INTRO TO FILM & MEDIA STUDIES
This course serves as an introduction to the study of film and related visual media, examining fundamental issues of aesthetics (mise-en-scene, editing, sound), history (interaction of industrial, economic, and technological factors), theory (spectatorship, realism, and indexicality), and criticism (auteurist, feminist, and genre-based approaches). The course also investigates how digital media change has been productive of new frameworks for moving image culture in the present. Discussion section FILM UN1001 is a required corequisite.
- W 2:10 p.m.-3:25 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jane Gaines
CULPA: 4 Info - 3 points
INTRO-FILM & MEDIA STUDIES-DIS
Co-requisite discussion section for FILM UN 1000 INTRO TO FILM & MEDIA STUDIES.
- F 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
- F 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
- F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
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Instructor:
Philip Gilstrap
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Instructor:
Lifei Cheng
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Instructor:
Helena S Volbeta
Info - 0 points
CINEMA HIST II: 1930-1960
This course examines major developments and debates in the history of cinema between 1930 and 1960, from the consolidation of the classic Hollywood studio system in the early sound era to the articulation of emergent ;new waves; and new critical discourses in the late 1950s. Our approach will be interdisciplinary in scope, albeit with an emphasis on social and cultural history - concerned not only with how movies have developed as a form of art and medium of entertainment, but also with cinemas changing function as a social institution. Discussion section FILM UN 2021 is a required co-requisite.
- R 2:10 p.m.-3:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Ronald Gregg
CULPA: 2 Info - 3 points
CINEMA HIST II-1930-1960-DIS
Co-requisite for FILM UN 2020 Cinema History II.
- F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
- F 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Amie Song
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Instructor:
Matthew Huh
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Instructor:
Joshua Akinwumi
Info - 0 points
CINEMA HIST III:1960-1990
By closely watching representative classics from countries including Italy, Poland, Russia and Argentina, we will study the distinctive trends and masters of this vibrant era. Special attention will be paid to the French New Wave (60s); the New German Cinema (70s); the reformulation of Hollywood studio filmmaking in the 70s (Altman, Cassavetes, Coppola), and the rise of the independent American cinema (80s). Discussion section FILM UN 2031 is a required co-requisite.
- M 2:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Annette Insdorf
CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info - 3 points
CINEMA HIST III:1960-1990-DISC
Co-requisite discussion section for FILM UN 2030 Cinema History III: 1960-90.
- T 10:10 a.m.-11 a.m.
- T 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
- T 5:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Eduardo Ecker
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Instructor:
Adam M McLean
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Instructor:
Mary Cecilia G Walker
Info - 0 points
American Film: The Western
This course surveys the first century of the American Western film genre, and its relation to American imaginings and ideologies of the “frontier,” with in-depth readings of key precursor texts, including memoirs, histories, novels, and essays. We will consider the evolution of the genre and its changing place within the film industry, and study exemplary films that established and challenged the genre’s narrative, aesthetic, and ideological conventions. We will explore how films engage with the history and myth of the American West. We will also be analyzing the politics of the Western, in particular how films articulate configurations of race, class, nation, sexuality and gender. And we will study the way Western films and filmmakers themselves interrogate the analytic categories we use to study them -- categories such as “genre” and “auteur” – with specific attention to the work and career of John Ford. Please note: the course requires sustained engagement with and analysis of written texts as well as films, so please be prepared for a bit more reading than what you might expect from a typical film survey course.
- M 10:10 a.m.-1:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
James A Schamus
CULPA: 8
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
American Film: The Western (Discussion)
American Film: Wester (DI
Discussion section for FILM2134UN.
- F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
- F 11:10 a.m.-noon
- F 3:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Cece A Wheeler
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Instructor:
Nora G Marris
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Instructor:
Alek Abate
Info - 0 points
WORLD CINEMA: LATIN AMERICA
An overview of the major developments in the art and industry of cinema in Latin America, ranging from its earliest days to the most recent works of the digital era. The interaction of Latin American filmmakers with international movements such as neorealism, modernism, cinema vérité, and postmodernism will be addressed. Among the filmmakers to be studied are Luis Buñuel, Glauber Rocha, Raúl Ruiz and Lucrecia Martel. Students will discover the major industrial tends as well as artistic currents that have defined Latin American cinema, as well as have the chance to analyze a number of key works both in terms of their varying approaches to filmmaking as well as their resonance with political/social/historical issues.
