Prof. Melissa de Raaf

Let’s go on a wild, critical five day journey of speculative thinking. We’ll explore futuristic architectural design, obscure visionary cinematic and other artistic achievements as well as texts ranging from socio-political satires to avant-garde manifestos from past and present. A collision trip including space travel, psychoactive drugs, relations of power, temporalities, immortality, environmental imagination as well as tentative governance of hypothetical technology and emerging science. At the start of the semester we will provide a syllabus as well as texts for self-study and preparation. During the workshop we give in-depth presentations as well as exercises to, collectively or individually, try out your own speculative concepts. Adorno said (in 1964): „It seems to me that what people have subjectively lost in their consciousness is the ability, quite simply, to imagine the whole as something that could be totally different“. Let’s prove him wrong.

In diesem Seminar möchten wir Autoren-Regisseurinnen und Regisseure und Kamerainteressierte einladen, die bald mit ihrem Diplom-Projekt beginnen, über 2 Semester an ihren Stoffen zu arbeiten. Unter dem Oberbegriff des „visuellen Schreibens“ wollen wir verschiedene Aspekte filmischer Stoffentwicklung untersuchen und ausprobieren. Wie entsteht ein filmischer Stoff? Was ist die „Keimzelle“ eines Films und welche Wege kann ihre Entwicklung nehmen? Wie weit reicht das Potential der „Idee“ und wo endet es? Welche Wechselwirkungen können zwischen Schreiben und Recherche - auch visueller Recherche - entstehen? Gibt es Möglichkeiten des Schreibens beim Drehen? Welches Potential bietet in dieser Hinsicht die Autoren-Kamera-Beziehung? Wir spekulieren anhand von Filmbeispielen über die möglichen Entstehungsweisen von Szenen oder ganzen Erzählungen. Gleichzeitig arbeiten wir an den konkreten Projekten und entwickeln im praktischen Teil (Sommersemester 2025) Stoffe für mögliche „Layout-Drehs“. Diese werden an Original Locations geprobt und gedreht. Gemeinsam analysieren wir die dramaturgischen und visuellen Potentiale und erarbeiten mögliche Herangehensweisen. Anhand der konkreten szenischen Arbeit werfen wir immer einen Blick zurück aufs „Buch“ und betrachten die verschiedenen Etappen filmischer Entstehung als wechselseitigen Prozess. Es sollten sich zu Seminar-Beginn Regie-Kamera-Paarungen gefunden haben (nicht notwendigerweise die Kombination, die später den Diplomfilm drehen). Zwischen den einzelnen Terminen wird es Recherche- und Schreibaufgaben geben. — In this seminar, we would like to invite writer-directors and cinematographers to develop their graduation films over two semesters (Wintersemester 2024/2025 & Summersemester 2025) Under the term “visual writing”, we want to examine and try out various aspects of developing a film project. How is cinematic material created? What is the starting point of a film and which paths can its development take? How far does the potential of the “idea” extend? And where does it end? What interactions can arise between writing and research - including visual research? Are there possibilities for writing while filming? What potential does the author-camera relationship offer in this respect? With examples (screenplays, films, etc.), we speculate on how individual scenes as well as entire narratives were created. At the same time, we work on concrete projects and develop material for possible “layout shoots” which will be shot in the practical part (summer semester 2025). These will be rehearsed and filmed at original locations. Together, we analyze dramaturgical and visual potentials and develop possible approaches. Based on the concrete development and experiments, we always return to the screenplay and consider the various stages of cinematic creation as a reciprocal process. At the beginning of the seminar, we encourage director-camera pairs to form (these pairs do not necessarily have to shoot the graduation film together). During the semester we will work on, present and discuss research and writing exercises. Seminar language: German & English