ZURb1230 Audio documentary

Faculty of Social Studies
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Bc. Jan Hanák (seminar tutor)
doc. MgA. Jan Motal, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
doc. MgA. Jan Motal, Ph.D.
Department of Media Studies and Journalism – Faculty of Social Studies
Contact Person: Mgr. Boris Rafailov, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Media Studies and Journalism – Faculty of Social Studies
Prerequisites
ZURb1204 Audio journalism || ZURb1205 Video journalism
The student can enroll in the course only after completing the courses Audio Journalism, or with knowledge adequate to this course. The course of documentary making assumes adequate technical competence of the student. The absence of these abilities disqualifies the student from the course.

This course is very minority and individual, designated for students, who are talented towards documentary, not those who are talented for news.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 10 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/10, only registered: 0/10, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/10
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
It sometimes happens that a journalist discovers that news-and-publicistic procedures are no longer enough for him, because he/she need to go beyond words, towards stories, towards emotions, that he/she need to communicate the overlaps, to communicate the art of life. That is, a journalist gets to where he/she is no longer enough a verifiable and reliable (but at the same time quite ground-floor) logic and he/she must fully rely on his/her intuition. In this way, one could describe a situation that most journalists do not meet, but someone does, and it is right. That is, a situation when he/she touches a documentary and should go in that direction.

At the same time, the creative procedures of documentary and dramatic creation have been intersected for a long time and there is no reason to doubt that artistic creative procedures may also penetrate into more demanding journalism. It is not so complicated, it just takes a bit of courage and let loose creativity, and it certainly can benefit the better communication ability of audio-and-audiovisual media. Of course, there is a different situation in television and radio, although due to the close connection with the Internet, there are intersections here (for example, the radio creator is now quite commonly required to write text, take photos or short video not only for promotion of the main radio message, but also to supplement it). Podcasts are a separate topic here. The course has the ambition not only to prepare students for current practice, but also to inspire them to be creative, imaginative and eager to use those ideas before someone in an editorial office tries to pigeonhole them and tie in with established practices.

In principle, an audio documentary is realized either in a rather journalistic, reportage form, with an emphasis on a complete story, or in a rather performative, authorial form, with an emphasis on capturing a "face feature", a certain interesting or typical moment of a story with significant layered generalizing overlap. talks about the audio feature. This will be reflected in the course.

Only the completion of this course entitles the student to submit as a bachelor thesis a documentary work. Students can enroll in the course twice (ideally the fourth and fifth semesters), and in the second run they can work on their bachelor's documentary if they wish.
Learning outcomes
The student will be able to orientate in documentary making, not across the board systematically, but through inspirational audio/audiovisual documentaries, which will be related in a theme and form to a document on which the student will work alone or in a team. Students will gain practical experience with the creation of documentary and also practical experience with work in the crew, including understanding the importance of each role. And of course, the student looks into the imaginative space of documentary creation and gets a chance to capitalize on this inspiration in more common news-and-publicistic work.
Syllabus
  • After the theoretical introduction, a discussion will be held over the topics and the form of the intended documents, which will then be created by students throughout the semester. The course is quite individualized by nature. It depends on who meets in it. Auditive creators often work alone, but often use a sound master in the editing room and especially for the final mix. It's not even impossible for them to work in, say, a two-author team. In the course, it will be possible to build the student staff of the author (screenwriter and director) with a sound designer, or possibly an author team. If a student is working on his/her bachelor's document, he/she can build a staff with fellow students, but he/she must be the author (screenwriter and director). Students will be evaluated on the basis of public presentation of their final works and subsequent discussion over them.
  • A complementary but important part of the course will be screening and discussion of selected inspirational documents (according to concrete students themes and forms). With an emphasis on the cultural and generally spiritual contexts of the civilization that we create and that create us, because the documentary maker is most confronted with the need to become aware of these contexts. When we talk about culture, we mean above all our culture, that is to say European, with the awareness of the ambiguity or diversity it brings. Despite all this, European "post-culture" does not cover the cultures of the whole world, but is (and seems to will be for a long time) a culture of arguments, values and attitudes of Europeans, even if it relativizes, even if it is denied. Contexts of Hellenic, Roman, Christian, Enlightenment. Jewish and Islamic contexts as ancient European motives, not much new. Animistic and panmechanistic contexts. Contexts of European identities.
  • For students aiming at an audio documentary, it is very appropriate (but not obligatory, of course) also attend course ZURb1411 AudioCafe, where you can draw a lot of inspiration about the today's most imaginative audio creation.
Literature
    recommended literature
  • Přemysl Hnilička: Panáček v říši mluveného slova (nejkomplexnější tuzemský rozcestník audiotvorby a literatury o ní) - http://mluveny.panacek.com (optimální orientace na webu skrze kvalitní vyhledávání nebo dle rubrik)
  • HANÁČKOVÁ, Andrea. Český rozhlasový dokument a feature v letech 1990 - 2005: Poetika žánrů. Disertační práce. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého Olomouc, 2008.
Teaching methods
Theoretical introduction, analysis of samples and discussions over them, but especially jointly created and shared student exercises, developing teamwork. Project-oriented learning. The content of the course is the creation of audio documentaries under individual pedagogical accompaniment.
Assessment methods
Students will be evaluated on the basis of public presentation of their final works and subsequent discussion over them. The presentations of the semestral works with the participation of expert evaluators and the public will take place during the examination period. The course will be credited to all students, regardless of their role in the crew. As a possible bachelor thesis, however, only the author (screenwriter and director) can submit the document.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
The course is taught each semester.
The course is taught: every week.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2019, Spring 2020, Autumn 2020, Spring 2021, Autumn 2021, Spring 2022, Autumn 2022, Spring 2023, Autumn 2023, Spring 2024, Autumn 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2025, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/fss/spring2025/ZURb1230