An Intensive Seminar-Workshop

Athens, Greece, June 1998

Instructor: Despina Kakoudaki

Meetings:
Tuesday and Wednesday 9, 10, 16 and 17 June, 1998
3.30- 10.00 pm
Theater Studies Graduates Association
25 Koumoundourou Street, 104 57 Athens, Tel/Fax: 522-9990

1. Tuesday, June 9 1998

What is Cinema?

Introduction
Multimedia, Theater, Cinema
"Visual Culture"-- Types of Visual Texts
Intertextuality
A Short History of Film Studies and Film Theory
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

Workshop
1000 Airplanes on the Roof (D.H.Hwang) Multimedia Theater
Using Visual Media
Lesson Plans: Comics and Non-moving Images

Sobchack "Phenomenology and the Film Experience" in Viewing Positions
McCloud Understanding Comics (excerpts)
various editorials Film Comment

2. Wednesday, June 10 1998

Sound

The material aspects of film
"Plot" and "Sound"
The Histories and Mythologies of Film Sound
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927)
Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly, 1952)

Workshop
Silent film and Experimental Approaches to Cinematic Sound
Sound Effects in Theater Production
Lesson Plans: Using Film Music, Narrative and Non-Narrative Sound
Playing with Sound Effects in the Classroom

"The Material Heterogeneity of Recorded Sound," "Four and A Half Film Fallacies," "Sound Space," and "Sound/History" in Altman, ed. Sound Theory, Sound Practice
"Opera On Film" in Film Comment

3. Tuesday, June 16 1998

Text

Film Adaptation of Theatrical Texts
Adaptation Examples: Shakespeare
Theater Studies Approach: One Play, Many Versions
Film Studies Approach: One Director, Many Plays
Prospero's Books (Peter Greenaway, 1991)
Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)
West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961)

Workshop
Lesson Plans:
1. Understanding Social Space in West Side Story and Ran
2. Indoor and Outdoor Shots in Othello (Welles) and Hamlet (Olivier)
3. Multimedia-MTV-Shakespeare: Romeo +Juliet

Schwartz "Cinematic Spectatorship Before the Apparatus" in Viewing Positions
"The Sounds of Shakespeare" in Sound Theory
Kenneth Brannagh Interviews from Film Comment

4. Wednesday, June 17

Image

"Visual Culture" "Iconic Language"
Visual Reading, Visual Event, Representation
The Materiality of the Image
"The New Hollywood" -- Film as a Media Event
Top Girls and Cloud Nine (Caryl Churchill)
Strange Days (Kathryn Bigelow, 1995)

Workshop
Using Film and Theater Texts together
Lesson Plans on Visual and Special Effects and Spectacular Representation

Schatz, "The New Hollywood" in Film Theory Goes to the Movies
Gunning, "An Aesthetic Of Astonishment" in Viewing Positions
"Fashion in Film," "Bodyscape" and "A History of Special Effects" in Film Comment