- F 10:10 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Elizabeth Ramirez Soto
Info - 3 points
WORLD CIN: LAT AM DISCUSSION
The global success of film directors Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro has attracted much attention to the New Mexican Cinema. Yet this «Nuevo cine mexicano» cannot be understood without knowing the traditions of Mexico’s intricate film history. This course explores the numerous tendencies of Mexican cinema through the analysis of its most representative genres, features, and directors since the so called Golden Age (1938-1957). An in-depth analysis of films such as Emilio Fernández’s
La perla
(1947), Luis Buñuel’s
Los olvidados
(1950), Jomi García Ascot’s and María Luisa Elío's
En el balcón vacío
(1962), Alejandro Jodorowsky’s
La montaña sagrada
(1973), and Arturo Ripstein's
Profundo carmesí
(1996) will contribute to define the characteristics of the most relevant «national» genres – from 1940s melodramas to 1970s psychedelic movies and 1990s crime films. The study of the New Mexican Cinema of Iñárritu (
Amores perros
, 2000), Cuarón (
Y tu mamá también
, 2001), and del Toro (
El laberinto del fauno
, 2006) will comprise an examination of the complex relationship between the US and Mexican film industries, as well as a critique of the very notion of «national identity» in today’s globalized world. We will also analyze new tendencies in commercial, experimental, and documentary Mexican films – including Carlos Reygadas'
Luz silenciosa
(2007) and Pedro González
Rubio's Alamar
(2009).
- M 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
- T 6:10 p.m.-7 p.m.
- T 11:10 a.m.-noon
-
Instructor:
Alex Yew
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Instructor:
Josephine Simonian
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Instructor:
Raman K Nimmala
Info - 0 points
LAB IN WRITING FILM CRITICISM
Lab in Writing Film Criticism
This course will focus on writing fresh, original criticism, on developing an individual voice, and on creating strong arguments supporting your ideas (qualities that translate to many areas, from reviewing to pitching a film project). Screenings in and outside class will be followed by discussion and in-class writing exercises, as well as regular writing assignments. How do you choose an effective critical approach? How do you make your opinions vivid and convincing on the page? We will also analyze recent criticism and consider the changing landscape of film criticism today.
Prerequisite:
Instructor’s permission. Submit a short, film-related sample to cj2374@columbia.edu
Note: Because permission is required, on-line registration may say the course is full when it is not. Priority given to film majors.
- M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Caryn James
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
LABORATORY IN SCREENWRITING
This lab is limited to declared Film and Media Studies majors. Exercises in the writing of film scripts.
- M 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
- T 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- F 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
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Instructor:
Melanie A Rish
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Instructor:
Rali Chaouni
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Instructor:
Vishnu S Sinha
Info - 3 points
LAB IN FICTION FILMMAKING
This lab course is limited to declared Film & Media Studies majors. Exercises in the use of video for fiction shorts.
- T 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
- F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Chad B Hamilton
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Instructor:
Prash Sampathkumaran
Info - 3 points
Lab in the Video Essay
This media lab is a hands-on exploration of producing video essays as an essential aspect of scholarly discourse in the digital age. The course challenges students to actively engage with a range of media projects, guided by the tenets of critical media practice. Through a mode of scholarship and research through the creation of media, students will acquire both theoretical understanding of critical media and practical skills such as scriptwriting, video editing, audio narration, and publishing. Drawing on case studies from media and film studies, students are invited to review and deconstruct video essays, podcasts, interactive essays, and digital storytelling.
The course aims to encourage students to think beyond traditional written formats, explore new methods of critical analysis and argument, and to create publishable or presentable video essays. It supports the conception and production of new knowledge through media, constructing critical insights that utilize the expressiveness of our contemporary audiovisual networks.
