Introduction:

Introduce your film – title, director, main actors, release date, genre, awards, plot/storyline, fame or lack thereof, etc. Your thesis will state what message (or messages) is/are in the film, whether the message is successfully conveyed to the audience, and a short summation of the scenes that help bring this message to life for the viewer.

Body Paragraphs:

The topic sentence will introduce a particular scene that either individually or collectively (with other, successive scenes) conveys the message/s of the film. The paragraph will then provide description of the scene and what happens in it. Subsequently, the paragraph will provide analysis of the scene:

1. Supporting detail that looks at how actors and their interactions/lines help to convey the message.
2. Supporting detail that looks at how ethos, pathos, and/or logos in the scene help to drive the point home to the viewer/convince the viewer of the message.
3. Supporting detail that analyzes how particular visual elements in the shots also convey the message.
4. Supporting detail that analyzes how music (or the absence of it) or sound helps to convey (or detracts from) the message.

The body paragraph will end in a concluding sentence that summarizes the analysis and point of the paragraph.

(One to two paragraphs may be devoted to analyzing each scene. Four or five essential scenes that convey the message/s will be analyzed. Thus, there could be 5-10 total body paragraphs.)

Conclusion:

Sums up the entire paper. Reiterates the overall message of the film and how the scenes analyzed help to convey it. May make a point about which elements of the film stick with the viewer the most (whether it’s a rhetorical appeal, the scene design, the music, the acting, etc.), as well as what the viewer will be left with after having seen the film. The conclusion can also make a point about where the film, overall, stands in terms of its genre (the best of its genre, the middle, or the worst) and whether it is indeed worth watching (not even once versus many times).