Visual & Media Arts :: Undergraduate: Experimental Media Production

Experimental Media Production

The specialization is designed to develop students’ ability to create their own procedural, technical and conceptual path for making and completing projects in a variety of media. Employing unconventional skills and techniques, students will explore alternative production strategies and modes of communication.

Credits

B.A.: 44
B.F.A.: 60

Visual and media arts foundations (12 credits)

The Visual and Media Arts Foundations offers the student a broad theoretical, historical and practical introduction to the visual and media arts.

Required Courses

Course Code	Course Information
VM100	History of Media Arts I 4.00 Credits The first of a two-semester course exploring the historical development of the media arts. This course will focus on the development of the film, broadcasting, and sound recording industries until 1950, including the organization, operation, and management of media organizations. The course will investigate the relationship 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.
VM101	History of Media Arts II 4.00 Credits The second of a two-semester course exploring the historical development of the media arts. This course will focus on the continuing development of the film, broadcasting, and sound recording industries after 1950, as well as the development of video and digital technologies, including the organization, operation, and management of media organizations. The course will investigate the relationship between economics, industrial history, and social and political systems, and the styles and techniques of specific films and videos, broadcast programs, and new media.
VM120	Foundations in Visual and Media Arts Production 4.00 Credits This course combines lectures with hands-on workshops. It examines the relationships among photography, graphics, audio, film, video, and new media within the context of cross-media concepts, theories, and applications. The course traces the creative process from initial conception and writing through production and post-production. Students will proceed through a series of exercises that will lead to completion of a final project, which establishes a foundation for advanced production course work.

Introduction to Disciplines (16 Credits Minimum)

At the Introduction to Disciplines level, students explore one or more of the department’s main discipline areas.

Required Courses

Course Code	Course Information
VM200	Media Criticism and Theory 4.00 Credits This course explores theoretical and critical approaches to the study of photography, film, video, audio, and digital culture. Theories and methods in this course will 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. Prerequisite: VM 101 and VM 120.

Course Code

Course Information

VM200

Media Criticism and Theory

At least one of the following

VM220	Writing the Short Subject 4.00 Credits Participants will study the short subject within the genres of fiction, non-fiction, and experimental concepts and scripts (animation is included in any of these forms). Scripts will range from 3-15 minutes in length and should be suitable for shooting within the budget and time constraints of an Emerson College production class. Students will be expected to complete comprehensive revisions of their work. Prerequisites: VM 101 and VM 120.
VM221	Writing the Feature Film 4.00 Credits Combining lecture, workshop, and screenings, this course examines the fundamentals of writing for narrative feature-length film. The course will examine structure, character, scene writing and dialogue and will take students from ideation through to the development of a detailed outline. Prerequisites: VM 101 and VM 120.
VM222	Writing for Television 4.00 Credits This course will examine how to write for television in a variety of formats, including news magazine, reality TV, and children's television, but with a predominant emphasis on situational comedies, dramas, and movies of the week. Through a series of lectures, screenings, and readings, the elements of each genre will be analyzed. Each student will be challenged and encouraged to find his or her own unique "voice" and to find new and innovative ways to write stories within the confines of each established format. Each student will leave with a professional first draft of either a sitcom or drama, or the first 30 pages of a made-for-TV movie script. Prerequisite: VM 101 and VM 120.
VM202	Critical Listening 4.00 Credits This course provides a study of the psychoacoustic perception and analysis of classical and contemporary use of sound in the media. Students will identify and define acoustic variables, comparing past and present recordings in all media.

