Course Description

This is a core course for all undergraduate students of the School of Communication. This course provides an overview of principles and contexts of communication and media studies. The scope of the introductory course is not only limited to mediated communication behaviors but media phenomena in the contexts of advertising, public relations, organizational communication, journalism, and film. The purpose of this course is to introduce students who have had no prior experience with the field of communication to its diverse areas of study. It will provide a common foundation for students in the School of Communication by presenting a series of fundamental concepts about communication and a comprehensive perspective for approaching subsequent courses within the School’s curriculum. The course also aims to stimulate interest in and commitment to the study of communication and media in today’s fast changing environment.

 

This course is designed to introduce the basic concepts, theories, and research perspectives within the field of human communication. Specifically, the course provides a framework from which you can think theoretically about communicative practices. Key approaches to the study of human interaction across various realms will be introduced: the verbal and nonverbal aspects of human interaction; the perception of the self and others in the communication process; and the processes and meanings of interaction in varied contexts, such as interpersonal, small groups, organizations, public, and intercultural communication. By semester end, students will be able to apply principles for effective communication in relating to others and have a fuller understanding of appropriate and effective communication based on knowledge of theoretical concepts and their applications.

 

This course aims to introduce students to the theory, practice and techniques of artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications to the media and communication industries. Students are expected to understand the basic principles of AI and how it is changing the media and the communication process. The AI applications that students will study include data-driven digital marketing, toys and gaming, AI and multimedia production, automatic customer service, computational news production, machine learning, recommender systems and search engines. Students will also explore such issues as fake news, algorithm-confounded audience polarization, privacy protection, surveillance society, dampening of news professionalism and widening digital divides. By reflecting on these controversial issues, students are expected to develop an interdisciplinary and critical perspective that helps them make sense of AI’s social, cultural, and political implications in both global and local contexts.

The course will introduce students to some of the key moments in the history of the cinema, and to a number of key issues relevant to a study of the subject. Topics covered will include the historical context of film production, major movement, stylistic trends, directors, films, and relevant areas of theory.

This course aims to introduce students to the essential aspects of sequential media in digital video and sound production. In order to understand the unique potential and limitations of the fundamental design with different media forms in audiovisual communication, students will receive both theoretical and practical training to develop multidisciplinary knowledge for using sequential media in digital video and computerized media production. Students will learn how to create and develop ideas with video and sound through the production of two shorts.

This course introduces students the basic visual grammar of photographic language. They will experience and appreciate contemporary photo imaging forms and concepts through a practical, analytical and critical approach. Students will learn photographic seeing from the practical knowledge of analog/film, digital manipulation and control of professional quality output.

This course aims to engage students in projects operated by The Young Director (TYD) and MEDIARTIST. The TYD and MEDIARTIST are student organizations, which are jointly run by second and third year of Film and Television, and Animation and Media Arts Concentration students.

This course is designed to introduce the fundamentals of computer graphics as they apply to arts and design, from both an academic and studio perspective. Both technical and aesthetic issues will be addressed. Aesthetic issues will encompass concepts, composition, appreciation and historical context. Technical topics will include raster and vector imaging, scanning, retouching, printing, animated graphics, and other related topics. The course is based on lectures, demonstration, and a series of workshops which will involve the creation of computer generated images.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include in-class critiques, exercises, and work sessions. The critiques will be run as seminar-style discussions, with everyone participating in the critiques and discussions of each student's work. Because of the way the classes are run, attendance and active participation in the weekly classes is considered very important and is considered in grade calculations.

Art, science and technology are incorporated as an integral body of media arts in contemporary interdisciplinary education and exhibition environments with new possibilities of dynamic interactions. This course will introduce the meaning of media arts through the study of media history and archaeology from traditional film and video art to multimedia design, net art, digital art, computer animation, computer graphics, interactive installation, robotic art, biotechnology, and so forth. Different media arts and their applications of different media technologies and interface design will be studied to explore their relationship to transforming culture and society. The students will gain broader understanding and critical awareness of different concepts and developments of media arts and mediated interaction from early experiments by futurists and constructivists to most recent practices like interactive games and virtual reality experiments with wearable and portable media. Eventually the students will be able to identify creative ideas of design solutions for different media arts and applications ranging from conceptual to virtual art, computer graphics to digital animation, and performance to interactive installation.

This course is primarily aimed at art appreciation and introducing the academic discipline of art history and its development and application in media arts. Visual arts assimilated ideas from philosophy, religion, politics, and society in every aspect of our everyday life. Students will need to realize and understand these ideas into new forms of expression, eventually students will acquire the knowledge and influence of the art sources from which they came and every other conceivable aspect of the cultural context around them. Identifying the visual aesthetics and analysis in human history is imperative to this course.

