Department of Visual & Media Arts
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This is the first of a two-semester course that explores the historical development of the media arts, including the film, broadcasting, and sound recording industries until 1965. Investigates the relationships between economics, industrial history, and social and political systems, and the styles and techniques of specific films and broadcast programs. Special attention is given to the diversity of styles of presentation in the media.Instructor: Michael SeligThis is the second of a two-semester course that explores the historical development of the media arts, focusing on the continuing development of the film, broadcasting, and sound recording industries after 1965, as well as the development of video and digital technologies. Investigates the relationships between economics, industrial history, and social and political systems, and the styles and techniques of specific films and videos, broadcast programs, and digital media products.Instructors: David Kociemba, Brian McNeil, Paula Musegades, Andre Puca, Robert Ribera, Adam Segal, Maruta VitolsProvides students with the opportunity to explore their ideas, expand their imaginations, and find the courage to express their creativity. Built around a series of lectures and workshops activated through individual and group projects, the course introduces students to the creative process through an exploration of various dimensions of media-making: ideation, visualization, sound/music, and performance. While the emphasis of the course is on creativity, students also gain a basic understanding of technique and technology in service of their creative ideas.Investigates the visual language of communication shared among all of the visual arts, emphasizing visual analysis, understanding of materials, the history of style and techniques, and the functions and meanings of art in its varied manifestations. Provides a foundation for subsequent studies in the visual and media arts.Instructor: De-nin LeeCombination of lectures and hands-on workshops examining the relationships among photography, graphics, audio, film, video, and digital media within the context of cross-media concepts, theories, and applications. Traces the creative process from conception and writing through production and post-production. Students proceed through a series of exercises that will lead to completion of a final project, establishing a foundation for advanced production coursework. Offered in Summer only.Introduces the basics of non-synchronous 16mm filmmaking, including camera operation, principles of cinematography and lighting for black-and-white film, non-sync sound recording and transfers, and picture and sound editing. Offered in Summer only.This course introduces students to the fundamentals of three-dimensional modeling and animation. Students learn to model, texture objects, compose and light scenes, animate, and add dynamics, as well as to render their animations into movies and to compositing movies, audio, titles, and credits in post-production. Offered in Summer only.Examines the fundamentals of writing for narrative feature-length film. Investigates structure, character, conflict, scene writing, and dialogue, taking students from ideation through to the development of a detailed outline. Students will write the first 25-30 pages of a screenplay. Offered in Summer only.A combination of lectures and hands-on workshops examines the relationships among photography, graphics, audio, film, video, and digital media within the context of cross-media concepts, theories, and applications. Traces the creative process from conception and writing through production and post-production. Students proceed through a series of exercises that lead to completion of a final project, establishing a foundation for advanced production coursework.Explores theoretical and critical approaches to the study of photography, film, television and video, audio, and digital culture. Theories and methods examine issues relating to production and authorship in the media arts, audience reception and effects, political ideology, ethics, aesthetics, cultural diversity, and schools of thought within the liberal arts. Extensive critical writing and reading in media criticism and theory.Provides a study of the psycho-acoustic perception and analysis of classical and contemporary use of sound in the media. Students identify and define acoustic variables, comparing past and present recordings in all media.Instructor: David DomsSurveys the aesthetic and technical development of photography from its invention to the present day, with emphasis on the 20th century, including critical analysis of the medium central to understanding the influence and appropriation of photography today.Instructors: Brian McNeil,Explores various aspects of media arts practice. May be repeated for credit it topics differ.Explores Renaissance and Baroque art, beginning with Proto-Renaissance works in the 14th century, and concluding with the Late Baroque in the later 17th/early 18th century. Students study major works and artists characterizing these movements, and the critical treatment they received over the centuries.Instructor: Judith HullInvestigates the evolution of the arts in the Western tradition through the 18th and 19th centuries. Major works, styles, and artists are examined within the context of contemporaneous sociocultural movements, such as the Enlightenment. Among the movements studied are: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Art Nouveau, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism.Examines the major styles, works, and artists of the first half of the 20th century, prior to the advent of Abstract Expressionism. Examines a wide variety of European and American modern art, investigating critical and public reactions. Among the movements studied