Critical Practice in Film and Video Pedagogy

1. Critical Practice in Film and Video Pedagogy

2. Critical Practice Pedagogy • The role of practice in teaching and learning • Working with the ‘media savvy’ nature of contemporary students • The Critical Practice model • Integration of theory and practice is a method for viewing key moments of film history

3. 1: Kolb learning cycle (for example) Concrete Experience Active Experience Reflective Observation Abstract Conceptualisation

4. Critical Practice Pedagogy • Engaging different learning styles • Relating the experiential to the abstract • Allowing for different levels of cognitive engagement • Acknowledging what students already know about media practice

5. 2: “Media Savvy” Students • Students already engaged in media practice • Participants in various forms of media communication from snapshots to Youtube • Increasing access to technologies • Students already theorise media

6. 3: Levels of Engagement with Critical Practice • Teaching practice students through the critical practice model • Incorporating practice techniques within film studies teaching • Teaching students informed by practice • Teaching with an awareness of Critical Practice in film traditions

7. Theory-Practice Continuum • Overcoming the Historical/Institutional structures which have traditionally separated theory from practice • Mind/Body Split • Class division of labour • Art SchoolAcademic TheoryVocational Training • Concept of “integration” - the productive relationship between these two areas

8. Mike Wayne’s Taxonomies • Reflexive Practitioner • Can interrogate production process • Theoretical Practitioner • Can identify the relationship between choices and creation of meaning • Critical Practitioner • Can interrogate the politics of meaning

9. Developing on from this • Critical Practice • Awareness of the construction of meaning • Theorised Practice • Students can situate their practice within terms of ideology • Reflection on Practice • Can engage with and theorise their own practice

10. Theoretically Informed Creative Work • Work that explores the complexities of meaning-making • How image-making systems create knowledge • Work that is aware of its position in ideological constructions • Research common factor - presentation of research varies

11. Practice informed theory • Role of theory to move from a passive to an active media engagement • Participation in practice demystifies the process • Introduces experience into theoretical discussion • Raises the question of the ‘author’ • Aware of conscious decision-making in creative process • Rebalances questions of intent

12. Goals and Objectives in theory practice pedagogy • Gives students common language • The process of criticism/critique discussion • Encourages theoretically informed work • Theory encourages experimentation in practice • Theoretical process places student’s work within its cultural context • Positions techniques within context • Engaged theory

13. Theory-Practice Examples for the Classroom • Incorporating production experiences • Shot Compositions • Interrogating the theoretical constructs of subject identification through camera placement • Exquisite corpse exercise • Film language and editing in constructing meaning • Recontextualization

14. 4: Theorist-Practitioners • Examples where filmmakers make films and write theoretically • Movements/Styles of Film produce models of Critical Practice: • Soviet Montage, French New Wave, Third Cinema, Avant-Garde • Practice as Theory • Explore ways in which film texts themselves theorise