Filmmaking & Moving Image Arts

First-Year Studies—Year | 10 credits

FILM 1023

This documentary filmmaking course will invite students to situate themselves within broader social, historical, and political movements in order to produce a five-minute documentary film. Conference projects may take the form of portraiture, historically informed inquiry, or experimental practice, and will be developed through a framework that foregrounds lived experience and the porous relationship between subjectivity and collective consciousness. Grounding in Angela Davis’ articulation of the personal as political, the course will emphasize documentary as a medium through which private experience can be made structurally and historically relevant. Students will be encouraged to examine how personal narratives intersect with systems of power, social transformation, and how non-fiction filmmaking can render these relationships legible to an audience. The course will approach filmmaking as an inherently relational and interdependent form of creative labor. Students will work both individually and collaboratively in production teams, cultivating trust, responsibility, and shared authorship coming to understand them as central components of ethical filmmaking. In addition to their conference film, students will produce biweekly two-minute group assignments inspired by alternative archives of visual and sonic landscapes. Students will also be required to publicly present their work and develop strategies for audience engagement and social impact as part of their final conference projects. In the context of ongoing global and societal transformation, this course will examine the role of storytelling in reshaping understandings of self, community, and civic responsibility. The course will function as a yearlong collaboration integrating hands-on media production, screenings, and theoretical inquiry into the role of artists as mirrors in a world that must recognize humanity’s fragility and its power. Biweekly in fall, students will alternate between individual conferences with the instructor and small-group activities. Biweekly in spring, students will meet with the instructor for individual conferences.

Faculty

• Damani Baker

First-Year Studies—Year | 10 credits

FILM 1201

Note: Claymation will not be utilized in this course.

This project-based animation course will explore the art of stop-motion through a wide range of material processes. Using classical techniques as a foundation, students will approach animation as an improvisational and exploratory practice, investigating both the art form and its technical applications. During the first half of the year, students will focus on limited down-shooting animation through a series of workshops centered on materiality, concept development, and postproduction editing. In the second half of the course, students will expand into upright camera projects, including pixilation and green-screen performance work. Blending handmade techniques with digital tools, students will develop their animation skills to create stop-motion works that communicate through cut-out and other material-based methods. Working with Dragonframe, Adobe After Effects, and select Toon Boom software, students will share drawings, ideas, materials, and performances while producing short animated films in a collaborative workshop environment. The course will begin with the design and creation of flipbooks, followed by the construction of a simple 2D cut-out puppet. Students will explore how to generate movement using various materials, light, and camera techniques within two-dimensional space. Later projects will focus on live action pixilation and green-screen silhouette work. Throughout the year, students will engage in all stages of directing a short stop-motion film—from initial concept to final edit. The course will culminate in a final project: an original short film created using the student’s chosen animation material from those explored in class. Biweekly in fall, students will alternate between individual conferences with the instructor and small-group activities. Biweekly in spring, students will meet with the instructor for individual conferences. 

Faculty

• Robin Starbuck

Open, Seminar—Year | 10 credits

FILM 3427

In this course, students will develop character animation and micro storytelling skills by focusing on the process of creating frame-by-frame digital drawings and keyframe movement for animation. This course is essentially an introduction to both the professional digital software, Harmony by Toon Boom, and the process of digital drawing and character movement. Instruction will be based in the software, Toon Boom Harmony Premium, and will include line style, visualization, character development, continuity, timing, and compositing. All the production steps required to develop simple 2D character digital animations will be demonstrated and applied through exercises aimed at the production of a single animated scene. Participants will develop and refine their personal style through exercises in digital animation and assignments directed at increasing visual understanding. Students will learn about body mechanics and motion flow in the development of animated characters and backgrounds through techniques that include walk cycles, rotating forms, transformations, holds, smear frames, squash and stretch, weight, and resistance. Additional instruction will include techniques in pencil test animation, camera and layer animated movements, filters and effects through nodes, color palettes, and lip syncing. During the fall semester, students will concentrate on character designs, rotations, walk cycles, action movements, and the fundamentals of animation. Through weekly exercises, students will gain knowledge of basic animation principles and gain skills in digital techniques. As we move through the semester, pencil test style character animation will become more complex with emphasis on multiple movements, lip syncing, and character development. During the spring semester, students will begin to create fully realized character animations which will include complex background imagery, character interactions, scene construction, and narrative development. The final project will be a short character animated film that will be screened at the end of the spring semester. This course will provide students with a working knowledge of the emerging and highly efficient software Harmony, recently adopted by the film and television animation industry. The final project will involve each student’s production of a single, refined animated short film.

