CineDIVER USE SCENARIO: An application of DIVER by film studies professors and students for developing skills in film analysis. Eric Bailey, Peter Worth ED 229 C Seminar in Learning, Design and Technology Stanford University School of Education February,

Martin is disappointed after receiving his “Intro to Film Studies” midterm back. His instructor, Professor Lang, wrote that his paper lacked depth. He knows it isn’t perfect. He was supposed to have created an interpretation of Double Indemnity based on his analysis of one of the scenes. He re-watched the film on video in the library, and even took notes, but he had to agree that his paper was little more than a plot summary spiced up with some interesting observations about camera angles, Femme Fatales, and Venetian blinds. And if he is honest with himself, he has to admit that he isn’t really sure how to form an interpretation.

At class the next week, however, Professor Lang tries something different. “I was disappointed in your midterms,” she says. “Being able to tell what you saw is a step toward analysis, but it is not analysis in and of itself.” She turns down the lights and shows her laptop screen through the LCD projector. On the screen is the DIVER interface loaded with a clip from The Big Sleep. Lang has pre-selected marks and clips to illustrate her lecture. Each image has annotation to the side. Modeling the process that she would like her students to use, Lang reads her annotations to the students and engages them in discussion about how she noticed those particular elements…

She points out how her comments are divided between two categories: examples and ideas. The examples are comments about what she actually sees represented in the shot.

She uses the guided noticing rectangle to show the students how, in one scene between Bogart and Bacall, the two characters have distinctly different backgrounds and lighting. She comments on this in the “examples” section.

Then she asks, what do think about that? Why would Hawks put Bacall in front of all of that soft silk and satin, while Bogart is framed by shadows, rain, and Venetian blinds?

Martin raises his hand. “Because he is a dangerous detective and she is a wealthy socialite?” Professor Lang says, “Okay.” Lina responds, “Yeah, but he’s actually the good guy, and later she tricks him and almost gets him killed.” Professor Lang: “Okay, you’re both correct about what happens in the story, but why did Hawks choose to shoot the scene in this way?”

Ingmar suggests, “Maybe he wanted us to think that she was all good and nice, and that he was a tough guy so that it’s more of a surprise when she tricks him, and he we find out that he’s not so bad after all.”

“There. Do you see the difference? Ingmar took examples from the film to come to a new idea about the director’s intent.” She writes Ingmar’s idea in the “ideas” section. “That’s a start.” “Now what I want you to do for next week is log onto the CineDIVE site and do the Rebel Without a Cause activity. Then your paper on the film is due the following week.”

Martin is encouraged. He can see that there is a difference between what he did and how Ingmar was thinking, but he wants to take it further. He goes home that night and logs on to CineDIVE. As instructed, he clicks on the course link and opens the Rebel Without a Cause assignment. Prof. Lang has written: “Develop an interpretation of some element of Rebel based on your viewing of the film in class and a close analysis in CineDIVE. Use at least two scenes to illustrate your analysis.”

Martin is not sure what kind of interpretation he can come up with. He starts by using the visual timeline to quickly scan the film. He soon comes to the scene in the character’s home, where Dean says to his father, “You’re tearing us apart!” He puts a bookmark there. Because of the dramatic camera angles and dialogue, he thinks it may be worth another look. He scrolls through the rest of the film. He notices that Prof. Lang has already bookmarked and even captured a few stills from the scene of Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo in the Observatory. He’s not sure why, but knows that it should be part of his analysis.

He starts with Lang’s work. She has selected a short clip of Wood pulling up the blanket to cover a sleeping Mineo, and a still of Dean, Wood, and Mineo all cozily placed in a medium shot. He goes back to review the scene full-screen. He uses the rectangle to look closely at the composition of the shot. He begins to jot down some notes in the annotation column. He describes the shots, as well as the action and sound taking place. “Everyone looks so peaceful,” he writes.

He then goes back to the earlier scene of Dean and his parents. He highlights the stark use of high and low-angle camera work. He comments on how unhappy they seem. Martin remembers another scene of Wood with her family. He quickly goes to it and captures clips and stills displaying an unhappy home, with parents who are, at best, ineffectual, and at worst, suspicious and unsympathetic to their children.

“So what do I have?” Martin thinks. He pulls up all three scenes and examines his annotations. In the “ideas” section, he begins to write some notes about the comparisons between the two families, and how the three teens had to escape that life for independence. He begins to write about how confined they were in their homes, and how they are free away from their parents, that family life had failed them, and that they were now on their own. He copies some of his stills into the ideas column to illustrate his point. But something is wrong.

He looks again at the image of Mineo, Dean, and Wood. “This is meant to be freedom? This is the teens breaking away from their awful families to live on their own?” He zooms in on the three teens. “If Mineo were a little younger, or Dean and Wood a little older, the three of them would look like their own family. It’s like they ran away from one family only to join another. Hey, maybe that’s my interpretation.” He continues organizing his thoughts in the ideas section before copying them into the writing section and revising them into a more clear analysis. He saves his work.

The next morning, Martin receives an from Prof. Lang. She has examined his CineDIVE and is impressed with the results. She comments on the improvement Martin has made in forming opinions and supporting them with examples from the cinematic text. She challenges him to go further in his paper. “What does it mean that the teens leave one family to join another? Why would Nicholas Ray give you that idea? What is he saying?”

Martin knows that it will be a challenge, but he goes back to the text. He scours the film for references to family, and selects and annotates them. Then he goes back to the final scene, where Mineo is shot and killed by the police in front of the observatory. He looks at his work. He reorders and reviews it, including the clips, the images, the annotations, the idea notes, and the feedback from Prof. Lang.

He sees the broken relationships in the real world of the film, the blissful return to simplicity, acceptance, and harmony within the confines of the observatory, and then the cruel destruction of that when they reencounter the outside world. “Okay,” he says. And he begins to write his paper.

FIN Eric Bailey, Peter Worth ED 229 C Seminar in Learning, Design and Technology Stanford University School of Education February,