Unit name | Screen Technologies: Colour Cinema |
---|---|
Unit code | DRAM23130 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Professor. Street |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Film and Television |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit surveys and analyses the aesthetic and technological history of colour cinema from the silent period to contemporary trends. Particular attention will be paid to cinema’s relation to other colour media (photography, mass advertising, painting, stage design) and to aesthetic debates in philosophy, art history, film and literature over the perceptual effects and influences of colour. The unit will also cover ‘reading’ films from the perspective of colour, and their influence on mise-en-scène, narrative address and symbolic impact. Works (primarily from British and Hollywood cinema) to be covered include films from early cinema (Annabelle Dances; An Impossible Voyage), narrative cinema of the 20s (The Toll of the Sea, The Black Pirate, The Lodger), Technicolor of the 1930s (Becky Sharp, Gone With the Wind, Wings of the Morning), melodrama and musicals (All that Heaven Allows, Singin’ in the Rain, Blanche Fury), European art cinemas (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann, Red Desert), experimental film (Len Lye, Harry Smith, Oskar Fischinger, Stan Brakhage), and contemporary cinema (Days of Heaven, Careful, Hero, Pleasantville, Tetro).
Aims
Plus as appropriate to the mode of teaching, that is, the combination of seminar and practice-based workshop and/or presentations:
Seminars, workshops, screenings, as appropriate
Optional units may be taught according one of three models, depending on student numbers choosing the option and resource matters. Unit convenors will decide on teaching mode in consultation with HoE and with students in advance of advertising option year-on-year. Contact hours and assessment details will be mapped to teaching mode, as detailed below.
Model A is a seminar-based unit
Model B combines seminars with workshops encompassing an average 30-hour production period
Model C is taught through workshops encompassing an intensive 60-hour production period
Teachers will assign assessments according to the teaching mode employed.
Model A:
3,000-word essay (50%) + student presentation (25%) + 1,500-word write-up (25%), or equivalent.
OR
Model B:
Essay [1,500 words] (33%) +
Workfile (22%): containing evidence to demonstrate student contribution to workshops / practical exercises; contribution to seminars Presentation/performance (22%) Critical analysis [1,500 words] (22%)
OR
Model C:
Workfile (33%): containing evidence to demonstrate student contribution to workshops / practical exercises; contribution to seminars, preparation & execution of technical production role Presentation/performance (33%) Critical analysis [1,500 words] (33%)