Working With 'The Real': Documentary Film History, Theory and Practice, advanced, 30 credits

Main field of study

Course level

Advancement level

Entry requirements

At least three years of undergraduate studies and at least 60 ECTS credits in media production or art education, or the equivalent level of job related work experience within media production.

English corresponding to the level of English in Swedish upper secondary education (English 6/B).
Exemption from Swedish 3/B.

Intended learning outcomes

After completion of the course the student should be able to:
- Show a completed documentary film production and present a film treatment at an advanced level, based on a project idea of the student’s own choosing.
-Make use of materials prepared for promoting the work on a local, national and even international level.
- Demonstrate continued development of and more advanced knowledge about documentary cinema from a historical- developmental view that includes films from the beginning of cinema through to recent examples, with a focus on the artistic production within this broad historical range.
- Make use of the typologies of documentary modes of representation as laid out in contemporary film theory, and apply the knowledge to films seen and to films made.
- Demonstrate and apply advanced knowledge of the production work-flow used in documentary film making from the perspective of a professional involved in a project.
- Verify progress made through the development of a production logbook, used in conjunction with course evaluation and reflection to self-critically judge the strengths and weaknesses of a production’s process.

Course content

The practical side of this course will include more advanced work on developing: film ideas from short pitches to developed treatments; shooting scripts and production plans; different interview techniques, camera and editing styles; and finally, a (limited) focus on funding and distribution, and what to do with a finished film. Students will be free to develop their own film idea, and will produce promotional materials, and target possible and relevant festivals and/or viewing/distribution channels.

The film historical arc of this course will be broad, starting literally with the ‘first films’, proceeding through the development of the term ‘documentary’ itself, and continuing through subsequent developments in the field up to more recent times. Moving through different modes to genres like the compilation and essay film, the course will focus more and more toward what Michael Renov discusses in his book, The Subject of Documentary, as ‘the turn to the subject,’ or works that take into account a ‘history of subjectivities’ that much of documentary film and video has been invested in for the last twenty years or so. This will bring us up to contemporary periods that take up identity politics, and other cultural studies and critical theory oriented areas of production as subjects of documentary exploration. In a second paper, advanced students will apply the historical-theoretical work focused on in the course, to their own film making project (See below).

Teaching and working methods

Teaching will consist of lecture/screenings, where students will actively contribute with oral presentations and discussion, laboratory workshop/exercises in different documentary techniques, and individual and/or group project work. Self-motivated learning, will be facilitated by careful guidance given by the instructor, guest lecturers and project advisors.

Examination

Active participation in lecture/screenings, workshops and exercises is required to pass the course. Students are required to develop a documentary film project, from pitch to final treatment, and to make a video production related to the subject chosen. A production logbook will be kept and turned in. Advanced students will also write two short essays, one applying a theoretical/analytical frame to a specific film, the other, to their own film. The essays, production synopsis-treatment and logbook are to be written in English (or Swedish). A combination of self-assessment, peer-review and teacher-professional assessment will be used in grading student work.

Students failing an exam covering either the entire course or part of the course twice are entitled to have a new examiner appointed for the reexamination.

Students who have passed an examination may not retake it in order to improve their grades.

Grades

Other information

Planning and implementation of a course must take its starting point in the wording of the syllabus. The course evaluation included in each course must therefore take up the question how well the course agrees with the syllabus. 

The course is carried out in such a way that both men´s and women´s experience and knowledge is made visible and developed.

Department