Return to AS Film Studies Index The Macro Reading

What is the focus of your close analysis?  It should be a 'macro' element - a 'big' element that depends on the knowledge of the spectator of other film texts.  For example, this may be to do with the way the extract mobilises genre conventions.
A reading is a close analysis of a film extract.  A close analysis should take into account the formal properties of the extract (like the editing and the shot types etc.) and should also focus on a particular aspect of the extract.  Your reading needs a title that expresses the focus of your analysis.

But a reading is not an essay.  You do not need to come to a conclusion or give any background to the film.  You do not even need to summarise the film itself.  But you should say what genre we are dealing with and briefly explain where the extract occurs in the film.

You analysis should then move through the extract in chronological order, explaining how the spectator is bringing expectations to the act of making sense of the sounds and images as they pass before the eyes.  It may also be that the extract is deliberately provoking these 'knowledges' in the spectator.

Therefore, because this is a macro reading, you should pay attention to the 'bigger' ideas that may be operating.  These might be to do with how the audience is being prepared for what will happen, or how something that has already happened in the film is being developed; it may be to do with how certain generic elements are being used (the gunfight in the western etc.); it may be to do with how the actor is reproducing another type (when Arnie says, "I'll be back!" for example); it may be to do with how another film is being referred to in, say, the music.

A 'macro' extract can be up to about seven minutes long and your close analysis can go up to 1500 words.


A reading is not an essay.  Follow your extract through in chronological order, commenting on the macro elements as you go.  Don't have these issues 'floating' free of extract details in a lengthy introduction or conclusion.

What are the big ideas?  What are generic characters?  What are typical things that happen in this kind of genre?

How are stars or actors in  your extract reproducing the roles they usually give?  Or going against these expectations?