- M 6:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Behrang M Garakani
Info - 3 points
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Global Experimental TV
Is this cinema or television? While it may seem that this question has only recently been asked with the advent of streaming platforms like Netflix and the rise of “global television” (Lobato 2019) in this seminar we will learn that the close relationship between cinema and television is long-standing. The course will focus on the 1970s and 1980s, an exciting period of collaboration between European public television and independent filmmakers from all over the world. From a historical and theoretical perspective, we will examine key debates around media specificity and convergence, television as a “utopia,” and the challenges of co-production between the “North” and the “South,” among other issues. Focus is on a wide range of directors from the U.S., Europe, and the “Global South” who made films for European public television (e.g. Rossellini, Godard & Miéville, Jarmusch, Burnett, Ruiz, Black Audio Film Collective, Sarmiento, etc.).
- W 6:10 p.m.-8:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Elizabeth Ramirez Soto
Info - 3 points
INDEPENDENT STUDY
-
Instructor:
Jane Gaines
CULPA: 4 Info -
Instructor:
Lance Weiler
CULPA: 1 Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Ronald Gregg
CULPA: 2 Info - 1-3 points
SENIOR SEMINAR IN FILM STUDIES
A seminar for senior film majors planning to write a research paper in film history/theory/culture. Course content changes yearly.
- R 10:10 a.m.-1:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Racquel Gates
Info - 3 points
ADVANCED FILM PRODUCTION PRACTICE
Advanced Film Production Practice is an advanced production and lecture course for students who wish to obtain a deeper understanding of the skills involved in screenwriting, directing and producing. Building on the fundamentals established in the Labs for Fiction and Non-Fiction Filmmaking, this seminar further develops each student’s grasp of the concepts involved in filmmaking through advanced analytical and practical work to prepare Thesis film materials.
- R 2:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Hector Prats I Castro
Info - 3 points
SENIOR SEM IN SCREENWRITING
A seminar for senior film majors. Students will complete a step outline and minimum of 30 pages of their project, including revisions. Through reading/viewing and analyzing selected scripts/films, as well as lectures, exercises and weekly critiques, students will expand their understanding of dramatic writing and narrative-making for film and TV, including adaptations. They will learn appropriate structure for each specific screen-writing form, and endeavor to apply their understanding of drama, character, theme, and structure to their chosen narrative project.
- F 2:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Loren-Paul Caplin
CULPA: 2 Info - 3 points
FILM AND MEDIA THEORY
This course offers a historical and critical overview of film and media theory from its origins up to the present.
- R 1:10 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Nico Baumbach
Info - 3 points
FILM & MEDIA THEORY-DISC
Co-requisite undergraduate discussion section for FILM GU 4000 Film & Media Theory.
- F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
- F 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
- F 3:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
- F 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Katherine Burns
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Instructor:
Graham Paull
Info -
Instructor:
Anqi Yu
Info -
Instructor:
Aileen Min
Info - 0 points
Auteur Study: David Lynch and The Americ
The course explores the work of David Lynch, one of American cinema’s most singular figures. We will consider Lynch’s narrative features, experimental shorts, and TV series, as well as his painting, photography, and music. One of our aims is to situate Lynch within (and alongside, and against) Hollywood and other cinematic and artistic traditions, while also suggesting connections, overt and otherwise, to a range of filmmakers and artists who have come after him.
At the heart of our investigation is Lynch’s distinctive sensibility, which is at once easy to recognize and hard to define. By looking closely at his use of cinematic language, we will ask how Lynch’s films achieve their particular effects, and how they might give form to the desires and fears of their times. Drawing on multiple frameworks — including politics, place, gender, race, surrealism, spirituality, trauma, psychoanalysis, narratology, language, and architecture — we will examine the contradictions at the heart of the Lynchian aesthetic and its relationship to the myths, icons, and taboos of postwar America.
- M 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Dennis Lim
Info - 3 points
Black Film and Media
This course examines the historical and theoretical issues concerning the representation of African Americans in film and media. The course will provide a historical overview while focusing on key themes, concepts, and texts.
- T 9:10 a.m.-1:10 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Racquel Gates
Info - 3 points
Black Film and Media Discussion
Black Film and Media DISC
This course examines the historical and theoretical issues concerning the representation of African Americans in film and media. The course will provide a historical overview while focusing on key themes, concepts, and texts.
- F 12:10 p.m.-1 p.m.
