Editorial: Welcome to the Film Education Journal

The Moving Image, 2004

A Pedagogy of Cinema is the first book to apply Deleuze's concept of cinema to the pedagogic context. Cinema is opened up by this action from the straightforward educative analysis of film, to the systematic unfolding of image. A Pedagogy of Cinema explores what it means to engender cinema-thinking from image. This book does not overlay images from films with an educational approach to them, but looks to the images themselves to produce philosophy. This approach to utilising image in education is wholly new, and has the potential to transform classroom practice with respect to teaching and learning about cinema. The authors have carefully chosen specific examples of images to illustrate such transformational processes, and have fitted them into in depth analysis that is derived from the images. The result is a combination of image and text that advances the field of cinema study for and in education with a philosophical intent. " This outstanding new book asks a vital question for our time. How can we educate effectively in a digitalized, corporatized, Orwellian-surveillance-controlled, globalized world? This question is equally a challenge asked of our ability to think outside of the limiting parameters of the control society, and the forces which daily propel us ever-quicker towards worldwide homogenization. With great lucidity, Cole and Bradley offer us profound hope in Gilles Deleuze's increasingly popular notion of 'cine-thinking'. They explore and explain the potential that this sophisticated idea holds for learning, in an easy going and accessible way, and with a range of fantastic films: from 'Suspiria' and 'Performance' through to 'Under the Skin' and 'Snowpiercer'. This extremely engaging and compelling text is likely to enliven scholars and students everywhere. " – David Martin-Jones, Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow, UK

TEACHING FILM: ESSAYS ON CINEMATIC PEDAGOGY, edited by Lucy Fischer and Patrice Petro (New York: Modern Language Association, 2012), 618-646., 2012

This paper aims to reflect on film practice pedagogy and students' political agency, drawing on our experience of teaching for nearly a decade on the BA (Hons) Film Production course at the University of Portsmouth, as well as course leading and shaping curriculum for a period. The course at the University of Portsmouth is in many ways indicative of the wider context of filmmaking education in the UK. Its development could be seen as a direct corollary of the educational and cultural agenda and policies ushered in by the New Labour government in the early 2000s. This agenda was informed by an approach to Higher Education that placed it at the service of the economy and industry. HE institutions were encouraged to 'produce' graduates who would possess the skills to contribute to Britain's growing post-industrial knowledge economy (Duncan Petrie, 2012; Ramsey and White, 2015).Part of this agenda was the reframing of arts and media within an economic context, resulting in a terminology shift that labelled them as 'cultural industries' and later 'creative industries'. The new agenda of the Creative Industries was: " signalling a new and apparently seamless integration of culture and the market " (Duncan Petrie, 2012: 364.), entailing a realignment of the British film industry as a hub of skills and services catering for the global film market, and a new strategy for filmmaking education, led by the UK Film Council and Creative Skillset: an organization initially set up in the early 1990s to coordinate training across the film and television industries.The new film education strategy emphasized vocational training, skills development and links with the industry, noting bluntly that – " there is a clear distinction to be made between academic studies and vocational provision " (SkillSet/UK Film Council 2013: 17). As Petrie puts it, conspicuously absent from this agenda " is an acknowledgment, let alone discussion, of the importance of critical thinking to the propagation of creative, innovative, vibrant and socially relevant film and television production " (2012: 369).

European Journal of Education Studies, 2018

The research centers on examining probable pedagogical implications of film elements as viable innovative writing catalysts over the whole film in terms of materials' authenticity, materials design, multimedia principles and conceivable tasks components reinforced by related-conducted researches. It is supposed that film elements' utilization fundamentally needs practical and sanctioned assessment. The study demonstrated interests to the subsequent enquiries: What are the pedagogical implications of films and their elements in language instructions? What are the film elements-inspired writing tasks? How are they administered in the classrooms? Do they conform to input authenticity, materials design and multimedia standards? Do these principles sustain the writing tasks? What are other research standards that support the writing tasks? What are the significant components of these writing activities and how do they support writing viabilities? It is perceived that when authenticity, materials design and multimedia principles are incorporated in creating writing tasks from film elements, said instructions can be linguistically and technologically rewarding. An empirical investigation through survey of teachers' practices of materials design standards towards the development of writing tasks alongside teachers and students technological skills' involvement is suggested. Similarly, this paper warrants quantitative studies on how teachers asses writing viabilities through authenticity, materials design and multimedia principles using film elements as crucial variables.

Cinema Journal - Teaching Dossier, 2018

This paper seeks to reflect on teaching film production in UK universities and students’ political agency; especially in relation to issues of social-class and cultural difference – issues that are not only still pertinent in the UK, but seem to be gathering greater urgency in face of contemporary social and political challenges. The paper scrutinises the curriculum design of film production courses, which in the past two decades was driven by the Creative Industries agenda that was ushered around 2000 by the New Labour government. Informed by neo-liberal market-orientated approach, such agenda prioritised skills development and links with the industry, over pedagogical goals such as facilitating political debate, the development of critical thinking and the fostering of students social, political and creative agency. Proposing an alternative approach to filmmaking pedagogy, which draws on Paulo Freire’s concept of transformative learning and on models of experiential learning, we discuss an example of a module set out to devise an appropriate practical experience that would encourage students to engage with those issues in a reflective and meaningful way.

2016

The AnaChronisT

The idea for the Reel Eye special issue of The AnaChronisT was prompted by a workshop and conference held at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in September 2021, as part of the ELTE Film and Culture BA Specialisation Programme of the School of English and American Studies (SEAS). The programme was launched in 2015 to improve BA education with the encouragement of the late Prof. Tibor Frank, director of SEAS back then, and of Prof. Ákos Farkas, head of the Department of English Studies (DES) back then. They were both highly dedicated to starting a new Film and Culture programme, which was co-hosted by ELTE SEAS and the Department of Film Studies. With this Reel Eye special issue, we would also like to pay tribute to the work and support of three colleagues: the late Prof. Tibor Frank, Prof. Ákos Farkas, and Prof. Marcell Gellért (now retired), who also participated both in the creation of the Film and Culture 2016 textbook and in the Reel Eye Conferences. By now, we have trained almost 100 students in the Film and Culture programme, who continued their MA studies at different film departments after graduation, finding their feet either in academia or in the film industry. Among our first-generation students, there were young talents who, since then, have proved to be important parts of the Hungarian and international film industries, either as theoreticians, scriptwriters, or filmmakers, of which we are all very proud.

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 2004