Audiovisual Production

Scholar Year: 2018/2019 - 1S

Courses

Head Teacher Responsability Marta Sofia da Luz Marcos Pinho Alves Head

Weekly workload Hours/week T TP P PL L TC E OT OT/PL TPL O S Type of classes Lectures Type Teacher Classes Hours Contact hours Totals 1 4,00 Cátia Salgueiro   4,67

Teaching language

Portuguese

Intended learning outcomes (Knowledges, skills and competencies to be developed by the students)

The course aims to provide students both theoretical and practical tools essential to the analysis, design, development and production of audiovisual projects. At the end of the course students should be able to:
1. Recognize and analyze diverse approaches to creation and research within the broad field of the moving image;
2. Understand and practice key concepts and technics of audiovisual language;
3. Manage equipment and softwares made available for video recording and editing;
4. Perceive differences and connections between audiovisual and cinematographic form and genres;
5. Learn the importance of planning in the various stages of an audiovisual project, and notice the close articulation between means, form and ideas in processes of creation and research;
6. Exercise critical thinking within team framework, building collectively an environment of openness and rigor;
7. Develop audiovisual projects and explore non-competitive relations and interdependencies between sound and image.

Syllabus

1.
Audiovisual production and diversity of audiovisual projects.
Different stages of audiovisual projects: key skills, teams, and technologies.
The importance of research and location.
Planning and undertaking resources.

2.
What is an image?
Ethics and aesthetics of the photographic image; matters of composition.
Differences between still image and moving image.
What is a plan?
Language; frame, angle, movement and point of view; scene and sequence; continuity.
Non-competitive relations between image and sound.

3.
Direction of two practical exercises for planning, recording and editing video and sound, with previous constraints as to duration, form and technic.
Collective viewing and critical analysis of results.

4.
References for and reflection over differences between television reports, documentary research, nonfiction and fiction films.
Point of view and screenwriting in documentary film; formal approach and research development.
Editing as a phase in a continuous process of invention and construction.

5.
Development of an audiovisual project – final assignment, with duration comprised between three to seven minutes.
Reacessing the initial plans: references, problems and strategies.
First drafts; researching materials and defining intentions; building a point of view; planning.
Monitoring and development of projects; presentation of the projects’ first version and analysis of rough cuts.
Final presentation and discussion of projects.

Software

Adobe Premiere

Demonstration of the syllabus coherence with the UC intended learning outcomes

Syllabus and intended learning outcomes correspond in its order and organization: parts 1, 2 and 3 of the syllabus propose to answer the first three topics listed in the intended learning outcomes, while parts 4 and 5 of the syllabus aim to respond to the further learning outcomes.

Teaching methodologies

This course is of a practical and participatory nature, oriented towards the development of critical thinking, debating and filming in order to build consequent projects, in a mode of continuous research and evaluation.
Lectures are divided between theoretical presentations (analysis and discussion of key themes and concepts), and the development of practical assignments (sound and video recording and editing).
Theoretical debate will aim mainly issues of language, technology and production, including concepts and works considered essential to understand the affinity between practices and theories, aesthetics and ethics.
The analysis of references from the cinema and audiovisual fields offer an access to the diversity of methods and traditions, newer or older, promoting at the same time a praxis of questioning, critical thinking and continuous improvement.
Practical assignments benefit the discovery of expressive and communicative possibilities that derive from the association between image and sound, and foster a project based knowledge of languages and techniques, allowing the thriving of free and creative universes articulated with adequate research methodologies.
Lectures are supported by various materials – essays, journalistic texts, film and video excerpts, and other additional sources gathered to enrich discussions and exercises. Additional research material may be required to the students for the individual and collective assignments they will be asked to develop inside and outside of the classroom context.

Demonstration of the teaching methodologies coherence with the curricular unit's intended learning outcomes

The methodological approach allows a technical initiation combined with a recognition of contexts and discourses, both in productive and artistic practices. At the same time, it allows the construction of a process of knowledge supported by multiple sources, gradually requesting and mobilizing reflections and instruments acquired under other disciplines, thereby deepening discoveries of fields of thought and action. Finally, it calls for an awareness of the complexity and interdependence of geographical, social, cultural and political realities and a comprehension of the students’ and the community’s own direct surroundings and life.

Assessment methodologies and evidences

The assessment is continuous and takes into account the following elements: attendance and participation in classes; practical and theoretical assignments; final assignment (audiovisual project).
Continuous assessment implies regular class attendance, which supposes qualitative participation in debates and achievement of the proposed assignments as a condition for the development of the proposed syllabus and learning outcomes. Such an assessment also assures the essential, regular and qualitative contact between teacher and student.
It further includes the presentation of film analysis, undertaking of assignments for the projects’ preparation, presentation of a project proposal, and delivery of reports accounting different stages of the research.
Final assessment concludes the evaluation process and consists in discussing the assignments developed along the semester, specially the final project. The projects’ presentation is due in the last class of the semester.

Classification:
- Regular attendance: 40%
- Delivery of theoretical and practical assignments: 20%
- Development and discussion of the project (research and rough cuts): 20%
- Audiovisual project (3 to 7 minutes long, exploring non-competitive relations between sound and image): 20%
Grades are quantitative and will be published in the school’s website.

Attendance system

Regular attendance presupposes a frequency of 60% of classes (minimum), except for students with special status (parents, workers, etc.). It implies the participation in debates and analysis over certain themes and problems proposed by the teacher, the achievement of theoretical and practical assignments, and the presentation and discussion of those assignments, in teams or individually.

Assement and Attendance registers

Main Bibliography

Observations

Tutorial assistance given to the students is meant to support the accomplishment of the assignments and to clarify any questions or doubts, particularly in what concerns the development of audiovisual projects. This assistance is given by prior appointment and can be held at distance (through email or other electronic means such as videoconference) if requested and agreed.

Student-workers and other students with special status should negotiate with the teacher the particular conditions of their assessment during the first two weeks of the academic calendar.

Assignments will only be considered valid if delivered in hands to the teacher. Assignments placed on the teacher’s locker or sent by email will not be accepted.
For each 24h of unjustified delay in the delivery of any of the elements of the assessment, a point (1/20) will be reduced to the grade.

Any assignment that incurs into full or partial plagiarism will be rated zero (0/20).