- F 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Nana F Duffuor
Info -
Instructor:
Peyton Freeney
Info - 0 points
Seeing Narrative
An advanced film theory "workshop" in which we shall avoid reading film theory in favor of a selection of other texts, taken mainly from the domains of art history, philosophy, and literature. Our central question will be: What can we, who have grown up in the age of cinema and digital media, learn from discourses about vision and its relation to narrative that pre-date the cinema, or that consider the cinema only marginally? In this course, we shall begin to approach some of the major topics of contemporary film theory -- narrativity, subject-construction, the relation of words to images -- through the lens of texts that have remained largely outside the network of citations and references we normally associate with the work of professional media theory. We might begin the groundwork for an "opening up" or critique of some of the blind spots of current theory; at the very least, we shall be reading works that challenge our usual ways of theorizing.
- M 6:10 p.m.-8:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
James A Schamus
CULPA: 8
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
QUEER CINEMA
This course examines themes and changes in the (self-)representation of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in cinema from the early sound period to the present. It pays attention to both the formal qualities of film and filmmakers’ use of cinematic strategies (mise-en-scene, editing, etc.) designed to elicit certain responses in viewers and to the distinctive possibilities and constraints of the classical Hollywood studio system, independent film, avant-garde cinema, and world cinema; the impact of various regimes of formal and informal censorship; the role of queer men and women as screenwriters, directors, actors, and designers; and the competing visions of gay, progay, and antigay filmmakers. Along with considering the formal properties of film and the historical forces that shaped it, the course explores what cultural analysts can learn from film. How can we treat film as evidence in historical analysis? We will consider the films we see as evidence that may shed new light on historical problems and periodization, and will also use the films to engage with recent queer theoretical work on queer subjectivity, affect, and culture.
- W 9:10 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Ronald Gregg
CULPA: 2 Info - 3 points
Contemporary Russian Media
This course explores the evolution of Russian media during the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fall of the communist state had an outsized effect on the Russian mediascape. The four pillars of mass media which had previously been nationalized — cinema, television, radio, and the paper press — now had to contend with the challenges of the free market. These new economic conditions, together with technological developments and the disappearance of tight ideological control imposed by the state, led to a radical redefinition of the media industry. The Internet, which officially came to Russia in 1994, complicated the picture further. The course primarily focuses on moving image media — cinema, television and the Internet, tracing the historical development of each, analyzing a range of key works produced during this period. Our focus will be on the relationship between media and politics. We deliberately avoid referring to the period in question as post-Soviet or Putin’s Russia because both of these terms come with a set of assumptions and expectations which would limit the scope of our conversation. Instead, we emphasize the diversity of the contemporary Russian mediascape and how different productions negotiated questions of gender, national identity, and politics during the period in question. We conclude by examining the sudden recent conclusion of the relative ideological flexibility which was prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as well as the way platforms such as YouTube and services such as VPN continue making an alternative media sphere possible for Russian speakers.
There is no language requirement to take this seminar. All required readings and course materials will be available in English.
- R 9:10 a.m.-11 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Anastasia Kostina
Info - 3 points
NEW MEDIA ART
The rapid democratization of technology has led to a new wave of immersive storytelling that spills off screens into the real world and back again. These works defy traditional constraints as they shift away from a one-to-many to a many-to-many paradigm, transforming those formerly known as the audience from passive viewers into storytellers in their own right. New opportunities and limitations offered by emergent technologies are augmenting the grammar of storytelling, as creators wrestle with an ever-shifting digital landscape. New Media Art pulls back the curtain on transmedial works of fiction, non-fiction, and emergent forms that defy definition. Throughout the semester well explore projects that utilize Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things, alongside a heavy-hitting selection of new media thinkers, theorists, and critics. The course will be co-taught as a dialogue between artistic practice and new media theory. Lance Weiler, a new media artist and founder of Columbia’s Digital Storytelling Lab, selected the media artworks; Rob King, a film and media historian, selected the scholarly readings. It is in the interaction between these two perspectives that the course will explore the parameters of emerging frontiers in media art and the challenges these pose for existing critical vocabularies.
