Postgraduate Courses

The Following postgraduate programmes are offered in the division of Film and Television:a) Master of Arts (MA) in Film and Television(A Masters Degree by course work and research report)b) Post-Graduate Diploma in Film and Television

OVERVIEW

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:

An Honours degree with a minumum of 60 % for a PGDA and 65 % for a Masters degree. Students may enter these programmes with appropriate work experience by special permission of the Head of the School of Arts. Entrance into these programmes is also subject to an interview with the Head of the Department.

COURSES:

SHAPING THE DOCUMENTARY

This intensive workshop based course allows students to engage in different types of research methodology and development towards realising a 52 minute feature documentary script. Central to the course is student access to seasoned professional documentary filmmakers who will discuss the different aspects of documentary research and development alongside the students own progress. The students will be expected to develop final proposals, treatments and scripts in preparation for a pitch to international / national broadcasters.

TECHNICAL CORE COURSE

Students wishing to register for the degree with insufficient technical experience in the field of television or film production (specifically camera operation, directing and editing) are required to register for the Technical Production Course. This serves as a prerequisite/corequisite for the Fiction and Documentary Theory and Production courses. The Technical Core Course can be wavered at the discretion of the programme coordinator or Head of Division based on the student s technical competence.

SCREENWRITING

This course is intended for students who have had some experience of dramatic writing. Students need to have written (and should submit) an already written script, play or teleplay, and be committed to the process of developing and writing a full-length (90 minute) feature script.

This workshop-based course aims to take students through a structured process of writing a feature film script, from 2 page outline, detailed treatment, through a step outline into the first draft. Within this structure, students will be introduced to a range of tools and approaches used to facilitate screenwriting. Focus topics include genre analysis, story structure, character development, scene structure and writing dialogue. In contributing to a pluralistic approach different industry professionals will be invited to address the class on processes of writing. In the first quarter students will also write coverage on several written screenplays.

DOCUMENTARY THEORY & PRODUCTION

This course will focus on the role of director as auteur in shaping a narrative voice whilst interrogating and interacting with his/her documentary subjects. The course encourages students to explore their creative filmmaking voice in trying to identify craft and contribute to a new wave of African filmmaking. The objectives are to examine the progression of documentary practice; identify and explore different modes of documentary filmmaking; analyse different types of international documentary and discuss how the voice emerges in each case study; engage in a theoretical discussion alongside analysis of films.

Towards a new wave of African filmmaking students are expected to research, develop and realise a 7-9 minute documentary film that reflects a highly personal and creative point of view.

FICTION FILM

Asian Cinema

The course offers students an opportunity to consider theoretical concerns of representations in Asian cinema with an applied short film outcome. The aim of the course is to offer a series of considerations around the aesthetics and ethics of cinematic representation and its implications in terms of narrative writing and filmmaking. In the course students will be exposed to some of the more central debates, interventions and developments in the canon of Asian Cinema, with a view to how these offer an alternative mode of storytelling to dominant Western paradigms. Looking at a different auteur each week, the sessions examine the shifting cultural and individual interpretations of a core set of cinematic or dramatic principles:

1) character & performance (and what it reveals about national and idiosyncratic conceptions of identity, gender, desire and sexuality),

2) the world of the story (and what it signifies in relation to space, cultural nuance/specificity and how it can function allegorically, or how the director chooses to work with and interrogate the structures of power within a specific culture)

3) plot, structure and controlling idea (and how this underscores or implicates an ideological perspective or worldview)

4) visual storytelling (cinematography & editing - how this reflects a tension between individual, cultural and even international aesthetic imperatives).

The course undertakes to consider the influence of this kind of analysis on the art, craft and practice of filmmaking. The objective is thus that the theoretical work will stimulate and shape the short film outcome expected of the participants. Additionally Students work through two practical filmmaking exercises or concept projects, as well as develop their scripts in the third quarter, moving on to producing the 10 minute short films in the fourth quarter.

RESEARCH REPORT

Students are expected to produce a 15 minute short documentary or fiction film with a concomitant 10,000 word reflexive essay that engages the filmmaking praxis through a theoretical framework

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