On the Scene: Analyzing Scenes in Film and Literature

clooney and farmiga in 'up in the air'Dale Robinette/Paramount Pictures George Clooney and Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air.”Go to related review » Go to related video feature »
Lesson Plans - The Learning NetworkLesson Plans - The Learning Network

Media Studies

Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.

Overview | What are the elements of a scene? How does deconstructing scenes reveal meaning? In this lesson, students start to think like film directors by storyboarding an experience from their lives. They then examine the Times Movies feature “Anatomy of a Scene” and develop their own analyses of scenes from film and literature.

Materials | Computers with Internet access and a projector; selected video clips from NYTimes.com; handouts.

Warm-Up | Invite students to brainstorm the basic “vocabulary” of film, and write ideas on the board. Their list might include opening shot, characters, setting, camera angle, shot, lighting, costumes, props, music or soundtrack, etc. Leave this list on the board to refer to throughout class.

Next, provide the following prompt:

Think of your morning as a collection of movie scenes. Free-write about the main moments you’ve lived so far today – the anxiety of a classroom full of students awaiting a test, the fight you had with your little sister over your new boots, the embarrassing episode in front of the girl or boy you like, or even just what you ate for breakfast. Describe the scenes you choose in as much detail as possible, including dialogue whenever you can.

Once students have finished writing, have them form pairs or small groups of “filmmakers,” with the task of choosing one group member’s scene and imagining it as a scene in a movie by storyboarding. (If they are reluctant to share, allow them to work individually.) After they choose their scene, they should talk about what they will need to think about and decide in turning the jottings into a movie scene. Examples: Who are the “characters”? Where is the scene set? How will the scene open – what is the opening shot? What is the mood, and how can it be established – by music, other elements? What props are needed? What action takes place in the scene? What do the characters say to each other?

Ask students to draw rectangles in their journals to create storyboards like this one, and sketch central bits in the scene in each rectangle. Underneath or next to each rectangle, they should jot down important information about that moment.

Once students have finished their planning, invite the groups to share their ideas. Discuss the following: Do you think these would really make for good movie moments? Why or why not? What’s the difference between scenes we live and scenes we see in movies or read in books or plays? How do directors shape the events of “real life” to make them story-worthy? What is subtext? What techniques can directors use to bring out subtext?

Tell students that today they will be reading films in the same way they read literary texts. Ask: Do you think you need to be familiar with a film’s subject or setting in order to fully “get” it? Why or why not? How can films reinforce, or challenge, a viewer’s experience and opinions? How can they introduce new ideas and experiences? Can you think of any movies you have seen in which familiarity with the content helped you understand and enjoy it? Can you think of any in which your unfamiliarity with the content opened your eyes?

You may wish to introduce the subject of the film they will consider first, Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” (based on the novel of the same name by Walter Kirn), whose main character is a frequent air traveler.

To evoke students’ associations, ask: How many of you have been to an airport recently? If you’ve never flown, how do you imagine the airport experience? How does being in an airport feel? What process must travelers go through between arriving at the airport and boarding the plane? What hassles are associated with flying? What would make the experience smoother and easier? If you were going to shoot a movie scene set in an airport, what details would you want to include?

Tell students they will now watch a scene from “Up in the Air,” in which the lead character, Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, goes to the airport.

Related | In “Anatomy of a Scene: ‘Up in The Air,’” the director Jason Reitman describes how he shot the airport scene.

View the feature with your class, using the questions below. Notice that you can adjust the volume of the director’s commentary vs. the soundtrack of the scene itself with the slide bar at the right. First, show students the scene without commentary. Then, show it again, playing Mr. Reitman’s commentary.

Questions | For discussion:

  1. What do you notice most when watching this scene?
  2. Think about George Clooney’s line about the “systemized touches” of the airport experience — how does the way in which this scene was shot reflect this phrase?
  3. What light does the director shed on this scene in his commentary?
  4. How does it change the way you view the scene?
  5. Do you think Mr. Reitman made the right choices – fast cut versus slow motion – for this scene? Why or why not? How does his choice affect you?