- M 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- 3 points
CINEMA HIST II: 1930-1960
- R 2:10 p.m.-3:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Ronald Gregg
CULPA: 2 Info - 3 points
CINEMA HIST III:1960-1990
- M 2:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Annette Insdorf
CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info - 3 points
World Cinema: Latin America
An overview of the major developments in the art and industry of cinema in Latin America, ranging from its earliest days to the most recent works of the digital era. The interaction of Latin American filmmakers with international movements such as neorealism, modernism, cinema vérité, and postmodernism will be addressed. Among the filmmakers to be studied are Luis Buñuel, Glauber Rocha, Raúl Ruiz and Lucrecia Martel. Students will discover the major industrial tends as well as artistic currents that have defined Latin American cinema, as well as have the chance to analyze a number of key works both in terms of their varying approaches to filmmaking as well as their resonance with political/social/historical issues.
- F 10:10 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Elizabeth Ramirez Soto
Info - 3 points
ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC NARRATIVE
A lecture and discussion course on the basics of feature-length screenwriting. Using written texts and films screened for class, the course explores the nature of storytelling in the feature-length film and the ways in which it is an extension and an evolution of other dramatic and narrative forms. A basic part of Film’s first year program, the course guides students in developing the plot, characters, conflict and theme of a feature-length story that they will write, as a treatment, by the end of the semester.
- M 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Andrew S Bienen
Info - 3 points
SCREENWRITING I
In this introductory workshop, students write several short screenplays over the course of the semester and learn the basics of the craft. Character, action, conflict, story construction, the importance of showing instead of telling, and other essential components are explored.
- R 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- T 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Stephen Molton
Info -
Instructor:
Katherine Dieckmann
Info -
Instructor:
Jamal Joseph
Info -
Instructor:
Valerie C Martinez
Info -
Instructor:
Daniel Kleinman
Info -
Instructor:
Rania Attieh
Info - 3 points
American Film: The Western
This course surveys the first century of the American Western film genre, and its relation to American imaginings and ideologies of the “frontier,” with in-depth readings of key precursor texts, including memoirs, histories, novels, and essays. We will consider the evolution of the genre and its changing place within the film industry, and study exemplary films that established and challenged the genre’s narrative, aesthetic, and ideological conventions. We will explore how films engage with the history and myth of the American West. We will also be analyzing the politics of the Western, in particular how films articulate configurations of race, class, nation, sexuality and gender. And we will study the way Western films and filmmakers themselves interrogate the analytic categories we use to study them -- categories such as “genre” and “auteur” – with specific attention to the work and career of John Ford. Please note: the course requires sustained engagement with and analysis of written texts as well as films, so please be prepared for a bit more reading than what you might expect from a typical film survey course.
- M 10:10 a.m.-1:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
James A Schamus
CULPA: 8
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
FUNDAMENTALS OF DIRECTING
Weekly lectures will introduce film grammar, textual analysis, staging, the camera as narrator, pre-visualization, shot progression, directorial style, working with actors and editing. Lectures by all members of the full time directing faculty anchor the class, highlighting a range of directorial approaches with additional lectures on the techniques and aesthetics of editing. Each lecture will be supported by visual material from master film directors as well as the examples of the short films students will be required to produce in their first two semesters. For the final 7 weeks of the term, a student fellow will be available to mentor students through the planning of their 3-5 films.
- W 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Bette Gordon
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Fundamentals of Directing Lab: Secrets o
Fund of Dir Lab: Short Fi
Each week, outstanding shorts from Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, Aspen, and other international festivals will be screened and discussed. (You might see a few duds as well, for comparison purposes.) The emphasis in the first two weeks will be on shorts under six minutes, in preparation for the “3-to-5” project. The second two weeks will be devoted to films between 8 and 12 minutes long, in preparation for the “8-to-12”. The final weeks will include a variety of narratives the size of Columbia thesis films. Altogether, over forty films will be shown and discussed.
- T 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Daniel Kleinman
Info - 0 points
DIRECTING I
Students explore the grammatical rules and narrative elements of cinematic storytelling by completing a minimum of three short, nondialogue exercises and two sound exercises, all shot and edited in video. Emphasizes using the camera as an articulate narrator to tell a coherent, grammatically correct, engaging, and cinematic story. Technical workshops on camera, lighting, sound, and editing accompany the workshops, as well as lectures that provide a methodology for the director.
