Directing Workshop 1 – Direct Cinema, Cinema Vérité 0851.6400
Ran Tal
Semester 1. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The Direct Cinema Directing Workshop will strive to take a direct, discerning look at the relevance of fly-on-the-wall filmmaking in our times. The workshop will endeavor to understand Direct Cinema, the ways it works, its place in history, and its relevance to contemporary cinema.
The workshop will address issues such as ethics, cinematic stratagems, and the place of the director and the camera vis-à-vis the occurrence of why Direct Cinema has lost its impact and if and how it can be reawakened. We'll ask if the accessibility and availability of today's cinematographic means facilitate new, original ways to observe things that were harder to capture in the past and whether the overabundance of stories in the many and varied media forces "observational" cinema to intervene in order to stand out.
Over the course of the workshop, the students will research and experiment with several methods of observation, documentation, and construction of thought-inspiring documentary scenes.
Documentary Photography 1 0851.6403
Ron Katzenelson
Semester 1. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The aim of the course is to expose students to the importance of documentary photography, to acquire professional skills and tools to deal with complex situations that are unique to this form of cinematography.
Acquiring good basic skills and tools needed for filming a documentary and dealing with both simple and complex situations that are unique to documentary films.
Detail the variety of equipment and technical means available to the photographers & directors to make the right choice accordingly to the subject and production capabilities.
Develop an in-depth understanding of how to create a style appropriate to the film and the working relationship of the director-photographer.
Ethnographic Film in Past and Present Conflicts 0851.6401 (NEW FOR 2024/25)
Tami Liberman
Semester 1. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
This course will introduce the students to the ever-developing dialogue between film and anthropology, the diverse filmic expressions conceived by this dialogue throughout the past century, and the very practice of ethnographic filmmaking. While choosing their own field of research within the culture and society surrounding them and planning their filmic inquiry, the students will learn about the works of the most influential filmmakers in the field of ethnographic film: Margaret Mead’s positivist research films, Jean Rouch’s ciné-trance, ethno-fiction, and cinema vérité, David MacDougall’s observational cinema, Chris Marker’s auto-ethnography, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, and Véréna Paravel’s sensorial ethnography and recent experimentations and contributions to the field.
Throughout the discussion of these approaches, the students will encounter questions central to this inter-disciplinary field:
With these questions in mind, the students will submit a 10min ethnographic film shot in the field of their choice. The filmmaking work will be evaluated in three stages: a presentation of the field of research and research question; a presentation of a rough cut in class; a submission of a final film.
New Theoretical Perspectives on Documentary Cinema 0851.6421
Dr. Shemulik Duvdevani
Semester 1. Seminar. 4 TAU credits.
This seminar deals with a variety of theoretical issues pertaining to documentary cinema. It puts a special emphasis on the ways in which transformations in documentary practice invite us to reconsider early theoretical issues or create a need for new perspectives. The seminar is divided into four different sections. The first section is focused on the new position the viewer holds in documentary cinema, emphasizing her contribution: what is the role she holds in defining a documentary, and what is she expected to do after watching the film? The second section focuses on the central presence the documentarist holds today. How does her personal prism allow for a thorough investigation of the political and social realms? The third section focuses on epistemological issues on truth and knowledge in documentaries as a result of working with archive material, narration and performance. How did narration turn from being a source of authority and objectivity to providing a testimony of skepticism and doubt? In what ways can we represent the unattainable past and why have fictional elements turn so dominant today in documentary cinema? The fourth and last section examines questions that pertain to the contemporary meeting between new technologies and documentary cinema: how should we understand the place of digital sound and observational in documentary anthropology? Does digital technology challenge or maintain the earlier promises of 16mm cameras? How can renewed thinking on animated documentaries light the ways in which nonfiction rhetoric is developed in the digital age? By thoroughly reading new academic sources that focus on these questions, and watching contemporary world-wide documentaries (e.g., Ghost Hunting, The Act of Killing, Grizzly Man or The Thin Blue Line), this seminar offers new ways for thinking theoretically on a filmmaking practice that keeps reinventing itself time and again.