At least two of the following

VM230	Introduction to Film Production (I) 4.00 Credits An introductory level course in the basics of non-synchronous 16mm filmmaking, including basic camera operation, principles of cinematography and lighting, black-and-white film stock information, introduction to non-sync sound recording and transfers, and picture and sound editing.
VM231	Intermediate Film Production 4.00 Credits An intermediate level 16mm film production class designed to introduce students to the technical, conceptual, and procedural skills necessary to successfully complete a short double system sync-sound film. Students will be introduced to pre-production, production, and post-production procedures and techniques, and will receive detailed hands-on instruction in the operation of sync-sound motion picture production and post-production equipment.
VM240	Introduction to Video Field Production 4.00 Credits An introduction to single-camera video production. Through lectures and hands-on projects, students learn the equipment and techniques used in single-camera field production and post-production. Students write and produce a variety of projects, which are edited in digital non-linear mode and then downloaded for review in class.
VM241	Introduction to Studio Television Production 4.00 Credits An introduction to studio television practice. Through lectures and hands-on laboratories, students learn the principles of pre-production, production, and post-production for the studio as well as control room procedures. Students prepare their own productions, from concept to completion. Each project is shot multi-camera, live-on-tape, in the studio.
VM250	Introduction to Sound Principles & Audio Production 4.00 Credits An introduction to audio physics, sound principles, and the theory and practice of audio recording and mixing. The emphasis is on concept development for sound production; signal routing and the mixer console; analog and digital audio recording and editing techniques. Prerequisite: VM 101 and VM 120.
VM251	Audio Field Recording 4.00 Credits An intensive study in the theory and practice of field/location and studio audio recording for film, video, television and documentary formats. The course covers techniques in the use of field/studio recorders and mixers, wireless microphones, shotgun microphones, boom poles & shot blocking. Also covered are tape based, and hard disk digital recorders, and time-code synchronization management. Prerequisite: VM 250.
VM260	Introduction to Digital Media Production 4.00 Credits An introduction to the theory and practice of digital media production. This course will stress the conceptual, aesthetic, and technical concerns of digital media, emphasizing creativity and familiarity with the material. Areas include introductions to Web design and development, animation, interactivity, graphics and imaging, as well as project management, interface design, and user experience. Students will produce creative works based on instruction in the technical aspects of the material. Prerequisite: VM 101 and VM 120.

Specializations

Required Courses

VM402	Seminar in Media Arts Topics 4.00 Credits This course will examine various topics in media arts. Students will be expected to study a variety of issues in seminar fashion. Topics vary from section to section. Course may be repeated for credit if topics vary. Prerequisite: VM 200 and Senior standing (Junior standing with permission of Chair).

VM402

Seminar in Media Arts Topics

One Advanced Visual and Media Studies course (4 Credits)

One Advanced Visual and Media Studies course (4 Credits)

At least two of the following

VM360	Film Animation 4.00 Credits This course is an introduction to film animation in which short animated exercises and individual sequences are located within a survey of the evolution of animation both as an art form and a commercial product. A range of media will be employed, allowing the student to explore and develop ideas and skills in producing 16mm animated sequences employing sound if required. Students are expected to complete a final individual project. Prerequisite: VM 230.
VM361	Computer Animation I 4.00 Credits Computer Animation I is the first course in the two-course computer animation sequence, introducing students to the fundamentals of three-dimensional modeling and animation and preparing them for the second course, VM 461 Computer Animation II. Students learn to model, texture objects, compose and light scenes, animate, and add dynamics. Finally they learn to render their animations into movies and to composite movies, audio, titles, and credits in post-production. Prerequisite: VM 230 or VM 240 or VM 241 or VM 250 or VM 260.
VM432	Alternative Production Techniques for Motion Pictures 4.00 Credits This course is an intermediate-level 16mm film production workshop in the use of unorthodox, non-computer-driven methods and processes for developing and producing motion pictures. While the course gives an overview to historic methods of formal exploration of the basic materials of film as a projection medium including camera-less filmmaking, direct animation, loop projections, as well as alternative mechanical processes such as xerography, hand process, and alternative camera tools and techniques, the primary emphasis is on creative invention and exploration. Prerequisite: VM 231 or VM 240.
VM362	Motion Graphics 4.00 Credits This intermediate course in the practice and art of motion graphics and visual effects includes 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 will make a series of projects using post-production and compositing software. Prerequisite: VM 230 or VM 240 or VM 241 or VM 250 or VM 260.

Recommended Courses

VM502	History of Experimental/Avant-Garde 4.00 Credits This course examines the history of the significant intellectual, political, and formal challenges to the dominant Hollywood cinema. Prerequisite: VM 200.
VM415	Sound/Space Installation Studies 4.00 Credits Beginning with the massive new media installation in the Philip's Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958, this course tracks the history and theories of the use of sound and space in fine art installations. Issues explored include approaches by a number of sound and visual artists, composers, architects and related movements including Abstract Expressionism; the New York School of Composers, Aleatoric Music, Sound Mass, Minimalism, Ambient Music, the West Coast Light and Space artists and others. The course also addresses the advent of digital technologies, explorations of Virtual Space and the use of responsive environments. Prerequisite: VM 200.

VM502

History of Experimental/Avant-Garde

VM415

Sound/Space Installation Studies

Advanced Visual and Media Arts Workshop

Students may apply to take the Advanced Visual and Media Arts Workshop. Two semesters mandatory for B.F.A. Optional for B.A.

For specific course prerequisites, please consult the Undergraduate Catalog.