Film & Media Studies

This course introduces the storyboard as a thinking tool, through which creative ideas are developed and given detail. Students learn to employ artistic tools like framing, camera movement, character movement and key visuals within the larger structure of the entire narrative. Topics include the role of the storyboard within the animation pipeline and its relevance to concept development, script development, animatics and production design. The course focuses on the aspects of animation production design that support the dramatic impact of the story. Further insight will be gained into the connection between visual development and storyboard through exercises and assignments on character design, environment and prop design.

This course examines the role of the media in shaping the global and local societies, as well as the ways in which growing access to information fosters knowledge sharing and citizen participation in public affairs and creates social problems such as privacy infringement, misinformation, and polarization. It explores if the global media really changes the power structure of information flow, production, and dissemination or actually reinforces the imbalance. It questions whether media technologies amount to an individual’s emancipation or serve as another form of exploitation. It explores the role of the media in Hong Kong, China, and the rest of the world and how in a multipolar cultural world, how citizens contribute to the conversation on local and global issues. The course reflects on critical social values such as the freedom of expression, information, privacy, transparency, and investigate the impact of the social media, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

The discovery of "The Seventh Art" of cinema can also take place through documentary cinema, which is not so much an “alternative cinema” as an art that is simply less visible. The course provides an opportunity to explore together—during the first half of the 20th century—this “alternative cinema” (G. Gauthier) or this “other side of cinema” (J. Breschand) in order to understand its definitions and evolution.

In this upper division course, students acquire skills and techniques to be effective as a film and media producer. The course covers creative producer's responsibilities, including working in various genres and formats, working with talent, creating a joint vision, pitching, managing a budget and shooting schedule, and developing a marketing and release strategy. This course is only open to third year students and above. 

This course teaches the basic building blocks of radio and podcasting. Students learn how to use recording and editing equipment as well as creative approaches to interviewing and sound design. Though primarily practical, there is an emphasis on learning techniques for telling audio stories through listening and discussion of works produced by audio producers both here in the UK and around the world. Students are expected to pitch, record, and edit a seven-minute documentary. 

This course explores the representation of love and romance in Hollywood, Bollywood, global art and European cinema. Romantic movies invariably revolve around the obstacles that the couple has to negotiate, overcome, or succumb to. Obstacles such as the social marginalization of the couple, death, jealously and rivalry, differences of class, race or ethnicity tend to be genre specific. The course juxtaposes and compares films and genres from different cultural contexts. Examples include melodramatic love stories, queer romance in European arthouse films, wedding films in global art cinema, interethnic romantic dramas and films about the end of love or the breakdown of marriage. 

Through exploring different areas within the Chinese language and cultural domain, including Chinese media, content creation, book publishing, and Chinese teaching, the course familiarizes students with today's volatile society and market, equipping them with the necessary skills to comprehend the dynamics of these industries within current political, social, cultural and linguistic contexts. Students gain a deeper understanding of the professional landscape and learn to combine their knowledge of Chinese language and culture with design thinking approaches for addressing opportunities and challenges they encounter in their future career. The course requires students to take prerequisites.

From a specifically aesthetic perspective, this course focuses on the sound parameters of cinema. It first involves questioning the characteristics of our listening in relation to our capacities for visual analysis, and then defining the notions of sound image and point of listening, as they have been formulated by sound theorists (Pierre Schaeffer, Michel Chion, Daniel Deshays, Peter Sendy). The course combines a historical perspective on theories and techniques of sound in cinema with a taxonomy of cinematic sounds (voice, speech, music, noise, silence) and an examination of the relationships between image and sound (direct sound, post-synchronization, counterpoint).

The media plays an extremely influential role in the public’s conceptions of crime and order. This course is designed to look at the different ways in which the media shapes our ideas and responses to crime. The course is divided into two main sections. The first half of the course examines representations of crime in different media forms and theoretical explanations for why crime is portrayed in particular ways. The second half of the course focuses on the representation of crime in popular culture, particularly in films and novels.

This course examines Shakespeare’s plays alongside their film adaptations, exploring the relationship between literature and visual media. Through readings and film screenings, the course analyzes how Shakespeare’s works were influenced by the cultural and social contexts of his time, and how modern adaptations reflect the contexts of their own production and reception. Each week focuses on a Shakespearean play and its significant film adaptations, discussing the nuanced and often innovative ways in which Shakespeare’s timeless texts have been read by scholars, readers, theater practitioners and filmmakers and reimagined through adaptation.