are: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, Futurism, Surrealism, the Bauhaus, Constructivism, and De Stijl.Instructor: Leslie Humm CormierChronological study of Western contemporary art after World War II, starting with Abstract Expressionism. Considers the major styles, works, and artists, investigating numerous forms of European and American contemporary art, and their attendant criticism, in a broad contextual framework. Among the movements studied are: Pop Art, Minimalism, New Realism, Postmodernism, Conceptualism, Neo-Expressionism, Graffiti, Photorealism, Earth Works, and Performance Art.Instructor: Cher KnightExamines styles of and critical approaches to East, South, and Southeast Asian art, including China, Japan, India, and the arts of the Mideast, especially those of Islam. Artworks and artists are presented with concern for respective cultural traditions and diverse perspectives, considering how indigenous philosophical and spiritual beliefs, and sociocultural and political structures, inform the artworks.Examines the artistic styles of Africa (including the Diaspora), Islam, Pacific cultures, and the Americas (Mesoamerica, South, Central, and indigenous North America). Artworks are contextualized through their indigenous traditions, as well as a diversity of critical perspectives. Considers how respective philosophical and spiritual beliefs, and sociocultural and political structures, inform the artworks.Introduces semiotics and structuralism as they apply to the relation between art and language. Offers students a systematic approach to thinking critically and creatively about art, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st century.Studies the writing of the short subject within the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and experimental concepts and scripts (including animation). Scripts range from 3 to 15 minutes and are suitable for production within the budget and time constraints of an Emerson College class. Students complete comprehensive revisions of their work.Examines the fundamentals of writing for narrative feature-length film. Investigates structure, character, conflict, scene writing, and dialogue, taking students from ideation through to the development of a detailed outline. Students write the first 25-30 pages of a screenplay.Examines writing for television in a variety of formats, with a predominant emphasis on situation comedies and drama. The elements of each genre are analyzed, challenging students to find their own unique "voice," and new and innovative ways to write stories within established formats. Also covered are reality television and children's television, story outlining, and script formatting. Each student writes a first-draft script of an existing sitcom or drama.Introduces the basics of non-synchronous 16mm filmmaking, including camera operation, principles of cinematography and lighting for black-and-white film, non-sync sound recording and transfers, and picture and sound editing.Introduces the technical, conceptual, and procedural skills necessary to successfully complete a short double-system sync-sound 16mm film, including pre-production, production, and post-production procedures and techniques.Introduces single-camera video production. Students learn the equipment and techniques used in single-camera field production and post-production, writing, and producing a variety of projects, edited in digital non-linear mode.Introduces studio television practice. Students learn the principles of pre-production, production, and post-production for the studio as well as control room procedures. Students prepare their own multi-camera, live-on-tape studio productions.Instructors: Michael Goodman, Thomas TodiscoIntroduces audio physics, sound principles,and the theory and practice of audio recording and mixing. Emphasis is on concept development for sound production, signal routing and the mixer console, analog and digital audio recording, and editing techniques.Intensive study in the theory and practice of field/location and studio audio recording for film, video, and television. Covers techniques in the use of field/studio recorders and mixers, microphones, boom poles, and shot blocking. Also covers tape-based and hard-disk digital recorders, and time-code synchronization management.Instructor: Mark van BorkIntroduces the theory and practice of interactive media. Stresses the conceptual, aesthetic, and technical concerns of interactivity. Technologies covered are HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Additional topics include semantic web design and development, graphics and imaging, interface design, user experience, project management, and the mobile web. Emphasis is on making creative works.Instructor: Brooke KnightThe first course of a two-course sequence, introducing students to the fundamentals of three-dimensional modeling and animation, and preparing them for the second course, VM 363 Advanced Computer Animation. Students learn to model, texture objects, compose and light scenes, animate, and add dynamics, as well as render animations into movies and compositing audio, titles, and credits in post-production.Instructors: Anya Belkina,Introduces basic techniques in drawing, exploring the use of line and image in contemporary art. The language of drawing in contemporary art and architecture will inform the practice of drawing.Instructor: William DeWolfImparts key drawing skills required in pre-visualization, concept art creation, set design, storyboarding, two-dimensional media production, and post-production. Develops students' abilities to think spatially, whether constructing a plan for a set or depicting a character in action. Also focuses on anatomy, locomotion, and communication possibilities of the human form.Instructor: Anya BelkinaIntroduces the fundamentals of black-and-white photography, including camera controls, film development, printing, and photo finishing. Critiques of student