‘Psycho,’ New Orleans and the International English Honor’s Society Convention

I meant to share this news earlier, but the year is already moving quickly. With great excitement, I’d like to announce that I will be presenting a film essay on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho at the 2012 Sigma Tau Delta – International English Honor’s Society Convention in New Orleans next February.

According to the acceptance email, Sigma Tau Delta received 1,200 submissions this year, and one of those essays is “Psychotic Window: An extreme close-up on Marion Crane and Marie Samuels.” Written for my Art of Film Class sophomore year at Marist, the work analyzes the the film’s use of close-ups to show Marion Crane’s transformation to her own evil alter-ego: Marie Samuels.

I not only enjoyed writing this essay, but also the class I wrote it for. Art of Film was my first film theory class and it taught me how much depth films. I grew to appreciate more classic films after having discussions about their themes, techniques, and deeper meanings. This essay was the final assignment for the class, and I watched Psycho more times than I ever want to remember. Even as a film major, I used to be one of those watch a movie once and done type of people, but the class showed me the value in multiple viewings. Even though we were only watching and talking about movies, I grew significantly as a filmmaker and a fan of cinema.

I’m excited for the opportunity to share my essay with a larger audience next month. And of all places to go, New Orleans has been on my list of places to visit for awhile. I’m just as excited to explore the city as I am to talk about Psycho, close-ups and Hitchcock.

For those who will not be attending the conference and would like to read the essay, I’m currently designing a magazine-styled document for digital publication – since no one wants to read a six page PDF of plain text – that I will be releasing soon.