- R 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- R 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- W 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- R 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Hilary Brougher
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
DIRECTING ACTORS I
A workshop in which the student explores the craft and vocabulary of the actor through exercises and scene study as actors and the incorporation of the actor's vocabulary in directed scenes. Exploration of script analysis, casting, and the rehearsal process.
- M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- M 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- T 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Emil Benjamin
Info -
Instructor:
Anna Maria Cianciulli
Info -
Instructor:
Jodie Markell
Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Adrienne Weiss
Info -
Instructor:
John Rubin
Info -
Instructor:
Abigail Zealey Bess
Info - 3 points
FUNDAMENTALS OF EDITING
This online class explores the creative and narrative principals of editing through the editing of students' 8-12 minute films and / or other footage. Instructors are professional editors who will provide lecture and individual based instruction.
- R 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- W 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- T 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
- W 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
-
Instructor:
John D Allen
Info -
Instructor:
Elizabeth Kling
Info - 1.5 points
PRACTICAL PRODUCTION I
Practical Production 1 teaches students best practices regarding film production and technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program through lectures, discussions, pre-production meetings, multi-hour shoots on set and an end-of-the-semester screening. This class is required for all first-year students. Throughout the Fall, students will work in small production groups to prep and shoot a short script in the Prentis studio. Each week one group will organize a pre-production meeting and then produce a four-hour shoot. The professor will be in attendance and two de-briefing sessions will occur throughout the production to reiterate best film production practices. Additional assignments will include the creation of various pre-production, production and wrap paperwork and tech deliverables. Additional mandatory production and risk management workshops will be given. The last class will be a screening of all group films and prep/discussion for the 3-5 exercise shot over Winter Break. Required for all first-year students.
- F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Joshua R Troxler
Info - 1.5 points
TECH ARTS:POST PRODUCTION
Tech Arts: Post Production delivers a practical introduction to modern post production workflows. The course will cover the process of moving efficiently from production to post production, the techniques of non-linear editing and ultimately the process of professionally finishing a film for modern distribution. Students will learn foundational post terminology, how to create the best workflow for your film, how to manage data/footage in the edit room, and offline and online editing. Additionally, the class will explore other key steps in the post production process including audio syncing, transcoding, exporting and mastering. The hands-on lessons and exercises will be conducted using the industry-standard non-linear editing system (NLE), Avid Media Composer, and will serve as a primer for other professional systems, including Adobe Premiere and Davinci Resolve. Students will also learn about Columbia Film’s shared storage system and cloud editing systems, Avid Nexis and Avid Media Central. The course is necessary and required for Columbia Film MFA students as it prepares them for post production, an unavoidable component of the most essential part of the Film MFA, filmmaking.
- R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Michael J Cacioppo Belantara
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: CAMERA & LENSES
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- R 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Gregg L Conde
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: GRIP & ELECTRIC
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
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Instructor:
Matthew D Farrell
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: CINEMA AUDIO
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- T 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
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Instructor:
Michael O'Brien
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: CAMERA & LENSES
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- R 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gregg L Conde
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: GRIP & ELECTRIC
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
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Instructor:
Matthew D Farrell
Info - 0 points
TECH ARTS
TECH ARTS: CINEMA AUDIO
The Tech Arts curriculum is a hands-on, experiential way for our students to learn best practices regarding film production and post production technology in the integrated first year of the MFA Film Program. The curriculum will be taught in 3 different disciplines/sections with up to 12. Instructors: Matthew Farrell, Michael O’Brien, Gregg Conde
The disciplines/sections are: Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio. Students will all be required to take one discipline for registration in their first year.
Cameras and Lenses, Grip and Electric, and Cinema Audio will educate students on this topics utilizing the cameras and lens equipment offered by Film’s Production Center in Nash. In addition to the practicum workshops students will be required to do specific readings and assignments to maximize their learning of the weekly subject matter and participate in class discussion.
Practical Production 1: Lab-Tech Arts Curriculum takes students through the principles of cinematography, lighting, framing, and audio production by working directly with the equipment and technology through small group sections. Technological competency is required to maximize what they are learning through their other classes in directing, screenwriting and producing classes.
