Statistical Analysis

Question 1

Conduct textual analysis of editing, focusing your study on either graphic

relations or rhythmic relations or spatial relations or temporal relations.

To do so, conduct one of the following comparisons:

• Call the Midwife series 2 episode 5 [one of the two seminar extracts] and Don’t Look Now [any scene] or
• Exile [the seminar extract] and Vertigo [any scene] or

• Duel [the seminar extract] and Vertigo [the seminar pursuit scene] or
• Exile [the seminar extract] and Doctor Who: ‘Heaven Sent’ [any scene] or
• Exile [the seminar extract] and Duel [the seminar extract]

Question 2

What does John Baxter “see” in Don’t Look Now and when does he see it? What motivates the editing? Discuss in relation to one of the following

combinations:

• Graphic relations and rhythmic relations or

• Graphic relations and spatial relations or

• Graphic relations and temporal relations or

• Spatial relations and temporal relations

Question 3

Compare the ways in which editing conveys time and place in Don’t Look Now and Doctor Who: ‘Heaven Sent’

Question 4

Discuss the ways in which Jonathan Olliver argues for the use of statistical style analysis. (You may supplement Olliver with other sources on statistical style analysis recommended in the Topic 7 folder.) Demonstrate your position on that debate by conducting one of the

following:

• Statistical style analysis of editing in any text from the ‘Essay 2

text list’ or

• Statistical style analysis of camera and editing in any text from

the ‘Essay 2 text list’ [you may not answer this question if you wrote about camera in Essay 1]

Question 5

Explain how and why film scholarship needs to do more to engage with sound. Put your argument into practice by analysing the ways in which sound conveys Morvern’s subjectivity in Morvern Callar. (Your answer may engage with the film’s use of songs if you choose, but purely in

relation to sound design.)

Question 6

Explain how and why film scholarship needs to do more to engage with music. Put your argument into practice by analysing music in one of the

following ways:

• Compare two scenes from key moments of Don’t Look Now or

• Explore how Morvern Callar uses pre-existing songs as soundtrack or
• Explore how character themes/motifs operate in Vertigo or

• Conduct textual analysis, informed specifically by module sources, to explore Sullivan’s argument that Bernard Herrmann’s music for

Vertigo employs “endless circlings, recirclings, and suspensions” in its depiction of obsession

Question 7

Conduct a case study of television sound and/or television music in

relation to one of the following:

• The Radiophonic Workshop’s contribution to Doctor Who: ‘An Unearthly Child’ or
• Murray Gold’s score for Doctor Who: ‘Heaven Sent’ or

• The ways in which studies of the Radiophonic Workshop address sound and music in twentieth-century Doctor Who. [Be warned that

this is not something that we will study in class.] or

• How the first and last regular episodes of any one regular character (Doctor or regular companion) in twenty-first-century Doctor Who make use of that character’s signature theme/motif. [Be warned that this is not something that we will study in class.]

Question 8

Discuss the ways in which the ‘Spaces of Television’ project has facilitated the discussion of television style. Support this through your analysis of Doctor Who: ‘An Unearthly Child’

Question 9

Why does it matter that chapters in Television aesthetics and style contest the use of the word “cinematic” in studies of television? Join the “aesthetics debate” through your analysis of either:

• Call the Midwife series 2 episode 5 or

• Doctor Who: ‘Heaven Sent’ or

• Small Axe: ‘Lovers Rock’ or

• Black Narcissus 1-3

Question 10

With close reference to issues of Movie, explain why the Movie tradition of textual analysis-informed film scholarship has made a comeback and write a Movie-style article analysing any one text from the ‘Essay 2 text

list’. Address one of the following:

• editing or

• sound or

• music

Guidance

You must:

• write textual analysis of text(s) taken from the ‘Essay 2 Text List’ contained in this document and
• use appropriate academic sources from the module to inform your textual analysis of that specific element and response to that question and

Note on sources: there are penalties in place for not using enough eligible academic sources in your essay. Later in this document there are instructions about which sources are eligible for this essay. Further guidance can be found in the Topic 1 folder.

Your essay MUST comply with the essay guidance provided for this

module in the document ‘FMSU9A2 2022 Academic sources, referencing, essay guidance – Essay 1 and Essay 2’ in the Topic 1 folder. Your essay will be graded on the assumption that you are familiar with this guidance. The Topic 1 folder also provides a list of ‘grade penalties’: what they are and how to avoid them. (They can reduce your

grade or even lead to your failing your essay.) Familiarise yourself with that guidance.

For essay writing advice, consult documents in this module’s Topic 1 folder on Canvas.

