Analyzing Film or Documentary

I chose the short animated film “Hair Love” (Sony Pictures Animation, 2019) because it’s a beautiful example of how powerful storytelling can be without a single word of dialogue. In just over seven minutes, it follows a father learning to style his daughter’s natural hair for the first time and explores themes of identity, family, and representation. 

I think this would work really well in a Media Arts class, because it opens up so many conversations about visual storytelling, character design, and how media can challenge stereotypes. It also highlights how important cinematography is, even in animation. Since there’s no dialogue, and this film is packed with emotions, the story relies on camera angles, framing, facial expressions, body language, music and sound effect to convey meaning.

As Frank W. Baker (Media Literacy Clearinghouse) points out, students often focus on plot and action when talking about movies, so they need practice “reading” a film by paying attention to all these visual elements. “Hair Love” is perfect for that, because it tells its story entirely through images, giving students a chance to analyze camera angles, movement, lighting, expressions, and sound in a very intentional way. 

To build on this, students could watch a few key scenes more than once, with small groups focusing on different elements before coming together to share their observations. Other follow-up activities could include storyboarding their own short silent film, doing a shot-by-shot analysis of a sequence, or creating a project that highlights an underrepresented story. These kinds of tasks will help them really understand the language of film and how it can be used to tell powerful stories. 

References:

Baker, F. W. (2006). To Kill a Mockingbird: Seeing the film through the lens of media literacy. Media Literacy Clearinghouse. 

https://www.frankwbaker.com/mlc/mockingbird-scene-analysis/