Research

and Movie Maker

Guide

Ms. Kerpash 2010-11

Name:______
Hour:______

1

Life in the early 1950’s

You will be working in a team of 4 people to research life during the early 1950’s. We will look briefly at the post war years from 1946 (when Catcher is set) through around 1955. Your group will consist of several specialists:

The Artist

The Musician

The Poet

The Politician

Each person will be responsible for their own research, notecards, and “report*.”

EACH person will need approximately 25 QUALITY notecards from a combination of 4 sources.

EACH day, there will be debriefing time during which each person will share what they have learned with the rest of their team. During this time, you will look for common threads that unite your varied aspects of research.

TOGETHER you will find common themes that give us an idea what it was like to be alive in this era.

TOGETHER you will plan a storyboard and decide what information will be used in combination. For example, can you pair images of abstract art with the reading of a poem? Can you pair the visual of a poem with a song? What order will you use to maximize the impact of your film? While the art may work well in any combination, the politics may be difficult to integrate. . . plan ahead for this and talk about politics as a potential catalyst for the change in the arts or a result of the changes seen in the arts and other areas of society.

Paper DUE Oct 11

Movies Due Oct 13

*I can not justifiably call this a research paper because you do not have an arguable thesis to prove.

Today, you will research key concepts such as abstract expressionism, modernism, as well as key people in your specialty.

This is NOT a biographical research project. I do not want to know about the early life or education of any people you research for this project. I do not want to know when or where they were born, or where they are buried.

What do you need to know?

Artists: choose 1-2 artists. Learn about their technique and style. Consider use of color, shape, format, and content (ie what they paint). Read about their style and create notecards. Your inference should be HOW this relates to change, or a shift away from realism and towards modernism. Gather as many images as humanly possible. To make your life easier, put each image on a power point slide and paste the url in a small box at the bottom of each image (photo credit). You will need to know the title of the painting too. You could create a 2 slide combo for this (slide 1 with title, slide 2 with image and source).

Poets: choose 1-2 poets. Read their poems. Decide which ones speak to you. Consider their use of style (free verse vs fixed form), their use of rhythm and rhyme, literary elements (simile, metaphor). Your inference should be HOW this relates to change, or a shift away from realism and towards modernism. Because the poems may be long, you should be choosy. Go to the databases and read Criticism of the poems. Read what other people say about the poem. If you use their interpretation, GIVE THEM CREDIT!!! Save a copy of any poem you wish to use in the final project in a word doc and make sure you site the source correctly.

Musicians: it may be useful to look at the big-band and swing era of the 40’s compared to the early rock and roll era. Listen to as many songs as you can. Pay attention to the rhythm of the song, the instruments used, the tempo, the content of the lyrics and the intended audience of each song. It may take some effort to find mp3 files. . . be patient. Amazon may allow you to listen to clips. Your inference should be HOW this relates to change, or a shift away from realism and towards modernism. You may also see the emergence of the teenager as a specific demographic.

Politicians: You are specifically researching McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Specifically, look into McCarthy’s rise to power and methods of obtaining information. Your role is very objective. Your inferences may relate to fear, changes in post WWII America, or conformity/nonconformity.

EVERYTHING you want to use in your movie (EVERY sound file, image, video clip, power point slide, etc) MUST be in the same folder before you can put it in the movie. To that end, there are folders already created on the L drive in my teacher folder.

Day 1 Sample

Topic: My assignment was to research a surrealist painter and trace common elements throughout his work. My assigned person was Salvador Dali.

Step 1: First, I had no idea what surrealism was except that I learned about it once in art. So, like you, I gathered info about the time period. I went to a general reference source like an encyclopedia first. In this case, I used World Book.

Step 2: I reviewed the entry on Surrealism to see if I could understand it and use it. I could. So, I made a bib card

Step 3: I found the following passage. I marked the parts I wanted to use:

Surrealism is a movement in art and literature. It was founded in Paris in 1924 by the French poet Andre Breton. Like Dadaism, from which it arose, Surrealism uses art as a weapon against the evils and restrictions that Surrealists see in society. Unlike Dadaism, however, Surrealism tries to reveal a new and higher reality than that of daily life. Surrealism, an invented word meaning super realism, derived much of its theory from the psychology of the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud.

