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Programme in the 4-year curriculum requires 128 units for graduation, which is distributed into five key components: School Core Courses, Major Required Courses, Major Elective Courses, General Education and Free Electives as follows:
| Major Required Courses | 52 units |
| Major Elective Courses | 33 units |
| General Education Courses | 31 units |
| Free Electives | 12 units |
| Total: 128 units | |
This course is an introduction to the concept of "performing arts" broadly construed to include not only performance for theater, film, television, dance, and musical performance, but also performance as a practice of self-presentation, social rituals and interactions, in bodily and speech acts; and in linguistic, visual, and other modes of communication.
The concept of the course is mainly guided by Richard Schechner, one of the founders of the field of performance studies. His rich and rewarding guide to performance, Performance Studies: An Introduction, provides a provocative guide to questions that arise when 47 performance is approached in a global perspective, students will be able to identify linkages of broad ideas to specific contexts, particular thinkers, and precise examples from performance traditions.
By putting students in the interactive dialogue with the most important events, people, theories, questions of the dynamic and emerging field of performance, the course aims to encourage students to consider the social significance of performance, and how it structures our perceptions and social lives. Weekly lectures provide an interdisciplinary overview of particular issues and methodological questions to logically explore the territories of performing arts, embedded with clips and images of many different kinds of performances. Besides Schechner, students will also study foundational texts by major figures in the field, analyze the works of them in the form of presentation/performance to illustrate what they learn, and expand the boundaries of understanding performance.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. Each lecture will make specific critical demands on the student, and students are expected to develop their ability to form judgments and enhance their understanding. As a result, the journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
Guided group discussions as well as a practical project will involve students in participatory activities when they start at the programme, enable them to express themselves and apply the methodologies they study, and eventually let students go beyond their opinions by critically analyzing the esoteric issues in the field. Students are thus expected to figure out how to "do" performance studies on their own.
Fundamentals of acting are rooted in Konstantin Stanislavski. This course will introduce the key elements based on the "Stanislavski System" in order to provide basic knowledge and a beginning understanding of the components of acting. The course is being created for an exploration of students' acting instrument and its use. In this sense, it is also a practical course focusing on individual development. Thus, students will constantly be up on feet acting in exercises and watching classmates and will come to understand acting being both analytical and expressive process.
Most lectures will include class discussions, exercises, performances, and in-class critiques of performances. In order to register any improvement, students are expected to work consistently, in class and out of class.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. Each lecture will make specific critical demands on the student, and students are expected to develop their ability to form judgments and enhance their understanding of the lectures and readings. As a result, the journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
The course creates opportunities to systematically demonstrate acquisition of acting competencies by applying the theoretical concepts and skills in the process. Students will present one monologue in this course. Rehearsal and performance of the monologue with an intensive inner emotional life concentrating on subtext and actor vulnerability is expected. The monologue is chosen by individual students who can choose text from their cultural origin while the performance should be translated in English when necessary. Introduction of the text and the context of the piece should be presented by the student before the monologue. Students will also present one open scene with other students later in the course. Rehearsal and performance of some scene selected with the concentration on the analysis of text and process of characterization. As a result of these activities, students will develop an individual process and the ability to listen, receive, process and respond to instructors and other students.
Students will be equipped with craft fundamentals in preparation for scene studies by finishing typed analyses, with a score of physical action, objectives, obstacles, beat work, intentions and subtext for the assignments by the instructor.
This course is designed to give students an overview of the voice and speech issues and some training on fundamental skills required for the development of an actor/actress. Students will engage in exercises and explorations to develop their vocal production by releasing tension, connecting to the breath, and opening their natural resonance. With continued release work on the body, coupled with a larger array of vocal skills and increased imaginative capacity, students will have access to their expansive selves which can serve the characters in different plays. In addition, students will also learn about vocal health, the anatomy related to voice and speech and phonetics, and a variety of methodologies and extended vocal techniques, which can be applied to resonance, range, and vocal extremes.
