Planning and Writing Essays
It is like arguing a case in court, in which evidence must be presented in support of or in defence of
an argument, an opinion. Debaters will find it easier.

Suggested approach to writing an essay:
Step 1: Underline key words. Use them in the introduction to your essay.
Step 2: Plan your answer.
. Planning involves the pulling together of learned and understood material into a coherent and
logical order so that a question is answered.

Step 3: Answer the question in properly structured paragraphs. Aim for five paragraphs: an introduction,
three containing the substance, and a conclusion. Use at least one relevant quotation or specific
reference – and preferably more - in each main paragraph.
Questions
1.
Explain how a film you have studied depicts conflict, and discuss how this depiction influences the
viewers' response to the ideas and characters in the film.
2. With close reference to a film you have studied, discuss the various techniques used to
manipulate the viewers' attitude to the characters and events depicted.
3.
In feature films, chronological time may be manipulated in a variety of ways. How is time dealt with in
a feature film you have studied?
Step 1: In feature films, chronological time may be manipulated in a variety of ways. How is time dealt
with in a feature film you have studied?
Step 2: Plan. (In an exam, keep this to a few brief notes.)
Intro
time = 6 – 8 months + past
linear time abandoned for a non-linear structure heavy on flashbacks
paragraph 2
paragraph 3
paragraph 4
passage of time
use of flashbacks
manipulation of flashbacks
conclusion
challenging method – suspense – whydunnit
Step 3: Write an answer
Ensure that specific details and references are included; in film answers, descriptions of shots and other
techniques are the equivalent of quotations in literature answers.
In feature films, chronological time may be manipulated in a variety of ways. How is time dealt with in a
feature film you have studied?
Introduction: Explain
the plot lines, outline
the basic argument;
use key words.
paragraph 2
methods to indicate
the passage of time
(this could be divided
into two paragraphs if
wished)
paragraph 3
use of flashbacks
paragraph 4
repeat key words –
Brad McGann's feature film In My Father's Den, adapted from the novel by Maurice
Gee, focuses on a few months from spring, 2003, when the protagonist, Paul Prior, returns
to his small home town of Rapere Junction after his father dies. Paul has many
unresolved personal problems, not least his antagonistic relationship with his brother
Andrew, stemming from childhood experiences. Paul develops an unlikely friendship with
Celia, a 16 year old girl he suspects might be his daughter; when she disappears, Paul finds
himself the main suspect. Although the novel also uses a mixture of present and past
narrative, McGann manipulates chronological time even more, abandoning the novel's
opening – the discovery of Celia's body – for a much more complex use of flashbacks to
gradually reveal not only her fate but also the truth about a past that haunts all of the
main characters.
McGann uses conventional methods to indicate the passage of time in the present.
The most obvious is the changing of seasons, easy to show in the central Otago orchard
where much of the story is set. Paul arrives home in early spring, when the peaches are in
blossom; Celia gives him a birthday party under the last of the apple blossoms; when she
disappears, the trees are bare and dripping with rain. The seasonal shift is also used to
create mood and atmosphere; the searchers looking for Celia's body walk through rain;
the mist is heavy on the river when her fate is finally revealed, and again when her body is
recovered. Other shifts in time are indicated by changing light and scene changes; the
birthday party begins outside but finishes inside in the den. References in the dialogue
indicate the passage of time: "How long have you been here, Paul? Two days?" Montage is
also used to cover a number of incidents in quick time: the searchers, a distraught Jackie,
an upset Mouse, a calm Penny, Jonathan burning his photos pf Celia. The 17 years between
Paul's leaving and his return are covered quickly via a few newspaper clippings of his
successes overseas as a photojournalist, a speech to the local school, and an interview
with Celia. The sudden time shift from Celia's first visit to Paul (apart from when she
interviews him for school) to her disappearance – a gap filled in later with flashbacks – is
indicated by a FADE and long BLACKOUT before FADING in again with the blossoms
replaced by bare trees.
