All film and television courses encourage independence of mind and a spirit of critical inquiry, and all learning takes place in this spirit, rather than in terms of establishing orthodoxies. Students are expected to understand the contexts of production of film and television, and in particular the changing economic and policy factors affecting the Australian situation in the international context and in the context of newly emerging technologies.
Fundamental to all courses is an understanding of genre (whether Hollywood genres or the `genres' of documentary or news programs), and to see these as involving stylistic and editorial choices in the social construction of reality.
At each year level, students are expected to master progressively more difficult concepts pertaining to the specificity of film form (from simpler concepts of viewpoint of construction, to more difficult if inherently practical notions such as montage or the construction of filmic space using the axis of action rule, and exceptions to the rule) and concepts of marrative organisation. Students are expected to be able to apply relevantly these concepts in their analyses of a wide variety of filmic and televisual texts from different eras and different countries (Australia, American, European, Asian and the third world) and to gain some understanding of the relevance of these concepts to gender studies, studies of ideology, and studies of cultural differences.
In some courses psychoanalytic theories of filmic signifier are employed as ways of understanding how gender is constructed in film, and how the viewer is affected by film. Some understanding of recent semiotic theory is required in some course. For instance, in courses on television studies and on documentary, students are expected to understand and apply semiotic concepts such as `metaphor and metonymy', and see their relevance to film and television which are indexical sign systems rather than simply iconic signs.
Some of the material taught is controversial and students are expected to be able to develop arguments which distinguish between different positions, and to make reasoned judgements about the soundness and relevance of different kinds of arguments.
Courses
Courses in film and television studies are taught in the Department of Visual Arts. A full major is offered in film and television studies, and it is possible to go on to do a fourth honours year and to take postgraduate work at diploma, MA and PhD level. Courses are predominantly critical, historical and theoretical. The full range of courses is designed to introduce students to methods of analysis and a range of issues regarding Australian film and television, contemporary popular film from the USA, film history, European and Asian cinema, and film from the third world. Topics studied include the changing structure of the film and television industries in Australia, independent and alternative film movements both here and overseas, the evolution and development of film form, semiotic and psychoanalytic approaches to the study of film, national cinemas, alternative frameworks for the funding of television production, and issues in Australian film culture.
Visual Arts department students may combine art history/theory subjects with film and television subjects (or vice versa), as part of their major or minor sequence, and comparative literature and cultural studies students may take some courses in film and television studies as part of their major or minor sequence in comparative literature and cultural studies (see the entry for comparative literature and cultural studies). Below we provide a list of the range of courses offered. For more detailed information consult the section on film and television studies within the entry for visual arts.
Subjects offered
* VSA1040 Introduction to the visual arts 4: Australian film and television
* VSA1050 Introduction to the visual arts 5: contemporary popular film
* VSA2190/3190 Forms of narrative cinema
* VSA2220/3220 Alternative film
* VSA2670/3670 Asian cinema (proposed to be offered next in 1996)
* VSA2710/3710 Alternatives in documentary film - an Australian focus (poposed to be offered next in 1996)
* VSA2770/3770 Television studies
* VSA3630/4630 German cinema (proposed to be offered next in 1996)
* VSA3750/4750 Indonesian and Southeast Asian film and television
* VSA3007/4007 Gender and genre: masculinity in film
* VSA4040 Film theory and film criticism: part 1
* VSA4050 Film theory and film criticism: part 2
* VSA4600 Film, culture, class