The course is designed to cultivate creativity in storytelling through dynamic thinking and a variety of creative exercises. The course will introduce fundamentals of storytelling and explore the process of idea formation and story development, grounded within the features of film and television genres. Students will engage in critical, creative thinking and problem solving in all aspects of learning. Via hands-on practices of the idea pitching, story synopsis, development, characterization, peer review and rewriting, students will learn the creative process of producing movies and television programs. By the end of the course, students will demonstrate their learning outcomes by presenting a short script with a complete dossier.

This is a fundamental drawing subject in which students will explore various arts and media, learn to use a variety of drawing tools, draw objects in perspective, and generate drawings that demonstrate correct proportions of models. Emphasis is placed on drawing from observation; the application of line/value; understanding of composition principles; the development of a body of original work; recognition of the history and its role in the development of a visual idea.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include many in-class exercises, and therefore participation in the weekly classes is very important and will be considered in grading calculations.

This course introduces students to the essential visual components of design and composition for the moving image screen. Students will learn to use and apply these visual components within an individual shot, and also across as series of shots using the principle of contrast and affinity.

Students will study examples from films and other art forms that demonstrate how these visual components enhance individual shots, visual sequences, and entire stories. Students will also practice creating these visual components on their own in class tutorials, exercises and projects.

Fundamental principles of cinematography are illustrated through film analysis, equipment instruction, and hands-on exercises. Workshops are also conducted to allow students to learn to shoot in studio and on location. Students will learn to appreciate and analyse the art of cinematography, and demonstrate an ability to communicate in basic visual terms and to produce works of cinematography.

The course introduces students to literary classics from the major genres of fiction, drama, and poetry. It serves to broaden students’ horizon and knowledge in literature and the arts, as well as encouraging them to explore the fundamental aspects of narrative construction, dramatic structure, characterization, metaphor and symbolism that essentially inform creativity and storytelling in film practice. Course instructors have the flexibility to study specific topics in literary genres and significant texts in their cultural backgrounds, which may include tragedy, comedy, fantastic literature, utopian and dystopian novel, horror and science fiction, creativity and the Unconscious, poetic symbolism, magic realism, modernism, and post-modernism. The course encourages students to flex their intellectual muscles and imaginative faculty by reading literary texts and their narratives as they cross over possible worlds between the real and the fictive, and exploring the capacity of literature.

The course is designed on the principle that creativity can be cultivated through the deliberate and dynamic use of creative thinking and the creative process. Students will be encouraged to engage in critical and creative thinking in all aspects of learning and to gain on-hand experience of the creative process. Students will apply the concepts and theories in the script writing in an exclusive workshop and create scripts with complete format.

Star is one of the most visible components in film. From the silent era to the digital age, stars have occupied a pivotal position in popular cinema, realizing cultural imaginaries and suggesting certain power dynamics in intriguing manners. This course approaches film stars of its own right, exploring the construction and contestation of fame in relation to spectatorship, race, ethnicity, gender, performance, and aging. The module is divided into two parts. By focusing on Hollywood and European cinemas, part one introduces the critical underpinnings of the invention and evolvement of stars in social, cultural and industrial terms. Part two probes stars in national and transnational contexts, engaging in a number of case studies of particular cinemas in Italy, Japan, India, and China. Specific and key questions like how the star image is manufactured and manipulated, how star texts make sense to audiences within and across borders, and how the star making process is changed by media technology and the increasingly hyper-connected global economy will also be examined. By so doing, students will be acquainted with knowledge and insight that allow them to ponder, understand, and evaluate film stars in critical and engaging ways.

The course aims to give students an experience and understanding of cinematic sound production, from production through to post-production with an emphasis on dialogue production. Tasks and exercises on the physics of sound and human auditory perception science is an integral part of the course, which aims to develop an understanding of how sound behaves within indoor and outdoor spaces and how the human brain responds to sonic change. Embedded throughout the course are demonstrations, equipment tutorials, hands-on workshops intended to develop studnts' confidence in the use of sound and music technology. 

Prerequisites: FILM2008-9 Practicum I

This course aims to engage students in projects operated by The Young Director (TYD) and MEDIARTIST. The TYD and MEDIARTIST are student organizations, which are jointly run by second and third year of Film and Television, and Animation and Media Arts Concentration students.