Students will be instructed to the way of working on their vocal skills into a dynamic use of language in vocal production. They will increase their proficiency in sight reading and the imaginative use of language and text for the building of a foundation for the acting career. This course will also focus on applying voice into classical texts. Students will develop increased strength, flexibility and range through their exercises and work in accents, classical poetic text, heightened text, singing, and play, with the implied goal of empowering students to trust their voice, follow their imagination, and bring life to language.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. Each lecture will make specific critical demands on the student, and students are expected to develop their ability to form judgments and enhance their understanding of the lectures, readings, and exercises. As a result, the journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
The progression of in-class exercises/experiences, with two presentations on working with different texts, is designed to further liberate students' natural voice and thereby develop a better vocal technique that finally serves the freedom of students' expression. In this part, students should reflect on and present a voice performance that is a tradition in their cultural origin and see if they are under the influences. And the course will culminate in a play on stage, which is expected to be the outcome of a smooth transition into performance by consolidating, defined and expanding the vocal skills and knowledge accumulated in the course.
The goal of this course is to bring awareness and responsiveness to the body as an essential part of the actor's training through, mainly, Anne Bogart's Viewpoints method of physical training. This awareness begins to create students who will be easeful and empowered in their body and can recognize and make choices about the information their body brings on stage and screen. Students' training would be continued by focusing on the ability to make physically specific choices in order to convey character through an introduction to the basic principles of Laban Movement Analysis and further work in the Viewpoints Method of actor training. Students will work with scripted material and apply the physical training to character and scene work and staging. Theories of acting and body movement discussed in non-Western contexts will also be reviewed and discussed.
Students will undertake warm-up that draws from Yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais and breath, body and voice work that are widely adapted in different cultures. Throughout the semester, they will experience the principles of ensemble building and rigorous actor training through the Viewpoints Method. Following this foundation, the training and creative exercises by other significant movement artists and from other cultures will be examined as well. Students' engagement includes the composition of solo, duo and group movement pieces, which will allow them to uncover bodily expressions and to develop more techniques in free styles and disciplines.
To begin with, students are expected to develop general body awareness, release unnecessary tension, and create strength and mobility from the movement training in the course. With various exercises on stage and movement improvisation, students will be receptive to the different surrounding environments and immediate moments, to listen with the whole body, make a spontaneous offer with confidence, reconnect to the imagination and to identify emotional states.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. Each lecture will make specific and progressive critical demands, and students are expected to develop their ability to form judgments and enhance their understanding of the lectures, readings, and exercises. As a result, the journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection, development changes and self/peer appraisal.
The course is designed to teach the essentials of both playmaking and filmmaking from the perspective of the director, covering all phases of preproduction and production. It aims to guide the students to professional standards of expression and control and to go to the heart of what makes a director for play and screenplay.
The first 1/3 of the semester will be an introduction to the collaborative art form and fundamentals of directing for the theatre. The lectures will provide working techniques needed for the play script analysis, the directing scenes, and communication with actors and designers. The intent of the teaching on play directing is not only to outline basic principles but also stimulate the students to understand and appreciate the art of directing onstage.
The left 2/3 of the semester will be instructions focusing on the basic building blocks of narrative filmmaking. The objective is to enable students to make informed decisions for communicating the themes, moods, styles, and story arcs that they envisioned for films. Through lectures, readings, and out-of-class shooting exercises, students will make the steps to understand the practical and conceptual notions of visual storytelling. They will then explore key aspects of visual expression through the use of composition, shot progression, POV, texture and color, rhythm, sound design, and editing. Students will complete a short film using a video camera, and the work will be screened and critiqued by the instructor and peers in the last class of the semester. The goal of this creative process is to let students become acquainted with the role of visual language in the process of acting for a film.