Meeting with Israeli directors 0851.6404
Amir Tausinger
Semester 1. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
This course is designed to expose the students to Israeli documentary filmmaking with the grounding in the various practices and theories that are commonly used today. Each class will begin with a screening of a contemporary prominent documentary film, followed by a conversation with its filmmaker. Throughout the course, the students will explore different approaches to documentary filmmaking via mediated encounters with various story structures, styles of storytelling, approaches to ideas of truth, fact and fabrication, uses of archival material, strategies of camerawork and editing techniques.
Visiting Artist Workshop 0851.6408
Instructor - Guest from abroad – TBA
Semester 1. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Every year, between the fall and spring semesters, we will host an international director for five intensive days of joint work with the students.
During the master class, the artist will discuss his films with the students and observe the exercises that the students will prepare specifically for the event.
Research for the Documentary Film 0851.6402
Shira Perry
Semester 2. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The research workshop will combine a general introduction to the main research methods and tools used in documentary film making with personal tutoring for each student on their graduate project.
Students will be required to present their initial ideas for their final project at the beginning of the semester. During the semester, the students will conduct their personal research assignments according to the nature of their projects and the stage of development it’s in, in order to develop these initial ideas into films.
Through this individual work, joined class lessons and assignments, the workshop will provide an overview of the researcher’s toolbox - weather its researching characters, a story, a theme, a location or form. The workshop’s goal is to provide the students with an experience in using these tools to conduct their film’s research, as a prerequisite for writing their script.
Editing Workshop 1 0851.6409
Yael Perlov Ben Zeev
Semester 2. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
In this course we will explore the different stages of editing in the documentary film.
We will learn how to organize a project, how to log footage and how to find a story. We will go through the stages from assembling footage to a fine cut of a film.
This is a long process that requires patience and curiosity. We will watch films and analyze the editing structures and techniques. There will be assignments in which we will be able to practice the process of the documentary storytelling and filmmaking.
Documentary Cinematography 2 0851.6407
Talia Galon
Semester 2. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Documentary Cinematography will focus on the ways cinematographers can tell a visual story that enhance and support the thematic-story of the film. How to 'build' the locations, how to establish interviews and how to portray situations, in order to tell your own story.
This course will also accompany the individual projects of the students in searching for their own cinematic language.
Ethics of Documentary Image 0851.6417
Dr. Shai Biderman
Semester 2. Lecture. 4 TAU credits.
The course deals with the ethics and politics of documentary and with the axiographic space in which it works. It deals, among other issues, with the different perspectives of cultural representations, the Westernized gaze at the 'other', 'Cinema of Attractions', travelogues, Mondo films and Shockumentary, images of death and mental and physical disabilities, as well as representations of perpetrators and victims of national traumas and true-crime documentaries.
Directing Workshop 2 – Testimony and the Archive 0851.6405
Arnon Goldfinger
Semester 2. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The workshop for directing testimonial and archive films will center on the question of testimony and memory. Continuing the discussion of the concept of truth in Direct Cinema we'll deal with truth through testimony and memory. What is the meaning of testimony? What is the meaning of memory? And how these essential questions come together in archives?
The workshop will analyze the works of directors who dealt with the subject of testimony and those for whom the archive became an important tool for their cinematic language (Lanzmann, Berliner, Morris, Forgacs, Olson). The workshop will be based on exercises which will be assigned throughout the semester and their analysis in class.
Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to direct two exercises inspired by in-class discussion.
Sound Design - Storytelling with Sound 0851.6413
Rotem Dror
Semester 2. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Sound in cinema, especially documentary, is a world in and of itself with endless possibilities. Whether creating a narrative or documentary film, sound in cinema can enhance we know or free us from the familiar relationships between image and sound by acting independently of sync sound - playing a game of manipulation on the viewers thoughts and perception. We will explore the relationship between image and sound and better understand as filmmakers our relationship with these facets in film and our own filmmaking.
Film Directing Workshop 3 - Films Centered Around Place 0851.6410
Ran Tal
Semester 3. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The workshop "Films Centered Around Place" will address the way documentary cinema is called on to represent place. Cinema which makes the study of place its highest priority. This study strives to discover and understand place, whether it be psychological or physical, cultural, social or political. Through a cinematic study of place and a discussion of the work of film directors in whose work place occupies the center of the frame (Gitai, Wiseman, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Geyrhalter), the students will deal with different cinematic ways to portray place.
