|
The Documentary
Across Media
Schedule
|
Note: This schedule is subject
to change. If it becomes clear that we should spend more time on a particular
topic, or that another assignment would be more appropriate, then I will let
you know that the schedule has been revised.
August 29: Introductions
In class:
- Overview of course.
- Mini-lecture and brainstorming
on the meaning of "documentary," "media," and "new
media."
- Examine samples of documentaries
from several forms of media.
Sept. 5: Theories and Foundations:
Understanding the Documentary, Understanding Media
Readings:
Visit Online:
Assignment:
- Write a brief (approximately
page-long) analysis in which you apply a point made by Coles, McLuhan, or
Bolter and Grusin to one of the documentaries you've looked at for today.
Due at the beginning of class.
In Class:
- Discuss theories of media, multimedia,
and the documentary.
- Assess the 3 examples of digital
documentaries assigned for today. Come up with criteria for judging the success
of a digital documentary.
- Group project discussed and assigned.
Lab 1: Introduction to HTML
[Fondren 156, 8:30-9:30]
This optional one-hour lab will furnish
a basic introduction to creating a Web page using Dreamweaver. If you already
have experience in Web design, you are not required to attend.
Sept. 12: The Art of Listening:
Radio Documentaries
Listening:
Reading
Recommended (but not required)
Reading
Assignment:
- Ira Glass says that every story
on This American Life follows a structure: "there's an anecdote, that
is, a sequence of actions where someone says "this happened then this
happened then this happened--and then there's a moment of reflection about
what the sequence means, and then on the next set of actions." Select one
of the documentaries assigned for today and describe its structure. Do you
see actions followed by reflection, or did the producer use some other structure?
You might want to focus on piece of the documentary--such as one or two moments
of transition--rather than the entire work. Prepare your thoughts as a Web
page, and add it to the class Web site to the projects folder by Monday, Sept.
17 at 3:00 p.m. NOTE REVISED DUE DATE. (For instructions on adding
your page to the class site, please see my email, or log in to WebCT and find
the ftp instructions under Course Resources.)
Class:
- Discussion of final
project
- Discussion/demonstration of interview
techniques. Visit from Melinda Wolfrum of The Heights Remembers on conducting
oral history interviews. [7:00 p.m.]
- Demonstration of the process
of capturing audio using the mini-disc recorder.
Sept. 19: The Document, the Documentary,
and the Documentarian
Reading:
- Continuation of last week's class
(syllabus altered due to tragic events in DC and NYC). Brush up on the essays
by Hardy, Portelli, and Glass and Abel. Revisit "Trail of Tears," Witness
to an Execution, and Can Almost See the Lights of Home.
- You might want to get started
reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
In-class:
- Discuss audio documentaries: How
are they structured? What choices do producers make in assembling them?
- Visit to the Woodson Research
Center in Fondren Library. (8 p.m.)
Assignment:
Conduct and record an interview with
a member of the course about a significant experience in their life (one that
they don't mind sharing with others). You should have recorded your interview
by Sept. 21; an edited version is due by October 3. (See http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~hans320/class/audioassign.html
for the complete assignment.)
Lab 2: Using
Audio Editing Tools
Since we have limited access to the
software that we need, you will need to sign up for a time to use the audio
editing station in the Etext Center. Someone will be on hand to answer your
questions, but the lab is self-paced.
Sept. 26: Let Us Now Praise Famous
Men
Reading:
Assignment:
Think about the way that text and image
relate to each other in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. No specific written
assignment is due, but you should be prepared for an informal in-class writing
assignment.
In class:
- Discussion of Let Us Now…Think
about the interactions between word as image, as well as the relationship
between the narrator Agee and his subjects.
Lab 3: Capturing images.
(Optional.) Image scanning/using
the digital camera. To be held in the EText Center at 9:00.
Friday, September 29
1-2 page prospectus for group project
due. Post to class Web site in the projects directory by 5:00 p.m. (More specific
instructions will be distributed.)
Oct. 3: A Survey of Documentary
Photography
Reading:
- Grahame Clark, The Photograph,
pp. 11-55, 75-99, and 145-163.
- Robert Coles on Dorothea Lange,
Doing Documentary Work, 100-115
- "Basic Strategies in Reading
Photographs": http://www.nuovo.com/southern-images/analyses.html
- View online gallery of documentary
photographs by Hines, Lange, Evans, et al. URL TBA.
- Recommended (but not required):
"Every Picture Tells a Story: Documentary Photography and the Great Depression":
http://chnm.gmu.edu/fsa/
Assignment:
Audio interview due to the class
web site by 3 p.m. on Oct. 3.
In Class:
- Discussion of documentary photography--what
its history is as well as how to look at a photograph.
- Visit by photographer Ellis Vener
Field Trip to Museum of Fine
Arts Houston for the Robert
Frank exhibit; date and time TBA.
Saturday, October 6, 1-3 pm,
Rice Media Center: Screening of Brian Huberman's The de la Pena Diary
You are not required to attend this
screening, but it promises to be very interesting.
Oct. 10: Collecting America
Reading:
- Alan Trachtenberg, "Camera Work/Social
Work" [CP/E-reserve]
- Recommended: Lewis Hine,
"Social Photography" [CP/E-reserve]
- Recommended: Alfred Stieglitz,
"Pictorial Photography" [CP/E-reserve]
Assignment:
- Group presentations on the following
photography collections:
Groups and more specific assignment TBA.