The non-linear nature of the narrative structure is signalled right at the start of the
film. Instead of a realistic opening, McGann begins with unconnected images that take on
meaning only later. The white page of the atlas, the imprint of a hand, the flying hawk all
relate to incidents in Paul's childhood. Although the next few scenes follow a
conventional chronological order, the first flashback is inserted quite early, as Paul sits in
the verandah of his father's house, unable to go inside and face his past. Instead he
remembers his leaving 17 years earlier. As is often the case with these flashbacks, a
fragment is shown; later the same flashback will be repeated with more detail, building up
a picture of the past and also showing Paul gradually facing what happened, and coming to
terms with it. The flashbacks to childhood and youth are all Paul's memories, the early
ones a mixture of hurt, as he is excluded from his mother's room, and wonder, as he is
included in his father's secret den. The flashbacks are usually triggered by an incident in
the present; when Paul investigates his father's old den, he is shown as a young boy
finding it for the first time. The POV is ambiguous, as the camera PANs from Paul round
the den and back to the young Paul, creating a strong sense that the past is still with us in
the present. Sitting in the bath after an unsatisfactory sexual encounter, Paul is haunted
by fragments of memory: being given the atlas, his mother Iris in the river, the soaring
hawk, a running figure, who is revealed at the end to be Paul himself.
About halfway through, the film shifts in time and genre, from a moody character
piece to more of a 'whodunnit', with the focus shifting to what has happened to Celia.
Chronological time is manipulated even more in this half: the forward narrative structure
ensures essay stays
on topic
is made more complex with the inclusion not only of more flashbacks to Paul's childhood –
specifically, to the few months before he left home – but also of flashbacks to the
months from the start of Paul's friendship with Celia to her disappearance. There are
even flashbacks within flashbacks, as Paul remembers the birthday party Celia organised
for him; he played her a track from Patti Smith's album Horses – and recollects listening
to it with Celia's mother Jackie (Jax) when they were 17. When Jackie arrives and
interrupts the party, another flashback shows a different interruption – this time by
Paul's father Jeff when Paul and Jax are making love. "There's just parts of me you
can't have," Paul says to Jax, echoing similar feelings the adult Paul expressed to Celia
not long before. There is an ambiguity in the time frame here – does Paul remember his
childhood while Celia is there, or only later as he remembers the birthday party?
When Paul is interrogated by the police, the scene is not shown in its normal
chronological sequence – as all other scenes in the present are – but is remembered in
fragments and with VO by Paul as he sits in the police car later. The scene plays with
time logic, says the director, to show the emotional state Paul is in. The climactic scene
of the film is a stand-off confrontation between the two brothers, when Andrew finally
comes clean. As he tells his story, the death of Celia is shown in flashback, as Paul
visualises what Andrew tells him. In a final manipulation of time, the film ends not with
Celia's funeral in 'real' time, but with a flashback to the final meeting between her and
Paul. He gives her the atlas, and a ticket to Spain; she gives him forgiveness for his
betrayal of her trust – and she walks away through the orchard. In spite of the fact that
we know she is dead, this manipulation of time leaves a note of reconciliation, of
forgiveness, even hope that maybe she did escape after all.
conclusion
tie threads together;
try to avoid repeating
what has been said.
Repeat key words
In My Father's Den has a challenging, even demanding, narrative structure, which
forces audience involvement and commitment. The manipulation of time, with its
flashbacks and foreshadowing, so that the story is revealed in its completeness only at
the very end, makes not just for an absorbing character study, and not just for a clever
whodunnit. It also illustrates very clearly one of the main themes of the film – that we
are products of our past, that feelings are intrinsically mixed with memory.
1158 words; the second paragraph could be left out and it would still be a substantial essay (895 words).
The manipulation of time during the scenes when Celia reads aloud her composition on "Hope" could also be
discussed.
Note that the title is underlined (rather than in italics) since this is what students writing an answer
should do. Underlining should not be in red.