Between Screen and Reality

What is the relationship between cinema and reality – between a location being filmed and an actual location? And how does this relationship facilitate and improve our understanding of our surroundings, ourselves and the nature of cinema as such? These were the underlying questions throughout the course, and it managed to indeed open my eyes to my surroundings more: to see the different layers that a place is made up of, the different and often conflicting connotations that a single location can carry. In my opinion, being able to present on location underlined this and was very appropriate to the overarching topic, even though presentations on location brought problems with them that were beyond our power, such as sudden construction works or, in the case of my group, events (conventions) being organised at the exact same time as the presentations took place – which made planning the presentations a lot harder of course.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the fieldwork a lot. Having studied film and other media for a long time, location-sensitive research was a welcome addition to my previous studies that had been only focused on the finished product instead of the larger processes (social, historical, etc.) around it. I especially welcomed the free loan of the iPads during this course; apart from being a good study aid in general (when it came to reading texts for the course and so on), the use of 4G enabled us to watch our relevant clips actually on location. Of course nowadays most of us have smartphones that we could have used for this, but size sometimes does matter, and being able to compare the shots directly with the surroundings enabled us to detect differences and techniques that we would have surely missed otherwise. Figuring out from what perspective a certain shot was filmed and why added a new layer of meaning, the practical one: after all, when it comes to small details, we rarely notice them when doing research ‘the normal way.’

In ‘Modesty Blaise’, this mirror has been moved from the other side of the canal to this one – we assumed it was in order to show both the planting of the bomb and the reflection of the approaching boat at the same time.

What I did miss during this course was a more extensive theoretical framework, or rather engaging in discourse with the material and discuss in class, rather than having lectures without discussions. Although the lectures were relevant as well to contextualise the material and give additional information, more sessions like the literature session, in which we were able to discuss in small groups, would have been convenient. On the other hand, of course, there was the time issue because we also had to be able to do our fieldwork, so it is understandable that there weren’t that many opportunities for this. It was also interesting to read other people’s blog posts, although sometimes (especially with such a large amount of people) this could get a little chaotic. Some guidelines regarding the blog posts would have been helpful in the beginning, too – especially for the people who did not take the Crossmedial Exhibitions course, like me. While personally sticking to actually writing a ‘blog post’ (meaning, keeping it within 500-1000 words), many other people wrote small essays, and it did not become clear which format was preferable. For a blog like this to be truly representative, there should be coherence in such aspects as well, as I’ve learned from the years of maintaining my personal blog.

All in all, the course was a welcome addition to my studies and added a fresh perspective to my research in other areas as well. Furthermore, it was quite in sync with a course that I took for the Research Master, which made it easier to understand both courses because space was approached from a different perspective.

Samantha Schäfer