SCREEN 300
Documentary Video Making
Please note: this is archived course information from 2018 for SCREEN 300.
Description
Instead of crafting scenarios and characters wholly produced by their imagination, documentary filmmakers tell stories by looking to the world around them. This course teaches students how to make short documentaries. It encourages them to tell stories based in and of the world they inhabit rather than the one they conjure.
Over the course of the semester students will make three short documentary film projects. These projects are designed to help develop a range of skills that are fundamental to the craft of non-fiction filmmaking. Some of these skills include how to recognise and construct narrative, how to tell a story visually, how to respond nimbly and creatively to events unfolding in real time and how to negotiate with people. Basic technical proficiency with respect to cinematography, sound and editing is expected but some class time will be spent on technical instruction.
This course is project based and some of the work will rely on collaboration and take place in groups. The course aims to develop creative and technical skills by "doing" which means practising filmmaking consistently over the course of the semester.
Provisional class limits information for 2018: Enrolment is limited to 20 students. Students must have successfully completed the SCREEN 200 and 201, and will also be selected on the basis of the qualitative assessment of a 250-word statement.
This is a resource-heavy course (camera/sound equipment, check-in/out and tech maintenance, access to limited editing and audio suites) as well as project heavy. As an experiential learning course with intensive workshopping, demonstrations and project based teaching, small class sizes are required to adequately attend to each student.
Availability 2018
Semester 1
Lecturer(s)
Coordinator(s) Associate Professor Sarina Pearson
Points
SCREEN 300: 15 points
Prerequisites
SCREEN 200, 201 and approval of Academic Head or nominee
Restrictions
FTVMS 301