Documentary Film and Visual Rhetoric - excollege.tufts.edu

1 Maxim Pozdorovkin Tel: 914 374 4334 Documentary film and Visual Rhetoric EXP-0057-F. credit Letter-graded Tuesday 6:00-8:30 PM. As more and more of our history personal as well as global is recorded and stored for posterity, knowing how images can be used to make persuasive arguments and tell engaging stories is more important today than ever. Part filmmaking workshop, part seminar on the history of Documentary , this course is an experiment poised at the intersection of practice and theory. The production of original video work will serve as a springboard for thinking and discussing the critical issues at the heart of non-fiction filmmaking. We will begin the course by making a photo-essay and using the project to engage philosophical questions about the meaning of photographs. From there, we will go on to consider early actuality films, found footage compilations, creative uses of sound and voice- over, the poetics of direct cinema and essay films of the 1960s, as well as the role of Documentary in a digital culture.

2 In addition to looking at films that challenge the conventions of Documentary , we will discuss familiar forms of Visual Rhetoric such as advertisements, sport events, and television news reports etc. Discussion of Documentary and Visual Rhetoric will be incorporated into the workshop and discussion of student work. Prerequisite: While not absolutely necessary, familiarity with editing software (iMovie, MovieMaker, FinalCut, Avid) is strongly recommended. If you've never edited video before you may still take the course but should do so with the understanding that you will not receive extensive instruction on how to edit video. Please allot ample time to familiarize yourself with one of the programs above. Grades: %20 attendance, class and workshop participation, %30 Photo Report project (each of the projects three parts will be worth approximately 10%);. %20 Anatomy of an Event essay %30 Final Project Required Texts: Barthes, Roland Image, Music, Text New York: Hill and Wang, 1977.

3 Vaughn, Dai For Documentary : 12 essays. University of California Press; 1. edition (September 15, 1999). Additional readings will be distributed in class and electronically. Screenings: While we will screen some material in class, I will also ask you to screen films on your own time. These films will be on reserve at the library or will be available to download from a private FTP server set-up for the course. Projects: Photo Report This three-part project is designed as a step-by-step exercise in the basics of video editing software as well as an introduction to the fundamentals of Visual Rhetoric . For this project you are to produce a photo-report/photo-essay on a topic of your choice. For the first part of the project, you are to show a slideshow of still photographs (25-40 stills) at a uniform rate of projection (3-5 seconds per photo). For the second part of the project, you may introduce duration and graphic modification (scale, color correction, movement) into the slideshow.

4 For the third part, you will introduce sound into the mix, writing and recording a voice- over, doing sound design, creating a soundtrack. Anatomy of an Event 5-page critical essay analyzing the Visual Rhetoric of a televised event. What is the Visual grammar of the event? How do the technical choices engage/persuade us? The event to be analyzed is of your choosing and can be anything from a sports program, a beauty pageant, a reality TV-episode, a cooking show, C- SPAN etc. Found Footage film The final project for the course is a 5-15 minute found footage film on a topic of your choice. In addition to YouTube/Vimeo/GoogleVideo etc. the following public domain archives may be very useful in gathering material for your project: :Video :public+domain/order:length 09/7/10 Introduction Course overview What it Documentary ? What is Rhetoric ? In class: - HSBC Different Values campaign , the best email of the year, early actualities and newsreels, Cartier-Bresson photo reports, MallAise photo-essay.

5 - Technical bootcamp iMovie/Final Cut/working with found footage etc. - Excerpts from Workers Leaving the Factory(Lumiere/Farocki) and The War Photographer (Frei). 09/14/10 - What does a photograph mean anyway? Please come to class having read: Barthes, Roland - The Photographic Message in Image, Music, Text ( ). Sontag, Susan - In Plato's Cave in On Photography (p. 3-24). Vaughan, Dai Note and Let there be Lumiere in For Documentary (ix -8). Photo Report (part i) due in class. Please have your slideshow ready to show as a Quicktime .mov file or as a Region 0 DVD. Double check your dvd before class. 09/21/10 Is a Visual argument possible? Please come to class having read: Barthes, Roland - Rhetoric of the Image in Image, Music, Text (p 32-51). Blair, J. Anthony The Rhetoric of Visual Arguments in defining Visual Rhetorics (p. 41-61). Vaughan, Dai - The Space Between Shots in For Documentary (p. 9-28). Photo Report (part ii) due in class.

6 09/28/10 - Let there be sound: A blessing and a curse. Please come to class having read: Vaughan, Dai - The Aesthetics of Ambiguity in For Documentary (p. 54-84). Photo Report (part iii) due in class. In Class: excerpts from Enthusiasm (Vertov), Why we Fight (Capra). 10/04/10 - Sports and the Rhetoric of film Language Please come to class having read and seen: Vaughan, Dai - Berlin vs Tokyo in For Documentary (9-28). Riefenstahl, Leni Olympia In class Analysis: June 29th, 2010 World Cup Paraguay vs. Japan Penalty Shootout. 10/11/10 - Whose is talking to me? Layers of meaning in the compilation film . Please come to class having read and seen: Barthes, Roland - The Third Meaning in Image, Music, Text (p 52-68). Symposium on Soviet Documentary in Jacobs Documentary Tradition (p. 29-37). Yampolski, Mikhail Reality at Second Hand in Historical Journal of film Radio and Television, Vol. 11 1991 [handout]. The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (Shub).

7 In Class: Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (Grimonprez). 10/18/10 Of Gods and Skeptics: alternative uses of voice-over Please come to class having read and seen: Lopate, Phillip In Search of the Centaur: The Essay film in Beyond Document (p. 243-270). Rothman, William Land Without Bread and Night and Fog in Documentary film Classics (p. 21 68). Land Without Bread (Bunuel). Night and Fog (Resnais). Anatomy of an event essay/presentation due in class. 10/25/10 Direct Cinema: The Strange Case of Frederick Wiseman Please come to class having read and seen: Armstrong, Dan Wiseman's Model and the Documentary Project; Toward a Radical film Practice in New Challenges for Documentary Vaughan, Dai - Notes on the Ascent of Fictitious Mountain in For Documentary (111-137). Wiseman, Frederick Script of High School Final Project proposals due in class. 11/02/10 - The Kid Stays in the Picture: Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore Please come to class having read and seen: Roger and Me (Moore).

8 The Performative Documentary :Baker, Dineen, Broomfield by Stella Bruzzi 153- 180 in New Documentary : A Critical Introduction In Class: Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer(Broomfield). 11/09/10 - No Class. Thursday Schedule 11/16/10 - Documentary Today: Rhetoric in the age of the database. Please come to class having read: Manovich, Lev The Database Logic in The Language of New Media (p. 218 . 243). Review of final project rushes 11/23/10 - No Class Thanksgiving Work on final projects due. 11/30/10 - Final Projects due 12/07/10 - Final Projects du