of emotional bond experiencing...something, whether it be an epic adventure or a more subtly important moment in life.  Visuals help; as an artist, I cannot help but be entrapped by beautiful imagery or made disinterested and annoyed by sloppy visual effects (I'm glad I never paid to see New Moon, for example, after seeing how the animators couldn't figure out that a wolf's spine has to move as it's running and that legs are generally attached to the body.  Also, failing to edit shadows on a green screen was an embarrassingly elementary mistake for a film of that budget.  I hope they feel ashamed), but at times the image can save an otherwise mediocre movie for me.  As hackneyed as the plot of Avatar might be, the beautiful world-building and attention to detail earned my respect and repeated viewing, particularly of the middle section where the "noble savage" plot is set aside for actual development of character and culture.  Visuals alone cannot save a terrible rendition of a story, however.  I will never forgive the creators of the film adaptation of The Golden Compass for destroying the plot of the book, no matter how pretty the film may have been (though lazy rendering did permeate this movie as well).

Now, with the added understanding of film I have gained with this class, I am better able to recognize the more complicated aspects of film composition.  I can question why a particular angle was chosen for a shot or how the use of sound contributes to the overall effect of the film.  However, story still remains paramount in my mind, and my appreciation of the other aspects of the film is given through the lens of how it contributes to the telling of the story.  I tend to prefer Formalist films for this reason, as their use of the freedom to manipulate the medium allows for a wide range of interesting means with which to tell stories.  I tend to prefer films that are either very fantastical or deeply psychological in nature, films which take you out of your comfortable world and into an entirely different realm, whether it be a fantasy realm or a realm of experience that is simply not yours.  My favorite films are the ones that force me to reflect, wonder, cry, mourn, or sit gibbering in a corner hoping that the world is not really that terrible, films like The Fountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Moulin Rouge, Pan's Labyrinth, and Requiem for a Dream, and these films are beautifully crafted to grab your interest and pull you into a carefully choreographed dance with the characters and concepts represented within them.