Film Journalism

Optional courses

In addition to the Core Courses, students study two additional options which can be drawn from any programmes in the College of Arts.

In Semester One, students are strongly encouraged to take the History of Critical Writing on Film and Television Option, which was designed specifically for the Film Journalism programme.

History of Critical Writing on Film and Television
This course examines the rich tradition of critical writing on film and television as a way of exploring significant moments/movements in the history of critical writing on film and television, paying particular attention to the values that inform such writing. The intention is to look at a variety of writings which have had an impact on screen culture, including essays, interviews and internet sites. We will look at the why some films and television programmes (and books about film) are identified as ‘the best’ and at the different ways they are written about.  We will look at how writers conceive of audiences and viewing practices as well as how they write about particular films or television programmes. We will look at influential journals, publishers and film festivals and examine the role, for instance of Cahiers du Cinema in creating Hitchcock, and quality television and the BFI in identifying television classics.

This course should work with the MLitt core courses and you should feel free to use ideas generated here to contribute to other work on your programme provided of course that you do not use the same material for two different pieces of assessment. This course is intended to help your own writing by looking at how specific examples of film writing are structured and presented. We will be looking at different writing styles and if you wish discussing problems you have with your own writing.

In Semester Two, students take one of the Film and Television options, or any other option from the College of Arts. The options change from year to year, however, in 2010/11 they included:

Screen Adaptations
Adaptation is endemic in film and television. Although often associated with the ‘classic’ novel, adaptations cover everything from comics and computer games, plays and musicals, fairy tales and foreign novels, detective series and glossy versions of long-forgotten best sellers. Hollywood, Bollywood, the BBC and HBO look to adaptations for material which already has a track record with audiences. Adaptation studies has been experiencing a renaissance recently and has extended its range to look at re-makes, sequels and transcultural borrowings. In addition, the emphasis on faithfulness as a key factor has been successfully challenged and the study of adaptations now works with notions of text and context in a way which can extend conventional film and television studies. This course will explore what is at stake in adaptation of all kinds in terms of textual organisation, context and cultural value.

Multi-Strand Narratives in the Fiction Film
This course focuses on multi-strand narratives in the fiction film in two ways: firstly, it encourages an investigation of the relationships between different characters and situations in any type of film narrative format. The key critical motivation here is to pay attention to the “full population” of a cinematic fictional world, rather than concentrating solely on the ostensible protagonists. Secondly, the course will consider texts which seem particularly multi-layered. That is to say, the focus will be on films that are composed of more than one “core material” in at least one aspect of film narration (e.g. films that feature multiple voiceovers; that make extensive use of split-screen; that spread their attention evenly across a large number of characters; that mix up multiple time-frames; that feature more than one actor playing the same character).

As a postgraduate course, a high level of student engagement is expected. There will be set screenings and readings, however, the precise make-up of each session will rely heavily on students’ work, whether in the form of seminar discussion, presentations or analysis of relevant audio-visual material. Students are encouraged to use their own initiative in terms of further viewing and reading.