Faculty of Communication and Culture

General Studies 201 - Lecture 08

First year Seminar in Communication and Culture

Winter 2008

Thursday 14:00 - 16:50

 

 

Instructor:	Brian Rusted
Office Location:	SS - 340
Office Phone:	220-7766
E-Mail:	rusted@ucalgary.ca
Office Hours:	Tuesday 14:30 - 16:30

Additional Information

 

The final assignment for this course--the documentary project--may require out of pocket expenses if students choose a multimedia format and need to rent equipment or facilities from Com/Media.

 

Course Description

A seminar designed to introduce first year students to intellectual discovery from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students will have the opportunity to interact with other students and faculty members while exploring a topic in depth in a small class. Writing, research and other academic skills will be learned in the context of this exploration.

 

Objectives of the Course

As an exploration of forms of documentary practice, this course will give students the opportunity to consider examples of documentary work in radio, print, theatre, photography, film, video, and digital media. Course objectives include,

 

- consideration of changing definitions, standards and popularity of documentary work

- a critical and experiential understanding of the creative, ethical, research and representational choices of documentary makers

- the impact of digital forms of distribution (such as YouTube, Flickr, and cell phones)

- the social uses of documentary for community development and social justice

Textbooks and Readings:

Required reading for the course includes the following books:

 

Nichols, Bill (2001). Introduction to Documentary. Indiana University Press.

 

Center for Documentary Studies (2001). Putting Documentary to Work: A Guide for Communities, Artists, and Activists. Durham, N.C.: Duke University. (http://www.indivisible.org/pdf/docWork_Eng.pdf)

 

The book by Nichols will be available from The Bookstore but it can also be read online at no charge through the MacKimmie Library. The Centre for Documentary Studies volume can be downloaded as a PDF, also at no charge.

 

Other related materials indicated for particular classes will be either on reserve in the library or available online through MacKimmie's ebrary. This material is suggested as a resource for particular assignments required in the course and as additional reading for specific course topics.

 

Assignments and Evaluation

The final grade will be based on completing all of the following five assignments:

 

Reflexive Review 15% (January 31)

Documentary project pitch and proposal 15%

           (February 14 for pitch with draft proposal; revised proposal February 28)

Stylistic Analysis 20% (March 6)

Reception Analysis 20% (March 27)

Documentary Project 30% (April 17)

 

Detailed descriptions of each assignment will be handed out during the course. The reflexive review is a writing assignment aimed at developing an awareness of critical standards we bring to viewing documentary work. The pitch and proposal is an experiential assignment that uses standards and expectations from the world of professional radio. The stylistic analysis invites research and reflection on the regularities found in the work of a particular documentary maker. The reception analysis will ask you to consider how documentary has been used in particular settings. The final, documentary project will be based on the pitch and may be an individual or a group project. Its goal is to provide experiential understanding of the ethical, stylistic and editorial choices documentary makers have to consider through undertaking a project of interest to you.

 

Each of these assignments will be connected with the weekly topics in the course and class time will be spent gaining consensus on the expectations for each assignment and in sharing our discoveries in completing them.

It is the student's responsibility to keep a copy of each submitted assignment.
Note: Please hand in your essays directly to your tutor or instructor if possible. If it is not possible to do so, a daytime drop box is available in SS110; a date stamp is provided for your use. A night drop box is also available for after-hours submission. Assignments will be removed the following morning, stamped with the previous day's date, and placed in the instructor's mailbox.

Registrar-scheduled Final Examination:  NO

Please note: If your class is held in the evening, the Registrar's Office will make every attempt to schedule the final exam during the evening; however, there is NO guarantee that the exam will NOT be scheduled during the day.

Policy for Late Assignments

Assignments submitted after the deadline may be penalized with the loss of a grade (e.g.: A- to B+) for each day late.

Writing Skills Statement

Faculty policy directs that all written assignments (including, although to a lesser extent, written exam responses) will be assessed at least partly on writing skills. For details see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/info. Writing skills include not only surface correctness (grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc) but also general clarity and organization. Research papers must be properly documented.

