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.

• T 10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Robert King
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

INTRO-FILM & MEDIA STUDIES-DIS

Co-requisite discussion section for FILM UN 1000 INTRO TO FILM & MEDIA STUDIES.

• F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• F 1 p.m.-2 p.m.
• F 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• 0 points

CINEMA HIST I: BEGIN-1930

This course rethinks the ;birth of cinema; from the vantage of ;when old media was new.; Following standard approaches, it moves from actualities to fiction, from the ;cinema of attractions; to narrative, from the cinematographe to cinema, from cottage industry to studio system. Units in silent film music, early genres, film piracy and copyright, word and moving image, and restoration--the film archivists dilemma in the digital era. FILM W2011

• T 2:10 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jane Gaines
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

CINEMA HIST I:BEGIN-1930-DISC

• F 11:10 a.m.-noon
• 0 points

CINEMA HISTORY IV: AFTER 1990

This course brings our survey of the development of the art, technology, and industry of motion images up to the present. During this era, most people no longer watched movies (perhaps the most neutral term) in theaters, and digital technology came to dominate every aspect of production, distribution, and exhibition. Highlighted filmmakers include Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier, Wong Kar-wei, and Steve McQueen. Topics range from contemporary horror to animation. Requirements: short (2-3 pages) papers on each film shown for the class and a final, take-home exam. FILM W2041

• R 2:10 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Elizabeth Ramirez Soto
  Info
• 3 points

CINEMA HIST IV:AFTER 1990-DISC

• F 10:10 a.m.-11 a.m.
• 0 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.
• W 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
• F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• 3 points

Film Adaptation

This course will explore the transformation of literary texts onto the big screen of motion pictures.  Adaptation is an act of re-visioning, a way of expanding the reach of a given story while still upholding its unique, immutable grace and power.

That’s easier said than done. The screenwriter who is tasked with an adaptation reads that source text with an eagle eye for all that is embedded therein. They don’t need to be utterly faithful to the source. In fact, they can’t be. But the source is a holistic entity, a product of another literary mind (and soul). It’s a gestalt that demands respect and thoughtful creative interpretation. And like all strong works of art, it contains beautiful secrets, some of which good screenwriters will find and preserve.

And they must. Half of the feature films made in America are adaptations. Many of their sources are already beloved. Those that aren’t, deserve the wider audience that film can bring. All story forms have adapted each other since
Pyramus and Thisbe
sprung from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, later to inspire
Romeo and Julie
and
West Side Story.
Adaptation is how stories continue to inspire humans across time. It is therefore a core skill of the screenwriter’s art and livelihood.

Adaptation is a reflex of mind.  We “see” what we read, and we “read” what we see.

I have a dream.  I tell you about it.  Already, I’m adapting my own inner life into a spoken version of a dream I have salvaged from the chaos of dreaming.  And yet I’m compelled to relate that dream to you because it had some gravitational pull that made the story of that story well worth the telling.

To adapt any story for film is to make its original content visible and audible, through dialogue, behavior, theme and visual metaphor. It is to take the reflective and make it active, show more and talk less, imbed theme in plot, turn ideas and symbols into images, expand or condense it as needed, shape its new timeframe, and emphasize story at least as much as character.

Every source must be approached using different rules of engagement.  Literature, plays, and true-life stories all resist the morphology of adaptation in unique ways. But the great equalizer is film’s deliberately kinesthetic structure. Character and structure are one in the same. And movies must
move.
This is a process of translating the
char

• W 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Stephen Molton
  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.

• W 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Greta Diaz Moreau
  Info
• 3 points

NARRATIVE STRAT-SCREENWRITING

Prerequisites: FILM W2420. This workshop is primarily a continuation of Senior Seminar in Screenwriting. Students will either continue developing the scripts they began in Senior Seminar in Screenwriting, or create new ones including a step outline and a minimum of 30 pages. Emphasis will be placed on character work, structure, theme, and employing dramatic devices. Weekly outlining and script writing, concurrent with script/story presentation and class critiques, will ensure that each student will be guided toward the completion of his or her narrative script project.

• F 2:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Loren-Paul Caplin
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

Radical Film and Media

This course examines a wide range of radical film and media practices from around the globe. Looking at fiction, nonfiction, and experimental works, we will examine key concepts used to define the political purposes of cinema from historical and theoretical perspectives. What do we mean when we talk about “guerrilla,” “militant,” or “third cinema” film and media practices? How have these concepts been mobilized at different historical periods and for which purpose? What is their relationship to the anticolonial struggles and other social movements?