This course continues the students' training in voice, speech and text from the work begun in Voice & Speech I. With continued exercises on the body, coupled with a larger array of vocal skills and increased imaginative capacity, students will have access to their expansive selves to serve the characters in plays. Students will also learn a variety of methodologies and extended vocal techniques, which can be applied to resonance, range, and vocal extremes.
This course will focus rigorously on applying voice into representative performance texts. Students will develop increased strength, flexibility and range through their exercises and work in accents, classical poetic text, heightened text, singing, and play, with the implied goal of empowering students to trust and apply their voice, follow their imagination, and bring life to language.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. The progressive learning will create specific critical demands on learning, and students are expected to develop their ability to form judgments and enhance their understanding of the lectures, readings, and exercises. The journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, enhancement of personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
The progression of in-class exercises/experiences, with two presentations on working with texts, a speech and a poet collage, is designed to further liberate students' natural voice and develop a better vocal technique that finally serves the freedom of students' expression. And the course will culminate in a play on stage, which is expected to be the outcome of a smooth transition into performance by consolidating, defining and expanding the vocal skills and knowledge accumulated in this advanced course.
This course enhances students' training in Movement I by focusing on students' ability to make specific physical construction to convey characters in acting. It continues the study of Laban Movement Analysis and further work out the Viewpoints Method of actor training. Teachings on global practices are involved. For example, students will apply the Lecoq training to Chinese traditional musical theatres and reflect on the attempt.
Like the preparation of body basics in Movement I, students will draw techniques and exercises from Yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais and other practices on breath, body and voice. Students' engagement includes the composition of solo, duo and group movement pieces, which will allow the student to uncover all that is emotional in body and develop more techniques to free them from physical limitations. Students will work with scripted materials and apply the physical training started in Movement I to character, scene work and staging.
With various exercises on movement improvisation, students will be receptive to different surrounding environments and immediate moments, they shall listen with the whole body and make spontaneous offers with confidence, and be connected to imagination and are able to identify emotional states.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. They are expected to form judgments and enhance their understanding of acting texts and exercises. The journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
This course enhances students' training in Movement I by focusing on students' ability to make specific physical construction to convey characters in acting. It continues the study of Laban Movement Analysis and further work out the Viewpoints Method of actor training. Teachings on global practices are involved. For example, students will apply the Lecoq training to Chinese traditional musical theatres and reflect on the attempt.
Like the preparation of body basics in Movement I, students will draw techniques and exercises from Yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais and other practices on breath, body and voice. Students' engagement includes the composition of solo, duo and group movement pieces, which will allow the student to uncover all that is emotional in body and develop more techniques to free them from physical limitations. Students will work with scripted materials and apply the physical training started in Movement I to character, scene work and staging.
With various exercises on movement improvisation, students will be receptive to different surrounding environments and immediate moments, they shall listen with the whole body and make spontaneous offers with confidence, and be connected to imagination and are able to identify emotional states.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. They are expected to form judgments and enhance their understanding of acting texts and exercises. The journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal.
The course is designed to teach the technical and theoretical skills of script analysis for both play and screenplay. It offers general guidelines for reading and thinking about plays and screenplays so that the basic components of the characters and the relationship among them can be understood.
The first half of the semester will focus on two selected plays by formalist approach. Students will learn how to search for playable dramatic values that reveal a central unifying pattern, which informs or shapes a play from the inside and coordinates all of its parts. With script analysis in practice, students will find the approach feasible in analyzing its structure and key twists, and the themes and story developments and how the roles should be acted for the story telling.
The second half of the course will focus on adaptation into a screenplay. Students will practice reading the screenplay through the eyes of the screenwriter, the director, the actors, the crew players, and the scholars/critics. The screenplay will be suggested as a narrative text, with script analysis in practice, students will explore its creative and dramatic underpinnings, from which directors and actors should develop and exercise creative grasps for shot design and performance.
The selected play and screened play should be from two different cultural domains and eras.