If you need help with your writing, you may use the Writing Centre.  Visit the website for more details: www.efwr.ucalgary.ca

Grading System

The following grading system is used in the Faculty of Communication and Culture:

A+ (96-100); A (92-95); A- (86-91); B+ (81-85); B (77-80); B- (71-76);
C+ (65-70); C (62-64); C- (59-61); D+ (55-58); D (50-54); F (0-49)

 

Plagiarism

Using any source whatsoever without clearly documenting it is a serious academic offense. Consequences include failure on the assignment, failure in the course and possibly suspension or expulsion from the university.

You must document not only direct quotations but also paraphrases and ideas where they appear in your text. A reference list at the end is insufficient by itself. Readers must be able to tell exactly where your words and ideas end and other people's words and ideas begin. This includes assignments submitted in non-traditional formats such as Web pages or visual media, and material taken from such sources.

Please consult your instructor or the Writing Centre (SS 106, efwr.ucalgary.ca) if you have any questions regarding how to document sources.

Students with Disabilities

If you are a student with a disability who may require academic accommodation, it is your responsibility to register with the Disability Resource Centre (220-8237) and discuss your needs with your instructor no later than fourteen (14) days after the start of the course.

Students' Union

For details about the current Students' Union contacts for the Faculty of Communication and Culture see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/su

"SAFEWALK" Program -- 220-5333

Campus Security will escort individuals day or night -- call 220-5333 for assistance. Use any campus phone, emergency phone or the yellow phone located at most parking lot booths.

Ethics

Whenever you perform research with human participants (i.e. surveys, interviews, observation) as part of your university studies, you are responsible for following university research ethics guidelines.  Your instructor must review and approve of your research plans and supervise your research.  For more information about your research ethics responsibilities, see the U of C Research Ethics "Information for Applicants," sections 3.0 to 9.0, inclusive: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/research/html/ethics/info_undergrad.html

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

This course topics for lectures and readings are structured in four parts, with approximately three weeks of classes devoted to each part. The assignments described above will be discussed during class and should be seen as inquiry based problems related to or reflecting each of these four parts of the course. Most weeks will have a particular case (an audio, textual, or visual documentary example) that will be presented and discussed in class to help focus our discussion of the each week's issues.

 

Part I: What is a documentary?

Week 1 January 17:

How do we define "documentary"?

Readings:

Coles, "Epilogue"

Nichols, chapter 5 "How did documentary..."

 

Week 2 January 24:

How do we evaluate oral and print forms of documentary?

Readings

Coles, "Introduction"

Nichols, chapter 6 "What types of documentary..."

Hogarth, chapter 2 "The Broadcast documentary..."

Paget, Ch. 2 "The clash of facts..."

Case: Marlatt and Minden (2001). Steveston.

 

 

Week 3 January 31:

How do we evaluate visual and multimedia forms of documentary?

Readings

Nichols, chapter 8 "How can we write effectively..."

Coles, chapter 1 "The Work"

Gaines and Renov, Ch. 1 Cowie

Roscoe & Hight, Ch. 2 "Recent Transformations..."

Case: Westerbeck and Meyerowitz (1994). Bystander

 

Part II: How is documentary material gathered?

Week 4 February 7: Why are ethical concerns important in documentary work?

Readings

Nichols, chapter 1 "Why are ethical issues.."

Coles, chapter 2 "The Person as Documentarian"

Goodall, chapter 5 "The ethics of writing..."

Winston, Chapter 5.3 "Documentarists ethics"; chapter 6 "Ethics"

 

Week 5 February 14: How does a documentary maker pitch an idea?

Readings

CBC Outfront, "Updated Pitch Guidelines" http://www.cbc.ca/outfront/contribute/index.html

Rosenthal, chapter 4 "Writing the proposal"

 

R e a d i n g   B r e a k

 

Week 6 February 28: How do you ask questions?

Readings

Yow, chapter 3 "Interviewing Techniques"

Thompson, "A Life-Story Interview Guide"

Rosenthal, chapter 12 "Directing the interview"

 

Part III: How are documentaries made?

Week 7 March 6: Are documentaries a special kind of fiction?

Readings

Coles, chapter 3 "The Tradition"

Roscoe and Hight, chapter 1, "Factual discourse"

Goodall, chapter 3 "Representing ethnographic experiences..."

