There's an air of young, enthusiastic energy about Dublin City University. The campus location, rambling across what were once the lush grounds of an agricultural college, has a lot to do with it. The fact of this being a college where new ideas are par for the courses (sic) is more to the point. It's no surprise when Luke Gibbons, of DCU's School of Communications, points out that the northside university was the first to offer a master's in film studies in this State.
Gibbons, who is chairman of the programme board which runs the MA in film and TV studies, set up the programme with Stephanie McBride in 1991. A long-time film aficionado, Gibbons is one of the authors of Cinema in Ireland a core book on the subject, and first introduced film as a subject in DCU some 15 years ago.
Explaining the MA programme in DCU, he says it is "distinctive in that it is geared toward film as industry and so deals in the institutional, political, economic and policy making aspects of film-making. These areas take up half the course while the other half looks at what could be understood as the cultural, aesthetic and artistic aspects of film. This emphasis is what makes it different to other MAs on the subject and ties it in with the ethos in DCU, which leans toward technology and industry. There is a great deal of interaction with the wider film community too, precisely because we deal in policies and economics."
This interaction has resulted in a healthy input to the DCU programme from people working in the wider industry: "People with expertise in areas like finance, taxation, legal issues, those working in distribution, producers - they all make contributions to the course," Gibbons explains. By way of examples he cites guest lectures given by producers David Collins and Ed Guiney, lectures on financial and legal issues given by James Hickey and Mary Leonard (the latter the appointed head of the new Screen Commission) and Rod Stoneman, head of the Film Board. Actor Stephen Rea is on line to give a talk on his areas of interest. "We encourage young film-makers in particular," says Luke Gibbons.
The MA in Film and TV Studies in DCU is a one year programme divided into two, 12 week semesters followed by a dissertation in the third semester. The first semester covers courses in Irish and national cinema - taking in the US, Europe and Australia with a what Gibbons calls "a heavy emphasis" on Irish cinema, screenwriting, the politics and economics of cinema and management and policy in European cinema. The second semester goes on to look again at Irish and national cinema and screenwriting but also takes in gender in film and TV, a course on film and TV audiences and European cinema.
There are between 20 and 25 student places on the DCU programme each year. A primary degree is a prerequisite, though Luke Gibbons points out that "in exceptional circumstances exceptions can be made. We take on people with a high record of achievement in the industry almost every year". He points out, too, that "because of the wider institutional and industrial remit of the course a lot of the participants go on to work in the audio-visual industry, into wider areas than the immediate creative side. There are, however, people from the course who have gone on to make films and some on the course at the moment who are directing."
When it comes to thesis subjects the "vast majority" of DCU students choose to write on Irish cinema, with most concentrating on the debates on the North, gender stereotypes as well a national cinema and global culture.