This course will introduce and analyze the theories, performances and productions of the impressive line-up of American, British, and European theatre practitioners - Stella Adler, Eugenio Barba, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, Joseph Chaikin, Michael Chekhov, Jacques Copeau, Jerzy Grotowski, Joan Littlewood, Sanford Meisner, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Wlodzimierz Staniewski, Konstantin Stanislavski, and Lee Strasberg. It aims to provide students a theoretical and historical map of the performance practices of these renowned directors and practitioners of acting on stage, and thus to form a seminal guide for students who want to investigate acting processes for stage with a diversity of approaches.
This course is lecture and theory-oriented, offers students a comprehensive assessment, from basic principles of performance to exploration through practices, and finally to practice in stage production. Lectures will focus on practitioners whose work is widely recognized with acting analysis and/or screening of audio-visual resources.
Students will do a theory presentation on a topic introduced in class. They will report their readings and critical analysis with relevant materials and lead the discussion in class. For the Acting project, students will create or pick a written scene to act on stage, illustrate one of the theories they learned in class, make an in-depth study led practice to systematically reflect on the subject and produce a stage performance. After performance discussion will also be assessed.
With the concepts and skills learned from the course "Fundamentals of Acting," this course, which is one-third theory, two-thirds practice, is to prepare students for the particular demands and challenges of acting on screen and with technology. First, it will focus on the exposure to and hands-on experience in the technical aspects of working process in capturing actors on- camera performance. Course components include teaching the principles of acting in front of the camera, a guide to the process and techniques of shooting a film or television scene/show, performance adaptation for the camera, monologue and scene rehearsal and production, and creation of an acting reel demo scene.
With the continuing growth and development of technology, e.g., 3D scanning and motion capture, new technologies alter so fundamentally the relationship between the actor and the character/performance. A provocative exploration of technology has become a global force for connection and disconnection. The course explores: what are the specific conditions that technologies impose on the actor? In what ways might performance pedagogy respond to such developments? This course will also attempt to address these questions and provide the basis for a systematic approach to twenty-first-century screen actor training working with technologies. By introducing basic knowledge on the emerging technologies adopted in screen performances and the new possibilities and challenges they are posing for actors, the course will let students understand that technological transformations offer not only new obstacles but new opportunities for expression. It will stretch into a systematic approach to performance training including theories and principles of acting with technologies. Notable performances will be screened during lectures. The course treasures opportunities to systematically demonstrate acquisition of acting competencies by applying the concepts and skills in the process.
The body remains one of the most significant sites for the enactment of social power relations and artistic politics. It is hence a vital site for art production, transformation, and critique. Because of the theoretical discussion in psychoanalysis, phenomenology and cognitive science, we have opened up new and old interest in the body in all its concreteness and symbolic values, for example, the studies of performance art and media art in particular.
By acknowledging the multiplicity to the body and embodiment in performance studies, this course begins with the seemingly simple question, "What is a Body?" and introduces reflections on human bodies and their situated cultures as the base of Humanities. It starts from the Chinese and the Western traditional discourses of the body and ends in the examination of the development of these discourses related to contemporary society and cultures. It enhances the understanding of the social significance of the body by examining why human body is essential for social life and interaction. Important and representative body theories will be studied and analyzed. Students are directed to review critically these discourses and relate them to everyday lives.
This course considers the body in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural manners, so as to enhance understanding of human bodies in relation to their cultural contexts. It also reflects on body as media represented in particular racial, gendered and sexualized practices that would affect acting performance and its perception. In the light of body theories, the course will work closely with the cases drawn from various traditions and their performing arts.
By the end of the course, students will be able to examine taken-for-granted aspects of the human body and critically reflect on the ways these conceptions reveal their social, cultural and political contexts. Students appreciation of body performance and their practices in acting will also be loaded with critical awareness.
This course offers students possibilities for revisiting and further exploration on, via textual analysis and scene work, fundamental craft of acting that were taught and experienced in the former years of their training. Through a variety of exercises, improvisations, rehearsals, and scene work, students are expected to get a deep understanding of acting with objectives and overcome obstacles. It is also a practical course in experiencing different dramatic situations. Students are expected to nurture capacity to change, be in empathy, and partake positively in conflicts, empowering themselves to enter into unfamiliar situations.