Cinema centered around place deals with concepts of architecture, landscape and space when it comes to tell its story. This type of cinema creates free narratives, more thematic and collage-like than traditional narrative driven by a protagonist.
In the workshop we'll touch on questions of how to film place. Building a structure that doesn't depend on any standard story-form. Research, searching for a cinematic language, man's place within the filmed space. Preparation for shooting, recreating scenes and inventing scenes that don't naturally occur in the place and the ethical questions this brings up.
The students will film two exercises over the course of the semester:
Films to watch:
Docu-trauma: War and Memory in Israeli Documentary Cinema 0851.6422 (NEW FOR 2024/25)
Dr. Dan Arav
Semester 3. Seminar. 4 TAU credits.
At the end of the 19th century, modern technology, the concept of trauma, and the moving image mechanism were born and intertwined.
This seminar offers an integrated look at the relationship between identity, traumatic memory and technological means of documenting, reconstructing and working through the trauma. Almost from its beginning, the documentary film in Israel has played a central role in the representation of personal and collective traumas: historical and national traumas, sectorial, class and gender.
Trauma and technology can be seen as an overarching framework for the analysis of the Israeli documentary film. During the seminar, the main theories of trauma will be presented, focusing on the issues of testimony, reconstruction (re-enactment), nostalgia and repetition; these will serve as a basis for dealing with various aspects of the trauma in Israel, while dealing with the unique role of the documentary film as a mechanism of representation and repetition, acting out and working through.
Editing Workshop 2 0851.6412
Boaz Leon
Semester 3. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
The workshop will address the impact of form on content. We will review different documentary genres, analyze structures, and learn a variety of technical and aesthetic alternatives.
We will discover how different means serve the movie's communicability and affect its character, ambience, and ability to trigger empathy, emotion and thought.
Finally, we will touch upon some ethical dilemmas and the implication of our choices on the lives of the protagonists.
MFA Project: Development and Preproduction 0851.6411
Katriel Schory
Semester 3. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
1. What it takes to be a Filmmaker.
The Entrepreneurial Spirit of the Filmmaker.
2. Development
Among the questions raised:
3. The Role of the Producer, the Role of the Director:
4. & 5. A Roadmap to the local and the International Marketplace
6. Presenting Your Project
7. Marketing, Sales & Distribution
8. Guest Lecture with an experienced and celebrated documentaries? Producer/Director. (TBD)
9. Summary of the semester and how to prepare for the reality of the selective world.
Please note that the lectures will be accompanied with screening of short examples and scenes from films.
Documentary Screenplay Workshop 0851.6406
David Ofek
Semester 3. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Workshop topics include: transitioning from the research stage to writing a full, detailed proposal for a documentary film; How to write a screenplay for a film that doesn't exist yet, for a film whose elements are as yet unclear. What the narrative structure is, what the cinematic language is, who the characters are, the locations; and how to weave all of the known and unknown elements into a convincing proposal for a film.
Final Project 1 0851.6416
Netalie Braun
Semester 4. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Personal guidance for each student on their graduate project, will be conducted through online video sessions.
Final Project 2 0851.6414
Ran Tal
Semester 4. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Personal guidance of each project in the final stages of production and in postproduction: editing, soundtrack design and additional footage if necessary, until the film is completed.
MFA Final Project Tutoring 0851.6415
Ran Tal
Semester 4. Workshop. 2 TAU credits.
Personal guidance of each project in the final stages of production and in postproduction: editing, soundtrack design and additional footage if necessary, until the film is completed.
Final Project Seminar 0851.6420
Prof. Yigal Burstein
Semester 4. Seminar. 2 TAU credits.
Individual Instruction.
The seminar will be devoted to a comparative study of literary and/or poetic works, plastic art or music which is likely to inspire the future piece. It will offer readings of texts in psychology, sociology, economics, philosophy, etc. which will contribute to the knowledge of the project's subject (and can be used for the research for the film); analysis of several films relevant to the proposed genre or subject; an article on a style which seems similar to that of the project. Seminar papers can deal with the affinity or lack of affinity between cinematic theory and practice, or a comparative discussion of the subject of your work and the way it was dealt with in other media.