Communications, Drama and Film

What's on

Performances, workshops, events and seminars are shown on this page, where they're of interest to Film students.

Please remember that coursework-related events may not appear until a week before the event, so please check back regularly.

Wed 12 Mar

Start time: 16:30
 

Tickets (in-person): 38
Tickets (online only): 992
Admission Free
End Time: 18:00

Research Roundtable: The way the world could be – utopias and conditions

Location: TS2  Alexander Building, Thornlea, New North Road, Postcode: EX4 4LA  Show on Map

‘See, Orpheus was a poor boy 
But he had a gift to give: 
He could make you see how the world could be, 
In spite of the way that it is 
Can you see it? 
Can you hear it? 
Can you feel it?’ (Hermes in Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown) 

 

Where calls to ‘save the planet’ tend to be fuzzy on what the saved planet actually looks like, sounds like or feels like in terms of the climate, justice and civic society, artists such as Anaïs Mitchell are attempting to imagine possibilities. Ending the award-winning musical Hadestown, Hermes the storyteller restarts the familiar tragedy of Orpheus and Euridice knowing that it ends badly, but still ‘hoping it might work out this time’. 

 

Theorists such as Jill Dolan and José Esteban Muñoz have separately explored the notion of performativity in relation to utopias, but what is conditional in these possible worlds (utopian or otherwise)? How are artists and communicators generating the conditional? Intervening in conveying a sense of what might be possible? Responding to the conditions in which they work?  

 

Short presentations and provocations from across the department include (but are not restricted to): 

 

  • The way the world could be: conditions and the conditional
  • Considerations of climate, social justice, civic society  
  • Utopias, affects, and representations 
  • Can you see it? Visual possibilities 
  • Can you hear it? Sound and music 
  • Can you feel it? Tangible propositions  


Reserve an online only ticket to receive the link for the live stream. 

Tue 06 May

Start time: 10:00
 

Admission Free
End Time: 17:00

Making A Short Film - Don Boyd 3 Day Masterclass

Presented by: Don Boyd

In this masterclass, students will be given the structured opportunity to make a short film from a theme, set of dramatic circumstances or preconceived script. Director and producer Don Boyd and Acting for Screen convenor Bryan Brown will work with a handful of actors, directors, writers and camera operators to explore the ways in which a short film comes alive on screen from an improvisational theme or scripted work. 

 

This is a great opportunity to meet new students across CDF and English, to develop new skills, and to hone your creative vision. You will work fast and intensely, collaborating in small groups to create a short film in less than 72 hours. 

 

The workshop will be structured as follows: Groups will be assigned beforehand so that you can begin to develop a theme, set of dramatic circumstances or written script. The first day of the masterclass will be a talk by Don Boyd about improvisation for screen and ways to approach your work. Each group will then present their theme and ideas for how to concretise their scene and Don and Bryan will offer guidance about how to go about filming the scene. That afternoon, and the following day, each group will film on their own, with assistance from appropriate staff when needed. 

 

All students, but particularly camera operators, will be offered training by the CDF tech team and each group will edit their own scene (with appropriate guidance) for a final showing on the last day of the workshop. There will be a guided feedback session and discussion of the work during this screening as well as a final Q&A with Don Boyd.

 

The workshop has limited places. To register as an actor, director, writer or camera operator, please send a 250-word maximum personal statement to Bryan Brown B.Brown@exeter.ac.uk explaining why participating in the workshop is important for you at this time. Please include which degree and year you are in your email, and if you have a particular theme or type of scene you want to improvise or write (you don’t need to, but it will help us group you if you do). Our intention is to choose a range of experience and needs for this workshop. Previous experience is not required; passion and commitment are.

 

Applications due by 28 March.