Unit information: Screen Technologies: Colour Cinema in 2013/14

Unit name	Screen Technologies: Colour Cinema
Unit code	DRAM23130
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Professor. Street
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of Film and Television
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit surveys and analyses the aesthetic and technological history of colour cinema from the silent period to contemporary trends. Particular attention will be paid to cinema’s relation to other colour media (photography, mass advertising, painting, stage design) and to aesthetic debates in philosophy, art history, film and literature over the perceptual effects and influences of colour. The unit will also cover ‘reading’ films from the perspective of colour, and their influence on mise-en-scène, narrative address and symbolic impact. Works (primarily from British and Hollywood cinema) to be covered include films from early cinema (Annabelle Dances; An Impossible Voyage), narrative cinema of the 20s (The Toll of the Sea, The Black Pirate, The Lodger), Technicolor of the 1930s (Becky Sharp, Gone With the Wind, Wings of the Morning), melodrama and musicals (All that Heaven Allows, Singin’ in the Rain, Blanche Fury), European art cinemas (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann, Red Desert), experimental film (Len Lye, Harry Smith, Oskar Fischinger, Stan Brakhage), and contemporary cinema (Days of Heaven, Careful, Hero, Pleasantville, Tetro).

Aims

• To introduce colour as a primary referent in film narrative, design and technology
• To compare and contrast a large number of colour films from different periods, generic traditions, national cinemas and histories
• To consider colour cinema in relation to other technological developments
• To consider colour cinema in relation to a range of different philosophical and theoretical ideas about colour and its impact
• To explore critically a range of film practices.
• To develop appropriate critical and theoretical approaches to the chosen practices.
• To investigate in a chosen practical and creative manner one or more alternative languages of cinematic expression.
• To develop appropriate self-reflective analytical methods.
• To engage in research-based investigation of appropriate primary and secondary material.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to analyse a film from the perspective of colour
• Students will be familiar with a large number of colour films from different genres and historical periods
• Students will be able to identify different methods of colouring films, from applied colour of the silent period to the work of the ‘colourist’ in digital cinema
• Students will demonstrate intermediate skills of textual analysis and to be able to write about film at an intermediate level
• Students will be able to apply conceptual knowledge of colour in research essays
• To demonstrate sound knowledge of key secondary literature
• To be aware of, and able to apply a range of established critical and theoretical ideas
• To present a clear and well-structured argument, supported by relevant critical and theoretical literature
• To present work that is consistently accurate in terms of its use of English and referencing
• To demonstrate skills of time management
• To plan and execute a research project

Plus as appropriate to the mode of teaching, that is, the combination of seminar and practice-based workshop and/or presentations:

• To be able to write a reflective account of practical work
• To be able to work constructively and creatively in a group-based workshop
• To be able to work within the disciplines of production and project processes, working to deadlines and within production budgets
• To work independently and reach individual/personal judgements within a collaborative context
• To be able to reflect on individual work within a collaborative production context

Teaching Information

Seminars, workshops, screenings, as appropriate

Optional units may be taught according one of three models, depending on student numbers choosing the option and resource matters. Unit convenors will decide on teaching mode in consultation with HoE and with students in advance of advertising option year-on-year. Contact hours and assessment details will be mapped to teaching mode, as detailed below.

Model A is a seminar-based unit

Model B combines seminars with workshops encompassing an average 30-hour production period

Model C is taught through workshops encompassing an intensive 60-hour production period

Assessment Information

Teachers will assign assessments according to the teaching mode employed.

Model A:

3,000-word essay (50%) + student presentation (25%) + 1,500-word write-up (25%), or equivalent.

OR

Model B:

Essay [1,500 words] (33%) +

Workfile (22%): containing evidence to demonstrate student contribution to workshops / practical exercises; contribution to seminars Presentation/performance (22%) Critical analysis [1,500 words] (22%)

OR

Model C:

Workfile (33%): containing evidence to demonstrate student contribution to workshops / practical exercises; contribution to seminars, preparation & execution of technical production role Presentation/performance (33%) Critical analysis [1,500 words] (33%)

Reading and References

• Batchelor, D (2000) Chromophobia, London: Reaktion Books
• Batchelor, D. (ed) (2008) Colour: Documents of Contemporary Art, London: Whitechapel/MIT
• Dalle Vacche, A and Price, B (eds) (2006) Color: The Film Reader, New York: Routledge
• Higgins, S (2007) Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s, Austin: Texas University Press
• Misek, R (2010) Chromatic Cinema, Oxford: Blackwell
• Street, S (2012) The Negotiation of Innovation: Colour Films in Britain, London: British Film Institute/ Palgrave Macmillan