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Taking Notes for The Story of Film Video Series

Steps

  • Create a blog post titled, Story of Film – Episode (WHATEVER THE EPISODE IS…)
  • Place A CREATIVE COMMONS IMAGE related to the episode topics
  • Use SEARCH.CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG 
  • Embed an interesting Creative Commons image at the top of your post
    • Have an image that sums up the gist of the episode
      • It demonstrates your understanding of the content at a higher level
      • It looks cool!
      • Seriously, though, having an image calls attention to your content
      • People don’t care about your content, you have to MAKE THEM CARE
      • Images are powerful attractors to content
  • Copy and paste the episode’s referenced films as text with links from The Story of Film: An Odyssey at Wikipedia
  • Cite your source as Wikipedia and link back to The Story of Film: An Odyssey page
    • Example: “The following material is from Wikipedia.”
  • Take notes as you watch the episode
    • Indent under the film Mark Cousin is referencing and place your notes there
    • These notes will help you on future research projects in high school and possibly in college

Examples

Tutorial

List of Episodes at Wikipedia

Streaming Services (Optional – Not Required)

Story of Film Reviews

  • Slate
    • “TCM’s The Story of Film event is like a great college survey course in your own living room.”
  • NYTimes
    • “The director and narrator, Mark Cousins, a film critic from Northern Ireland (and author of a 2004 book also called “The Story of Film”), aims for comprehensiveness and coherence. He wants to tell the whole story, from Genesis to Revelation, as the saying goes, but he also wants this vast chronicle to have a shape and a point: themes and patterns amid the names, places and images. He succeeds to an impressive extent. The results of his dogged research, compulsive travel and hard thinking are exemplary, useful and sometimes thrilling.”
  • RogerEbert.com
    • “Here’s another, more current take on the problem “The Story of Film” represents. On a recent episode of “The Cinephiliacs” podcast, critic and video essayist Kevin B. Lee spoke of his frustrations with a certain strain of video essay: “It’s really funny, because the video essay is barely, like, five years old, but we’re already starting to see these formulas coming to play. And for me, the number one formula, like the bread-and-butter of video essays, is the scripted video essay with video clips that kind of serve as illustrations to the voiceover. So it’s like, what I mean by this is that the person has come up with the script first, ahead of time. You know, just sort of written out what they want to say, as if it was a text essay, an article, a blog entry. So basically, the words come first, and then it’s just a matter of, you know, it’s almost like you’re filling in a puzzle—you’re taking the pieces of the video from the film, cutting up the clips, and just putting them in their proper place, so that they properly illustrate whatever is being said.”
  • Amazon
    • Reviewer Robert Monschein: “I find it curious that most of the bad reviews of this elaborate and well constructed history complain about nothing but the narration! It is tragic that those who choose to get upset about this minor issue would rather condemn the work rather than accept the genius behind the organization of this epic work. Yes, it ignores some truly great work by remarkable film makers, but then, it encapsulates a century and a quarter of remarkable history in fifteen hours, which is an amazing feat unto itself. Although the organization claims to be chronological, it is much more remarkable in that it shows parallels of style and approach in a way that I have never encountered before. It is truly an amazing testament to the magnificence of the history of world cinema as told from a unique perspective and anyone who cares about the art of cinema will almost certainly be introduced to some new treasures to enjoy.”