Documentary Storytelling (Winter)
A popular course suited to documentary filmmakers, film academics and non-fiction enthusiasts
Price £295
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This course usually runs 4 times throughout the year; Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.
If you have questions please consult our new FAQs page before contacting us.
We have also updated policies for course costs/concessions and bursaries, please see our Terms and conditions.
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WHAT: This popular course returns in Winter for another run, offering students a robust overview of many significant documentary theories.
WHERE: Online distance learning, take part in this class from your home with a computer/tablet.
WHO: Run by Catalin Brylla
WHEN: Tuesday evenings across 10 weeks, Tuesday the 21st January – Tuesday the 25th March. 6:30 – 9 PM. 2.5 hours per session.
HOW MUCH: Full Price:£295.00 | Students/Concessions: £265.00 | UCL Students: £255.00
COSTS & BURSARIES: Please see our Terms & Conditions for information on our rates & concessions.
Led by Dr. Catalin Brylla, Principal Lecturer in Film and Television at Bournemouth University, this course is targeted towards documentary practitioners who are either preparing, shooting or editing their documentary, scholars who want to analyse or use documentary as a research methodology, and people who are simply passionate about non-fiction films. Keeping the balance between the theory of practice and the theory in practice, each session will include discussions of how concepts relate to formal considerations in documentary filmmaking. Participants will also learn how to critically frame their film practice in order to produce thought-provoking films that have social and cultural implications.
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Indicative Course Outline:
Session 1: Soviet Montage and Poetic Documentary
• Documentary elements
• Soviet montage and conceptual watching
• The poetic documentarySession 2: Continuity and Observational Documentary
• Spatial and emotional impact of shot sizes
• The immersive actuality of continuity
• The observational documentarySession 3: Interviews and Participatory Documentary
• Characterisation through interviews
• The function of cutaways
• The participatory documentarySession 4: Defamiliarisation and Reflexive Documentary
• Brecht and defamiliarising the audience
• The reflexive documentary
• The hybrid documentarySession 5: Narrative and Point-of-View
• Narrative structure: story and plot
• Narrative point-of-view
• Creating empathy for charactersSession 6: Materialities: Objects and Spaces
• The mediation of space and time
• Everyday materialities
• Memory as trace and eventSession 7: Performativity and Documentary Comedy
• The performative documentary
• Documentary comedy and distantiation
• Parody and mockumentaries
• The investigative documentary comedySession 8: Essay Film
• Portrait essay
• Travel essay
• Diary essay
• Editorial essay
• Refractive essaySession 9: Stereotypes and the Other
• Social categorisation and documentary narratives
• Stereotypes and prejudice
• Types of Others in documentarySession 10: Challenging Stereotypes• Industry initiatives
• Narrative and aesthetics to de-stigmatise communities
• Perspective-taking and empathy
• Cross-categorisation, recategorisation, recategorisationTestimonials:
“I loved it so much and it was so interesting! Catalin is an incredible teacher, not only because he covered so much and structured it so well, but made us think. I saw things and noticed stuff I never did before. It will really change how I see things. So thank you so much for that.” – Past Participant, March 2024
“I enjoyed the course. It was my first documentary course, and the final result was positive. I have learned a lot and have much more to learn. The programme was good for a short course—dynamic classes balanced between the contents, debate and participation.” – Ricardo Sá Nogueira, previous student
“The course was brilliant, very rich in content and interactive. Catalin has been extremely supportive throughout, provided a lot of resources and offered great analytical depth, which was very suitable to my needs.” – Eleni Pappa, previous course participant
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This course will be delivered via online distance learning, and students will require a computer or other internet connected device.
This course offers bursary places. Please check our Terms and conditions to see if you are eligible to apply.
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If you still have other questions relating to a specific course or request, please get in touch with us via emailing shortcourses@opencitylondon.com
or call us at +44 20 3108 7586
(Image: Still from Zanzibar Soccer Dreams, 2016, by Florence Ayisi and Catalin Brylla)
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Tutors
Catalin Brylla
Principal Lecturer in Film and Television at Bournemouth University, and holder of a doctorate in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, his research aims for a pragmatic understanding of documentary spectatorship with regards to experience, empathy and narrative comprehension. In a larger context this work also advocates for the filmmaker’s understanding of how audio-visual and narrative representation impacts on society’s understanding of stereotyped groups, such as disabled people, women and African cultures. He is currently editing two books, “Documentary and Dis/ability” (with Helen Hughes) and “Cognitive Theory in Documentary Film Studies” (with Mette Kramer). As a practice-led researcher, he has just completed two feature documentaries about blindness and the everyday, and another feature documentary, “Zanzibar Soccer Dreams” (with Florence Ayisi), about Muslim women playing football.