FAVh067 Digital tools in cinema research

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
Mgr. et Mgr. Terézia Porubčanská, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Michal Večeřa, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Michal Večeřa, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Prerequisites
FAVBPa100 Historical research
Knowledge of the basics of historical research methodology is assumed, which students acquire in the compulsory course FAVBPa100 Introduction to Historical Research Methodology.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The digital turn in the humanities has brought a number of important changes to the methodology of collecting, storing, researching, displaying and presenting historical materials and cultural heritage. Technologies developed for specific research needs in literature, history or art have enabled the digitization of texts, the creation of audiovisual content, or the building of large data collections. With the advent of these technologies, an increasing amount of digital content is being created, and the creators of this content are faced with another fundamental question - how to bring this content to their users, or how to attract the attention of new users? This course aims to introduce one of the many methods used by galleries, museums, archives and other cultural and historical institutions to present their digital collections: the digital story. From this starting point, students will gradually become familiar with the function of the online curator of digital archival content and its importance to the cultural institution. Students will have the opportunity to experience the entire process of preparing a digital story - through part-time practical assignments and the preparation of a seminar project, they will experience research in digitized archival collections and become familiar with selected methods and tools for creating and presenting digital content in an online environment.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
- Define the basic job competencies of a curator who works with native digital or digitized materials in collection management and presentation.
- Orient and describe basic concepts in the field of digital imaging and presentation of (not only) cinema history
- They will be able to search archival materials and select appropriate content for an upcoming digital story
- Build a story script and create additional illustrative elements in selected software (image attachment, audio and video content, map visualization, timeline)
- Independently create a presentation project in ArcGIS StoryMaps
Syllabus
  • 1. Introduction of the overall course concept, required literature, assessment methods, main theoretical frameworks of digital archive/gallery curation; introduction of the topics and subtopics for which students will develop assignments (semester project in the form of a digital story); students will choose the topic and subtopic they want to focus on in their semester project, they will get access to archival materials in which they will have to research and find sources for their story; the assignment for the next class will follow the requirements applied by the IFAV for project proposals - the student must formulate 1) a research problem, 2) describe the contextual background of the project, 3) formulate the questions to be asked, 4) formulate a working thesis, 5) explain what the contribution of the topic thus developed is
  • 2. Introduction to Digital Humanities; introduction to ArcGIS StoryMaps and a model project created in this environment; consultation of working forms of the project; The assignment for the next class will consist of modifying the assigned project and trying ArcGIS Storymaps for the first time
  • 3. Consultation of selected topics and reflection on Storymaps issues; Preparation of a scenario for a digital story - collaborative work in class; assignment for next time - reading a methodological text proposed by a guest on the topic of curation
  • 4. Guest lecturer 1 - curating a digital archive/gallery - defining the competences of each position: information curator, digital curator, online curator; introduction to curating digital collections of cultural heritage and historical materials in various forms (text, image format, audiovisual content, physical artefacts)
  • 5. Introduction to the issues of processing a historical topic into the form of a podcast. Introduction of suitable freely available software for recording and processing audio content, demonstration of the creation of a recording and its subsequent processing. Presentation of the possibilities of publishing audio content online. Task for the next lesson - processing the agreed material/materials into an audio recording and saving it in the application environment
  • 6. Students - presentation of the results of their research in the accessible collections of historical materials and how they intend to use them in the project, presentation of the assignment from the last lesson
  • 7. Guest lecturer 2 - presentation of the possibilities of data visualization. Fundamentals of displaying information in graphical form, types of graphical displays (graph, timeline, grid, etc.); methods of legible and attractive visualization, assignment for students for next class - using the shared software and create from the materials for your topic 1) 3 illustrative graphs and 2) a timeline that will contain at least 3 levels - general history, cinematic history and the line of the problem itself, from the collected data select all relevant data according to you and insert into the timeline
  • 8. Reflection on the assignment from the previous lesson
  • 9. Digital mapping of history - using spatial data for storytelling; spatial turn in history research, examples of map display applications with specific applications and projects, application of working with maps in ArcGIS Storymaps, collaborative class work.
  • 10. Students - Presentation of map visualization designs based on collected historical materials
  • 11. Use of social media for historical storytelling - Instagram, Facebook, Tik-tok - assignment related to social media issues next time
  • 12. Students - presentation of assignments from last class
  • 13. Seminar is conducted in the form of tutorials, students focus on finalizing their semester project
  • 14. Presentation of final stories and feedback before final submission during the exam period.
Literature
    required literature
  • Davis, S. B., Vane, O., & Kräutli, F. (červenec, 2016). Using Data Visualisation to tell Stories About Collections [příspěvek prezentovaný na konferenci]. Electronic Visualisation and the Arts.
  • ČERNÝ, Michal. Digitální informační kurátorství a jeho využití v konstruktivisticky orientovaném vzdělávání (Curating Digital Information and Its Use in Constructivist-oriented Education). Online. In INFORUM 2015: 21. ročník konference o profesionálních informačních zdrojích. Praha: Albertina icome Praha, 2015, 15 pp. ISSN 1801-2213. URL info
    recommended literature
  • Harvey, D. R. (Douglas R.) (2010). Digital curation : a how-to-do-it manual / Ross Harvey. Neal-Schuman Publishers.
  • Berry, D. M., & Fagerjord, A., (2017). Digital Humanities: Knowledge and Critique in a Digital Age. John Wiley & Sons. Cambridge, Anglie: Polity Press.
  • Byrne, W. (2019, 30. září). What is digital storytelling and what has it got to do with cultural heritage? Europeana Pro.
  • Knowles, A. K., & Hillier, A., (2008). Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and Gis Are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands, Kalifornie: ESRI, Inc.
  • Wojtczak, K. (2022, 7. září). How to write appealing art history stories - insights from DailyArt Magazine. Europeana Pro.
Teaching methods
The course will consist of the presentation of theoretical and methodological concepts in the form of lectures by the course teachers or guest lecturers. The presentation will include a demonstration of existing virtual projects. The practical part of the seminar will be implemented in the form of a presentation of a specific digital tool and its use in a model example. Students will be tasked with repeating the procedure using their own handouts; working versions of the assignments will be reflected in the following tutorial. After each presentation/practical demonstration, there will be space for discussion - clarification and review of problematic passages. This will include reading the assigned texts as a basis for seminar discussion.
Assessment methods
The understanding of the theoretical part will be tested directly during the teaching through the KVIS application, the problematic passages will then be returned to or given space in the practical part through illustrative applications in practice. Theoretical knowledge will be tested by two written tests (1. test after the fifth lesson, 2. test after the eleventh lesson). Students will demonstrate their practical skills by preparing sub-tasks (audio, data visualization, map) which they will combine into one digital outcome story at the end of the course. The final grade will be a composite of the written test grades (20% of the grade for each test, 40% total) and the final project grade (60%).
Language of instruction
Czech
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