Universität Wien

160007 UE Digital Film Music (2023W)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 16 - Musikwissenschaft und Sprachwissenschaft
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 30 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 03.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 10.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 17.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 24.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 31.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 07.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 14.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 21.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 28.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 05.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 12.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 09.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 16.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 23.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09
  • Tuesday 30.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 1 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-09

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Writing on digital cinema has overwhelmingly focussed on the effects of computer-generated images (CGI) on film-making and audience experience. Our emphasis, however, is on cinema as an audiovisual medium. Rather than asking how digital technologies have influenced either the moving image or the soundtrack alone, we ask how they have transformed the ‘ratio of the senses’ (Marshall McLuhan).

The greater part of the course will be devoted to investigating the range of ways digital films depart from the narrative use of music and sound in ‘classic’ Hollywood cinema. We will look at a number of blockbuster movies (superhero, science fiction, horror), as well as some more experimental cinema. Our survey may also take in documentary, music video, and TV drama. In our analyses, we will be sensitive to the ways in which the new aesthetic possibilities offered by digital cinema map the effects of new technologies and globalization on modern culture.

The course is designated as UE (Übung), but is actually run more like a Lecture Course with Exercises (Vorlesung mit Übung), but there will be plenty of opportunity for student participation and discussion during the lectures.

Assessment and permitted materials

Below you can see the course is split into 5 sections. You will be asked to complete 1 short analysis (no more than 2 sides) for each section. You will then use the techniques you have learnt during these exercises to write a longer analysis of a film scene (or music video, or TV series scene, etc.).
Graded exercises: 40% (10% for each of the four best exercises)
Final essay: 60% (>3000 words)

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
- describe in basic terms the nature of the technological developments in cinema in the past 30-40 years;
- discuss the changes and continuities in the way music and sound is used in pre-digital and digital film;
- analyse and describe how sound and music is used in digital cinema, particularly how sound and music work together to generate an audiovisual (or even multisensory) experience;
- relate contemporary cinematic practices to broader cultural changes, such as globalization and the advent of the network society.

Examination topics

The course will be split into five sections preceded by a general introduction on technology:
0. TECHNOLOGY
0. Digital cinema convergence
I. SOUNDTRACK
1. The digital score
2. Digital sound design
II. AFFECT/SENSATION
3. Affect and attention
4. Music video aesthetics in film
III. SPACE & TIME
5. Hauntological time (third image)
6. Time-space compression
IV. REMIX AESTHETICS
7. Hip hop editing
8. Retro styles
V. POLITICS
9. Realism vs reality
10. Ecology

Reading list

Each lecture will be based on an article/book chapter which I will provide in Moodle every week.

You will also benefit from the following throughout the course:
John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, Carol Vernallis (eds) (2013). The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Carol Vernallis, Amy Herzog & John Richardson (eds) (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

‘Part VIII: Digitzation and Globalization’ (2009). In Film Theory and Criticism, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (eds), pp. 777-886. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Association in the course directory

BA: POP-V, INT, FRE
MA (2008): M01, M02, M03, M04, M05, M10, M11, M16
MA (2022): E.INT, E.POP, H.INT, H.POP, S.INT, S.POP

Last modified: Mo 02.10.2023 12:47