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Notes for the Instructor: This assignment asks students to ply the knowledge and tools they have acquired in analyzing the rhetoric of film and challenges them to develop and pitch (but not necessarily film) their own projects. Films can only truly make their arguments when ideas and words are translated into moving images. But before they can be shot, they must be developed and pre-visualized. Although this assignment does not ask students to actually shoot their films, they will experience the early rigors of producing a moving argument. To this end, students will produce a treatment, sample storyboards, and a script, as well as a comprehensive manifesto that articulates and defends the film’s merit. Sample pages from a well-developed storyboarding assignment can be found here.

Assignment Description: Pitch an original film and produce a treatment, sample storyboards, a script, and a description and defense of the film’s merit.

Category: Individual or group project

Goals: The goal of this assignment is to get students to think through the process of developing and pitching a film, and specifically to practice the steps required to use moving images to produce an argument. The end result will be a set of texts: a treatment of the film, a script, sample storyboards, and a manifesto articulating and defending the film’s merits.

Tasks: Every step of your film’s development must be showcased in the form of a website. The website will have at least eight pages:

1. Introduction: The main page needs to briefly introduce your film. It should include a basic image as a banner and include a menu that allows visitors to easily access every part of your film's development process from the Story Statement to the Works Cited Page. The design of this page should serve as a template for all subsequent pages.
2. Story Statement: Write a statement of what your film is about. It should be one or two (but no more than three) sentences long and be based on your central character.
3. Story Outline: You need to come up with a story outline that more explicitly details the major events in your story.
4. Treatment: The treatment should be a present tense prose version of the hypothetically intended screen story.
5. Sample Script: Produce an extract of your treatment in script form.
6. Sample Storyboard: Produce an extract of your treatment in storyboard form.
7. Manifesto: This is the most important part of your project, and accordingly, constitutes the largest portion of your grade. In 4-6 pages, you will clearly articulate and defend the choices you made in constructing your story.
8. Works Cited Page: Although the final project is largely a creative endeavor, whenever you reference another film or text, it needs to be in MLA format and hyperlinked to your Works Cited page.