This course encourages students to break down physical and internal inhibitions to build effective sources for the creation of truthful characters. Students will meet the instructor for one-on-one and group consultation for advices related to their acting skills. All these experiences shall be recorded in the students' journal as a process of self learning and critical reflection.
This course will be in the format of one to one tutorial. It will focus on students' attention to their own acting skills and their application in stage/film/television/screen interviews/self-taping/interviews/audition/casting sessions.
In particular the skills in and approach to presenting themselves professionally for opportunities, roles and parts. The workshops will review their performance in voice, speech and movement, with special emphasis on how to apply their work to audition, how to prepare and successfully record screen test for a self- taping session.
This course focuses rigorously on how to apply a proactive and creative approach to a script, enabling one to improve one’s skills in voice and body acting, and apply critical thinking to a text to deliver a persuasive performance within the tight confines of a table script read, casting suite, or the self- taping onto a mobile phone or device.
This course addresses how to translate the actor's initial and instinctive response as an artist into a convincing character that the students can then present to the camera. Students will learn to receive criticism and make improvement, develop their ability to make strong brave choices when they perform on stage or in front of the lens. Through exercises for varied texts, they will develop a profound understanding of their casting potentials.
This course will focus firstly on the actors’ understanding of their own physical type, vocal range, class, accent, social type/range and its impact on others. These are examined alongside an intensive exploration/understanding of one’s own individual quality. Students will take part in mock interviews with directors of film, television and theater. The feedback should enable them to transform and improve. The student will review self-taping outcomes and go through workshops for enhancement, which will examine and explore methods and approaches to bring the character to life in creative ways.
Students are required to keep an individual journal throughout the course. They are expected to develop self-awareness and conduct self-critique. As a result, the journal will be an articulation of critical analysis, personal reflection and self/peer appraisal. While the course is basically composed of one to one sessions or individual tutorials, there shall be group sessions for sharing and exchanges.
This course is to understand and prepare students for the casting process for acting for global stage, film, television and other media. In addition to the knowledge of the casting process for an actor/actress, a producer or director, the course will inform factors involved in casting decision. In sum, students will learn to prepare for professional casting and audition. Besides casting, this course is going to cover the introduction of film festivals. The importance of film festivals and how they are shaping the film business will be addressed.
By embedding exercises into lectures, the course will offer students methods and advices for professional casting, together with self-understanding of one’s acting strengths and role possibilities, and the ways to do audition and interview. Simulated exercises and auditions for students to experience the casting process are arranged. The course will also invite industry professionals sharing their experiences, opinions, and giving advices to students one on one.
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.
An Honours Project is proposed and designed by the student, with the approval of a supervising faculty member, in an area related to the student's selected final major electives. It should be an acting performance using various media or devices, at stage or on screen, produced in Hong Kong or oversea including students’ home countries and be in any languages (in this case, guest assessor and supervisor will be invited for cross assessment and supervision.) The Honours Project involves individual students in a creative pursuit and represents the peak of the student's creative achievements in the course. Students receive regular reviews of their progress from supervisors. The final project must be presented in production or written format and will be assessed by a panel of teaching staff.
Student must submit a detailed proposal for the programme's approval. The assessment criteria include communication and artistic quality, and the creative use of materials, or technological and digital media techniques. Media can provide an informal forum to discuss progress of the work.
