Hum/176 Week 6 Assignment

Film and television were the dominant international media of mass visual culture of the last century. People and society are continually influenced by the films they go to see and programs they watch at home. The movie industry became not only a part of the lives of millions, but it also spawned creative innovation and cinema was established as an industrial and technological process in many countries. Television, in comparison to film, has often been seen as the poorer relation in terms of cultural significance and quality, yet TV continues to influence the daily lives of the millions who watch it. Despite threats from new media and the internet to make film and television redundant forms of entertainment, movies and TV shows still dominate internet content. Without these two media forms the internet would arguably not hold the attention of the audiences it does. In the twenty-first century film and television still hold sway in a range of global media leisure pursuits, enjoyed and celebrated in different kinds of spaces: in the cinema, at home on TV, video recording and DVD sales, and the internet. They remain popular forms of entertainment, yet also offer artistic and oppositional views of the world. At Portsmouth you will study the history of film and television as mass entertainment. You will consider their creators and directors, their production regimes and audience markets. You will employ a range of critical approaches to reading film and television texts and debate the dynamic relationship between screen theory, video production and screenwriting as creative practices.