work will develop "the critical eye." Students must have the use of a camera with adjustable speed and aperture.Explores various aspects of media arts history, theory, and criticism. May be repeated for credit it topics differ.Examines the dramatic shift in meaning and processes of contemporary communication by investigating the social, artistic, economic, and political implications of using digital ways of working. Topics include the Internet and the web, cyberspace and censorship, games, digital film and video, multimedia and interactivity, virtual reality, person-machine interfaces, and globalization considerations.Instructor: Jessica Baldwin-PhilippiExamines the history and theory of documentary media production, with attention to the economic, technological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns of documentarians.Examines the history and theory of experimental and avant-garde film, video, and other moving image practices and their connections to broader art and social movements. Through extensive reading and viewing, students investigate avant-garde and experimental cinema form, style, and content as well as historical and contemporary filmmakers' production methods and distribution networks in film communities and the art world.Instructor: Kathryn RameyExplores the practice of genre criticism in film and television through the examination of one or more film and television genres (e.g., the western, science fiction, or domestic melodrama and soap operas). Employing the principles of genre criticism, students investigate the historical development of a genre in film and television series.Inspects ethical issues, including racial and ethnic prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping, from a philosophical and case study approach. Topics such as privacy, piracy, censorship, offensiveness, deception, ethnocentricity, pornography, racism, confidentiality, fairness, and hate speech are investigated in a variety of communication media--computer technology, photography, video, speech, audio, film, and print--both in international and U.S. domains.Throughout cinema's history, numerous filmmakers have sought to harness the power of the medium and to channel it in the service of political and social change. Have they made a difference and by what measure and what strategy: Surveying fiction and documentary, commercial and independent cinema, features and shorts, this course aims to offer a wide-ranging examination of the ways directors around the world have employed their art and their craft in the pursuit of fostering social justice.Studies a selected topic in art history. Emphasizes critical analyses of artworks with respect to their aesthetic, historical, sociocultural, philosophical and/or political contexts. Image lectures, museum and/or gallery visits, reading, class discussion, and project activities may be utilized to engage students in the material. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructors: Joseph Ketner, De-nin Lee, Amber TourlentesWorking from detailed outlines developed in VM 221 Writing the Feature Film, students complete a first draft, feature-length screenplay. Students read each other's work, write a critical analysis of each segment, and engage in discussion of aesthetics, craft, and form.Examines writing television comedy with an emphasis on sitcoms. Areas of study also include sketch writing and writing for late-night TV. Students learn how to writie physical comedy, how to write for existing shows and characters, sitcom structure, format, and joke writing. Each student writes a script for an existing sitcom that will be workshopped.Instructor: Martie CookExamines writing for primetime television drama, including study of the history of television drama and the difference between plot-driven dramas and character-driven dramas, writing effective protagonists and antagonists, and writing for existing dramas and characters. Students write a script for an existing primetime television drama that will be workshopped in class.Instructor: James MacakStudies a given genre from the perspective of the screenwriter. Working in a specific genre, students write a treatment, an original outline for a feature film, and up to the first half of a script in the specific genre. Honing critical skills, students engage in analytical and aesthetic discourse about their own work, as well as material written by others. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructors: Walter Klenhard, Diane LakeFocuses on the process of analyzing material from another medium (e.g., novels, plays, comic books) and translating into a screenplay. Students write one original first act of a public domain property, as well as one analytical paper.Special offerings in varying areas of film writing. Topics may include dialogue, great screenwriters, scene study and rewriting. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Special offerings in varying areas of television writing. Topics may include webisodes, reality television, and comedy writing for late night. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Explores various aspects of media arts practice. