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If You Teach It, Will They See?
Moving Image Arts is an innovative A-Level course in film and moving image culture developed in association with the Nerve Centre in Derry. Michael Open examines the methodology of teaching film in secondary schools.
The questions raised by any attempt to teach ‘the arts’ are many and thorny. For the last few years, a groundbreaking A-Level course, founded in Northern Ireland has sought to take a new approach to the teaching of film, in which proficiency in the creative arts of filmmaking is taught alongside the kind of visual literacy that helps us to appreciate properly the films that we see.
The A-Level, in Moving Image Artsfrom CCEA, Northern Ireland’s Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, has been developed from a blueprint supplied about four years ago by Cary Bazalgette of the British Film Institute’s Education Department and Ian Wall of Film Education. Early in the project, the Nerve Centre in Derry was brought in to provide a local focus and take the project forward. From its title, it is evident that the course intends to take the broadest view of moving image culture and thus will embrace not just film but television and moving image computer gaming as well – quite a handful. For now, however, the two options are ‘film’ and ‘animation’. For the purposes of the rest of the article, I will simply refer to the work as ‘film’.
So what sort of approach does it take? To quote the course’s rationale… ‘Produced in tandem with the aims of the Art and Design Subject Criteria, [the] specification is designed to enable candidates to develop their creative and critical abilities through hands-on learning in the craft of moving image arts. The subject is anchored in the candidates’ creation of their own moving image art works which should be informed and inspired by an exploration of the rich and diverse heritage of the moving image and its relationship with other art forms and disciplines. Courses based on this specification will stimulate and encourage creativity by introducing candidates to a rich variety of moving image practices, processes, conventions, styles and techniques.'
The full article is printed in Film Ireland 117.
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