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DOC NOMADS EMMC Documentary Film Directing LISBON BUDAPEST BRUSSELS: Exploring without borders CURRICULAR UNIT

Unit of curriculum_1_Documentary_Film_Directing_B

DOC NOMADS EMMC Curricular Unit: Documentary Film Directing B Semesters Name: Semesters Exercise: Say much with less Contact hours: 100 Individual working hours: 150 Duration: 3 semesters Semester: 1st ECTS: 10

Type: Theory and Practice

Graded by: Permanent Evaluation and Assignment

Lecturer: Victor Candeias, with Michael Rabiger Teachers involved: guest project advisors may be invited, but the entire course is supervised and graded by the lecturer. Syllabus of the semester:
Curricular unit contents

The contact hours of lessons in this curricular unit are divided into two parts: Theory and Practice of Doc Film Directing: This part encompasses tuition during the preparatory phases of research and development for students semester projects and continues with theoretical lectures (basics of documentary language, methods of research and approaches to reality subjects; defining narrative and formal concepts; writing synopsis and treatments; pre-structuring for shooting). Field production, Editing and Post: This part comprises only step-by-step tuition during the phases of planning to shoot; analysing of rushes material while shooting progresses; final structuring to edit and post completion (image and sound), which will take place until the period of semester exams. Outside classes, students should carry out all the phases of preparing, shooting and finishing their semester exam projects.

Objective of the curricular unit:


Objectives. Knowledge, abilities and skills to be acquired

This curricular unit aims to give students a practical experience of filmmaking through which they learn how to explore the potential of their own ideas in order to create their first documentaries fully produced in the course, from envisioning them up to accomplishing them in both their artistic and technical aspects. Building on previously acquired basic technical knowledge (camera work, lighting, sound recording, producing, editing and post), this curricular unit will allow students to learn complementary methods and practices that are indispensable for the process of

DOC NOMADS EMMC Documentary Film Directing LISBON BUDAPEST BRUSSELS: Exploring without borders CURRICULAR UNIT

documentary making, from the research and development stages to shooting material and assembling it into a comprehensive film discourse. This learning experience will cover the entire semester, in which classes and tuition will take place in specific periods in accordance with specific development phases of the students projects for their final semester exam, comprising the production of a short length documentary that should demonstrate the ability to deal with film language, form and narrative structure in order to express the treatment of a subject found in the local reality from a personal point of view. Teaching methodologies and assessment:
Planed learning activities, teaching methods and assessment methods and criteria

Classes will focus on essential theoretical and practical topics that students should apply to each stage of their projects development and production. Students will carry out this practical work outside class and during specific periods of time that parallel the sequence of lectures. F o r each phase of work being carried out, students will receive personalized tuition suited to the specifics of the given project. Semester Exam Exercise: students are assigned to make a 5 to 7 documentary film emphasizing a poetic vision about a local reality subject. The projects should be carried out within the required framework and apply the methods and procedures studied in each lecture subject unit. Assessment will take into account both the final outcome of the film and the work results in each phase of its development. Class attendance and participation are also relevant to student assessment.

Main bibliography and films:


Recommended or required reading/seeing

Mandatory reading: RABIGER, Michael Directing the Documentary, fifth edition, Focal Press, 2009 Recommended reading: BERNARD, Sheila Curran Documentary Storytelling 3rd Edition: Creative Nonfiction on Screen, Focal Press, 2010 NICHOLS, Bill Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Indiana University Press, 1992

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