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Elizabeth Ramirez Soto
  Info
• 3 points

ANALYSIS OF FILM LANGUAGE

• W 2 p.m.-5:45 p.m.
• Instructor: Annette Insdorf
  CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

CINEMA HIST I:BEGINNINGS-1930

• T 2:10 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jane Gaines
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

SCREENWRITING II

• M 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
• W 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
• R 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Instructor: Keith Bunin
  Info
• Instructor: Constance Tsang
  Info
• Instructor: Jordana A Spiro
  Info
• Instructor: Rachel Israel
  Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

SCRIPT TO SCREEN

• M 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• R 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
• F 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• W 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
• 1.5 points

PRACTICAL PRODUCTION II

• F 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
• F 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
• F 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
• 1.5 points

PRO-SEMINAR IN FILM THEORY

• W 2:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Nico Baumbach
  Info
• 3 points

Media Archeology

“It could have been otherwise.” -Noël Burch
With this brief yet generative statement from a foundational film theorist we are introduced to a major theme of this course, a graduate level seminar concerning the still-in-formation field of media archeology. Pursuing the material traces left by false starts, wrong moves, misbegotten speculation, and dead formats, this course will dig into the historical past in order to better understand our current media ecology, prepare for the computational future, and imagine how things could be otherwise. Archeology in this sense refers to the study of a technical object through investigating its origins (its arché), as a means of breaking down traditional linear accounts of history and reconstructing them along new, more lacunary, less teleological lines. This will be our goal. We will be introduced to media archeology as both a method and an aesthetics. Our approach will look for the old in the new and the new in the old, while locating recurring topoi, ruptures, and discontinuities. Marking a departure from more hermeneutical, text-based film and media studies models, we will instead focus on questions of hardware, materiality, and physical inscription—technological research that sticks close to the signal of mediatic events, close to the metal, close to the silicon. We will perform close reading and thick description, as in established humanities disciplines like literary studies and anthropology, but with radically different, non-phenomenological, non-discursive object formations. Topics we will consider include, for example, analog waveforms and digital pulses, mathematical versus narrative modes of epistemology, and what Thomas Elsaesser calls a “poetics of obsolescence.” Our readings will draw from the corpus of media archeology studies as well as consonant fields such as material culture studies, computer engineering, and the history of science.

• M 9 a.m.-10:15 a.m.
• Instructor: Wanda Strauven
  Info
• 3 points

Character Development Lab

In this seven-week class, open to Writing for Film and Television and Screenwriting & Directing concentrates we will do the deep work of creating at least two unforgettable and irreplaceable characters for a future screen or teleplay. In weekly group meetings, students will be assigned a slot to discuss first a main character and then in response to that character, their main antagonist/foil, working through specific exercises until their two characters are sufficiently rich and nuanced that the writer is now able to build a story around them.

• T 2 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Trey Ellis
  Wikipedia Info
• 1.5 points

WRIT/SCRIPT ANALYSIS-PRODUCERS

This is a specialized course designed to provide prospective producers with a nuanced framework for understanding the screenwriting process.  The course will explore all the ways a producer might interact with screenwriters and screenplays, including coverage, script analysis, notes, treatments, and rewrites.  Each student will complete a series of writing and rewriting assignments over the course of the semester. Required for all second-year Creative Producing students and only open to students in that concentration.

• T 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• 3 points

PRE-PROD OF A MOTION PICTURE

Pre-Production of the Motion Picture teaches Creative Producing students how to breakdown, schedule and prep all aspects of a low budget independent feature film.  Using one shooting script as a case study, the class will learn to think critically and master each step of the pre-production process. Students will prepare script breakdowns, production strip boards, call sheets and a full production binder.  Topics will include state tax incentives, payroll services, union contracts, deal memos/hiring paperwork, casting, labor laws, hiring BTL crew, legal, insurance and deliverables. Additionally, students will become proficient in Movie Magic Scheduling. Required for all second-year Creative Producing students and only open to students in that concentration.

• M 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Instructor: Valerie C Martinez
  Info
• 3 points

FIRST FEATURES

• T 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
• Instructor: Tom Kalin
  Wikipedia Info
• 1.5 points