The course introduces the variety and possibility of non-fiction video productions. It aims to illustrate how the non-fiction video responded to personal, social, political, and economic realities and to changes in technology and systems of distribution. Students will broaden and widen the perspective in the video creation. It will introduce all essential stages of producing a non-fiction from generate idea, pre-production, production, and post-production.

This intensive studio course focuses on developing innovative media arts projects for understanding and applying a variety of open source software package and hardware and mechanical device tools among the context of up to date experimental media arts. The course covers basic techniques on computer programming and digital/analog electronics and suggests the usage of these skills within a wider aesthetic framework. The language built will also investigate relationships among media arts theories, cultural theories and media arts performances and installations. Students are encouraged to implement new tools, new systems and new presentational scenarios for performance, art installations, and other digital arts applications.

This course introduces the documentary vocabulary and theory through examination of a series of thematic visual works, i.e., photography, video, film, and new media from historical and sociological perspective. Students will be encouraged to form their holistic perception and apply their formulation of visual interpretation to their surrounding reality using photography as a medium.

The course aims to introduce all essential aspects of TV studio production for incipient students. Students will learn techniques of multi-camera shooting in television studio. The equipment, personnel and crew will be explained. Fundamental aesthetics of shot composition, shot variation shot arrangement, light, use of sound and music…etc. will be instructed. Students will work as group to explore their own strengths and produce project to acquire various knowledge and techniques in television studio.

Students learn the general development of Chinese Cinema, the major concepts of film aesthetics and the key idea of Chinese film aesthetics. They will be able to appreciate the Chineseness in Chinese films and write about the achievements of major films aesthetically.

This course introduces the art and science of persuasion: creative concepts. It outlines the criteria of effective creative communication, the techniques and creative process involved and how to generate ideas from brief to creative strategy. It gives students an overview of the creative department in creative bureaus. Students will also analyse the creative strategies of awarded campaigns to uncover the secrets of effective communication. Learning will be emphasized through participating in real world competition, practical class exercises and projects. Upon completion, students will be able to identify good creative ideas and devise visual strategies and creative concept to solve problems in the marketplace.

The objective of the course will be to introduce students to the history of Hollywood film production, and to a number of key issues relevant to a study of the subject. Topics covered will include the development of the studio system, relationship to society, the star system, major genres, as well as key films and key directors. While the first part of the course will focus on the classical Hollywood, the second part will address aspects of the post-classical Hollywood, ranging from the influence of the counterculture to the adoption of new marketing strategies, to the rise of the Indiewood, and to the digitization of cinema.

3D computer graphics and digital animation have been incorporated into many different forms of digital media and design production among disparate sectors of creative industries. This course is an extension of the foundational knowledge of computer graphics and aims to prepare the students with histories, theories, principles, genres, and practical skills of 3D modeling, texturing and rendering from preproduction, production to postproduction. The students will learn both technically and artistically (1) different methods of geometric modeling - NURBS, polygon and subdivision surfaces, (2) shading and texturing - from surface shading to procedural texturing, (3) lighting and rendering - lighting and shadows, raytracing and radiosity. Simple animation and camera techniques from keyframing to path animation will be introduced. Eventually, the students should be able to create innovative 3D design from concepts, sketches and storyboards to 3D models and renderings for different kinds of 3D digital visualization and simple animation applicable to film, TV, game, environmental and industrial design, as well as other multimedia productions.

This course explores TV/streaming programming as an economic and industrial practice, a media form, and an influential social and cultural force. This course also explains how the economic structure, technological shifts, and TV/streaming audience interact with the content and form of TV/streaming programming. Identifying key concepts in TV/streaming programming, this course analyses a range of TV/streaming programs such as TV drama, reality show, news program, sports show, music television, and animated television from United States, Europe, and Asia. Upon completion of this subject, students are expected to understand the content and form of TV/streaming programming as well as its industrial, social, cultural, and technological ramifications.

This course is designed for students to learn about the operational strategies and business communication in the creative industry in Hong Kong. Students will gain a basic understanding of the business world, the foundation of communication design entities, and the management concepts specific to the process of communication design. Student will be able to identify and apply management skills to creative endeavors. They will develop an understanding of people as resources and individuals in different commercial sectors and learn the strategic skills of project management and problem solving. Students will learn and understand the actual practices of creative industry. They will study departmental works and role-play operating a creative company. Students will eventually understand the business strategies and opportunities in the real world and the need for better creative media management.

