Screen storytelling: From classical narrative to multi-media world building

This unit analyses the many ways that stories can be told on screen. It aims is to explore how screen-based media utilise different narrative structures and models, as well as various aesthetic techniques to offer possibilities to creators and viewers to tap into the central human practice of storytelling. The course draws examples from major innovatory phases in the history of film, television and other screen-based media. This includes the development of classical narrative model, Russian montage experiments in the 1920s, alternative formal systems in Asian film, Italian neo-realism, European art cinema, contemporary Hollywood, World cinema and multi-media storytelling focusing specifically on non-linear, multi-linear and interactive narrative forms. It introduces you to a range of theories developed to understand the organisation, techniques and impacts of narration in film, television and other platforms in order to enable you to make critical arguments and specific interpretations of screen texts.