Dornfeld, chapter 12 in Ginsberg

 

Week 8 March 13: How do documentaries create a sense of objectivity?

Readings

Nicks, chapter 16 "The documentary of displaced..." in Grant and Sloniowski

Coles, "A range of documentary inquiry"

Goodall, chapter 4 "Voice..."

Case: Waiting for Fidel (Rubbo) 58 min 1974 xmp0364401

 

Week 9 March 20: Are people's performances for documentary makers, true?

Readings

Bruzzi, chapter 6 "The performative documentary..."

Cohen-Cruz, chapter 6 "Storytelling"

Plummer, chapter 3 "Accessories..."

Sherman, chapter 5 "Projecting the Self"

Case: Paris is Burning (Livingston) 79 min 1990

 

Part IV: How are documentaries used?

Week 10 March 27: Is documentary work creative?

Readings

Cohen- Cruz, chapter "Criticism"

Kuppers, chapter 1.4 "Community arts practices..."

Yow, chapter 6 "Varieties of Oral History..."

Putting Documentaries to Work

Case: Paper Wheat (Kish) 58 min 1981 xmv60614

 

Week 11 April 3: Can documentary work create social change?

Readings

Nichols, chapter 7 "How have documentaries..."

Boyle, chapter 20 "Epilogue"

Case: VTR Rosedale (Chatwin) 31 min 1974 xmv5685801

 

Week 12 April 10: Does iMovie make everyone a documentary maker?

Readings

Burnett, Ron "Video Space/Video Time: The Electronic Image and Portable Video (downloaded here: http://www.eciad.ca/~rburnett/videospace.html)

Dovey, chapter 3 "Camcorder cults"

Case: Citizenshift: Online Media for Social Change (http://citizen.nfb.ca/)

Homeless Nation.org (http://homelessnation.org/)

Documentally Dot Com (http://www.documentally.com/)

 

Week 13 April 17: Conclusion

Project Presentations

 

RESERVE READINGS

 

Coles, Robert (1997). Doing Documentary Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Gaines, Jane M. and Michael Renov (1999). Collecting Visible Evidence. University of Minnesota Press.

 

Goodall, H.L (2000). Writing the New Ethnography. Alta Mira.

 

Grant, Barry Keith and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds. (1998). Documenting the documentary: close readings of documentary film and video. Wayne State University Press.

 

Kuppers, Petra (2007). The Community Performance Reader. Routledge.

 

Izod, John and Richard Kilborn with Matthew Hibberd (2000). From Grierson to the docu-soap: breaking the boundaries. University of Luton Press.

 

Marlatt, Daphne and Robert Minden (2001). Steveston. Ronsdale Press.

 

Paget, Derek, (1990). True stories? Documentary drama on radio, screen, and stage. Manchester University Press.

 

Plummer, Ken (2001). Documents of Life 2. Sage.

 

Roscoe, Jane and Craig Hight (2001). Faking it: mock-documentary and the subversion of factuality. Manchester University Press.

 

Sherman, Sharon R. (1998). Documenting ourselves: film, video, and culture. University Press of Kentucky.

 

Thompson, Paul (2000). The Voice of the Past. Oxford.

 

Westerbeck, Colin and Joel Meyerowitz (1994). Bystander: a history of street photography. Little, Brown.

 

Winston, Brian (2000). Lies, damn lies and documentaries. British Film Institute.

 

Yow, Valerie (1994). Recording Oral History. Sage.

 

EBRARY READINGS

 

Boyle, Deirdre (1997). Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. Oxford University Press.

 

Bruzzi, Stella (2000). New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. Routledge.

 

Cohen-Cruz, Jan (2005). Local Acts: Community-based Performance in the United States. Rutgers University Press.

 

Dovey, Jon (2000) Freakshow: First person media and factual television. Pluto Press.

 

Geller, Peter (2004). Northern Exposures: photographing and filming the Canadian north, 1920-45. UBC Press.

 

Ginsberg, Faye, editor (2002). Media Worlds: Anthropology on new terrain. University of California Press.

 

Hogarth, David (2002). Documentary Television in Canada: From national public service to global marketplace. McGill-Queens Press.