Faculty

• Scott Duce

Open, Large seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3407

In this course, we will explore the power dynamics behind images and how they shape the way we see and experience the world. Drawing on John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, we will examine how visuals—whether in art, film, or everyday life—are never neutral but, rather, always tied to politics. We will dive into works like Harun Farocki’s An Image, Tony Cooke’s Disco Inferno, Martha Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen, Jean-Luc Godard’s radical cinema, and Brechtian approaches to audiovisual composition. Through these films and ideas, we will see how artists and filmmakers use images to challenge the status quo, resist dominant ideologies, and spark political change. With screenings and discussions, we will sharpen the ability to critically analyze the images that surround us and understand how they influence both political consciousness and personal identity. This course is a thought-provoking investigation into how images can manipulate, provoke, invent, and sometimes resist the political forces at play in our world. 

Faculty

• Jazmín López

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3235

This course will explore subversive film and intergenerational learning and making, bringing together Sarah Lawrence students and residents from Wartburg senior living facility for screenings, lectures, and collaboration. Guest artists, writers, and filmmakers will present lectures on selected works, situating them within broader traditions of avant-garde cinema. We will focus the radical interventions of feminist, queer, and Black filmmakers, tracing how these works expose structures of power and reshape dominant narratives using the tools of genre, horror, social critique, and meta-cinema. Writing workshops will support the development of critical and creative responses, laying the groundwork for Intergenerational Film: Collaboration and Subversion (FILM 3265) in the spring in which students and residents will pair off and collaborate on narrative films.

Faculty

• Tura Oliveira

Open, Small Lecture—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 2100

Note: May be counted for either creative arts or humanities credit. Students must designate the area of study (creative arts or humanities) with the Registrar’s Office at course registration. Same as FLMH 2100.

This course will examine feature-length animation as a site of aesthetic experimentation, cultural expression, and authorial practice. Focusing on independent and international works rather than large-scale commercial studio productions, we will explore how artist-driven animated features challenge dominant narrative conventions, production models, and visual languages. Through weekly screenings and writing in a private notebook, students will analyze the relationship between form and content in animated cinema. Particular attention will be given to how animation constructs time, space, memory, and subjectivity, and how different material processes—hand-drawn, cutout, stop-motion, puppet animation, and independent Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)—shape meaning. The course will situate these works within broader theoretical conversations about global modernisms, spectatorship, alternative narratives, documentary practice, and the politics of representation. Spanning films produced from 1970 to the present, the syllabus will highlight works that operate outside dominant commercial systems and foregrounds alternative narrative structures, hybrid documentary forms, autobiographical modes, and experimental storytelling. We will consider how conditions of independent production—often characterized by concentrated artistic control—generate distinct aesthetic and structural outcomes. Readings will introduce key frameworks from animation studies providing tools for aesthetic analysis and critical interpretation. The course does not include animation production. As a semester project, students will be expected to present in a small group one lecture on the thematic concerns and formal strategies of an assigned film. Students will also be required to maintain a weekly research/creative practice notebook that integrates theoretical reflection with personal inquiry.

Faculty

• Robin Starbuck

Open, Lecture—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 2201

Note: Same as ANTH 2201 and LITR 2201.

This is a collaborative lecture course taught by faculty in anthropology, filmmaking, and literature. Bringing these three disciplinary lenses to the cinematic image, the course will ask how films can think—how, that is, cinema gives form to ideas about temporality, perception, memory, history, and life itself, not only through story, but through cinematic design including: rhythm, duration, framing, voice, and the relation between image and sound. Working primarily with ethnography, documentary, the essay film, and the film-journal, we will study cinema's engagement with lived reality. Rather than understanding film solely as representation, the course will treat it as a mode of inquiry: a means of engaging social and environmental worlds and reflecting on lived experience, political conditions, and moments of transformation. We will examine how concepts of culture and the natural world take shape in film form, and how diary and essay practices are transformed when translated into a time-based medium. Across screenings, lectures, and group discussions, students will develop a vocabulary for describing how films make meaning through temporal design and patterning. Attention to sequence and suspension, and to bodily gesture and camera motion, will open larger questions of ethics, representation, and mediation. Throughout the semester, we will ask how experimental documentary, hybrid essay film, animated, and mixed-media work respond to pressing political and existential concerns while also reflecting on their own conditions of mediation. Filmmakers whose work will be considered closely include Trinh T. Minh-ha, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Signe Baumane, Hayao Miyazaki, Su Friedrich, and the Karrabing Film Collective, among others. In addition to class time and screenings, students will attend group conferences, meeting with each faculty member in rotation.