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Lawrence SampsonIntroduces the budgeting and logistical organization of film and television productions, reviewing the roles of Associate Producer, Production Unit Manager, First Assistant, Second Assistant Location Manager, and other members of the producer's and director's teams.Instructor: Philip MondelloIntermediate-level 16mm production workshop in the use of unorthodox, non-computer-driven methods and processes for developing and producing motion pictures. Provides an overview of historic methods of formal exploration of the basic materials of film as a projection medium, including camera-less filmmaking, direct animation, and loop projections, as well as alternative mechanical processes such as xerography, hand process, and alternative camera tools and techniques. Primary emphasis is on creative invention and exploration.Introduces performance as an expression of personality and production. "On camera" assignments include public service announcements, editorials, interviews, commercials, and other forms of studio presentation. Students also receive instruction in basic studio operations.Introduces the art of inventing sounds and composing soundtracks for visual media such as film, video, computer animation, and websites. Focus is on audio post-production and the roles of the supervising sound editor and the sound designer. Post-production techniques include sound recording, sound editing, and sound mixing in stereo and surround sound.Instructor: Brian McKeeverFocuses on the creative possibilities of sound in a variety of digital media environments. Topics include MIDI control, digital sound synthesis, data compression, and real-time control of sound within applications such as Flash, MAX/MSP/Jitters, and CSound.Explores the principal tools of the professional audio production studio and how they can be used for creative productions. Includes instruction in multi-track recording and sound processing equipment.Instructor: Owen CurtinFocuses on programming a radio station in today's competitive media environment. Topics include basic principles of radio programming, positioning against the competition, selecting and leading an air staff, music, news, and talk programming.Explores the techniques, methods, goals, and ethics of successful promotions, including the components of an effective promotions team. Includes the planning, coordination, and implementation of a promotion campaign.Instructor: Jack CaseyIntroduces film animation in which short animated exercises and individual sequences are located within a survey of animation as an art form and commercial product. Students employ a range of media, exploring and developing ideas and skills in producing 16mm animated sequences, culminating in a final project.Instructor: Joseph KolbeCovers the practice and art of motion graphics and visual effects, including the design process, artistic concepts, and technologies. Production techniques range from title sequences for film, to compositing of real and virtual worlds and a myriad of digital time-based art forms. Students make a series of projects using post-production and compositing software.Instructors: James Sheldon, Allyson SherlockThe second course in the two-course computer animation sequence, introducing students to advanced three-dimensional modeling and animation techniques and preparing them for independent computer animation production work. Continues to develop skills acquired in computer animation, including modeling, texturing objects, composing and lighting scenes, animating, dynamics, rendering, and post-production compositing.Provides students with the fundamentals of game design and theory. Students learn to create and import assets, develop objectives, script behaviors and action, and build game levels. Students complete the course with an original portfolio-ready single player game.This intermediate course in black-and-white photography is designed to present a variety of "ways of seeing" by examining frame, tone, point of view, scale, time, and sequence. Students must have access to a camera with adjustable speed and aperture.Instructors: Jane Akiba, Lauren ShawProvides a basic introduction to the elements of electronic, digitally realized, and manipulated photography. Students learn computer-related input and output devices for photographic imaging, and create work produced on the page and the screen. Addresses the need to understand the potential for the computer manipulation of photo-real images in design and illustration, and introduces the computer as a tool within the context of traditional camera and darkroom photography.Instructor: Lauren ShawExplores color photography through the rapidly evolving digital process. Emphasizes the use of color in photographs and encourages students to find connections between their subjects and colors in their images. Students learn color-managed workflows on industry-standard equipment and gain a deeper understanding of color itself as a medium of expression.Instructor: Camilo RamirezFocuses on strategic thinking, planning, organization, and implementation of media projects from conception (pre-production) through release/distribution/exhibition (theatrical, non-theatrical, digital, web). Includes acquiring fundamental skills and a working knowledge of business math, business plans, intellectual property and copyright basics, grant writing and resources, and current trends in advertising, marketing, and press package materials.Instructors: Claire Andrade-Watkins, Linda ReismanFosters an exploratory approach to making media projects by providing unorthodox conceptual frameworks in which students conceive and execute short projects using both conventional and unconventional acquisition devices in a variety of media. Students work individually or collaboratively throughout the course to develop ideas and acquire material for assignments.Instructor: Robert ToddExamines a director's preparation in detail, with particular emphasis on forming creative approaches to the script, as well as image and sound design. Production and post-production strategies are also addressed.Instructors: Walter Klenhard, Robert Patton-SpruillDevelops skills in directing actors in dramatic performances for the screen. Students are taken step by step through the directing process with a particular emphasis on research and visualization, as they learn how to plan and direct narrative sequences. Classes will be offered in conjunction with Acting for the Camera classes in Performing Arts.Instructors: Tom Kingdon, Theodore R. Life Jr.Continues to explore interactive media, including consideration of conceptual, aesthetic, and technical concerns. Technologies