The Surrealists claim to create forms and images not primarily by reason, but by unthinking impulse and blind feeling—or even by accident. Using these methods, the Surrealists declare that alternative realities can be created in art and literature. These realities are as valid as conventional realities and morebeautiful because of their unexpectedness.

Much of the beauty sought by Surrealism is violent and cruel. In this way, the Surrealists try to shock the viewer or reader into a realization that "normal" realities are arbitrary. In the process, the Surrealists reveal what they consider the deeper, truer part of human nature.

Step 4: I felt like I could use a combination of paraphrasing and summarizing to get the main point across. I created 3 notecards.

Once I knew sort of what surrealism was, I wanted to learn more about my person.

Step 5: I consulted a general reference source like World Book encyclopedia.

Step 6: I skimmed the article to determine that it was useful.

Step 7: I created a source card (Bib card)

Step 8: I found the following passage:

Step 9: I decided to create a NOTE CARD for this info. I decided that the first sentence was not anything I could say better, so I quoted it directly.

Step 10: I decided that other sources would probably repeat what the encyclopedia said about themes, so I bulleted their points. I kept the quotes because these were the encyclopedia’s exact words.

Step 11: I wrote down my own connection between all this info to remember what I was thinking. I wrote this inference on the back of the card:

If surrealists want to shock people, maybe Dali uses violence and sex to shock them into questioning what is beautiful.

Freud was obsessed with analyzing dreams to understand the unconscious. Maybe Dali is doing the same thing with images, not words.

Now that I knew a little about the artist and the movement, I wanted to find more info on both and actual ART.

Step 12: I wanted to learn more about Dali, so I decided to find a more thorough source. I chose to go to the CARD CATALOG and search Dali, Salvador

I found 3 books in the library that looked like they would help me. All three were marked Checked In so I knew I could find them.

I wrote down the following key info to help me find the books:

759.6 Cha Dali by Victoria Charles

709 Ros Dali and Surrealists *find this one first*

759.6 Gom Dali by Ramon Gomez

I starred the second one because it was about surrealism too, and I still want to know more about that.

Step 13: I couldn’t find the book by myself, so I asked Ms. McFarland because she is a library goddess. She helped me find the book.

Step 14:I went to the INDEX to see what topics were covered in the book.

Step 15: One of my books had a LOT of images that I thought would show “Nightmarish” dream scenes and detailed figures. I found a few that had sexual or violent overtones.

I made a BIB CARD not for the book, but for those images using the sample

Step 16: I wanted to use the pictures in my movie too, so I had Mr. Welch scan them onto my flash drive. I saved them in my K folder, just in case.

Day 2

Now that I have a good deal of information about surrealism and Dali, I decided to search the databases for more thorough information.

Step 1: I went to the DISCOVERING collection through the PANDA page.

I searched Salvador Dali. I scanned my results for biographies. I chose to look at the first essay.

Step 2: I skimmed through the biography and decided that I wanted to use this source, so I made a BIB CARD

This card is for the online version of a print source

Step 3: I read through the essay this time and took notes

If you need help with citations:

If you use a NON-DATABASE source, you will need to justify its reliability.

Before you take notes from the page, you need to ask yourself:

Who made this site?

What is their purpose?

Are there pop-up or side bar advertisements on this page?

Does the page credibly cite its own sources?

For example, I performed a yahoo search on “Salvador Dali”

The Salvador Dali Museum has a site

Several things let me know this site had credible info.

1) it is a museum

2) it is a .org

3) There is a link for educators

4) you can visit it

5) in the collections section it discusses the history of the paintings displayed

The next site was titled Dali Gallery

I did not find this one as useful or credible

1) it had really fancy flash animation of an elevator to take you to new links

2) they sell things

3) there was not any author bio

4) there was not any information, just images

The last one was another gallery

1) it had ads on the first page so I was leery

2) it sells posters, not originals, again I was suspicious

3) however, it does allow you to read analyses of selected paintings.

4) it had a thorough bio section that matched the content of my earlier research

5) I liked the quotations page and decided to use one

6) the information on the site is not attributed to anyone. The credits page only credits the webmasters not the scholars!!! RED FLAG!!!

