1. The document outlines the structure and content for a filmmaking course titled "Sensory Cinema". The course will run for 12-25 weeks and include watching film clips, discussions, and creating short films. 2. Students will complete three short film exercises exploring everyday sensations, interpreting spaces through different senses, and responding to music through film. 3. For their final project, students will create a 7-8 minute mixed-form film communicating sensations as perceived by characters and disconnected from people on screen but relating to the viewer. The film will cross boundaries between documentary, experimental, and fiction filmmaking.

1. Le Cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse
2019/20 edition: ‘Sensory Cinema’
https://bit.ly/

2. CCAJ:basicstructure
Maximum length : 25 weeks, at 1-2 hours per week
Minimum viable length – 12 weeks/ 1 hour a week
Mixture of watching clips/ discussion, and making:
3 short film-making Exercises and a final 5-8 minute film
Option of feature film viewing
Viewing all films at BFI Southbank Monday 29th June
(Lincolnshire films) and Friday 26th June (London films)

3. IT’S NOT..
SENSORY CINEMA

4. IT COULD BE..
(but these
ASMR videos
aren’t on M.
Bergala’s list!)
SENSORY CINEMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaHjQfVfxM4

5. IT COULD BE..
Portrait of Ga
SENSORY CINEMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwGNAIbe-xQ

6. What range of sensations do we experience?
An example of each from a film you know..
What is your earliest sense memory? How would you
film it?

7. https://cloud.cfav.fr/index.php/s/MJtqH7AfTAt92Mz?path=/6.%20Conclusion

8. SENSORY CINEMA: Senses into Feelings
Light &
shade
Moving
objectsjarring
Homesickness/
longing
Wet, dry heat/ cool/
warmth
Weight
and force
movement

9. ANALYSING SENSATIONS
The five senses
Movement and height/ vertigo
Time and tension/ anxiety
Character sensations/
point of view
Characters
disconnected from
feeling
Sensation and place
Sensation and memory

10. ANALYSING SENSES
SIGHTHEARING
TOUCHMOVEMENT
Character/setting/mood:

11. ANALYSING SENSES
SIGHTHEARING
TOUCHMOVEMENT
Character and memory:

12. HOW SENSES TELL STORIES
SETTINGCHARACTER
STORYMOOD
Sound:
Image:

13. A film that does it all: Lifelines, Erice
https://cloud.cfav.fr/index.php/s/MJtqH7AfTAt92Mz?path=%2F0.%20Introduction#

14. ‘Pure’ Sensation
Arabesques, Dulac, 1929 Anticipation of the Nigt, Brakhage, 1958

15. Sensations and character:
les Petites Fugues

16. SENSATIONS
AND PLACE
Beau Travail, Denis, 1999
AGA, Lazarov, 2018

17. ‘DISCONNECTED
SENSATIONS’
Stromboli, Rossellini, 1950
Germany Year Zero Rossellini,
1947

18. ‘DISCONNECTED
SENSATIONS’
https://youtu.be/CQAa36na0Us

19. SUBJECTIVESENSATIONSWalden, Mekas, 1968
Post Tenebras Lux, Reygadas,
2012
Marnie, Hitchcock, 1964
Makala, Gras, 2017

20. Exercise 1
Paying attention to everyday sensations - Individual Exercise
Choose something from your everyday life and, using sound and
images, represent the sensations that it creates in you. For
example, you may choose an element of a journey that you make
every day as you go from home to school : things such as a set of
traffic lights, the town square, a wall, a door, or perhaps a tree or
an animal – that sort of thing. (no music, no speech).
2 mins length max.

21. Exercise 2
The creation of sensation from different senses – Exercise for Small Groups
Identify a space to explore. Each group then chooses a sense (sight, hearing,
smell, touch, taste, combined or mixed senses) to interpret it and bring it to life
by using sounds and images.
Music and speech are allowed in this exercise.
In each group the first shot is taken by one student, the camera is then passed
on to another student and they take a shot in the manner that they wish, it’s
then passed on to another until everyone in the group has had a turn. Before
filming their shot, the students are only allowed to see ONLY the shot that comes
before theirs. Each sense should last a max of 2 mins.

22. Exercise 3
Sensation and Music – An exercise for large or small groups
The teacher or filmmaker chooses a piece of music (no songs,
instrumentals only). They imagine a ‘rule of the game’ so that
the students then make a film in response to the sensations that
they experience in listening to the music.
2 mins length max. NB, we might nominate the piece of music
and ask everyone to follow it.

23. Final film
This year the group film will have a free but mixed form - it can cross the borders between
documentary, experimental and fiction filmmaking. Ideally it will be made of elements
from two of these three forms.
The sensations will not be expressed by dialogue, but by the choice of location, framing,
sound, rhythm, light, materials and other factors.
Each film will feature:
• Sensations as perceived by a person (or persons)
• Sensations which are disconnected from the people on the screen but which relate
directly to the viewer.
7-8 mins max (including titles)

24. In the experimental mode..
Walden, by Jonas Mekas
Arabesques, by Dulac
Anticipation of the Night, Brakhage
Portrait of Ga, Margaret Tait
Hale County, This Morning, This Evening, Ramell Ross

25. Links
https://markreid1895.wordpress.com/
https://cloud.cfav.fr/index.php/s/MJtqH7AfTAt92Mz
Password ‘sensation’
NB, clips not cleared for age suitability – check first!
https://bit.ly