The course approaches video as a new ‘language’ that students and researchers can acquire and apply to their own disciplines, addressing it as both a research method and medium of expression in the humanities and human sciences: An audiovisual language that has particular relevance in anthropological studies of the role of the senses and emotions in human life, our experience of time and duration, and the relations between human beings and their immediate environments.

The course provides practical training in basic video techniques as well as in-camera editing through a series of exercises enabling researchers to use a video camera in the field with some degree of confidence. The emphasis will be upon the use of video to create knowledge significantly different from that of written texts, rather than merely gathering visual records.

The course assumes no prior knowledge of video-making. Participants are requested to provide their own video cameras for the period of the course. For students who do not have access to cameras it will be possible to borrow equipment from Aarhus University.

Course aims

Participants will gain confidence to create their own video footage as an integral part of methodology in their own disciplines and to recognize the diverse ways in which video fundamentally differs from written texts.

Learning outcomes

The ability to think clearly about what is important to film

• Basic skills in using a video camera; avoiding the beginner's mistakes
• Skills in recording good sound; natural sounds and interview