The latvian academy of culture

Description of the Study Course

The Name of the Course: Film and Video Editing.
The Scope of the Course: 128 academic hours.

8 credit points. The type of assessment: an examination.

The Author of the Course: Prof. Ansis Epners
Preconditions for the Acquisition of the Course: Prior knowledge in composition, direction and drama.
The Contents of the Course: The programme is designed for TV directors as an insight into the history of editing and a practical acquisition of all editing types. A modification of the course with the scope of 32 academic hours is read for TV operators.
Thematic Planning:

Theme	Week	Type of classes and hours
Human sight and the editor’s professional thinking.	1.,2.	L2;L2;L2;L2
Editing in applied arts and literature.	3.,4.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The origin of editing in cinematography at the beginning of the 20^th century.	5.,6.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The Kuleshov effect.	7.,8.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The founders of editing: Griffith and Eisenstein.	9.,10.	L2;L2;L2;L2
Dziga Vertov: a master of editing a documentary film.	11.,12.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The types and antithesis of editing: the narrative, the attractive, the intellectual, the distant, the semantic and the associative.	13.,14., 15.,16.	L2;L2;L2;L2 L2;L2;L2;L2
The creation of an editing phrase and the transformation of a frame.	17.,18.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The relations of a picture and a sound in creation of an editing phrase.	19.,20.	L2;L2;L2;L2
The grammar of editing in TV and video.	21.,22., 23.,24.	L2;L2;L2;L2 L2;L2;L2;L2
Practical tasks: the plan and scheme of editing.	25.,26., 27.,28.	P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2
The method of a basic shot and a triple shot.	29.,30., 31.,32.	P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2;P2

Requirements for the Acquisition of Credit Points:
1. Participation at all seminars.

2. A passed test and an examination

Literature:

10. 
    Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. Film Art: an introduction.- NY, Knopf, 1985
    
11. 
    Orr, J. Contemporary cinema.- Edinburg Univ. Press, 1998
    
12. 
    Dick, B. F. Anathomy of Film.- NY, St. Martin’s Press, 1998
    
13. 
    Smith, D.L. Video Communication: Struchturing content for maximum programm effectiviness.- Belmont& Wordswort Publ. Co., 1991
    
14. 
    Сборник статей. Вопросы истории и теории кинo.- Москва, ВГИК
    
15. 
    Фемонов, М.Б. Монтаж как художественная форма.- Москва, 1966
    
16. 
    Рейсц, К. Техника киномонтажа.- Москва, 1960
    
17. 
    Сокаров – Дворников, А.Г. Монтаж в системе виразителъных средств кино.- Москва, 1991
    
18. 
    Конопчев, Б.Н. Основы филъмопроизводство.- Москва, 1988
    

The Name of the Course: Film Editing and Elements of Their Structure

The Scope of the Course: 96 hours (80 lectures, 6 hours of seminars, 10 hours of watching films, written structure analysis).

6 credit points. Type of Assessment – an oral examination with analytical editing performed in a written form.

II.The Author of the Course: Ass. Prof. Pēteris Krilovs

The Content of the Course: Within the framework of the course students get introduced to the development of the language of the cinema studying it hand in hand with its history. The stress is laid on the historical nodal points of the principles of film making (the end of the era of the silent cinema, the application of sound and text, the competing influence of literature and visual arts, the influence of TV stylistics, laboratory experiments with visual language, etc.)
Preconditions for the Acquisition of the Course: General experience in the editing of films or TV programmes and the ability to access the Video Film Archives.
Thematic Planning:

THEMES	Week	Type of classes and hours
The silent cinema. News reels. Circus. Anecdotes. Short stories. Films by Brothers Lumières, Georges Melies, Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin.	1, 2	L2;L2;L2;L2
Epic tendencies and psychological peaks in the silent cinema. “Intolerance” by D.W. Griffith, “The Passion of Joan of Arc” by Carl-Theodor Dreyer and films by Fritz Lang.	3, 4, 5	L2;L2
The revolution of sound. Jean Vigo.	6	L2;L2
Text and plot. The influence of literature. Archetypes of literary forms. Orson Welles.	7, 8	L2;L2
The determination of genre. Basic principles of the modelling of genre. Western, comedy, parable, historic drama. Luis Bunuel’s films from the pre-war period.	9	L2;N2
Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”. Psychoanalytical conclusions about the influence of feature films on the subconsciousness of the audience.	10	L2;S2
The cinema and real life. Documentaries and “Cinema-Eye”. The models of the Russian cinema. (Dziga Vertov, S.Eisenstein, Vsevlod Pudoukin and Boris Barnet).	11, 12	L2;N2
Structuring of neo-realism. From the characters of “musical comedies” to “the street cinema” and lay actors. “The Bicycle Thief”.	13, 14	L2;N2
A seminar with the analysis of a watched test work.	15	S2;N2
Post-war cinema stylistics. The character archetypes of American and British films. Wilder’s films.	16, 17, 18	L2;L2;L2;L2
Musical forms and the cinema.	19, 20	L2;L2;N2
The French “New Wave”. Francois Truffant’s films. “Jules and Jim”.	21	L2;L2
Jean-Luc Godard. “Spontaneous” forms of the language of the cinema. “Cinema Flow”.	22	L2;L2
The flourishing of the Russian cinema in the “thaw” period. Mikhail Kalatozov, Grigori Chukhrai and Sergey Gerasimov.	23, 24, 25	L2;L2;L2;L2
Andre Tarkovsky’s cinema evolution. “Andrei Roublev”.	26, 27	L2;L2;L2;L2
The performance elements in the history of the cinema. Jean Renoir’s creative work and theatrical elements in his later films. “The Rules of the Game” and “Grand Illusion”.	28, 29	L2;L2;L2;L2
Alfred Hitchcock’s methods of frightening. “Psycho”.	30	L2;L2
Structural elements in the Latvian cinema: a story. The narrator’s position versus the line of visual characters. Films by L.Leimanis and A.Freimanis.	31	L2;L2
A seminar: Stylistic Games of Documentaries in Films.	32	S2

Preconditions for the Acquisition of the Credit Points:

3. 
   60-70% of the films in the programme should be watched and analysed.
   
4. 
   The participation in the seminars and submission of the analytical notes on editing.
   
5. 
   An oral examination which includes a written analysis of film editing.
   

III.Literature:

1. 
   Kultūras, teksts, zīme., Rīga, Elpa, 1993
   
2. 
   Bawden Liz-Anne. The Oxford Companion to Film., Oxf.Univ.Press, 1976