FT3CAS-Cities on Screen

Module Provider: Film, Theatre and TV
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:6
Terms in which taught: Spring term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2022/3

Module Convenor: Dr Adam O'Brien
Email: adam.obrien@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

The city has long been a favoured subject of the cinema, which has shaped, influenced, mythologized, and invented the city. Television’s representation of the city, both its interiors and exteriors, has helped bring the world into our homes. This module explores film and television’s encounter with the city through a series of city case studies. It explores iconographic cinematic cities as well as less familiar spaces worldwide. It explores humans’ relationships with the city, the everyday routines, the struggle to survive and the flights of fantasy. This module will consider how the city is intertwined with class, race, migration, labour, architecture, geography and nation, along with wider concerns of space and place.   

Aims:

The module aims to familiarise students with a variety of films and television programmes where the city is central to storytelling and mise-en-scène, beyond the conventional role of providing a setting or a location for production. Through critical and contextual reading, students will discover the ways that the city has been theorised by film and television scholars. Close analysis of individual films and programmes will develop students’ understanding of the specific qualities of screen texts which are rooted in particular locations. More broadly, the module connects film and television analysis with wider aesthetic, cultural, and sociological approaches to cities, space and place.

Assessable learning outcomes:

By the end of the module, it is expected that students will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the key critical debates about the representation and use of the city in film and television;


• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of a range of ways that space and place has been explored in film and television as a formal, stylistic and thematic concern;


• Make rigorous analyses of individual film and television texts informed bythese critical and theoretical perspectives;


•  Relate their understanding of the city in film and television to a range of other concepts introduced by the course, including mise-en-scène, space, class, race, migration and nation.

Additional outcomes:

The module plays a significant role in the continuing development of other skills and competencies, which are central to the course. It is expected that the level of skills and competencies achieved in the following will be appropriate to the level of study: oral communication and argument in group situations; deployment of research using a range of scholarly and journalistic resources resources; critical analysis and coherent argument; undertaking self-directed, independent work; presentation of written work using IT; identifying and addressing problems in the analysis of films.

Outline content:

This module will be team taught and draw on the expertise of a range of staff members. We will explore how the city has been represented in film and television, and how its geography and the lives of its citizens have been documented or imagined. This will be done through a series of location-based case studies that trace connections as the module progresses, with an international focus that may include London, New York, Paris, Rio, Sau Paulo, Mumbai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul. These will consider how the city can be a fantastical, surreal, fearful and mundane space. How the city can be a space of utopian dreams, opportunity, social unrest or desperate struggle, a dynamic or everyday world. They will explore the city as a layered space, constantly being rebuilt and remodelled; how cities of the past have been reconstructed or reimagined; consider how one city can contain multiple worlds who never come into contact; how the streets are charted and shaped by different workers and social systems; and how the city is navigated by the local and the migrant.  

Global context:

The content of the module is international, and touches on a range of geopolitical concerns.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

Within the two-hour class, a range of teaching styles will be used and may vary from week to week. Within the two hour class a range of teaching styles will be used and vary from week to week. Short lectures may be used where appropriate to introduce contextual or critical issues for discussion. The primary teaching method will be discussion based around prepared reading and close analysis of texts screened in advance. Short presentations or new media-based activities may be involved, prepare d by individuals or small groups for larger group discussion. Creative projects that engage with new media and social media elements may be involved. 

Contact hours:

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Lectures		18
Supervised time in studio/workshop		36
Guided independent study:
Wider reading (independent)		12
Wider reading (directed)		30
Advance preparation for classes		25
Preparation for seminars		24
Essay preparation		50
Reflection		5
Total hours by term	0	200	0
Total hours for module	200

Summative Assessment Methods:

Method	Percentage
Written assignment including essay	50
Project output other than dissertation	50

Summative assessment- Examinations:

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

50% blog, 50% essay/project

Formative assessment methods:

Student-led in-class presentations

Penalties for late submission:

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/cqsd-old-site-documents/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf
You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Assessment requirements for a pass:

40% overal

Reassessment arrangements:

Submission of additional coursework.

Additional Costs (specified where applicable):

1. Required text books: None


2. Specialist equipment or materials: None


3. Specialist clothing, footwear or headgear: None


4. Printing and binding: None


5. Computers and devices with a particular specification: None


6. Travel, accommodation and subsistence: None

Last updated: 21 November 2022