Overview

Today, with streaming services, virtual reality, and other transformative media technologies, the future of screen entertainment is more exciting and unpredictable than ever. This unit will prepare students to thrive in contemporary screen cultures through an industry project with a real-world outcome. Through a focus on screen production, exhibition, and reception, this unit will chart how film, TV, and screen entertainment have been shaped by changes in technology. Students will develop the historical perspective and critical distance necessary to question where screen media technologies have affirmed existing power dynamics and chart how they can be used by those in marginalised positions to challenge dominant views. Students will critique changing screen technologies and their impact on culture at a global and a local level and contend with opportunities the changing technological landscape has for change.

Requisites

Prerequisites
MDA30016 Screen Technology and Culture

Rule

100 credit points

Teaching Periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
26-February-2024
26-May-2024
Last self-enrolment date
10-March-2024
Census date
31-March-2024
Last withdraw without fail date
12-April-2024
Results released date
02-July-2024

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Map the impact of changing technology on exhibition, distribution, and reception, including grassroots and marginalised and indigenous perspectives.
  • Apply a transhistorical perspective to better anticipate changes in the relationship between screen media, technology, and culture
  • Challenge conventions through theoretically informed and industry engaged critical perspectives.
  • Apply critical perspectives to real-world tasks in problem-based and project-based learning
  • Use collaborative and professional skills to plan, develop and implement an innovative media project that responds to an industry brief

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Class
2.00 12 weeks 24
On-campus
Class
2.00 12 weeks 24
Specified Activities
Various
3.67 12 weeks 44
Unspecified Activities
Various
4.83 12 weeks 58
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Essay Individual  30%  1,2,3
Technology Project Individual  40%  2,3,4,5 
Applied Project Group 30%  3,4,5 

Content

  • Film in the Digital Age
  • Streaming Services and Content Curation
  • Special Effects and Computer-Generated Imagery
  • Videogames and Screen Theory
  • Virtual Reality and Screen Cultures
  • IMAX and 4D cinema technologies
  • Community Distribution
  • Screen Promotion and Audiences

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.