Prerequisites: FILM2006 Introduction to Production

This is an introductory course on acting techniques. The course will focus on the Stanislavski system, and the psychological approach in acting will be introduced. The emphasis is on the conceptions and expressions of action. Students will be engaged in role-playing in various scenes, and will create and perform the basic structure of scenes, i.e., beginning - middle - end, through action-based acting. By the end of the course students will be able to understand the foundational elements and associated techniques of good acting and utilize those elements and techniques to communicate with other actors during the creative acting performance.

 

This interdisciplinary course provides practical and aesthetic training in the production of sound and music in film and media arts. It explores how various historical movements and technologies have shaped the way sound and music is used in film, and the contemporary field of "sound art." Starting from the idea of "musique concrete," this course investigates the boundaries between silence, noise, sound effect, ambient sound and music, offering a more comprehensive understanding of the craft of sound art, film music and sound design. By the end of the course, students will be able to communicate how sound and music within cinematic arts defines space, shapes memory and creates connections between people, places and objects. This knowledge combined with the production skills developed, will allow students to create their own complete movie soundtrack. 

This course will explore the parameters of independent cinema in different cultural and historical contexts. It will examine the thematic concerns and stylistic approaches of independent cinema; representative films and filmmakers; and the shifting definition of independent cinema. The course also takes into consideration the institutional aspects of independent cinema, such as the role of film festivals, the relationship between independent cinema and Hollywood, the globalization of film finance, as well as the increasing influence of digital technology and the Internet.

This course is designed to explore the world of 3D computer animation from initial concept to final production. It introduces the language, principles, aesthetics and 3D tools used in the creation of animation within the context of art and design. Emphasis will be placed on developing a working knowledge of the mechanics of 3D animation. By completion of the course, students will become acquainted with the necessary skills sufficient to produce their projects of merit.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include numerous in-class exercises. Because of this, attendance and participation in the weekly classes is extremely important and is considered in grading calculations.

Prerequisites: FILM2055 Production Workshop I

This course adopts a holistic approach to teach intermediary film production techniques to students who have acquired basic knowledge in the field. Students utilise and sharpen the techniques they learnt in FILM2055, and integrate the art of cinematography, editing and sound in the production of three short narrative films. They are given the opportunity to explore and develop their own personal style of narrative, cinematography and editing. Students are also be expected to communicate production and post-production concepts using the cinematic terms learnt in FILM2055 both in class and on set.

At the end of the semester, each student will screen a finished film for a final critique. The film should be ready for submission to film festivals, and can serve as the student-director's demo to showcase his or her production capabilities.

This course is designed to investigate histories, aesthetics, genres, directors and modes of production of Hong Kong cinema. Students need to have a basic understanding of cinema as an artistic medium as well as a cultural product subject to market economy and cultural policy of nation-states. Lectures focus on the idea of cinema as a never-ending process of struggles among filmmakers, film languages, the film industry, official cultural agendas, the audiences, and film culture. Each class meeting consists of screening and lecture.

This course aims to provide students with comprehensive knowledge and practical skills in: dialogue production; sound design and music production through challenging projects, and self-discovery exercises that will explore the role and function of sound and music for animation. This course will also enlighten students of the associative power that music can have on the human experience and cultural context of cognition.

This course aims at extending students' visual literacy and application of creative ideas from static medium to dynamic interactive media with the introduction of programming skills and the relationship between codes and visual elements. In order to harness the full potentials of the emerging dynamic media, a thorough understanding of the general programming principles and interactivity design is indispensable. However, this course is not going to train students as programmers but prepare them with sufficient knowledge to develop and exploit the dynamic media for their creative endeavors. Students will learn the underlying mechanisms of manipulating, creating and transforming visual elements using programming codes. Moreover, students will explore the domain of generative visuals and arts through the evolutional computing concepts of iterations, recursion, random function and L-system. After finishing this course, students will be able to develop dynamic and generative visual applications for various domains of creative and media productions.

Prerequisites:
FILM3055 3D Modeling, Texture and Rendering; AND
FILM3107 Interactive Graphics

This course aims to equip students with the fundamental principles and techniques to design and create virtual world environments which are suitable for virtual and augment reality, games, and storytelling applications. Virtual world is a self-contained, persistence computer simulated environment in which player can inhibit, navigate and interact with non-player characters, and even communicate with other players in the case of multi-users shared and networked environment. On the theoretical side, student will first acquire a comprehensive overview of the historical development of virtual worlds from the early days of text-based virtual world to the contemporary graphic-intensive real-time interaction virtual environment. Besides, student will be introduced to the design principles and theories related to the different aspects of player’s cognition and perception of the virtual environmental. On the practical side, student will learn the essential techniques and skills to create an engaging and dynamic virtual environment with physical simulations, intelligent responses and real-time interactions. After finishing this course, student will be able to design and formulate a basic virtual world framework from which creative works such as virtual reality, augmented reality and games can be further developed.