Faculty

• Una Chung
• Robert R. Desjarlais
• Robin Starbuck

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3435

This course will approach the moving image as an art form and as a way of thinking about the world. It is designed for artists and authors interested in film and video as conceptual, poetic, and political practices rather than as technical or narrative media. Classes will be structured around shared viewing and discussion, with close attention to how images produce meaning, authority, and belief. Drawing on traditions of critical looking associated with John Berger, the course will ask how images circulate, whom they address, and what kinds of power they reproduce or resist. Works by artists such as Tony Cokes, Martha Rosler, Andrea Fraser, Vito Acconci, and Jean-Luc Godard will frame discussions around language, institutions, spectatorship, the politics of representation, and the poetic possibilities of all mentioned. Through sustained looking, discussion, and shared work, students will develop an authorial and critical relationship to the moving image, understanding film and video as poetic, political, and aesthetic forms. Individual film production is not required. Participation may include collaboration on collective works or contributions to others’ projects, with making understood as an act of thinking rather than a finished object.

Faculty

• Jazmín López

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3265

Building on the screenings, lectures, and critical frameworks established in Subversive Film: Theory, Critique, and Intergenerational Collaboration (FILM 3235) in the fall, this course will center collaborative film production between Sarah Lawrence students and residents of the Wartburg senior living community. Working in pairs or small groups, participants will develop and produce short narrative, documentary, hybrid, or audio-based projects that draw inspiration from the histories and strategies of subversive cinema explored in the previous semester. Through writing, cinematography, sound, editing, and readings and discussions on collaborative authorship, students will explore filmmaking as a collective and intergenerational practice with the power to subvert expectations and reshape dominant narratives. Emphasis will be placed on experimentation and processes that challenge conventional hierarchies of authorship. By the end of the semester, each collaborative team will complete a short film or audio work to be screened publicly.

Faculty

• Tura Oliveira

Open, Small Lecture—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 2026

Sound has immense importance in film language as a semantic, metaphoric, and affective device. It is in-frame, out-of-frame, in our memories, in the room, and elsewhere. Outside of film, our relationship to sound in our daily lives can be cultivated and honed to be more receptive to our own world—which in turn informs our experience of cinema. This course will cover a brief history of sound in film, from its early days to the advent of digital technology, while emphasizing its ever-continuing role in shaping narrative, emotional, and cognitive experience. Through a combination of lectures, readings, screenings, and hands-on group conferences, students will explore the mutable relationship between sound, film, and everyday life; the philosophy of sound; and the phenomenological aspects of auditory perception in both cinematic and everyday contexts. We will have periodic in-class writing responses critiquing the use of sound in film, and a final conference project in either the form of a final paper or a group project soundscape that tells a story. Hands-on, group conferences will include field recordings made with Zoom recorders for students to learn how to record sound.

Faculty

• Andrew Siedenburg

Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 3 credits

FILM 3550

Prerequisite: a prior college-level filmmaking course

Note: Students who do not have a rough cut of a film ready to utilize may join with permission of the instructor, with the aim of editing an available stock film; for the right, hard-working student, this can be a great choice.

This course aims to guide students in editing a rough cut of a film that they intend to picture lock, color grade, and sound mix as the core of their work for the semester. We will begin with a few short, simple editing exercises to get up and running, and then dive into editing a complete five- to 10-minute short film. A rough cut is an opportunity for a new jumping-off point. Dailies will be re-examined for “hidden gems"—little moments that may have been filmed unexpectedly or captured between takes. A deep review of this material can help the editor fully flesh out a moment that the director may have wanted but was not fully achieved on set. Is this shot too long? Is this scene necessary? Is this emotional beat realized? The work of the editor is not just to cut, but to choose when to cut and when to hold a shot. As editor Walter Murch says, “The editor is actually making 24 decisions a second: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No... Yes!” The aim of this course will be to do a deep-dive into an existing student project and make it as good as it can be. Students will polish a rough cut to picture lock by the midpoint of the semester so that color grading and sound mix can be the focus of the second half of the course and completed in time for the final-class screening. This is not a class that will tolerate the bulk of a student’s work to be completed at the end of the semester; rather, your work must be completed in stages over the course of the semester. Collaboration with students in other filmmaking courses will be encouraged and fostered. The course will use both Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve: Premiere to edit; Resolve for color. Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions will be provided to students, and the software will be available for use in the Ziskin Digital Media Lab. Students will need a solid state drive. The software is cross-platform and available for both Mac and PC.

