Year 11: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS EXAM REVISION

To help you answer q.3: remember that this is not a genre question but a social stereotypes question. You ask yourself, how are social groups represented?

Aim to cover ALL the people in the clip. New paragraph for each group / individual example.

Expressions to help you: 

X is the epitome of the alpha male because...

The representation of disability challenges stereotypes because...
The representation of young people is positive because far from being naive and easily frightened, they......
There is counter-stereotyping in the representation of...

To help you answer q.1:

Characters:

heroes and villains, damsels in distress, sidekicks and henchmen; ordinary guys, chiefs, warriors, bad boys, lost souls, brave hearts, anti-heroes, swashbucklers. 

Use terminology such as ‘generic convention’, ‘heroic protagonist’ and ‘villainous antagonists', 'iconography’, ‘binary opposition’.

Events

Key to writing about this is spectacle (visual entertainment): what makes it exciting, amazingly fast, thrilling, explosions that fill the screen and so on

E.g.: 'One convention of action adventure films is the use of combat and conflict (speed and motion / jeopardy and suspense / spectacle / technology and gadgets). In the extract, the fight between X and Y uses weapons / is hand-to-body combat / employs martial arts... The fight scene creates tension because.... The suspense comes when... The explosions / weapons / violence creates visual entertainment and thrills when....

To help you answer q.2, identify :
(camerawork) shot type / tracking shot / whip pan/ tracking shot / handheld shot/ low angle shot/
(sound) music / sound effect / ambient or diegetic sound
(mise-en-scene) costume / uniform / posture and gesture / props / place / shops / architecture
(editing) montage of shots, shot-reverse-shot, slow editing pace /faster editing pace
 then say what it contributes or achieves

YOUR EXAM QUESTIONS ARE ALWAYS THE SAME:

Question 1 (10 marks: 3 for identifying genre conventions; 7 for your textual analysis)

Explain two  ways in which the narrative (the characters and events) in the extract fits the action adventure genre. Use examples from the extract.

Question 2 (20 marks: 5 for each bullet point)

Explain how each of the following is used to create effects. Give only 2 examples of each:

·      Mise-en-scene

·      Soundtrack

·      Camerawork

·      Editing

Use examples from the extract.

Question 3 (20 marks: 7 representation issues; 13 textual analysis)

Discuss the representations in the extract.

Refer to stereotypes in your answer.

Use examples from the answer.

You might consider representations of gender (how representations of men and women are constructed); 

of age (do the elderly behave as you would expect?); 

disability; 

police force; 

particular occupations; 

English country town