This course provides an exploration and practical application of the traditional and contemporary experimental theories of film editing. The fundamental steps and new digital technologies related to the art of editing are introduced.

Prerequisites:
FILM2065 Cinematography; AND
FILM3116 Editing

This course will focus on the creative process of documentary filmmaking. Students will gain practical skills with documentary filmmaking experience and industry understanding to develop their own documentaries. Students will develop their knowledge and context of documentary filmmaking by exploring the history of the documentary genre. Students' technical and operational skills will progress as well as their research and proposal writing skills.

This course combines both theoretical and practical. Hence the course will study the stylistic range of the documentary genre with a focus on film language, techniques, aesthetics, structure and other elements of cinematic storytelling. Students will be trained in the underlying practical skills necessary for documentary production.

This workshop aims at helping students to develop an awareness of honours project preparation. It introduces the workflow of project management, explores the components of different types of proposals and pitching skills, and analyzes the critical discourses, ethics and copyright issues. By joining the workshop, students should also be able to formulate their career goals and develop their plans for further education.

The workshop will combine seminar sessions, guest lectures, student presentations and demonstrations which provide students with essential knowledge to select their focus track and prepare their Honours Project in final year.

This is an advanced course focused on the art and craft of digital film post-production to support the Honors Project. Theoretical and aesthetic concepts will be integrated with practical tasks for students to develop a holistic understanding of post-production processes in order to realize their creative vision.

This workshop will explore the concepts, issues and techniques of color grading video footage from a studio perspective. It is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include in-class critiques, exercises, and work sessions. The up-to-date corresponding software will be used to illustrate the principles and techniques and to produce the projects. By moving through the software, students will hit upon basic color theory and concepts while learning how to analyze footage, troubleshoot problematic areas, and create a consistent grade throughout the pieces. In addition, some on demand and timed role-play operation sections will let the students have a taste of real-life in section with director of photography (DP) and directors.

This is an advanced course focused on the art and craft of digital film post-production to support the Honors Project. Theoretical and aesthetic concepts will be integrated with practical tasks for students to develop a holistic understanding of post-production processes in order to realize their creative vision.

This workshop will train students about the latest and advanced techniques of post-production on visual effects in workshop mode. The course is divided into 3 phases: video effects and digital intermediate; sound implementation and mixing; and the final stage of moviemaking output into different channels and formats.

We usually divide films into “Art Films” and “Commercial Films”. This bifurcated categorization largely limits our exposure and restricts our imagination and appreciation of movies. This course aims to broaden students’ visions of film by studying three groups of films other than the “art” and “commercial” rubrics: Cult, Exploitation (especially pink movies), and Experimental/Avant-garde. All of them challenge established aesthetics and mores of watching films by posing such questions as what is good taste and good film, how the subculture-versus-dominant culture is set. By so doing, this course inspires students to explore the endless possibilities of film.

This course will survey on European cinema by analyzing films in the context of historical and aesthetic developments in Europe. It will cover films ranging from silent cinema, various new waves of the 1960s and the contemporary eras. Works of auteurs, exilic filmmakers, and cult directors from Germany, France, Italy, Britain, and Scandinavia will be explored. Topics will center on representations of gender, national and ethnic identity, European-versus-Hollywood filmmaking, national and transnational cinemas. By the end of the course, students will gain the knowledge of the development of European cinema and the skills of critical reaction and aesthetic evaluation of European films.

This interdisciplinary critical theory course introduces students to Japanese animation as a culturally unique visual culture and a rich repository of local and universal themes. Students will learn about the cultural history of Japanese animation, its global impact and transnational flows, and the ways it explores the universal human issues and concerns in forms that are unique to the Japanese animating culture. Students will study and analyse selected animated works that are representative of the genres, themes and issues popular in Japanese animation to acquire an in-depth knowledge about Japanese animation and philosophically explore the worlds it creates.

This course introduces a new method in content research, storytelling and filmmaking. This course first introduces Annette Kuhn’s “memory work” to the students, looking at visual evidence of their personal memories and connecting them to history or possibly traumatic stories from various sources. They will then be introduced to Derrida’s Hauntology and use it as method telling and retelling the stories using his concepts, especially on “disjointed time”, “work of mourning” and “specters”. At the end of the course, students are expected to produce film and video works of various styles informed by the concepts mentioned.