Essay 2 Text List:

The following texts are eligible for this essay (but consult the wording of essay questions because some stipulate specific texts while others leave the choice open). They are listed in chronological order of release (film) or broadcast (television).

• Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

• Doctor Who: ‘An Unearthly Child’ (Waris Hussein, 1963) i.e. episode 1
• Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)

• Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)

• Call the Midwife series 2 episode 5 (China Moo-Young, 2013) [note: if you used this programme for Essay 1 you cannot use it for Essay 2]
• Doctor Who: ‘Heaven Sent’ (Rachel Talalay, 2015)

• Black Narcissus episodes 1-3 (dir. Charlotte Bruus Christensen, 2020) [only to answer Question 9, and you must not use Black Narcissus if your Essay 1 discussed either this version or the 1947 film]
• Small Axe: episode 2, ‘Lovers Rock’ (Steve McQueen, 2020) [only to answer Question 9 or Question 10, and you must not use Black Narcissus if your Essay 1 discussed Small Axe]

Also eligible when specific essay questions directly say that they are:

The seminar extract from Exile [see Topic 6 folder] [only to answer Question 1]

The seminar extract from Duel [see Topic 6 folder] [only to answer Question 1]

Different episodes of Doctor Who [but see essay questions for details]

Further guidance on selecting academic sources:

To make things more straightforward for you at first-year level, this module imposes the following rules:

• We will only count sources from this module’s reading lists (reading

guidance documents) as ‘academic sources’. We strongly recommend that you ONLY use sources from this module – these are

selected to help you with this specific module and this specific type of textual analysis. See the Topic 1 folder for the penalty that you will face if you do not meet at least the minimum number of required sources.

• Some of the sources listed in the module reading lists (reading guidance documents) are directly labelled as non-academic sources. Assume that any source listed in the module reading guidance documents is an academic source unless there is a direct instruction

that it is not.

• All your sources MUST be properly cited and referenced. See the

Topic 1 folder for advice on how to do this and the penalties in place for failing to do this.

• You are allowed to use sources from outwith the module but none of

them will count towards your minimum number of sources – we will treat them as ‘additional sources’ no matter where they come from. If you do use any other sources, they too MUST be properly cited and

referenced.

• Prioritise sources that directly address your chosen topic and element of style: go back through the reading lists in the relevant folders.

Those lists, and the seminar questions, and the lectures, all state which sources are particularly helpful. In short, if you keep preparing for classes every week, accessing the lectures, reading the seminar guidance and questions, reading the sources we recommend and preparing comments for the seminars, you will be very well prepared for writing your essay.

Further guidance on your choice of film, programme or sequence

Most of the texts in the Essay 2 text list are ‘set texts’ that we studied in class. The other texts named above are presented to give you more choice: with those choices you will have little or no practice in class although some are discussed in some way (e.g. briefly during lectures or as an option during seminar tasks).

If you select one of the complete texts listed above, see whether the question tells you how much, or which parts, you should use. If there is no such instruction then it is your choice whether you analyse ONE

scene or analyse the ways in which that element of style occurs (or

those elements of style occur) throughout the text. Whatever your choice there MUST be substantial textual analysis of the specific element(s) of

style requested by the question.

For more guidance on why the above rules apply, see my comments in the Essay 1 question document.

Further guidance on structuring this essay (but see also the Topic 1

folder on Canvas for much more detailed guidance):

We recommend structuring your essay in one of the following two ways. Your grade will not be affected by choosing one of these over the other. It must be an essay (do not use a report structure of various numbered short sub-sections) but it could take either of these two forms:

You could separate the scholarly discussion from the textual analysis,

i.e. 50% framing discussion and 50% textual analysis presented as: (1) framing introduction, (2) textual analysis putting that into practice, (3) conclusion reflecting on the essay’s findings from the film/programme bearing in mind what you said in the first section. The numbering there relates to the order of discussion, not to a fixed number of paragraphs.

Alternatively, you could interweave the two by writing textual analysis of the film/programme but as you go along use academic sources. You will use academic sources to help demonstrate the methods you are using but also (for Essay 2) to answer any explicit framing task in the question (e.g. if you answer a question that asks you to do statistical

style analysis then you must engage with the module’s listed sources explaining what statistical style analysis is and how to do it).

No matter how you structure the essay, your essay must combine textual analysis and scholarly framing (the textual analysis may end up being slightly longer but not overwhelmingly so) or you simply cannot answer the question.

You do not need to provide a cover sheet. Simply state the essay question (you could just write the number and letter of the option you have chosen, such as Q2a) and provide your student number. Do not invent a different title.

Go to the Topic 1 folder on Canvas for further guidance, instructions and notifications of grade penalties and how to avoid them.