This course provides a comprehensive vocal methodology and understanding of the necessary skills, techniques to comprehend and speak English dialogue within the context of acting on screen and stage. The course will focus on the important vocal articulation skills, to enable the student to be able to give a clear performance in English on screen or on stage. The course aims to: (1) Improve the student's ability to comprehend colloquial dialogue and translate it into believable sounding dialogue, with creative flexibility. (2) Understand how to choose action verbs for sections of text, sentence of dialogue, so that the student will have the necessary techniques to shape the dialogue. (3) Understand how to center their vocal tone, develop breath control to focus the voice on the text and enable the student to work creatively with dialogue. (4) Develop a knowledge of the voice in action, with special attention to vowel sounds, tone, articulation of consonants, explosives and intrusive consonantals. (5) Develop the necessary skill to understand the importance of rhythm, rhetorical dynamic, and vocal clarity.
The course offers several approaches which can contribute to the understanding that actors must master the art of dance in a particular context when they perform movement in the drama. The aim is that the whole active and thinking body and mind are fully engaged with the task of making dance an internal and vital part of performing.
The course will select ideas and dance forms from a selection of traditions, eras and cultures. Students will learn how to adapt their bodies to display different styles. Specific traditional dances will be practiced to demonstrate variations among different societies. Certain dancing techniques are identified with these historical and cultural circumstances. The various approaches taught in this course will train students how to dance in dramatic ways, and inspire students to move confidently.
The course will train students to analyze movements and their performances. It is believed that sharing the traditional sensations with others can be a new collaborative experience.
The course will look at dance from historical and developmental perspectives in different cultural contexts. Dance films are selected and screened as references. Students will do dance practice accordingly and when it comes to Contemporary dance, they are encouraged to respond creatively with a greater degree of confidence in self-expression, with also the critical reflection on dance, movement and the social environments.
This Special Topic in Screen Performance is structured around the tropes of aesthetics in comedic performance. Students will learn two classic physical forms - Commedia dell'Arte and Clowns. Projects will include self-directed and collaborative works, exercises, video-recordings, and texts. The aims are to give the students basic tools to tackle comedy acting and appreciation and to let students know what's funny and why.
Students are expected to learn how to analyze screenplays and screen performances of both local and transnational film productions. Comparative study of different methods in acting will be explored. Last but not least, students will also learn by practice. They will create their own performances targeting Asian and global audience and receive critique to conclude the course.
This course surveys and explores the forms, traditions, expressive styles and aesthetics of theatre from its origins to post-colonialism and contemporary globalized international theatre markets. This is to provide a solid introduction to several aspects of the world theatre: theatre histories, literatures, and theatre theories. Students will study an array of theatre practices, including Athens in the Fifth Century BCE, Roman theatre, early Modern European theatre, Asian theatre, contemporary American theatre, African and South American theatre, etc. Theatre architecture, technology, design concepts, acting styles and significant dramatic works of various theatre traditions of Western and non-Western cultures will be explored.
Students will read and analyze classical, modern and contemporary representative plays from different traditions and approaches from cultural, historical and a practitioner’s perspectives. Questions of indigenousness and cultural exportation are to be discussed. As a result, students will learn to situate dramatic forms and theatrical practices within historical contexts, recognize and analyze the rhetorics of periphery versus center, Occident versus Orient, and cultural hegemony versus multiculturalism.
This is a Major Elective course that explores the intersection of performativity and digital content creation and career development of the actor. Students will analyze contemporary trends in performance, social media, and digital platforms while developing their skills as both actors, performers and content creators. The course will engage students in practical projects, encouraging them to create their own channels and produce original content that reflects their artistic voice. By blending theoretical insights with practical applications, students will emerge as versatile performers, ready to engage with audiences in meaningful ways.
In late 2010s, a group of film and theatre professionals endeavored to develop and refine a new profession—intimacy professionals (intimacy coordinators & directors). This emergence was catalyzed by the exposure of pervasive sexual misconduct within the film industry, notably following the Harvey Weinstein scandals in 2017 and the subsequent global #MeToo movement. Inspired by Hollywood, creative professionals in other regions also began advocating for consent-based working environments in film, television, and live performance productions, particularly for scenes involving intimacy and nudity.