TIPS
search the person’s name in “quotation marks”

After the name enter .org or .edu to restrict your search to quality sites

Note Cards

  • Remember to make a bibliography card before you make any note cards
  • Use a slug from your main point outline (main point keyword + subheading keyword) at the top of each note card
  • Put one fact on each card.
  • Use paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting to add information to your cards.
  • In your note cards, you should use a combination of the three.
  • Write a bib code in the bottom right corner of each note card using the following guidelines:
  • If you have the author’s name and a page number, write the author’s last name and page number as indicated here: (Smith 24).
  • If you have the author’s name and nopage number (for online sources, interviews, films, etc.), write the author’s last name: (Smith).
  • If you do not have the author’s name but you have a page number, write the first significant word of the title (not an, a, or the) and the page number: (Guarding 23).
  • If you do not have the author’s nameor a page number, write the first significant word of the title (not an, a, or the): (“Harmless”).
  • Rules regarding the selection of a “significant word” and the punctuation of title include the following:
  • If your first significant word is also in other titles, use also a shortened form of the next publication information provided (such as the book or entire web site title) with the other word.

Example: If you have two articles that include a word, such as “success,” as the first word, then you can’t use that word as the bib code.

“Success is Important” in Time Bib Code: (“Success,” Time 21)

“Success is Attainable” in Secrets of Success Bib Code: (“Success,” Secrets 34)

  • Bib codes should not include the entire title, only a shortened form (thus a significant “word” instead of “words”).
  • Underline (when writing by hand) or italicize (when typing) titles of books, magazine titles, newspaper titles, database titles, movies, music albums, web sites, etc.
  • “Use quotation marks” around titles of articles (encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, database, internet, or otherwise), short stories, poems, song titles, individual web pages, etc.
  • Bib codes should not be web addresses: (

Note cards should be set up like this:

For example:

MY TOPIC / ART TOPICS
What is surrealism?
Influenced by psychoanalysis and Feud
Comes from Dadaism (Foster)
Who is Salvador Dali?
A painter from Spain / What is the
Who is [your topic]?
Themes
Dalí called his Surrealist paintings ‘hand-painted dream photographs” (Misfledt)
detailed figures and objects in unusual or weird combinations (Misfledt)
“Many of his paintings have violent or sexual associations or both.” (Misfledt)
Challenges the definition of beauty by shocking the viewer into seeing that the definitions and standards of what people think is beautiful is relative (Foster) / Themes
ARTIST
Colors, shapes, types of scenes, detail, mediums used
POET
Type and length of writing (Free verse or sonnets?) Topics of poems, series
MUSICIAN
Themes (look at lyrics), instruments, techniques, styles, influences (ie African beats)
Analysis of Work
The Face of Mae West (explain the illusion of a face and the Western elements)
Enigma of Desire explaining the Freudian implications of desiring one’s mother (Oedipal complex)
The Persistence of Memory talk about the dream like imagery, the melting watches and ambiguity of forms similar to those in dreams / Analysis of Work
This is the part where YOU talk about the story, poems, songs, paintings, etc that YOU looked at, thought about, and analyzed
You could organize by THEME or by ARTIFACT
Impact/Conclusion
How he split with abstract art
Pop culture allusions to Dali / Impact/Conclusion
How your person influenced others, maybe even people now

How to write the outline

MY TOPIC / POLITICS
What is surrealism?
Influenced by psychoanalysis and Feud
Comes from Dadaism (Foster)
Who is Salvador Dali?
A painter from Spain / What is The Red Scare
Who is Joseph McCarthy
Themes
Dalí called his Surrealist paintings ‘hand-painted dream photographs” (Misfledt)
detailed figures and objects in unusual or weird combinations (Misfledt)
“Many of his paintings have violent or sexual associations or both.” (Misfledt)
Challenges the definition of beauty by shocking the viewer into seeing that the definitions and standards of what people think is beautiful is relative (Foster) / Rise to Power
Methods of Interrogation
HUAC
Analysis of Work
The Face of Mae West (explain the illusion of a face and the Western elements)
Enigma of Desire explaining the Freudian implications of desiring one’s mother (Oedipal complex)
The Persistence of Memory talk about the dream like imagery, the melting watches and ambiguity of forms similar to those in dreams / Analysis of Event
Impact on Hollywood
Use of Fear
Impact/Conclusion
How he split with abstract art
Pop culture allusions to Dali / Impact/Conclusion
Similar Events or Lessons Learned?

