Making films is a process of endless progression – from attending to the idea you feel most compelled to communicate, to visualizing a plan for this concept, to executing your vision amid the twists and turns of production, then staying open to unexpected insights in the editing process. In this workshop-style course you will learn and practice this process of (re)visioning, as we cover the technical and conceptual basics of digital film production. We will focus on how best to tell a story visually, collaborate, give and receive feedback, and make creative decisions. The semester will be structured in such a way that you will develop one central idea or preoccupation (or even an image) through a series of exercises and (4) projects that add more tools to your creative toolkit. By the end of the semester you will understand the elements of cinematography, location sound, production design, performance, and editing. More importantly, you will begin to form and understand your own voice as an image-maker.
- Trainer/in: John Muse
- Trainer/in: Swetha Regunathan
Course Description:
This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of Visual Studies. This field not only concerns itself with traditional visual media and artifacts such as those already taken seriously by art historians and film theorists, i.e., painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, etc. Visual Studies also seeks to examine vision, visual experience, and images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. These limits require an investigation of “blindness” as both metaphor and physical disability, the presumptions that privilege some senses over others (and bother counting them at all), and the troubled relationship between seeing and feeling. Drawing from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we will build a working definition of visuality while attending to its own instability in the 21st century.
This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of Visual Studies. This field not only concerns itself with traditional visual media and artifacts such as those already taken seriously by art historians and film theorists, i.e., painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, etc. Visual Studies also seeks to examine vision, visual experience, and images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. These limits require an investigation of “blindness” as both metaphor and physical disability, the presumptions that privilege some senses over others (and bother counting them at all), and the troubled relationship between seeing and feeling. Drawing from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we will build a working definition of visuality while attending to its own instability in the 21st century.
- Trainer/in: Swetha Regunathan
This is an introductory cross-listed (Visual Studies/Anthropology) hybrid production and theory course designed for students with an interest in film, feminist and decolonial methods, video production, and visual anthropology. Classes will combine elements of a workshop (sharing and providing feedback on filmmaking work in progress) and seminar (discussing weekly themes). Students will view films on their own and post weekly responses to films and readings.
Together, we will grapple with the entanglements between ethnographic film/documentary and colonial structures of power—particularly the ways that the field has and continues to represent the visual “other.” We will bring a decolonizing lens to explore—through texts and films—major modalities in the field including observational filmmaking, cinéma vérité, autoethnographic film, sensory ethnography, and more. Due to the required readings, films and intensive film production components, this course will require a substantial time commitment. A large part of the course will be structured around the production of a short film (approx. 5 min) drawing on one or more of the modalities explored in the course.
Together, we will grapple with the entanglements between ethnographic film/documentary and colonial structures of power—particularly the ways that the field has and continues to represent the visual “other.” We will bring a decolonizing lens to explore—through texts and films—major modalities in the field including observational filmmaking, cinéma vérité, autoethnographic film, sensory ethnography, and more. Due to the required readings, films and intensive film production components, this course will require a substantial time commitment. A large part of the course will be structured around the production of a short film (approx. 5 min) drawing on one or more of the modalities explored in the course.
- Trainer/in: Emily Hong