Course syllabus
MEDIA 220: Mockumentary and Docu-Genres
SEMESTER 1, 2018
15 points
Welcome to Mockumentary and Docu-genres (FTVMS 220). My name is Sarina Pearson and I will be your course convenor.
Lectures will be Tuesday mornings 10-12. Please ensure that you enrol for a tutorial. The course is worth 15 points. Your assessments will consist of tutorial participation, two essay assignments and a two-hour final exam. Please feel free to come and talk to me about the course, assignments or your anything else that I might be able to help you with. My office hours in Semester 1 will be Thursdays 2-3:30 and by appointment.
email: s.pearson@auckland.ac.nz
phone: ext 88900
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Janine Hedley, shed002@aucklanduni.ac.nz
Office hours: Tuesdays 2-3 and Fridays 1-2, School of Social Sciences Building (201E), Room 528.
Class Rep: Sheuk-Yeeng Tan: stan703@aucklanduni.ac.nz
COURSE OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES:
This course introduces students to key debates in documentary studies, cinematic realism, and generic innovation. From its inception, documentary’s ontological status has been fiercely contested. Critics have struggled to define the genre’s relationship to fact, truth, and reality and to differentiate it from other cinematic practices. Audiences find fake documentary and mockumentary tactics alternately engaging and infuriating.
By looking at ways in which the documentary form has been modified, hybridized and applied to non-documentary genres, this course explores how truth claims have been constructed and how genres undergo transformation. Mockumentary, fake documentary, ethnographic surrealism, docu-horror and comedy verite demonstrate not only how documentary is conventionally conceptualized, but also how reflexivity, irony and parody operate in factual filmmaking and increasingly in entertainment more generally. In addition to exploring these various aims, this course offers students the opportunity to see a diverse range of films either classified as ‘documentary’ or classified in relation to documentary.
TUTORIALS:
This course consists of a 2 hour lecture and a 1 hour tutorial each week. Tutorials are structured to provide not only opportunities to discuss films, readings and assignments but they are also designed to give students an opportunity to engage in the debates raised in lecture. You will have weekly reading and viewing quizzes and tutorial tasks which will prepare you for tutorial discussion and help you develop skills for your assignments and for your exam. Please come prepared to participate.
READINGS:
Course Readings are available on TALIS and in the MODULES section of CANVAS. Please come to lecture having read the required readings and be familiar enough with them to be able to discuss and debate them at tutorials.
SHORT LOAN AND REFERENCE MATERIALS:
We have relevant holdings in the General Library and a small selection of heavily subscribed books on Short Loan. Please ensure that you know how to conduct basic searches both in the library stacks and in electronic databases.
SCREENINGS:
There are no formal group screenings for this course. You are responsible for viewing all the primary visual texts (identified in the course schedule for each date). All primary texts will be available in the General Library (on desk copy). Some of them may be available on Kanopy but not all. You will be expected to have viewed them prior to the lecture. Additional visual materials used as reference and illustration in lecture will also be available.
WORKLOAD:
Students are expected to average 10 hours of work (3 hours in class and 7 hours of preparation and independent study) per week for each 15 point paper they are enrolled in.
ASSESSMENT:
There are five assessment components for this course:
- Tutorial Participation & Tasks/Worksheets 10%
- Reading & Viewing Quizzes 10%
- Assignment #1 (750 words) 15%
- Assignment #2 (1750 words) 25%
- Final exam (2 hours) 40%
- TASKS & TUTORIAL PARTICIPATION:
Students should attend all tutorials. If an absence is unavoidable please contact your lecturer or graduate teaching assistant as soon as you are aware of the problem with documentation for absences e.g. a Doctor’s Certificate. Tutorial participation requires students to complete viewings, readings and to complete tasks when assigned. Tasks can be handwritten and should be brought to tutorial where they will be handed in to the lecturer or graduate teaching assistant. These worksheets should help you work through the readings and help you prepare for your assignments and examination. To achieve active tutorial participation you must be attend the tutorial, complete the preparatory task (when assigned) and participate in the tutorial discussion. Failure to do any one of these components will mean you may not get the mark for tutorial participation.
Assessment Criteria:
10% 9+ tutorials plus completed tutorial tasks, attendance & participation
8-9% 7-8 tutorials plus completed tutorial tasks, attendance & participation
6-7% 6-7 tutorials plus completed tutorial tasks, attendance & participation
3-5% more than 5 tutorials plus completed tutorial tasks, attendance & participation
2-4% less than 5 tutorials, poorly completed tutorial tasks, sporadic attendance and some participation
0-3% inconsistent attendance, poorly completed or no completed tutorial tasks and minimal participation
- READING & VIEWING QUIZZES
10 multiple choice questions (Weeks 2-11)
Percentage of Total Mark: 10%
Deadline: by 9 am Tuesday mornings.
Online quizzes in CANVAS
- ASSIGNMENT 1 (Short Essay)
Word Length: 750 words
Percentage of Total Mark: 15%
Deadline: March 23
4. ASSIGNMENT 2 (Essay)
Word Length: 1750 words
Percentage of Total Mark: 25%
Deadline: May 16
Essay Topics will be distributed before the mid-semester break on CANVAS under ASSIGNMENTS
5. EXAMINATION
Length: 2 hours
Percentage of Total Mark: 40%
Format: Short Answer and Essay
An exam review sheet will be distributed in Week 11 and discussed in tutorials in Week 12
TUĀKANA PROGRAMME
FTVMS provide academic support within the department for all Māori and Pasifika students studying at Stage 2 & 3.
FTVMS Stage 2 & 3 Tuākana Mentor: tuakana.ftvms@auckland.ac.nz.
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1 Course Introduction
WEEK 2 Documentary History
WEEK 3 Documentary Types, Modes and Style
WEEK 4 Hoaxing National Desire
WEEK 5 Mock/Rockumentary
WEEK 6 Hoaxing History
WEEK 7 Straddling the Documentary/Mockumentary Divide
WEEK 8 Ethnographic Surrealism & Satire
WEEK 9 Docu-Horror
WEEK 10 Comedy Verité
WEEK 11 Fake News & Politicotainment
WEEK 12 Concluding Remarks & EXAM REVIEW
THIS COURSE PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. SOME LINKS MAY NOT FUNCTION UNTIL FEBRUARY 26. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE :)
Course summary:
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