covered include interactive web elements, databases, mobile development, and an introduction to programming. Emphasis is on making creative works.Instructor: Brooke KnightFurthers understanding of and ability to work with medium- to long-format post-production processes through editing assignments in film and video, along with critical examination of completed motion pictures.Develops skills necessary to produce documentary productions in video or film. Covers production processes from story development through all the production phases. Practical considerations of production are balanced with theoretical debates on the legal and ethical responsibilities of those who document others.Instructor: Laurel GreenbergIntroduces basic elements of the aesthetics, technology, and craft of cinematography and videography. Students gain a working knowledge of 16mm and digital video cameras, as well as basic lighting design and equipment, with an emphasis on crew relations and organization. Includes a comprehensive exploration of the work of significant cinematographers.Explores various aspects of visual and media arts history, theory, and criticism. Course may be repeated for credit if topics vary.Investigates the past 40 years of new media. Topics and fields of study include photography, experimental and video art, installation and interactive projects, Internet projects, implications of working in digital media, connections to other 20th-century media, and review of the recent criticism in the field.Examines various topics in media arts in seminar format, with emphasis on students' oral and written presentation of material. Course may be repeated for credit if topics differ.Examines the depiction by and of African Americans in cinema through the 1950s. Special emphasis on the historical, cultural, political, social, and economic influences that have shaped and/or determined the cinematic depictions about and by African Americans. Students emerge from the class with a richly contextualized understanding of the representation of African Americans. Fulfills the General Education U.S. Diversity requirement.Examines the depiction by and of African Americans, beginning with "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s, the concomitant impact of racial turbulence, and the emergence of a new African American independent filmmaking tradition. Landmark films and filmmakers whose work explores and challenges Hollywood and Western notions of identity, narrative, history, and oral traditions are presented, including works by women, the "L.A. Rebellion" filmmakers, and contemporary Hollywood productions about and/or by African Americans.Investigates the historical, socioeconomic, and ideological contexts of film production, distribution, and exhibition of post-colonial films that explore and challenge Hollywood and Western notions of identity, narrative, history, and oral traditions. Cinemas considered include those from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Investigates the content and production approaches of major children's media programming in the context of child development theories. Students study theory and conduct research on media's impact on children's behavior, including impacts of television, music, and computers.Provides a study in a selected area of art and art history with emphasis on the development of analytical and theoretical approaches to the understanding of works of art. Presentation of independent research and participation in the evaluation of the research work of seminar members is expected. Fulfills the Aesthetics perspective of the General Education requirements. Course may be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructors: Joseph Ketner, Cher KnightProvides a focused study on a particular culture or issue germane to history and/or criticism of non-Western art. Emphasizes a diversity of perspectives, paying careful attention to frame investigations within the artistic, socio-cultural, political, philosophical, and spiritual contexts indigenous to the respective culture(s) being studied. Fulfills the Aesthetics perspective and Global Diversity requirements. Course may be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Mirta TocciA historical approach to the development of American film comedy explores theories of comedy and their value to the critical interpretation of comic films. Also considers the varying ways spectators are addressed, and the impact of performers and directors on various comedy styles.Instructor: Michael SeligInvestigates postmodern theory, beginning with historical analysis of modernism and the emergence of postmodernism, exploring approaches to and influences on postmodernist notions about history, power, and aesthetics; subjectivity and identity; and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.Provides a study of the philosophical roots and modern applications of moral reasoning in various communication media, including print, digital, television and video, photography, film, radio, speech, and telecommunications. Includes topics such as confidentiality, privacy, deception, free speech, obscenity, justice, equality, defamation of reputation, abuse of power, digital manipulation, fairness, truth in advertising, and conflict of interest.Asian "national" cinemas are examined and problematized in the contexts of media and economic globalization, including: the politics of transnational film practices; issues surrounding filmic representation and diasporic identities; the construction and negotiation of national, gender, and genre differences; local-regional-global dynamics; and questions of the postcolonial in Asian contexts.Explores various aspects of media arts practice. Course may be repeated for credit if topics differ.Examines how to create a television series, including developing an original premise, and writing convincing, multi-dimensional characters, and intriguing, character-specific