Initial+Proposal

These past few years, I’ve really gotten into movies; //really// gotten into movies. My collection impetuous, my knowledge is impregnable, my movie taste is ferocious; I go as far as to even wanting to make movies one day. As I began to watch movies from different time periods and styles, I began to notice a trend in them. It appeared, to me at least, that troubles in society during the times were deeply reflected in movies. Sometimes, even the opposite effect was prevalent in society. When Jaws came out, people treated the water like an underfed midget leper, avoiding it at all cost. The Bond films are a prime example of this reflection, each movie having to do with the current global scare and even current movie trends. Due to my passion for movies and this intriguing notice, I have decided to make my driving question if there a connection between Society and Movies shown by the plots, characters, and messages in movies and change in human behavior in society? How so? For this project, I’d like to not be up at 4AM the night before working on it. I do not really have any specific plot on how I wish for things to get done at the moment, but I do know that I want to get it done on a timely and orderly fashion. I do know that I wish to get my hands on piece done before my written piece. I’d rather have to spend a few days typing near my due date than having to run around and interview the most random of people for my project. For the project component I plan to interview teachers/students on if they have ever seen a movie that has effected/changed their life, and if so, how did it do so. Whether the answer is directly related to morals or view or of its related to fear does not matter, my point is to only prove movie’s effects on society/people both big and small. The timeline for my project will hopefully rival the one that we were given to follow. I plan to have my final project completed not just the day before it’s due. I’d like to start out with gathering general research online and on books in order to find good information on movies, society, or both intertwined. I know there is a good amount of research already available for the media and its connection to violence, so that’s a strong topic to start at. I plan to also read the National Film Registry’s list of movies that were chosen to be reserved for to be viewed by society in future generations and be acknowledged for their worth. After I get my general knowledge, I’d like to begin to work on my hands on approach in asking/filming students and teachers what movies have affected them and how. If I were to guestimate a time, I’d say that mid to late November would be a good point to have all this done. The rest of the time can be given to icing this cake and also typing up a comprehensive paper for the information I found. This time will also be spent making a very good power point, one balanced with both visual images/videos and text equally for the audience to understand. This class is run by none other than Mr. Martin, I only put forward 100%, nothing less. I personally can’t wait to do the hands on because I feel that teacher and student responses will be vastly different. Kid now-a-days don’t even really watch movies and when they do they’re Apatow comedies, nothing really too heavy. I’m sure older teachers will have better stories about dramas, horror movies, and Al Pacino while my generation will talk about comedies, gore films, and Michael Cera; it will truly be interesting though

In order to complete my topic, I’m going to need to do extensive research not only on popular movies throughout the 1900s, but also on major societal evens, whether political or trend focused. I’ve done pretty well in movie research due to the knowledge I have gained from movie watching, but the information on society I will need to explore much deeper. I only know a few basics on the societal influence (Jaws, Teen Slasher Movies, Scarface, etc). In order to find out about society, I can find that online but since it’s a movie I can…you know, watch the movie and make connections myself. Obviously I can’t do that with all movies, but I can do that with a few key ones that I suspect link with our society somehow. I see this project involving a lot of research that I cannot simply find on the internet. I’ll be able to find information on society and movies separately but on the direct correlation I will not be able to. The connection I have to make myself, which should not be too difficult, will just be a bit of research and having a careful eye during movies to solve. Times I hope to keep well managed and maybe even finish early. This project is a passion of mine, so why shouldn’t I be passionate to work on it? If I were to ever lose passion for it, I know my mentor Rich Schaeffer has my back. Rich is a good friend of mine so I know his opinion will be brutally honest. He won’t be afraid to tell me where my project lacks and if need to add more to my project/paper, Rich is a good guy. He also respects Mr. Martin like no other and only gives 100%, so considering this, with Rich’s help I’ll be giving Mr. Martin 200%. The research paths I shall take for my topic can be met by multiple means. I shall start out like most students do by searching about my topic online. This offers me an entry point into the topic, seeing what others have found on the topic before I had. With this general knowledge of the topic, I may be able to expand upon it with my own research. This may be done by using my local library to find books about the topics of movie and societies, whether it be violence or evolution. I will also have to find separate information on important events in society and see if any movies around the time it came out reflected this or vice versa. Luckily most movies have a trivia or welcome forum to discuss so I won’t have too big of a problem. My research path does not branch far due to limited resources of simply movies themselves and books on society/movies, but the path I take shall hopefully be well planned and brisk. The National Film Registry shall be my main source for finding movies to measure to society. NFR selects movies to be held in their library if it had some impact on the time, whether it is a complete movement or a cultural standing. Either way, the NFR is known for making down films that summarized the times and had well filmed scenes of brilliance, so the NFR shall be a great source for movies. For Societal problems, I’ll most likely have to look at books, the internet, and old newspapers. Old newspapers will obviously have a bit about urgent headlines from the times, so that’ll help me really see what a real problem to real people was. Some of my research will require my own connections and research to be made, but the sources I have will benefit me greatly. No man is perfect, not even myself; I do foresee some problems ahead of me. Due to how specific my topic is, much of the direct research will have to come from myself. It may be a bit hard to find sources that will genuinely help me, but all it takes is a bit of deep thinking and help from a few teachers to find me information. I shall also have to plan wisely on how to make my topic cover the required time limit for the power. As much as I’d like to just show clips of movies the whole time, I will have to delicately balance my power point as if it is an art. But this is simply me being modest; Mr. Martin knows that I have no flaws.