Initial Research

Aims & Objectives

• Must have 10-15 items (including your 3 films)1.These items must be relevant2.These items must be from diverse sources3.Each item will need to be justified in your

annotated catalogue4.There must be items that are not selected5.These items should be clearly referenced in

your presentation script

1. Items must be relevant

• Items are rarely ‘all-encompassing’- i.e. directly answering your question. Instead your presentation script will be the result of an amalgamation of your items

• Items will either be relevant in terms of:- Discussing one of your films- Discussing ‘your’ star/director/subject- Background information (i.e. performance

theory)

2. Items must be from diverse sources

• You must include at least 1 of each of these in your Annotated Catalogue:

• Books• Newspaper Articles• Magazines• Websites

Can also include interviews and conferences but not surveys or questionnaires.

Books

• Excellent for Theory & Depth

• Easy for some subjects (serious auteur film-makers); difficult for others (teen actors)

• www.amazon.co.uk

• http://webview.bfi.hostedbyfdi.net/webview/ (British Library catalogue)

Newspaper Articles

• www.guardian.co.uk• www.thetimes.co.uk• www.telegraph.co.uk• www.independent.co.u

k/

• www.nytimes.com

• Good for reviews & profiles

• Good for background and accessible information

• Strong emphasis on the contemporary and often lacking theory

Magazines

• Appropriate length• Written specifically

from a film perspective• Academic aspect very

dependent on the magazine

• www.imdb.com (find out release dates)

• www.empireonline.com (has a small sample of

articles with some reviews)

• http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/(allows access to the archive but without articles)

Websites• www.sensesofcinema.com• www.brightlightsfilm.com• www.imagesjournal.com

These are three in-depth film websites.

• www.imdb.com• www.wikipedia.org

These are helpful websites for background information but not ideal as one of your items.

• Easiest to research and extremely helpful but your project should not be dependent on this. You must scrutinise and question web sources a little more and seek those that are written by accredited sources or at least you should seek a variety of sources (only one Wikipedia site)

3. Each item will need to be justified in your annotated catalogue

• Your annotated catalogue will require you to write about 70 words about why you chose each item (primarily asking you to focus on the information it contains)

4. There must be items that are not selected

• Even at this stage please browse over sources found in terms of its quality. You must show in your annotated catalogue that you did not simply found items but that you were critical in your selection of items.

5. These items should be clearly referenced in your presentation script

• Even at this early stage, please make a note of relevant details of websites or items that look especially relevant (especially if the website required some additional research).

• We will discuss referencing in more detail soon.

Task

• At this point, you should be finding and browsing sources rather than making concrete notes.

• Your objective is for you to be confident that when you start doing ‘proper’ research you will be able to find a good amount of appropriate sources to ensure your project is of a high quality.