This course focuses on developing student’s sensitivity on feeling cinema, and to utilize this sensitivity to develop content for international cinema audiences. Bridging theories and filmmaking practices, this course demonstrates how theories and related philosophical thinking can push the boundary of filmmaking, and how filmmakers nowadays envision the future form, structure and content of storytelling.

This is a hybrid course with a mix of practice, theory as method, and film appreciation. Students will be benefited from both workshops, lectures and screenings, where technical knowledge will be delivered in conjunction with theories and aesthetics. Through the practice-based assignments, students will be able to advance their storytelling skill and begin to explore and build up their personal style.

This interdisciplinary course aims to train young professionals to the opportunities in this sector at the crossover between finance, technology, and media, which has already been the catalyst for significant job creation in the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs). The course will give a basic understanding of blockchain technology, its opportunities, its limitations and how it can be applied to the creation and the economy of the creative industries such as film, animation, music, design and videogames from development to circulation. The course will integrate theoretical and practical approaches, and culminate with the production of a creative project on a blockchain platform.

Finally, several expert guest speakers from the blockchain and CCIs will be invited throughout the semester, to testify and share their vision of these industries.

This course will advance students' skills in photographic expression by introducing them to early and contemporary photographic technique from the analog/film experiment to advanced manipulation of digital capture. Students will learn pinhole imaging technique, view camera capture, advanced photographic lighting and design technique to create high quality digital output for an industry-standard photography exhibition. The technique and photo design proficiency will be developed within a context of historical, critical and conceptual photography conventions.

Prerequisites: FILM 2015 Script Writing

This course explores the principles of different dramatic forms. Issues in comparative drama, media aesthetics and adaptation will also be discussed. Advanced techniques for creating full length original or adapted script will be introduced.

Prerequisites: Year III Standing

Students are encouraged to undertake a non-graded and zero-unit professional internship during their study. The aim is to help them find out their strength and weakness, learn and apply working experience in real-world industry setting, realize their responsibility as a team member and communicate with other people in a real working situation.

This course will explore the design requirements for professional quality broadcast graphics and title design for feature films and multimedia projects. Using combinations of still images, graphics, video footages and audio sound tracks, we will examine the relationships of motion, pacing, textures, transitions, design and composition in space and time. Emphasis will be placed on compositing techniques, design concepts, art direction, aesthetics and the overall style of professional motion graphics productions. Asset management, aspect ratios, resolutions, interpolation algorithms, colour depth and image stabilization techniques are also addressed. Students will learn to work with lighting, grain matching, perspective control and camera moves to create the final composite. The Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and Apple Final Cut Pro software packages will be used to illustrate the principles and techniques and to produce the projects.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include in-class critiques, exercises, and work sessions. The critiques will be run as seminar-style discussions, with everyone participating in the critiques and discussions of each student's work. Because of the way the classes run, attendance at and active participation in the weekly classes is considered very important and is considered in grade calculations.

This course aims to equip students with the thorough understanding of the computational concepts behind the responsive interfaces and intelligent games so that they can apply the techniques in developing new interfaces and games on different media platforms. Interactive and intelligent visual interfaces are the windows and faces of various contemporary media such as games, smartphones, tablets and interactive TV. Those engaging visual interface and novel interaction experience are driven by sophisticated computational concepts and meticulous implementations. Going beyond buttons and point-and-click interface, this course will cover physical-based interfaces built with particles, springs, elasticity, forces and collisions, and explore various input modalities using webcam and microphone for gesture and voice recognition. Special topics on Path-finding, Cellular Automata and Genetic Algorithm will also be introduced to expand student's arsenal of tools in interactive art and design development.

The course centres on various East Asian cinemas and is designed to introduce students to a basic understanding of this unique cluster of cinemas, particularly their respective industrial, directorial and stylistic features. Focus is on Orientalism, modernism, colonialism and post-colonialism of East Asian Cinema (and culture and society), also on the relation between cinemas in East Asia and cinemas of the West. The areas covered in this course range from major film productions centre of Japan, South Korea, India to marginal cinemas such as Singapore and the Philippines; feminist, diasporic and independent filmmaking will also be included in our topics.

This course allows new topics to be taught, enabling a degree of flexibility within the curriculum, for emergent ideas to appear and be realized within the teaching and learning environment, and to reflect the changing interests and expertise of staff members. There are, therefore, no subject-specific aims and objectives here, but rather general aims and objectives, within which subject-content will be articulated. The course aims to study a particular subject in a comprehensive manner. Students will attend lectures on the subject, read on the subject, view relevant films, and carry out required modes of assessment. At the end of the course students will have a good understanding of the subject, and will be able to demonstrate that understanding in specified forms of assessment.

