IB Film Syllabus + Topics

In Topic 2, students are required to explore the following films:

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• October (1928)
• Dogme 95’s Vow of Chastity
• Two films or television episodes, chosen by students
• Two previously screened films studied in depth in class
• Two previously screened films studied in depth in class
• Two previously screened films studied in depth in class 

Topic 3: Exploring film production roles

In this topic, students will:

• Engage with various film texts, seeking influence and inspiration in order to guide their own production work. 
• Research a variety of film production roles and acquire an understanding of industry practices and essential skills required for a minimum of three roles. 
• Examine their own personal interests and inspirations in order to identify filmmaker intentions.
• Acquire, develop and apply practical filmmaking skills and techniques, in a variety of forms and a minimum of three film production roles. 
• Work both individually and collaboratively as creative risk-takers on a variety of filmmaking exercises and experiments in order to fulfill their filmmaker intentions. 
• Collaborate to create at least one completed film, working in one discrete film production role. 
• Reflect on their acquisition of skills and chart their learning in a variety of film production roles. 
• Reflect on the successes and challenges of their exercises, experiments and completed films, evaluating the impact this work has had on them as a filmmaker and the extent to which their filmmaker intentions were fulfilled. 
• Experience collating evidence of their explorations in a portfolio, presenting work in both visual and written forms.

In Topic 3, students are required to explore the following films:

• Vertigo (1958) and Goodfellas (1990).
• Previously screened film, studied in depth in class, that fulfills the three-act structure paradigm as articulated by screenwriting teacher Syd Field (b. 1935).
• Extracts from a variety of films that create an alternative reality through filmmaking techniques, such as La Jetée (1962) or Being John Malkovich (1999) or Doctor Who (1963).
• Excerpts from Hitchcock’s Rope (1948)
• Extracts from films from different decades containing significant sound design and foley work, such as The Conversation (1974), Blow-out (1981), Memento (2000) and Gravity (2013)
• Students watch extracts from films that employ the Soviet montage “Kuleshov” effect, such as Battleship Potemkin (1925)—the Odessa steps scene—and The Godfather (1972)—the baptism scene
• Short story or fairy tale.
• A short sequence of film that does not create any diegetic or non-diegetic sound
• Students reflect on and choose extracts from three short video experiments they have done as a focus for a blog.
• Films containing famous leitmotifs (theme sound), such as Star Wars (1977) and Jaws (1975). These are applied to a scene from Monsters, Inc. (2001).
• Election and Home for the Holidays from The Cutting Edge: Magic of Movie Editing (2004), which can be found online.

Topic 4: Collaboratively producing film (HL only)

In this topic, students will:

• Reflect on their experiences of watching films and consider how exposure to films and filmmakers might guide and influence their own work, enabling them to set clear intentions for filmmaking.
• Consider how film elements, areas of film focus, film production roles and cultural contexts they have explored in the film course can inform and shape their own filmmaking practices.
• Form core production teams to collaboratively create plans for making at least one original completed film, identifying the roles, responsibilities, skills and techniques required and formulating intentions for the completed films.
• Engage in the pre-production, production and post-production phases, working as part of a core production team to create at least one completed film. 
• Make creative choices in order to convey meaning in film production roles and collaborate in a variety of other activities to support the cooperative realization of at least one completed film
• Document their pre-production, production and post-production experiences.
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their own individual work in film production roles. 
• Reflect on their collaborations as part of a core production team, evaluating the successes and challenges of the process and the extent to which at least one completed film fulfilled stated intentions. 
• Experience presenting work in both audio-visual and written forms. 

In Topic 4, students collaborate to produce their own film. As such, there is no list of required films.

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