FM4131 Cinema and Travel

Academic year

2024 to 2025 Semester 1

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 10

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

30 credit module designed for Honours students in Film Studies. Students in other Honours degrees courses can apply to the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Student numbers will be capped.

Module coordinator

Dr T M Parks

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr Tyler Parks

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

From its inception film has been understood as a means for providing virtual experiences of travel, for bringing distant places nearer and conveying the sensory exhilaration of movement. In addition, films have circulated globally and long induced audiences to travel to shooting locations, with contemporary tourist institutions increasingly relying on the promotion of varied forms of screen tourism. This module will explore the persistent and evolving links between quite varied moving-image works and travel, tourism, forms of transportation, and the infrastructure upon which they depend. Students will become familiar with theoretical approaches to film and other audiovisual media’s capacity to simulate movement and travel, gain a sense of the significance of ‘travel genres’ and the international circulation of films within various film historical frameworks, and explore contemporary approaches to screen tourism and research institutions and materials promoting it in the present day.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisites

BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST PASS FM2002 AND PASS FM2003

Assessment pattern

Coursework - 100%

Re-assessment

Coursework - 100%

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

1 x weekly seminar (2hours), 1 x weekly screening (2-3 hours).

Scheduled learning hours

55

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

245

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • understand how film and related media have been theorised and understood as forms of virtual travel
  • understand, research, and analyse how film has been and continues to be used as a tool to promote tourism, as well as modes of transportation and their infrastructure
  • understand, research, and analyse varied genres and forms of filmmaking relevant to discussions of cinema and travel
  • understand and analyse how films construct sense of place and define cultural communities, as well as the ideological implications of how they do so.
  • comprehend and address the possibilities and problems related to travelling to make films on location
  • grasp the stakes of contemporary debates about film tourism and sustainability and frame their own positions in relation to them.