| Unit name | From Text to Screen |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FATV20029 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Perko |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
FATV10001 Filmmaking Fundamentals |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of Film and Television |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
This unit gives students the opportunity to consider the conceptual issues relating to, and engage in the creative endeavour of the transformation of written text (such as a novel or short story) into film or TV drama. Through this process students will be able to reflect on the aesthetic and operational choices that need to be made. While adaptations are omnipresent in our culture, the process of ‘translation’ to the screen is too often taken for granted and poses questions of medium specificity as well as practical challenges. This unit allows students to engage with the complexity of adaptation as a dialogic, critical, interpretive process of reworking and remediation.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
The unit builds on, and enables students to develop, skills acquired in Year 1 introductory units such as Filmmaking Fundamentals. From Text to Screen enables students to work on an initial textual source material, and thereby allows students to focus fully on questions of realisation. The experience gained in this Year 2 unit contributes to student preparation for more substantial/independent filmmaking projects in Final Year and attends to elements of filmmaking such as script editing, casting, and rehearsing performers.
An overview of content
Students will examine a range of adaptations, considering the relations between source text(s) and screen outcome, informed by scholarship on adaptation and intermediality. Critical exploration of adaptation choices will inform student activity as groups begin to assess the aesthetic possibilities of a given or chosen segment of written text. Students will then be supported to adapt this material into a revised screenplay and to go through the process of casting, rehearsing, staging, acting in, filming and editing a short work based on the text.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?
Students who engage with this unit will be more sensitive to decision-making in film and television production, and the multiple ways in which a given text can be realised for the screen. The unit offers a very focused experience of realising a single text, allowing students to develop skills of resourcefulness and concentration.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
1. Interpret written source material, recognising a range of available choices and consequences with a view to dramatic realisation
2. Recognise issues pertaining to aesthetics and ethics that may arise with cross-media adaptation
3. Employ practical and organisational skills to create, as part of a group, an adaptation of written text appropriate to an audiovisual medium and mindful of available resources
4. Critically review self-produced work, contrasting the outcome with source material and other adapted works, as appropriate
Teaching will be delivered through lectures, screenings, seminars, and workshops.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative)
Audio-visual work produced in a group, 6-8 mins (70%) [ILOs 1-3]
Reflexive account, 1200 words (30%) [ILOs 1, 2 and 4]
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. FATV20029).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
