Prospectus

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Film in Practice

Course
2024-2025

Admission

Participation in the admission for Film in Practice consists of writing a motivation letter, completing an assignment and presenting a portfolio. These three documents must be uploaded before 12 June, 2024 in Osiris, the KABK's application system. If these are of sufficient quality, the student is invited for the second round. The second round is an online admission interview with the lecturer and coordinator.
After your application is reviewed, you will be informed whether you are invited to the interview in the last week of June.
The admission interview date for Film in Practice is on Wednesday 26 June 2024.
You can apply from 15 April until 12 June 2024 for this course through Osiris. You may find the link below.

More information about the application requirements of Film in Practice:

  • To apply please submit an artistic portfolio that highlights your work exploring the visual frame, be it drawing, painting, graphic novel, photography, video or other (min. 6 max. 15 pages). This portfolio (max. 20 mb) should be uploaded as a PDF in Osiris during the online application process.

  • Please shoot and submit a 30-second moving image as part of your application. The 1-shot should be recorded on an i-phone or video camera where the fields of foreground, middle ground and background are activated or somehow brought into dialogue with each other. Use only natural light. If you choose to use dialogue, a maximum of three words are allowed. The video can be uploaded as mp4 (max. 100 mb) in Osiris OR you can upload it in Youtube/Vimeo and add the link to Osiris

  • Additionally, students write a motivation letter of max. 300 words in which they explain why they would like to participate in this elective

Description

In this elective, students will explore cinema as both a research tool that holds the potential to transcend prescribed modes of communication and as a form of artistic expression bound to its own history and traditional forms.

Cinematic assignments will guide students through an understanding of concepts and skills related to camera, place, sound, performance, temporal flow and montage. The possibilities inherent in fictional, nonfictional and hybrid forms of narrative will be highlighted and investigated against the backdrop of the students’ own personal histories, cultures, ethnicities and experiences of time. The goal of the course is for students to realize that narrative or temporal forms, as related to the moving image, are personal, malleable, collaborative and hold the potential for discovery and transformation.

The academic year will be divided into two parts: Semester one will move from an overview of film history and representation in cinema to explore the camera as a tool for conducting visual and sonic research in the field. Field research exercises will form the basis for a prose treatment or narrative schema that each student will conceive of and write. Semester two will begin with students translating their treatments into screenplay format to then produce as a single film project. Films may be fiction, nonfiction or hybrid in form. Each short film project will then be guided through production and editing phases to culminate at the end of the academic year in a group screening of the work.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will emerge from the rigor of weekly feedback sessions with the ability to analyze their own work as well as the work of their classmates through key cinematic concepts. The ethics of attunement and deep listening as a generative part of any cinematic field research process will be addressed and put into action. How to generate field notes or autoethnographic materials born of encounters in the field will structure the first few classes of the course. The writing process will culminate in students understanding the basics of writing for the moving image: how to write prose treatments, screenplays and shot lists. Students will learn how to plan and conduct a film shoot and will gain experience working with performers in rehearsals and on set, in relation to scripted or improvised temporal forms. Cinema shaped by mise en scene and natural or diegetic lighting and the question of montage (or editing) in classical and nonclassical forms will round out the academic year.

Schedule

Application deadline: 12 June 2024
Interview date (online): 26 June, 2024 (the date of the interview is not negotiable)
Lessons: Wednesdays 18:30 – 21.30 hrs
Period: This course takes place during the full academic year; 14 lessons in Semester 1, and 14 lessons in Semester 2. Start date: first week of September
Location: all classes take place at KABK, Prinsessegracht 4, Den Haag.
Room: t.b.a.

Mode of instruction

Life classes with individual guidance, assignments, workshops and collective analysis.

Mode of assessment

Attendance to the lessons is mandatory for 80% Individual assessment of work at the end of the course. All assignments should be completed and present. At the end of the course there will be an exhibition. Participation in that is required.

Information

Stéphane Blokhuis

Registration

For the academic year 2024-2025, please register between Wednesday 16 April and Wednesday 11 June 23:59 (CEST) 2025.
NB: This course is NOT available in Usis.
Registration: you can register for the course via this link.

Remarks

This course is part of Practicum Artium. These courses are exclusively intented for students of Leiden University.
For other courses in the domains of fine arts and music, please visit: Elective courses music and fine arts