The course aims to introduce the entire structure of film production nowadays. It explains all duties and importance of main posts, "above-the-line and "below-the-line", in the film production system which including script writer, producer, director, cinematographer editor, grip, gaffer…etc.

The course will introduce the updated management of media organizations and the development of latest media in video and film production. It will be conducted in seminar form. Guests will be invited to share their dynamic experiences of media management. Students will broaden and widen the perspective in production and media management and development.

This course focuses on the facial expressions and bodily gestures in character animation for performance and storytelling. The course takes the animation from the level of convincing physicality up to the level of engaging performance with believable characters through the study and applications of animation principles, non-verbal communication, theories of human motivations and emotions. The course will provide a fresh perspective for studying character animation from the technical and communication aspects of animation. Students will learn not only how to animate but also how to deliver the emotions and thoughts of the characters to engage the audience with distinctive personalities and attitudes through rich facial expressions and body gestures.

The course will introduce students to some of the important movements within French cinema history, and to important French films and film-makers. The central themes and characteristics of films, film-makers and film movements will be considered, as will historical context. The course will also cover selected areas and issues of European film theory where relevant.

Prerequisites: FILM3096 Production Workshop II

This course intends to develop students' ability to be a Director of Photography (DP) in film production. Students with basic skills in cinematography and lighting will further learn how to translate original ideas into the visual register through the use of camera and lighting design. Through various exercises and workshops, students will learn the technical and aesthetic aspects of cinematography. By the end of the course, students will have a in-depth understanding of the role and specific practices of a DP.

This course introduces students to the basic research methodologies used in film and media arts. We will identify the disciplinary elements of film and media arts studies and the interdisciplinary aspects of film and media arts in contemporary contexts. The course is structured by a set of issues connected to art history, literary criticism, social and critical theory and philosophy. It draws on many conceptual, historical and methodological issues, challenging students to evaluate moving images critically and creatively. It also aims to explore contemporary screen theory as an interdisciplinary hybrid of formal, aesthetic, ideological, institutional and technological approaches.

This course introduces the major theories in television and new media studies. Television and new media are understood as a set of institutions, technologies and texts shaped by historical, cultural, political and economic forces. This course examines television and new media's historical evolution; their relationships to other media; their preferred genres; their models of spectatorship and consumption; their politics of representation in regard to class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; and their economic modes of operation. Upon completion of this subject, students are expected to understand the content and form of television and new media as well as its industrial, social, cultural, and technological ramifications.

This course aims at equipping students with the principles and skills to develop engaging characters to drive animation story with dramatic and emotional impacts. The course will focus on the biped character creation process and the application of storyboarding principles in the form of animatic to reflect the complexity of characters' personalities in animation. Students will learn the visual aspects of character design covering facial features, body proportion, anatomical structure, posing, and custom styles and evolve the creative decisions based on the research and development of the characters' profiles and personalities. In addition to the conceptual and visual development, students will model, rig and texture the characters to produce an animatic with the applications of storyboarding principles. By the end of the course, students will be able to develop original characters and present their stories vividly in the form of animated storyboard.

This course emphasizes the importance of the production designer as one of the key production team creators in materializing fantasies and illusions into screen reality. Students are encouraged to incorporate concepts from this course into their projects for production courses.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include numerous in-class exercises. Because of this, attendance at and participation in the weekly classes is extremely important and is considered in grading calculations.

This course focuses on the overall workflow of digital visual effects productions, explores different particle and dynamics systems, and introduces the basic principles behind each process among the spectrum of digital visual effects that are being practiced in the current film and animation industry. Hands-on experience is provided in the workshops in order to assist students in expanding their visual vocabularies. An industrial standard 3D software package will be used to illustrate the principles and techniques dealt with.

The course is organized to maximize hands-on experience and will include numerous in-class exercises. Because of this, participation in the weekly classes is extremely important and is considered in grading calculations.

This course aims to equip students with the thorough understanding of the computational concepts behind the responsive interfaces and intelligent games so that they can apply the techniques in developing new interfaces and games on different media platforms. Interactive and intelligent visual interfaces are the windows and faces of various contemporary media such as games, smartphones, tablets and interactive TV. Those engaging visual interface and novel interaction experience are driven by sophisticated computational concepts and meticulous implementations. Going beyond buttons and point-and-click interface, this course will cover physical-based interfaces built with particles, springs, elasticity, forces and collisions, and explore various input modalities using webcam and microphone for gesture and voice recognition. Special topics on Path-finding, Cellular Automata and Genetic Algorithm will also be introduced to expand student's arsenal of tools in interactive art and design development.

