Overview
There are two-part to this project, part one needs to be done in 2 days, after finishing part one, I will extend the deadline for part two for a week.
Films to reference: “The Blair Witch Project”, “Paranormal Activity”, “Cloverfield”
Part one
This assignment is a proposal for the final research paper like your first writing exercise in this class, it is a first crack at presenting a plan for scholarly inquiry and analysis.
As a reminder, a proposal offers you space to do the following:
- Express your research interests and sharpen your focus - what specifically do you want to write about, and why? What are the stakes in doing so?
- Express how your writing links to, makes use of, and perhaps advances critical, analytical approaches in a particular field of study.
- Begin sketching out your claim/thesis without having to fully make an argument: why is your object (and method) of analysis so meaningful, and - for our purposes - what can your approach teach us about a given film/genre, etc.?
Your 1-2 pages should include a brief proposal that sketches out the general / initial plan or idea for your paper topic, as well as a briefly annotated list of at least 1 resource from our course or from your own research and how you might make use of it in your proposed research/writing. You can of course include a second annotated resource, but I'm only necessitating one here, as you might need more time beyond the proposal due date to find outside sources you want to use.
Part 2
Overview:
Drawing upon readings, viewings, lecture and discussion notes, other course materials, and your own interests, you will specifically write an essay based on your own topic selection and research.
- Our approach to Found Footage" has taken us in a lot of directions - some diverging, many overlapping: explorations of the horror genre; questions of privacy and surveillance; personal traumas and moments of joy as documents, as evidence; the fragility and ephemerality of mediums; and the practices, issues, and ethics of documentarians, experimental filmmakers, and archivists - to name a few.