dialogue. Students write an entire television pilot script to be workshopped in class, along with a pilot package that includes a logline, series synopsis and a 13-week episode guide with character and story arcs.Explores recent developments in interactive digital narratives, performances, documentaries, ethnographic studies, games, and installations. Students produce one interactive project during the semester.Working from detailed outlines developed in VM 221 Writing the Feature Film, students complete a first draft of a feature-length screenplay. Students read each other's work, write a critical analysis of each segment, and engage in discussion of aesthetics, craft, and form.Instructors: Walter Klenhard, Diane LakeEmulates a Hollywood comedy writing room. Students collectively create and write an original pilot script for a TV comedy. Students write character sketches, a comprehensive story outline, the first draft of the script and all subsequent drafts, and participate in an extensive punch-up. Participants gain a keen understanding of how a Hollywood comedy writers' room works, how to write under deadline, how to pitch jokes, and how to write comedy as a team.Provides the opportunity for specialized work in fiction television genres that include a studio component, such as drama series, soap operas, and situation comedies. Students create projects and produce, direct, light, and crew them.Provides the opportunity for specialized work in nonfiction multi-camera television genres, including talk shows, live performance, and public affairs programming. Emphasis is on designing, producing, directing, lighting, and studio crewing.Instructor: Theodore R. Life Jr.Explores the technical skills and the conceptual framework of production activities such as camerawork, lighting, audio acquisition, and production design. Exercises offer opportunities to put theory into practice, as well as refine and extend practical skills.Advanced studies in audio post-production, with emphasis on expanding students' conceptual framework and refining creative audio post-production skills in surround sound mixing and applications in film, video, and digital media.Instructor: Brian McKeeverExplores the concept of the "avant-garde" not as a fading modernist construct, but as a creative tool in contemporary sound art practice. Through examination and modeling of both familiar and obscure works, students cultivate novel strains in their creative voices. Investigates issues related to process (indeterminacy, defamiliarization, stochastic methods, and phase shift) as well as the social aspects of outsider art, subversion, and provocation.Explores the theoretical and technical applications of multi-effects signal processing, advanced multi-track mixing, and MIDI sequencing. Students apply the semester's evolving topics to the production and development of one major creative project integrating musical and sound art composition elements of differing styles, lengths, and levels of complexity.Explores the ways sound entertainment and information products are developed, produced, and marketed. Examines market analysis principles and legal requirements and structure, including licensing agreements, contracts, and copyright; along with the examination of revenue issues such as royalties, record sales, product endorsements; and cost-centered issues such as promotion, advertising, and touring.Explores the fundamentals and aesthetic considerations of design composition (text, image, graphics, motion) and production for digital media. Students conduct studies of and complete exercises in design and layout for the screen; visual communication of ideas and concepts in a non-textual context; screen elements for digital media art, such as buttons, type, color, and virtual environments; file formats; and digital media considerations and information flow/sequencing and design.Intermediate- to advanced-level programming for digital media productions in their respective authoring languages.Provides the foundation for an intense photographic investigation of an issue-cultural, political, ideological, or personal. Develops greater competence in negative making and black-and-white printing, with emphasis on strongly informative images. Assignments require the student to discover narrative possibilities while creating strong individual images. The course's technical components are supplemented by considerations of the history of documentary photography.Provides an opportunity for senior VMA students working in computer animation, interactive media, motion graphics, digital photography, networked performance, audio, or other forms of new media to create advanced portfolio work. Projects, both collaborative and individual, are developed in the context of peer-based critique and analysis. The focus is on using new technologies for creative self-expression. Students complete the course with an original portfolio-ready project. May be repeated once for credit if projects differ.Explores the ways in which a creative producer engages with a project from conception through completion with a focus on the development process. It will discuss original ideas, source material (books, stories), pitching, creating log lines, script coverage, the notes process and assembling the creative team. It will cover customary business affairs including chain-of-title, copyright, talent and option agreements. Key issues in finance, marketing and distribution will also be examined.Instructor: Linda ReismanThis advanced-level 16mm film and video post-production workshop is designed to assist in the editing and completion of students' advanced-level projects. Technical procedures as well as aesthetic and conceptual issues endemic to post-production of motion picture projects are examined with an eye to their practical application to students' work on their projects.Instructors: Daniel Gaucher, Brian TruglioStudents learn the