Component 1 (Examined) 35%: American Film
Hollywood since the 1960’s and Contemporary American Independent Film
Component 2 (Examined) 35%: European Film
British Film and Non-English Language European Film
For BOTH components, learners must study:
- Two Hollywood films, one produced between 1961 and 1990 and the other more recent (a two-film study)
- One contemporary American independent film (produced after 2010)
All films will be studied through the framework for studying film:
- The key elements of film form – cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing and sound, which have significance both individually and in combination with one another
- The structural elements of film form – narrative and the processes of narration, including the role of the screenplay in providing narrative structure, and genre (where relevant to the film studied)
- How film creates meaning and generates response, including how it functions as a medium of representation
- Film as an aesthetic medium
- The spectator and spectatorship
- The social, cultural, political, historical and institutional, including production, contexts of film
- Critical approaches to studying film – arising from the idea of film as 'constructed' and including different conceptions of narrative.
Component 3 (Non Examined Assessment) 30%: Production
An extract from a film that highlights narrative construction OR a screenplay and digitally photographed storyboard.
Component 3 35%: American and British Film
Classical Hollywood, Hollywood since the 1960’s, Contemporary American Independent Film and British Film
Component 4 35%: Varieties of Film
Film Movements, Documentary Film, Global Film and The Short Film
For BOTH components, learners must study:
For this specification, these underpinning elements have been used to create a framework for studying film, which learners will be able to apply to all the films they explore:
- The key elements of film form – cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing and sound, which have significance both individually and in combination with one another
- The structural elements of film form – narrative and the processes of narration, including the role of the screenplay in providing narrative structure, and genre (where relevant to the film studied)
- How film creates meaning and generates response, including how it functions as a medium of representation
- Film as an aesthetic medium
- The spectator and spectatorship
- The social, cultural, political, historical and institutional, including production, contexts of film
- Critical approaches to studying film – arising from the idea of film as 'constructed' and including different conceptions of narrative, ideology and the idea of the 'auteur'
- Key debates (the realist versus the expressive in film and the digital) and filmmakers' theories of film.
Component 5 30%: Cross-Media Production
A complete short film (4-5 minutes) or a screenplay alongside an evaluation.