Introduction to Film and Television Studies

1
Introduction to Film and Television Studies

• Autumn 2009

2
Why Film and Television Studies?

• Film and television can be studied to a great
  extent by employing the same concepts and methods
  
• They are increasingly interconnected as regards
  technology, financing, production, distribution,
  exhibition, consumption and aesthetics media
  convergence
• The field of study also covers artistic
  applications of new media
• Even as the technology changes, forms of
  representation created for film and television
  are likely to remain an integral part of our
  culture and society

3
Fundamental questions in FTVS

• How do film and television function as forms of
  artistic representation?
• How do they interact with the way we relate to
  our environment and the world as a whole?
• How do they interact with our other
  representations of the world?
• How do these interactions function in the
  formation of private and public identities?

4
Principal areas of study

• Aesthetics
• Historical poetics
• Hermeneutics
• Production, distribution and exhibition
• Social criticism
• Ideological criticism
• Media education

5
Aesthetics

• What are films and television programmes like as
  aesthetic objects?
• How do they appeal to our senses, emotions and
  reason?
• How do their different elements function in the
  work as a whole?
• What is the nature and significance of aesthetic
  experience?

6
Historical poetics

• How have film and television developed in
  relationship with technical, economic and
  practical factors?
• How have certain norms of filmmaking emerged and
  how have they been contested?
• How do various audiovisual elements elicit
  certain responses in audiences in respect of
  those historical norms?
• How have other arts influenced film and
  television and how have they in turn influenced
  other arts?

7
Hermeneutics

• How has our audiovisual sensibility developed
  through the history of film and television?
• How have film and television influenced the way
  people have perceived, understood and related to
  the real world?
• What do films and television programmes tell
  about their original contexts, about humanity in
  general and ourselves?
• How can they enhance our perception and
  understanding as conscious and moral beings?

8
Production, distribution and exhibition

• The production, distribution and exhibition of
  audiovisual culture crucially influence media
  contents and what will actually be seen by a
  given audience
• They are heavily dependent on economic, social,
  political and ideological factors
• Concrete factors which influence media contents
• Media ownership
• Interrelationships between media
• Media convergence
• Global imbalance of distribution

9
Social and ideological criticism

• Contextualizing individual films or television
  programmes as well as genres and trends in
  respect of historical and social conditions
• Contextualizing in terms of ideological and
  aesthetic currents
• How do films and television participate in the
  formation of personal and collective identities?
• How do they condition our attitudes and relation
  ships to otherness?

10
Media studies

• Conceptual tools for processing audiovisual
  information and experiences
• Ideological criticism
• Aesthetic education
• Develop capabilities to appreciate, evaluate and
  criticize audiovisual products on ones own terms
• The appeal of fictional violence project

11
Other research topics

• Auteur research
• Studio research
• Genre research
• Stardom
• Fandom
• National cinemas
• Feminism, gender studies
• Cultural studies
• Reception and audience studies
• Study of technology

12
Learning on lectures

• The aim is to provide not only information but
  also food for thought and incentive for working
  out things on your own
• The main goal to learn to think and express
  ideas and opinions
• Avoid making notes excessively
• Pause to think about what has been presented
• Make comments and questions
• Do not get frustrated if you do not grasp
  something straight away
• Feedback may be given both in connection with the
  lectures and by e-mail

13
What is art?

• Dissannayake the birth of art from play
• Walton mimesis as make-believe
• Aristotle tragic mimesis ja catharsis
• Kant art has no immediate purpose
• Schiller aesthetic education as a way of
  combining the sensuous and rational in man
• Goodman like dogs barking just because it is
  such fun!

14
Juhani Pallasmaas thoughts about art

• All art creates images, representations of
  reality, which expand the horizons of our
  experience and the realization of our selfhood.
• Poetic images are condensations of numerous
  experiences, percepts and ideas.
• Poetic images strengthen our existential sense
  and sensitize the boundary between ourselves and
  the world. They are invigorating images which
  emancipate human imagination.
• Art expresses the many aspects and problems of
  our existence. A work of art combines individual
  and supraindividual experience and leads us to
  experience our every day existence with enhanced
  sensitivity