- T 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
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Instructor:
Michael O'Brien
Info - 0 points
CINEMA/MEDIA HISTORIOGRAPHY
An introduction to issues and cases in the study of cinema century technologies. This class takes up the definition of the historiographic problem and the differences between theoretical empirical solutions. Specific units on the history of film style, genre as opposed to authorship, silent and sound cinemas, the American avant-garde, national cinemas (Russia and China), the political economy of world cinema, and archival poetics. The question of artificial intelligence approached as a question of the “intelligence of the machine.” A unit on research methods is taught in conjunction with Butler and C.V. Starr East Asian Libraries. Writing exercises on a weekly basis culminate in a digital historiography research map which becomes the basis of final written “paper” posted in Courseworks in video essay format. Students present this work at a final conference. Topics in the past include:
Cultural Transactions: Across Media and Continents, Genre: Repetition and Difference, and Bang, Bang, Crash, Crash: Canon-Busting and Paradigm-Smashing
- M 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jane Gaines
CULPA: 4 Info - 3 points
Adaptation
This is a fast-paced writing, survey and workshop course that will empower writers to define the formal ideals of screenwriting by investigating film adaptations of novels and short stories. The course will culminate in the writing of a short pitch document. This course is at once a survey of the twentieth century American Film, a survey of the Twentieth Century American novel, and a course for writers. We will distill the craft of screenwriting by looking through the prism of adaption in order to understand which elements of the novel translate into film, and why. We will consider novels with the mercenary detachment of a screenwriter, scouring for scraps with value for a screenplay. As we compare the original text with the finished film, we will distill the essence of the screenplay form. What is plot, action, dialog, metaphor? How do we converge these goals? We will decipher, with the clinical eye of a detective, what the screenwriter took from the novel and what they left behind. And in doing this, we will reach an understanding of the formal tenets of an American film.
- R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Galt V Niederhoffer
Info - 3 points
SCREENWRITING THREE
A two-semester intensive screenwriting workshop with one instructor. The Screenwriting 3 and Screenwriting 4 class sequence allows for the careful and more sustained development of a feature-length script. In the fall semester, students further develop an idea for a screenplay and write the first act (approximately 30 pages). In the spring semester, students finish writing the script and, time permitting, begin a first revision.
- T 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
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Instructor:
Rafael L Pedreira
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Instructor:
Christina Lazaridi
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Instructor:
Andrew S Bienen
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Instructor:
Trey Ellis
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
DIRECTING III
Students explore more deeply the range of skills and techniques necessary to direct both short and feature films including script breakdown of sequences, scenes, turning points and beats as well as advanced study of actor and camera staging. Students will hone their directing skills by preparing, shooting, and editing, in video, a minimum of three significant scenes from published or original work, depending on priority of the instructor. When taken concurrently, at least one of these scenes will be presented in Directing the Actor workshops. Students should also be working on a first draft of a short screenplay for their second-year project if they intend to take Directing 4.
- M 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
- W 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
- T 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Tom Kalin
Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Eric Mendelsohn
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
DIRECTING ACTORS III
More sophisticated principles are applied and more challenging scenes are presented. Collaboration with a writer is a requirement. Required for Screenwriting and Directing concentrates.
- R 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
- R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
- W 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
- R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jon Shear
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Instructor:
Lisa Milinazzo
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Instructor:
Mikael Sodersten
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Instructor:
Shira-Lee Shalit
Info - 3 points
THE BUSINESS OF FILM
An overview of the business side of theatrical motion pictures, from the Hollywood major studios to small independents and self-distribution. Covers all the ancillary markets (cable, home video) and their relationship both to the theatrical success of the film and to its bottom line. Required for all second-year Creative Producing students. Available as an elective for Directing/Screenwriting students.
- R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Ira Deutchman
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
FEATURE FILM DEVELOPMENT
An exploration of the process and the various options for developing feature film scripts and ideas. The course covers option deals, copyrights, dealing with agents, lawyers and managers, working with writers, guild requirements and the selling process. There is a particular emphasis on learning pitching skills in order to effectively communicate the essence of a project to potential collaborators, financiers and end users. Required for all second-year Creative Producing students and only open to students in that concentration.
- F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Instructor:
Mynette Louie
Wikipedia Info - 3 points