Music and Documentary Filmmaking (Winter 2011)
Classes: Tuesday and Thursday 2:00PM – 3:20PM
Location: HC 2-26
Instructor: Federico Spinetti www.ualberta.ca/~spinetti
Office: 3-34A Arts & Convocation Hall; office hours: Tuesday 11:00AM – 1:00PM; tel. 492-7534; email: spinetti@ualberta.ca
Contents
Course description
This course examines a variety of experiences, techniques, philosophies and understandings of documentary filmmaking through the specific lens of music. It considers both documentaries about music and the use of music in documentary films on other subjects. Spanning TV productions, art films and film ethnographies, the course draws on film studies, visual anthropology and ethnomusicology to provide an interpretive frame and a critical forum for students to engage thoughtfully with documentary filmmaking. In particular, music will be taken as the vantage point to look at issues of representation in audiovisual media as well as to explore documentary filmmaking as both a creative and a research process. Class instruction will include discussion of assigned readings, and in-class viewings and analyses.