It is important to clarify that intimacy professionals do not serve as "ethical police" to restrict the creation of intimate, nude, or sexual scenes. On the contrary, due to the unique relationship between power and the body, intimacy professionals are acutely aware of the power dynamics inherent in the production of intimate scenes. Their role is to facilitate a safe and communicative environment, thereby restoring the agency of the body to performers.
Historically, intimate scenes in film and theatre were often produced without sufficient communication, choreography, or protective measures. Intimacy professionals argue that intimate scenes, like action scenes, are narratives conveyed through the physical movements of performers. As such, these movements should be carefully designed to ensure both visual impact and the safety of performers. Furthermore, protective measures must be considered, as intimate scenes—like action scenes—carry inherent risks. While action scenes involve physical dangers, intimate scenes often entail psychological risks (and sometimes physical risks, particularly in narratives involving vulnerability, such as sexual violence or BDSM).
This course explores the power within film and stage productions and examines the concept of bodily agency in performing arts. Through practical exercises and techniques, students will learn how to establish boundaries, understand the limits of their own bodies, and articulate these boundaries confidently. Such skills enable performers to engage in intimate scenes with greater safety, confidence, and control, reducing the risk of feeling overwhelmed. Additionally, the course will introduce masking and barrier techniques, choreography for intimate scenes, and the use of breath, movement, and closure practices.
By the end of the course, students will Develop a deeper understanding of the power dynamics in screen and stage productions, Recognize the importance of maintaining bodily agency as a performer, Gain insight into the roles and responsibilities of intimacy coordination and direction, and moreover, Acquire practical skills to utilize their bodies safely and confidently in intimate scenes, even in the absence of an intimacy professional.
The programme makes connection and arrangement for students’ internship. Students can also make direct contact with internship providers themselves to secure an internship at a venue that requires professional acting. Students will choose one of the two options: (A) Internship or (B) Practicum.
For the (A) internship option, students will work individually in their selected internship program/professional practice during the summer. It must fulfill a minimum of 180 hours of work and can be completed over the course of a semester. Students are required to seek approval from the Internship Director prior to starting the positions and conform to all reasonable requirements of their internship employers. The employers and students both file reports with the Academy of Film upon completion.
For the (B) practicum option, students will work in a group with a professional Director to create a project, either stage or film. The proposed or assigned project will mainly supervised by the professional Director and AGS internship coordinator. Project deliverables include (but not limited to) creating a short film or theatrical project, which shall be completed and be ready to be presented at the end of the internship period.
This course is offered in all semesters during year 3 and 4 including the summer semesters. Students shall submit an internship proposal to the AGS internship coordinator seeking for approval. When the internship is completed, the student must submit a summary of their learning experience and entries, and self-evaluation of their work performance at the internship. The internship providers will fill in a report for assessment purpose.
The internship will offer students personal real-world exposures and actual work experience in the profession or industry. It prepares for their career and is a chance to build potential industry networks. Students can also have the opportunities to apply what they have learnt and discussed in classrooms to practice.
The course provides students with an opportunity to explore, in depth, the interpretation and representation of some classical works in acting from different cultures.
It will also analyze and compare the various ways of turning the texts into performances. Students will learn and compare how cultures or social settings would shape a performance after surveying a rich variety of plays, films, videos and other media adaptations of the texts, from the perspectives of acting and directing.
Class discussion and assignments will enable students to practice the approach of comparative studies and case studies and understand the cultural and social influences involved.
Digital technology has fundamentally changed the way art is made. Over the last fifty years, media arts, which includes screen-based projects presented via film, television, radio, audio, video, the Internet, interactive and mobile technologies, video games, trans-media storytelling, and satellite as well as media-related printed books, catalogues, and journals, has become a significant part of our networked information society.
Media arts are rife with references to performance. This course, which is half theory, half practice, is to explore the understanding of media arts within the wider context of the "turn to performance" or the "corporeal turn" that has taken place in the humanities in recent decades. It will try to demonstrate the concept of "mediatized performance", first raised by Jean Baudrillard, which argues that some performances themselves are shaped to the demands of their circulation on film, television, radio, Internet, phone, as audio or video recordings, and in other forms based on the technologies of reproduction.