Activity | This is a two-part lesson, in which students consider additional “Anatomy of a Scene” features and how filmmakers’ decisions produce reactions in viewers, and then create their own movie “Anatomies.”

Part 1

Show students another “Anatomy of a Scene” feature, or multiple features. Suggestions: the feature on “Precious,” based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire, or, for younger students, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” based on the novel by Roald Dahl. Additionally, you might show students one or more clips from Critics’ Picks, in which Times movie critics discuss the highlights of selected movies.

Depending on your curricular focus, you may wish to choose features with a certain focus. For example, in the “Up in the Air” feature, Mr. Reitman discusses how the scene was shot, and tells us a bit about character; in the one on “Precious,” Lee Daniels explores the emotional undercurrents in the scene; and in “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson explains the visual imagery and technique. In the feature on “It’s Complicated,” Nancy Meyers discusses wardrobe, body language and subtext along with camera shots and angles; in the one on “Nine,” Rob Marshall focuses on visual imagery, color and symbolism.

If the class’s focus will be entirely or partly on acting and performances as opposed to filmmaking, you might show “The Best Performances of the Decade.”

Discuss the features with students, focusing on what light the director or critic, as appropriate, sheds on the film, and whether and how the commentary affects how viewers “read” the scene(s) shown.

Remind students that great films are constructed in the same careful way as great novels or plays, without stray scenes, images or lines. The best directors draw on their “intimate, comprehensive understanding of how sound and image work together to create meanings and moods,” as A. O. Scott put it in his review of the Martin Scorsese film “Shutter Island.” The choices made by the screenwriter, director, actor and other crew members are deliberate, and viewers’ reactions are responses to these choices.

You may wish to delve more deeply into film terminology before going further. Guide students to think about how these film aspects and techniques cause reactions in viewers, and show them examples of some techniques.

Part 2

Explain to students that they will now work in groups to create their own “Anatomy of a Scene” features. You might wish to select one of the following options as the foundation for the activity:

  • Student-selected favorite films.
  • Teacher-selected films being taught as primary text or as part of a literary unit.
  • Students’ own films.

For a Shakespeare unit, for example, student groups might study the same scene from three different versions of a play like “Romeo and Juliet” or “Hamlet,” and analyze how the scene works in each case, providing fodder for comparison. In a filmmaking class, student directors would choose one scene from their movies to explain.

Provide each pair or small group with the Anatomy of a Scene handout (PDF) to guide their analysis. Make sure that they watch their chosen or assigned scenes numerous times; you may also want them to do some research on the movie and director to inform their own insights.

With their handouts complete and their focus in mind, students write and rehearse the scripts for their commentary, to be presented alongside the film clips.

Finally, have students present their “Anatomy of a Scene” features, by recording them on video or audio and playing them alongside the film clips, or by turning the volume down on the film and reading the commentary aloud as their classmates watch the scene.

Going Further | Students apply the principles of “Anatomy of a Scene” to a textual scene, again using the handout to guide them. Options include these:

  • Assign or allow students to choose a scene they feel is pivotal in the work and write an “Anatomy”-style essay explaining why it is crucial to the plot or themes or to understanding characters in the work as a whole.
  • Students analyze their assigned or chosen a scene and create “Anatomy of a Scene” audios, videos or live presentations, as they did for the film.
  • Students analyze the scene in the source novel or play that corresponds to the film scene they looked at in class. Later, they compare the scene on the page to the scene on the screen.
  • Assign or have students choose a New York Times article to imagine as a film, using the handout Telling a Times Story (PDF).
  • Students choose a scene from the text you are studying and write a “pitch” describing how they would go about filming it and the specific choices they would make and why.

In a future class, have students share these textual analyses. To wrap up, discuss the differences and similarities between analyzing a visual medium like a movie and a textual one like a novel or play.

Standards | From McREL, for grades six to 12:

Language Arts

6. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts.
7. Uses the general skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts.
8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes.

