The Film and Architecture Studio offers a comprehensive method to use cinematic language in architecture and urban design. It is a hands-on studio that focuses on learning and understanding the narrative of filmmaking as a way to explore the built environment. Participants in this course are introduced to the essential elements of filmmaking and learn how to relate these to architecture and the city. The focus of the studio is not so much on the technical aspects of filmmaking and post-production, but rather on film as a way to structure your thoughts and to turn your findings into a gripping story.
Course structure
Following the theme of ‘Guilty Architecture’ as the central topic of AFFR 2020, participants will go through various stages of filmmaking to discover it’s meaning in a specific part of Rotterdam’s city centre. Trough short exercises and conversations with various cinematic professionals, we’ll explore framing as a way of looking at the city, talk about the main principles of storytelling, and dive into the use of scenario’s as a means to structure and relate different elements to develop a certain narrative.
The Film & Architecture Studio is organized by the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam and the Independent School for the City. The studio is open to students and (young) professionals in the fields of architecture, design, cinematography and other urban studies. Although it might be useful, the film and architecture studio does not require an advanced experience in filmmaking or special equipment like cameras or editing tools. All recording tools are welcome, but a smartphone and laptop would work as bare essentials.
The twelfth Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam will take place 7 – 11 October 2020
Tutors
Jord den Hollander
After having finished his master’s in architecture at the Technical University of Delft, Jord den Hollander followed a course in scenario writing at the Filmschool in London. Throughout his career he has often combined both disciplines. He has made documentaries about art and architecture, has written and directed internationally acclaimed television series for children about art and science and is curator of the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (www.affr.nl), the world’s biggest architecture film festival, which he co-founded in 2002. In addition, he has designed a unique oeuvre that includes an architecture centre for children in Almere, a mobile kid’s library, a floating hotel and a tensegrity bicycle bridge.
Erik van Empel
Erik van Empel is a director and cameraman who’s worked on an extensive amount of documentaries in the Netherlands, Turkey, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola. Van Empel currently works on a documentary series together with journalist Tom Kleijn during which they return to disaster spots all over the world. From London and Genoa to Paradise and Fukushima and – in our own country – Enschede. They examine how the local community continued when the media attention faded. The series shows the resilience of people who went through the unimaginable.
Hans Christian Post
Hans Christian Post is a writer and filmmaker. Having a PhD in Modern Culture from the university of Copenhagen his main field of research is cultural and urban memory. With Dresden and Berlin as primary cases, he has written extensively on the intertwining of city planning, building preservation, memory, and history politics
Since 2014, he has worked independently as film maker and producer. In 2015, he finished his first documentary, Last Exit Alexanderplatz, which was followed by Whose city? in 2017. The theatre film We are here came out in early 2019, and later that year, he completed Where to with history?, his fourth film to date. This film will have its Dutch premiere in October at AFFR 2020.
Course schedule
Wednesday 4 November
10:00 – 10:30 Welcome and general introduction
10:30 – 11:30 Introduction Film and Architecture by Jord den Hollander
11:30 – 12:15 Introduction Guilty Architecture by Independent School for the City
12:15 – 16:30 Briefing on first assignment and fieldwork
16:30 – 19:00 Conversation on today’s findings and explanation of the next assignment
19:00 – 20:00 Dinner break
20:00 – 21:30 Conversation with the international renowned director of photography Erik van Empel
Thursday 5 November
10:00 – 11:30 Development of action plan
11:30 – 16:30 Participants at work
16:30 – 18:00 Presentations and conversation findings of the day
18:00 – 19:00 Presentation by Jord den Hollander, next assignment
19:00 – 20:30 Screening of short films
Friday 6 November
10:00 – 16:30 Participants at work
16:30 – 19:00 Presentations and conversation on production of the day and feedback for completion
20:00 – 21:30 A conversation with the international renowned Filmmaker Hans Christian Post
Saturday 7 November
10:00 – 15:00 Participants at work
15:00 – 17:00 Screening of films and a conversation about the outcomes