The course is composed of lectures and workshops/presentations. The lectures will offer students an overview of and exposure to visual and media arts through theoretical, aesthetic and practical frameworks. Students will be introduced to media concepts, techniques and theories in which they analyze the context and application of photography, video, audio, film and social media.
The practical components of the course will include workshops and presentations. Workshops are for students to develop a creative process with reflection on the conception of ideas learnt and with writing through production and post-production of media arts/projects. Presentations are for students to demonstrate understanding of the theories learnt.
Technology has already invaded the human body, and it appears that technology has completely transformed the way people perceive themselves. In today’s cinema, there is a broad range of representations of technology and its relationship with the human body. This course will explore the critical issues of body and technology surrounding films.
The first part of this course will examine how technological transformations offer new options and let the digital become an extension of the human body in films. The course will consider the role of the body in a variety of films from the early 1930s to the present, to see technological products become parts of the human body at both the physical and mental level.
The second part of the course will investigate how contemporary science fiction cinema redraws boundaries between human and non-human flesh, natural and artificial intelligence, living and non-living matter. The films in this category are more than technophobia or technophilia Hollywood-like gadgets, but full of symbols and allegories and giving a more critical perspective on technology and body. The teaching and learning will attend to how certain films situate the characters in discourses of culture, race, gender, sex, and class via technology.
Finally, the course will address the specific conditions that technologies impose on performance. Students who are to be twenty-first-century global screen actors shall understand that technological transformations offer not only new obstacles but new opportunities for expression.
This course will focus on students' attention to their own acting career and their planning in the global screen industry. The workshops will review their ability and knowledge in acting, with special emphasis on how to apply their work to interviews, presentation and creative meetings. This course focuses rigorously on how to apply a proactive and creative approach to planning an acting career, enabling one to improve one’s skills in self-reflection and presentation, and apply creative thinking to deliver a persuasive portfolio.
This course addresses how to translate the actor's artistic pursuit as an artist into a convincing team player in the screen industry. Students will learn to receive criticism and make improvement, develop their ability to make strong brave choices when they interact with other creative people especially the producers and directors. Through exercises for varied texts, they will develop a profound understanding of their career potentials.
This course will focus firstly on the actors’ understanding of their own physical type, vocal range, class, accent, social type/range and its impact on others. These are examined alongside an intensive exploration/understanding of one’s own individual quality. Students will take part in mock interviews with directors of film. The feedback should enable them to transform and improve. The student will review their portfolio outcomes and go through workshops for enhancement, which will examine and explore methods and approaches to bring the character to life in creative ways.
This course examines the diverse methodologies and global practices in acting, focusing on how performance can educate, inspire, and advocate for creative changes. Students will explore various acting techniques, including traditional, contemporary, and experimental forms, and how these can be applied in different cultural contexts. The course will include research, guest speakers, and project-based learning, culminating in a creative project that emphasizes advocacy through performance.
Students will analyse global case studies of performances that address social themes. They will explore various acting methodologies that engage audiences in learning and social awareness. Guest speakers from theatre, film, and arts-based education will be invited for interacting with students. The course will conclude with a final project created by students, using acting as an educational and advocacy tool.
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 realise 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
The main aims of this course are:
(1) To give students the ability to analyse and explain in an informed and critical manner the challenges born from the digital transition that impacts the CCIs and revolutionises consumption, production habits, and its core economic model.
(2) To develop future professionals in the CCIs with a foundational knowledge in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, as well as tools and methodologies to plan content economics ahead of production whether they distribute it traditionally or independently.
(3) Allow students to decrypt, analyse, and adapt to the rapid changes in the creative ecosystems. This objective relies on the development of skills such as conceptualisation, writing, and production of content with specialised knowledge of economic, financial, legal, and marketing dimensions.
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 realised 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 or media texts, 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.
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.
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.
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.