ATS2530 - Film and television genres - 2018

From their beginnings, films and television series have endlessly repeated the same stories. This unit explores the concept of genre, remaking and adaptation in relation to a selection of contemporary and historical film and television texts. This unit describes genre as a complex situation that is enabled and limited by the related roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences. This understanding of genre is developed through three broad approaches to genre as: industrial category-deals with issues of production, including commerce and authorship; textual category, considers plots and structures; critical category, investigates issues of reception, audiences and institutions.

On the successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

1. Recognise that meaning is not simply an intra-textual property of a particular text but an effect of historically specific inter- and extra-textual material technologies or institutions;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of intertextuality in film and television studies and its relation to genre through the categories of quotation, allusion, translation and adaptation;
3. Translate the in-principle concept of intertextuality into an understanding of the particular institutional structures that maintain the categories of film and television series, serials, remakes and sequels;
4. Display an ability to critically engage with written and visual texts in a clear and confident manner in both written and oral presentation.

Within semester assessment: 100%

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Film and screen studies