In class:
- Discussion of American themes
in photographic collections, and of the conflict between pictorial and social
photography.
Lab 4: Basic Photoshop
To be held in Fondren 156, 8:30-9:30
p.m.
October 17:
No class: Fall Break
October 24: Reality Bytes: Digital
Photography & the Representation of the Self
Reading:
- Kenneth Brower, "Photography in
the Age of Falsification," The Atlantic (May 1998). http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98may/photo.htm
- Joan Fontcuberta, "Pedro
Meyer: Truths, Fictions, and Reasonable Doubts." Truths and Fictions.
Aperture, 1995. 7-13. [CP/E-reserve]
- Bolter and Grusin, "Digital Photography"
Remediation, 104-113.
- Marshall Sella, "The
Electronic Fishbowl," NYT Magazine, May 21, 2000 [CP/E-reserve]
Examine:
Assignment:
In class:
- Oral presentation by group 1
- Disussion of audio documentary
- Debate: To what extent does digital
photography extend how reality can be represented? What are the responsibilities
of a photographer in working with these tools?
- Discuss: How do people represent
themselves online? What's up with web-cams?
- Early dismissal (8:45ish) so that
you have time to work in your project groups.
Friday, October 26: FIRST PAPER
DUE. (Note change in due date)
Oct. 31: Cinematic Documentaries:
Questions of Authenticity
NOTE: CLASS WILL MEET IN SYMONDS
I
Viewing:
[Film screenings will take place
during class on the 31st.]
- Excerpts from Robert Flaherty,
Nanook of the North (1922) [Watch the first 15 minutes]
- Frederick Wiseman, High School
(1968)
Reading:
Assignment:
- Work on final projects. No specific
work due, but progress report on final project due next Wednesday.
In class:
- Discuss the representation of
reality in documentary films.
Nov. 7: Social Protest and Social
Observation
NOTE: CLASS WILL MEET IN SYMONDS
I
Viewing:
- Errol Morris, The Thin Blue
Line (1988). Viewing will take place in class.
Reading:
- Eric Barnouw, Documentary:
A History of Non-Fiction Film, 86-100, 297-349.
- Michael Rabiger, "Screen Grammar"
and "Screencraft Analysis Projects" [CP 55-93/e-reserve];
"Elements of the Documentary" [CP; 321-350]
- Recommended: Roger Richards,
"Digital Filmmaking Tips for Beginners," http://digitalfilmmaker.net/DVtips/DVtips.html
- Recommended: Bill Nichols,
"Telling Stories
with Evidence and Arguments" [CP/E-reserve]
- Recommended: Linda Williams,
"Mirrors
without Memories: Truth, History, and The Thin Blue Line." Documenting
the Documentary, 379-396. [CP/E-reserve]
Assignment:
Progress report on final project
due.
In class:
- Discuss the techniques of documentary
filmmaking. Examing screen grammar and analytical techniques.
Lab 5: Editing digital video.
[self-taught]]
Also, don't forget about this
week's Field Trip to the Holocaust Museum,
which will take place on Saturday, November 9 at 2:30. Directions are available
here.
Nov. 14: In Focus: Documenting the
Holocaust
NOTE: CLASS WILL MEET IN SYMONDS
I
Reading:
- Read Art Spiegelman, Maus
- Read Eric Barnouw, Documentary:
A History of Non-Fiction Film, 172-182 and 100-111.
- Visit the Hidden History of the
Kovno Ghetto exhibit at the United States Holocaust Museum: http://wlc.ushmm.org/kovno/
Assignment:
- Compare and contrast the different
modes of representing the Holocaust: oral history, visual, cinemagraphic,
textual. Does a museum exhibit qualify as a documentary? Can a comic book
or Web exhibit be considered a documentary?
In Class
- View excerpts from film documentaries
about the Holocaust and Naziism (such as Resnais' Night and Fog).
- Discuss ways in which the Holocaust
has been commemorated.
- Half-class: You will be given
time to meet with your project groups.
Nov. 21: Thanksgiving Break
No class.
Nov. 26: Second Paper Due
November 28: Multimedia Excursions:
Narrating Experience
NOTE: CLASS WILL MEET IN SYMONDS
I
Readings:
- Sven Birkerts, "Into the Electronic
Millennium," The Gutenberg Elegies [CP/E-reserve]
- Lev Manovich, "What Is New Media?"
The Language of New Media [CP/E-reserve]
Web sites:
- Explore the following Web sites:
Think about:
How do these digital documentaries
embody the qualities of New Media described by Murray, Manovich, and Birkerts--or
do they? Do you agree with Birkerts' criticisms of electronic media?
Dec. 5: Last Class: Pulling it all
Together
To explore:
In class:
- Review of projects. Each group
will offer constructive criticism of the projects developed by the other three
groups.
Assignment:
- Preliminary version of final projects
due. The deadline for submitting the final project has been extended to Monday,
Dec. 17 at 5. Have the project in a complete enough state so that you can
get useful feedback--at least 50% of the content and a good sense of the overall
architecture of the project. See http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~hans320/class/class12.html.
