Basics of Filmmaking
Program GOAL:
Program aims at expanding students' knowledge of world cinema, exposing them to a range of remarkable filmmakers and diverse cinematic languages in both fiction and non-fiction forms. As we dissect films shot by shot, it will sharpen their analytical and critical skills, while filmmakers will also gain rich practical insight into the nuts and bolts of how films are constructed.
Writer-Directors will gain the ability to articulate the deep structures of their ideas, write scripts with the aid of dramaturgical principles, storyboard, organize their film shoots, communicate their vision to technicians, organize castings, manage locations, and confidently foresee the necessary requirements of their filmmaking process, from the conception of an idea all the way to final edit.
Target Audience:
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Listeners will learn to discern the aesthetic, philosophical, and emotional implications of different film techniques. While the practical component of the course will focus on scriptwriting and pre-production, filmmakers can be at any level of experience and bring projects at any phase of production. Pre-production is defined in this course as the pre-visualization and planning of a film all the way to the final stages. The Writer-Director is defined as a craftsman who oversees every element and phase of making a film.
The course will also have a number of guest speakers. Individual tutoring and meetings with the instructor will be regularly available outside of class.
Course Content:
The course has two components:
- Film viewings, followed by discussion-based analysis, in which we will watch a wide range of cinema from the silent era to the present (with emphasis on the short form)
- The concrete, practical development of individual film projects
TOPICS and FILMS
Introduction - Face to Face with Cinema (The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, Stan Brakhage / Experimental Conversations, Philippe Grandrieux and Nicole Brenez)
Hypnotic Imagery and Atmosphere in Silent Cinema (Vampyr, Carl Theodor Dreyer / Nosferatu, F.W Murnau / The Wind, Victor Sjostrom)
Spectrum of Short Forms 1: Short Narratives (La Tempestaire, Jean Epstein / Carne, Gaspar Noe)
Masterworks of Feature Film Storytelling (Science-Fiction) - The Face of Another, Hiroshi Teshigahara
Masterworks of Feature Film Storytelling (Crime) (Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese)
Masterworks of Feature Film Storytelling (The Uncategorized) – (Possession, Andrzej Zulawski)
Spectrum of Short Forms 2: Non-narrative - World of Glory, Roy Andersson / Elephant, Alan Clarke / Nocturne, Lars Von Trier
The Chamber Drama - The Silence, Ingmar Bergman / The Rite, Ingmar Bergman
Non-Linear Editing and the Space of the Dream - Diamonds of the Night, Jan Nemec
Visual Stylization - Medea, Lars Von Trier
Spectrum of Short Forms 3: Archive Films - Very Nice Very Nice, Arthur Lipsett / O, Uomo! Angela Ricci-Lucchi and Yervant Gianikian
Uses of Text in Dialogue and Voice-over - On The Silver Globe, Andrzej Zulawski / Negative Hands, Marguerite Duras
Uses of Sound - Mekvle, Goderdze Chokheli / The Hart of London, Jack Chambers
Film As A Subversive Art - Even Dwarfs Started Small, Werner Herzog
Spectrum of Short Forms 4: Documentary - The House is Black, Farough Farrokhzad / Seasons of the Year, Artavazd Pelechian
Materials for reading: On Directing Film - David Mamet; The Art of Dramatic Writing - Lajos Egri; Writing the Short Film - Pat Cooper; Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics - Michael Rabiger; The Cinema As A Graphic Art - Vladimir Nilsen; Cinematography: Theory and Practice - Blain Brown; The Visual Story - Bruce Block; On Film Editing - Edvard Dmytryk; The Analysis of Film - Raymond Bellour; Film As A Subversive Art - Amos Vogel.
Course duration: 2 and 1/2 months
Total lecturing hours: 48 hours
Program Cost: 690 GEL
Program Methodology:
Teaching is highly interactive and discussion-based. Individual projects will be given group feedback. The practical component takes the form of an extended project development workshop. There will be weekly reading and viewing assignments outside of class.
Students will be assigned to write three essays in which they analyze a film of their choice through the lens of either dramaturgy, cinematography, uses of sound, uses of text, acting styles, or editing schemes.
Practitioner students will complete the course with a well developed or final draft of a script and a pre-production portfolio that will equip them to move on to the funding and production phases of their project. If the practitioner students are at a later phase of production, they will have resolved the technical or aesthetic issues necessary to bring their project to completion.
CERTIFICATE
Upon successful completion of the program. The participant will be awarded with the Certificate in Basics of Filmmaking.
Requirements:
Devin Horan - worked at Lithuanian filmmaker Sharunas Bartas' Studio Kinema on the crime-road-film Eastern Drift (Indigene d'Eurasie). After that he made his first film, Boundary (2009), which was named one of the top ten films of the last decade in Cinemascope's poll The Decade in Review. His next film, Late and Deep (2011), premiered in the Horizons: New Trends in World Cinema section of the 68th Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Berlin National Gallery's Preis für Junge Filmkunst (Young Film Art Award) in 2013. Grodek (2015) is a video fragment about the Austrian poet Georg Trakl and premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Akra (2017), a surreal, black comedic piece of anti-cinema, was filmed in Tbilisi and Chiatura with an international cast and crew, starring mostly Georgian actors. He was the editor of Pages of Natural History by his long-time collaborator Margherita Malerba, which premiered at the 30th edition of FID Marseille this year. He is currently shooting a new film in Georgia. His films have screened at Venice, Rotterdam, Courtisane Ghent, Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin-Madrid Festival of New Cinema and Contemporary Art, DokumentART, the European Media Art Festival, Lausanne, Split, Bucharest, Belgrade, Zagreb, Curitiba, Hamburg, Cork, and others. He taught scriptwriting and directing at the Caucasus School of New Cinema from 2018-19. He is also a visual artist whose work will be published by Infinity Land Press in 2020.
Nino Museridze
Program Coordinator
Training and Consulting Center
Address: 62 Lado Aasatiani str., Tbilisi, Georgia; 0105
E-Mail: n.museridze@gipa.ge
Mob:+995 577 464 207