organizational and creative skills of producing in the studio and in the field. Topics include program development, pitching, budgeting, hiring, scheduling, and coordinating the production and program evaluation.Offers advanced-level exploration of aesthetics, technology, and craft of cinematography and videography. Students gain a working knowledge of the advanced level of cameras in the department and are expected to develop complex lighting and shot designs. Emphasis is on aesthetic use of the technical elements of motion picture acquisition. Includes significant collaboration with other courses in the curriculum including BFA and BA Production Workshop.Instructor: Clarence CourtneyProvides the means for students to produce portfolio work. BFA students are required to take two consecutive semesters of the workshop, 4 credits per semester. Work may be produced in teams, partnerships, or individually. Projects must be proposed in the semester preceding the semester in which the work is to be produced (see section on BFA requirements above). Students may also apply to serve as non-BFA participants for a single semester and for 4 credits only, serving as crew members or staff on another student's project. Prerequisites: Completion of one specialization-level production course, and approval by the faculty BFA committee based on application.Students are admitted by application to produce portfolio work as a Capstone Project. Applications must include a detailed description of the proposal for consideration by a faculty panel. The proposal can be for either a creative project based in any area of the program, including film, TV, animation, sound design, or digital art and games; or a significant research project in media studies. Provides an opportunity to produce a significant piece of creative or scholarly work.Instructor: Robert Patton-SpruillDesigned to integrate, enrich, and solidify a student's photographic skills building on past productions. Emphasis is placed on developing a portfolio representative of a personal vision.Instructor: Lauren ShawExplores various aspects of visual and media arts history, theory, and criticism. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Explores various aspects of visual and media arts practice. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Focuses on strategic thinking and implementation of media projects from conception (pre-production) through release/distribution/exhibition. Material covered includes business plans; grant resources, writing, and package preparation; acquiring rights associated with production; preparing for feature production (optioning literary property, pitching ideas, offerings, prospectus); legal issues (rights, copyright, and intellectual property); insurance considerations; advertising; and marketing. Students are required to conduct database web research on the industry and festivals in addition to following current trends in global markets, financing, advertising, and marketing.Instructor: Claire Andrade-WatkinsEthical and diversity issues, including deception, privacy, pornography, racism, discrimination, defamation of character, sexism, stereotyping, piracy, censorship, obscenity, ethnocentricity, confidentiality, fairness, and hate speech are investigated as they apply to the production process of film, video, new media, audio, and photography.Special offerings in the area of media studies and production.Instructor: Harlan BosmajianIntroduces the three genres of short form--nonfiction, experimental, and fiction. Students learn the differences and components of each genre and acquire an understanding of the art, craft, and discipline of each process from a writer's point of view. Emphasis is on developing the writer-s individual personal vision.Explores the fundamentals of writing for the interactive screen. Examines narrative, non-text, web, and multi-user game contexts as the student works from the ideation phase through completed works made ready for production.Instructor: Richard SmythExplores approaches to teaching and learning in college level media production courses. Reviews key components of academia and an academic career: types of institutions, rank, tenure, teaching, service, scholarship, professional organizations, and compensation. Students analyze and design media production courses and investigate components of effective lecture, discussion, demonstration, and critique sessions as well as investigate ethical issues related to teaching. Each student leads a class session and produces a statement of his/her teaching philosophy.An introductory course in audio physics, sound principles, and the theory and practice of audio recording and mixing. Emphasis is also placed on concept development within sound production concurrent to the study of signal routing and the mixer console, analog and digital audio recording and editing techniques.An introductory course on the art of the sound designer and the processes and theories applied to composing and editing sound tracks for visual media such as film, video, computer animation, and websites. Areas of focus are in audio postproduction techniques and in the roles of the supervising sound editor and the sound designer. Postproduction techniques include dialog correction and automated dialog replacement (ADR), Foley session recording, sound effects acquisition and editing, and the mixing and localization theories and practices for stereo and surround-sound. The theoretical focus of the course is on the voice in film and visual media, as speech, as song, and everything that remains afterward with an ongoing theoretic investigation into the relationship between sound and image.Introduces the aesthetics and practice of image and sound production. Topics include visual composition, preproduction skills, lighting, basic directing, camera operation, lens theory, and editing. Students create projects using digital still photography and video.