Abstract
This article outlines an exploratory approach to the delivery of film practice education, as developed and tested with a second-year undergraduate module in cinematography. Students were provided with two existing creative sound pieces composed by a professional sound designer within the context of an AHRC-funded practice research project entitled Affective Cinema. These aspects of sound design inspired and informed the students’ work, while allowing them to focus upon the module’s key learning outcomes as related to camera and lighting skills. Above all, the approach allowed for aspects of the film theory synthesised through the preceding research – and pertinent to the nature and unique expressive potential of film – to be partially absorbed and learned by the students through practical experimentation, thus becoming an embodied, tacit practitioner knowledge. In this respect, I argue that such approaches help transcend the fraught divisions between film practice and film theory.
Highlights
In my experience studying and teaching on a variety of higher education film production courses in the UK, group projects are usually the norm when it comes to practical assignments
Students were provided with two existing creative sound pieces composed by a professional sound designer within the context of an AHRC-funded practice research project entitled Affective Cinema
The approach to undergraduate module delivery informed by the Affective Cinema research, as discussed here, is applicable – I would argue – to practice-based film education
Summary
In my experience studying and teaching on a variety of higher education film production courses in the UK, group projects are usually the norm when it comes to practical assignments. As the comments of the students illustrate, the sound design pieces composed by industry professional Rob Szeliga played an important function in both teams’ creative pursuits – a process that was usefully enabled by alternating practice and reflection This afforded the students an opportunity to expand upon their initial ideas for their projects in exploring the expressive potential unique to film as a medium. Despite not explicitly verbalising the theory underpinning the approach to the module, the students’ comments can be seen to resonate with these theoretical concerns This theoretical understanding was secondary within this practical module, the ambiguous and affective nature of Szeliga’s soundtracks – as well as their strong potential for giving rise to defamiliarisation when combined with expressive visuals – helped to orient students towards the learning outcomes, which had been informed by the theory, and yet materialised as practitioner understanding (especially when supported or teased out by the process of reflection). Even in such cases, the pivotal role that Szeliga’s soundtracks played within both the conception and the post-production stages led to a consistent level of emotional ambiguity and/or expressive connotation in these films, making it likely that the future practice of many of these students will be affected in some way by this experience
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