How to write the outline

How to write the paper / Surrealism plays tricks on the viewer by creating illusions of reality in an unreal world. It challenges the definitions of reality by presenting familiar objects in unfamiliar ways. According to Stephen Foster, surrealism grew out of both the Dada movement and the work of Sigmund Freud (Foster). Freud’s explanation of dreams as the expression of the unconscious led many philosophers, writers, and artists alike to question the reality of the world as they perceived it. What was once solid and concrete truth had become a slippery and relative perception rather than knowledge. This influence is made manifest in the art of Spanish painter Salvador Dali.
Dali’s paintings are unique in their often bizarre and surprising combinations of elements. Willard Misfeldt describes Dali’s art as detailed, yet strange in their combination of elements. He also notes that the paintings frequently have violent or sexual themes (Misfeldt). Dali once described his art as “hand-painted dream photographs” (Misfeldt). While these paintings may generate a perverse interest in immature viewers, mature audiences will be aware of the intention of the work or the deeper effect on the audience. Foster claims that these manipulations of reality are used, in part, to challenge the definitions of beauty that are entirely relative (Foster).
Dali’s painting Face of Mae West 1935 demonstrates many of the surrealist techniques for which he most known. In the painting, the illusion of a face is created through the careful arrangement of details. The scene is that of an art gallery. The viewer is looking in on a particular room where a small table rests below a pair of paintings. The wall is red and the floor is a pale beige wood. The room is divided off from the viewer by luxurious golden curtains tied back at the sides of the entry way. The room is elevated by a few curved steps which create the illusion of a neckline. The illusion is that of a female face, in particular of Mae West. The combination of elements plays on the gestalt tendencies of the mind to view separate elements as a cohesive whole. Further, Dali’s depiction of the human form is often fragmented or anthropomorphized through the humanization of mechanical or inhuman parts. Mary Alice Adams explain that Dali’s early work was “mainly drawn from handbooks of abnormal psychology, stressing sexual fantasies and fetishes” (Adams). Perhaps, the objectification of the female form indicates a fetishism on Dali’s part. It could also be seen as a criticism of beauty.
One of Dali’s most widely reproduced painting is The Persistence of Memory in which watches melt on a deserted desert landscape. This theme of melting or distorted time is also evident in Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion, c.1954. The distortion of time is reflective of distorted nature of dreams in which time can be extremely fast or slow. It could also reflect a modernist critique of society and the extremely regimented nature of life in the 20th century during which people’s lives are completely controlled by the clock. In Soft Watch the numbers are literally peeled off the face of the watch and floating off into the landscape. The gold rim of the watch is starting to break away from the face as well. In the lower left corner, a moth or butterfly perches on the rectangle which itself dissolves into the landscape. The silhouette of the moth is similar to the shape of the mountains in the background which gives a sense of balance to the composition. Dali frequently sets his dream like scenes in a desert background such as the one in Persistence of Memory and Soft Watch at the Moment of Explosion.
Dali’s influence is widely evident in popular culture. Parody paintings and digital art imitate the distorted dreamscapes of Persistence of Memory. Throughout the world, sculptors bring his art into the three dimensional world. . . .
What is surrealism?
Influenced by psychoanalysis and Feud
Comes from Dadaism (Foster)
Who is Salvador Dali?
A painter from Spain
Themes
Dalí called his Surrealist paintings ‘hand-painted dream photographs” (Misfledt)
detailed figures and objects in unusual or weird combinations (Misfledt)
“Many of his paintings have violent or sexual associations or both.” (Misfledt)
Challenges the definition of beauty by shocking the viewer into seeing that the definitions and standards of what people think is beautiful is relative (Foster)
Analysis of Work
The Face of Mae West

Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion, c.1954
Impact/Conclusion
How he split with abstract art
Pop culture allusions to Dali

This sample is simply a guide. YOU are responsible for using the resources available to you.