This booklet is intended as an introduction to the first part of the AS Film Studies course which covers material related to Paper 1 of the external examinations, taken from Section A: Hollywood 1930-1990 (comparative study).  In this section, students are required to study two films representing two different eras of filmmaking.  Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) is used to represent Classical Hollywood, an era which spans 1930-1960; while Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) is used to represent New Hollywood, an era which spans 1960-1990.  Students will study many aspects of these films, including: how key features of the reflect an “auteur signature” or individual style of filmmaking; how key features reflect an “auteur signature” in terms of themes which recur in the films of a so-called auteur director; a recognition that some auteurs have a stronger signature than others; how key features of the films reflect their production contexts (e.g. stylistic features, the presence of stars, the nature of the narrative and production values); and a recognition that production contexts are likely to have an impact on the nature of the narrative and its representations (which may form the basis of the comparison of the two films).  The booklet includes specific shots taken from both Vertigo and Blade Runner, accompanied by the kind of questions which would be used in a typical AS Film Studies lesson.  At heart, the subject is broadly comparable with AS English Literature, and, in much the same way students would take notes on set texts in English as preparation for external exams, so too in AS Film Studies, students build up a set of notes on each set film as preparation for two external exams at the end of a two-year linear course.