Our rich and dynamic ranges of human emotions are vividly communicated through our facial expressions. Thus, facial animation is crucial to the success of character animation in order to convey the character's minds and thoughts during storytelling. This course is designed to enrich the communicative power of character animation on top of the non-verbal bodily animation covered in the course "Character Animation" with specialized studies on lip synchronization, facial expression and facial anatomy, eyeballs and eyebrows controls, head movement and tilt direction.

This course builds on the knowledge foundation from the courses "Computer Graphics" and "3D Modeling, Texture and Rendering" and focuses on the principles and techniques in developing character animations for narrative purposes. Unlike motion graphics and effects animations, character animation demands the capability of relating the characters with the audience for effective communication of messages. This can only be achieved with fluid animations and vivid characters' personalities. This course will start with the classical Disney animation principles and demonstrate how to apply these in various scenarios to deliver the sense of weight and convincing physical movements. Students will then learn and master the art of timing and spacing in order to express emotions in the form of animations. This course will also cover some basic principles in acting, posing and body language so that students can develop characters for performance and storytelling applications in film, TV and games.

Prerequisites:
FILM3055 3D Modeling, Texture and Rendering; AND
FILM3107 Interactive Graphics; AND
FILM3115 Virtual World: Design and Interaction

This course aims to empower students with the principles and techniques to harness the emerging interactive and display technologies to take advantage of the experience and knowledge learnt from the 3D digital content and virtual world creation paradigm to unleash the creative potentials of Extended Reality as an unprecedented storytelling medium. Extended Reality (XR) is a superset of all the technologies that includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and anything within the spectrum of reality-virtuality continuum. Students will not only acquire a broad and comprehensive background of the histories, concepts, and principles of XR but also have solid practices down to specific realtime and cinematic VR/AR productions. Students will be able to apply the principles that transcend all forms of Extended Reality to inform the productions for burgeoning modalities of interacting with physical and virtual spaces. After finishing this course, students are able to extend their knowledge and workflow from traditional 3D content creation to different forms of Extended Reality to develop creative works in way that have never been seen before.

What is originality and creativity in film adaptation? How does film retell a popular story and betray its literary source to capture audiences on psychological, moral, and social levels? Students will look at these remakes in terms of their artistic renovations as well as the socio-historical context in which the adaptations are made .Should the art of adaptation be faithful to the literary source or yield to the popular taste of the audience? What is lost and what is gained in the passage from words to images? What factors trigger the artistic or thematic changes in an adaptation when it crosses over different media of expression? This course introduces some significant literary adaptations in modern visual and performative culture. Potential topics include adaptations of myth, fantasy, ghost story, romance, science fiction, crime and detective story in the form of movie, musical, drama, opera, or animation. The course encourages students to think critically and creatively about various means and strategies of screen adaptation from word, image, music, and performance, and explore the varied meanings of remaking in its technological, inter-media, trans-historical, and cross-cultural complexities.

Prerequisites: FILM2065 Cinematography & FILM3116 The Art of Editing

This course covers the fundamental, practical elements for directing dramatic film and television productions in the studio and on location. The director's role and the working relationships among actors, producer, art designer, cameraman, editors and music director, etc., are explored. Opportunity to experiment with the creative use of camera movement as well as mise-en-scene is provided. Students will apply the concepts and theories to produce works in an exclusive workshop

The course examines LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) representation (political and aesthetic) in audiovisual media cultural products around the globe: films, TV dramas, music videos, and new media. The course would go through LGBTQ history and queer theories to pave the foundation for students to comprehend the representations of gender non-conformity and sexual dissidence in various media. We would visit LGBTQ-centred cultural products as well as products that include LGBT characters on the side. We would examine the content, production and circulation of these products in their social-cultural contexts. In other words, besides the storyline, we will critically analyse the market reception and making process of these LGBTQ cultural products. Queer is not confined to the totality of non-heteronormative desire and practices, but an ongoing reflection and transgression towards the orthodoxies and taken-for-granted.

The course would be filled with joy and killjoy, both of which critical strategies for LGBTQ to survive and thrive. Students are expected to read, watch and listen to the required materials for the course before each class. The process is doomed to be eye-opening and perhaps a bit discomforting. But it is in discomfort that we challenge the normalities and become the strange, the marginalised, the subaltern and fundamentally the queer. 

 

 

FILM4105        Live Sound Production      (3 units)