Visual Arts
1. Understands and applies media, techniques and processes related to the visual arts.
2. Knows how to use structures (e.g., sensory qualities, organizational principles, expressive features) and functions of art.
3. Knows a range of subject matter, symbols and potential ideas in the visual arts.
4. Understands the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
5. Understands the characteristics and merits of one’s own artwork and the artwork of others.

5. Understands how informal and formal theater, film, television and electronic media productions create and communicate meaning.
6. Understands the context in which theater, film, television and electronic media are performed today as well as in the past.

Arts and Communication
1. Understands the principles, processes and products associated with arts and communication media.
2. Knows and applies appropriate criteria to arts and communication products.
3. Uses critical and creative thinking in various arts and communication settings.

Life Skills: Working With Others
1. Contributes to the overall effort of a group.
4. Displays effective interpersonal communication skills.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Matthew H. Davidson March 6, 2010 · 8:18 am

The organizing concept in the foregoing is revealed with the line, “How does deconstructing scenes reveal meaning?”

“Meaning” ? *WHAT* meaning? Movies are a commercial enterprise—show *business*, emphasis on business.

Box office successes give the audience what they want and ***expect***, presented in a way that is OBVIOUS and INEVITABLE.
Movie-going is a *collective* enterprise, hence its appeal to government-school “teachers” who never saw a collective they didn’t like.
Furthermore, few claims can be made for its legitimacy as a classroom subject: Movies are viewed ***IN THE DARK*** the better to fully engage the emotions, the subconscious.
Movies are not any kind of intellectual exercise. They are not a learning experience. Crowds in the dark can only be ratified and validated in their preconceived emotional reactions.
Adolf Hitler knew as much, and that insight took him a long way.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked in movie theaters for twelve years: drive-ins and “hard-tops” [indoor theaters] both, managing one theater on Times Square.
Movies can be fun, a pleasant diversion.
BUT THEY CAN NEVER, EVER be anything more than that.
Attempts to inflate their “significance” says lots about the pathology of those advocating an enterprise such as getting students to “think like directors”.

Thinking is a skill—it must be learned, preferably under the guidance of a qualified professional. Anyone urging a student to “think like a director” is revealing more about their own inner fantasy lives than they think: A student who can *really* think will reject the proposal above as the moist and fluffy time-waster that it is.

Matthew – I believe that helping a student “think like a director” is really not as bad as you might think. I understand your concerns. We don’t have to like or respect the entertainment community if we don’t want to – but, that does not mean that their planning strategies and techniques are not valuable. The detailed planning and forethought required to create a movie scene definitely has its place in the classroom.

If there is one thing that students lack today, it is the desire to think things through. Part of what teachers are finding in the classroom is that our students are becoming used to an instant everything environment that they are currently being raised in. So, many students think that their brainstorming and prewriting tasks should be instant as well. A lesson like “On the Scene” could offer students an enjoyable opportunity to slow down and practice being better planners.

Even if we want to reject the Hollywood mindset, there is no denying that much thought and planning goes into making a movie. Just one scene can have hundreds of camera shots (all planned out in advance) with a firm starting place and a specific end in mind. Such brainstorming skills are a must with our student writers. Actually, planning a scene somewhat resembles the prewriting strategies used for essay writing only it has the potential to interest the student more than simply creating an outline for yet, another paper. Ultimately students will still need to write that essay – however, teaching the students how to think about a scene (essay) from beginning to end with a storyboard (outline) can help them practice those needed skills in an enjoyable setting.

I teach 8th grade English students in SW Virginia and when some of my students opt to create a skit or a movie to demonstrate their knowledge about a subject, they end up planning more than any of the other groups. They spend much time thinking of the dialogue and what message they want their viewers to have by then end of their presentation. It is wonderful to observe. They are practicing the skills they need to help them successfully become better writers – not really learning how to be directors.

Many aspects of this lesson really do seem like they will help teach students to think and plan. The lesson has the potential to be more than a “moist and fluffy time-waster.” Helping students to direct their own planning and writing could lead to a happy ending for this lesson (o: