Film Title (Director’s Name, Year)

Log line (which is one sentence that summarizes the film’s narrative)

Production and Reception Factors

Production budget
Date and place of premiere (film festival)
Date of theatrical release
Number of screens on opening week
The film’s opening week box office
Number of screens for film’s widest release
Number of weeks in theatres
Total of foreign box office
The film’s total theatrical box office
MPAA rating and any rating problems

Distributor and some of its comparable films (to discuss why it decided to distribute the film)

Top three films that week in the domestic market, their number of screens, and their box office
figures (so you can explain what Hollywood was selling and most audiences were seeing)

(One or two bullet points summarizing the factors related to the critical success of the film)

How the film relates to work by the director

Title of another film by the director (date)
Title of a third film by the director (date)

Stylistic constants
(Several bullet points)

Thematic constants
(Several bullet points)

(Explain how the film fits into the director’s body of work, using interviews, reviews of the
film(s), and academic articles/books on the director and/or the film to illuminate patterns.)
The film’s cinematic influences and comparable films
Cinematic Influences
(Several bullet points about cinematic influences. Use interviews with the director or reviews,
articles, or books that show how the film involves homage to or sampling from other films –
explain how those influences affected the formal, narrative, or thematic content of the film.)

Comparable Films
(Several bullet points with information so you can outline how the film fits into a genre or cycle
of films.)

The way filmic elements convey meaning in a scene

(Have a clip that can be accessed quickly on DVD and is no longer than about 3 minutes;
remember that your total presentation needs to be no longer than 15 minutes.)

(Several bullet points and/or phrases about some of the key formal elements of the scene)

Works Cited
(Include information from at least one of the class texts: Corrigan, Pierson, Vachon, or
Tzioumakis. Also, have information from at least two additional academic sources.)