Faculty

• Brian Emery

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3428

Note: Knowledge of film techniques or drawing skills are not required, this is an introductory course and all fundamentals will be covered. Each student’s level of drawing will dictate the quality of their own work; however, drawing skills and techniques will be covered throughout the semester to facilitate the learning process.

This course will focus on the art of storyboard construction as the preproduction stage and previsualization for graphics, film/video, and animation. Students will be introduced to storyboard strategies, exploring visual concepts such as shot types, continuity, pacing, transitions, and sequencing into visual communication. Both classical and experimental techniques for creating storyboards will be covered. Emphasis will be placed on production of storyboard drawings, both by hand and digitally, to negotiate sequential image development and establish shot-by-shot progression, staging, frame composition, editing, and continuity in film and other media. Instruction will concentrate primarily on drawing from thumbnail sketches through final presentation storyboards and animatics. The final project for this course will be the production by each student of a full presentation storyboard and a low-res animatic in a combined visual, audio, and text presentation format. Knowledge of storyboards and animatics from this course can be used for idea development and presentation of your project to collaborators, pitching projects, professional agencies, and, most importantly, for you—the maker.

Faculty

• Scott Duce

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3470

They say, “Producing is like trying to build a house of cards in a wind tunnel when someone hands you a stick of crazy glue and turns the lights off.” In fact, the producer is the “visionary”—typically, the one to initiate, develop, nurture, and shepherd a project, step-by-step, from its inception to its completion. Bringing all of the project’s elements into existence while being the critical glue that holds everything together, the producer knows how to “turn the lights on.” Being a producer is a magical journey of discovery: learning what stories are important to you, discovering the best way to tell them, and defining why you must be the one to bring a story to life. These are the essential pillars of producing. This immersive course will provide filmmakers, directors, screenwriters, actors, or any interested student a real-world look “under the hood” into the fundamentals of creative producing—providing a comprehensive understanding of the pivotal role that the creative producer plays in the dynamic and ever-changing world of film and television. Taught through the lens of what one (or a small army of producers) actually does, this course will demystify and explore the role of the producer on a feature or on a short film, documentary, television, animated, or digital project from the moment of creative inspiration through project delivery—defining what it means to “produce.” Working individually and in teams, students will “produce” semester group projects and engage in discussions, theoretical exploration, practical workshops, and exercises that will simulate real-world producing scenarios, as they develop essential skills crucial for success in the producing field. Topics covered will include development, preproduction, production, and postproduction; collaborating with writers, directors, actors, and crew; script breakdown, scheduling, budgeting, financing, distribution, script coverage; and best producing practices. This course will offer students a chance to explore the role of the producer and learn invaluable creative perspectives and industry insights, as students gain the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the multifaceted landscape of producing. Workshops and intimate conversations with working artists from both in front of and behind the camera will allow students opportunities to engage with creatives active in the field. Course objectives will include developing a holistic understanding and fundamental knowledge of the producing process; gaining a unique window into the importance of, and mechanics pertaining to, the producing discipline; and assembling an essential toolkit for creating and seeking opportunities in the filmmaking, television, and moving-image arts worlds.

Faculty

• Heather Winters

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3513

This course will explore the preproduction aspects of film and animation concepts and visual development. Students will gain knowledge in character development, background environments, object and prop design, flora and fauna, scene building, color keys, aerial mapping, and techniques for digital painting. Through the development of compositional painting, model sheets, title cards, and animatics, students will draw and conceptualize spaces, characters, and props that are visually harmonious and consistent in form and function. Students will research and produce narrative outlines that include visual and environmental components to establish a full understanding of preproduction for animated projects. Students will “worldbuild” concepts by researching and designing a thematic approach to specific assignments and projects. Both hand-drawn materials and digital drawing will be used during the semester. Various software will be utilized for character design, background paintings, and concept presentation animatics. The final project for this course will include a fully-developed, multicharacter/environment concept animatic. Knowledge from this course can be used to create and enhance an animation or art portfolio, to establish a concept outline for an interactive media project, and to help in developing a cast of characters and environments for a graphic novel or an animated film.

Faculty

• Scott Duce

Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3471

Prerequisite: permission of instructor

The first step to getting any project made is having the goods—a screenplay, an original television pilot script, episodes of a digital series, a short film script, a documentary treatment or proposal—and then developing a rock-solid pitch. By asking important questions—What is your story? To what kind of viewer will it appeal? Is it practical? Has it been done before? What makes your project unique? Why am I the right person to tell this story?—this course will introduce students to the fundamentals and practicalities of development and pitching. Through a collaborative workshop process and by using their existing scripts and projects, students will engage in table reads, script analysis, and verbal and written pitch exercises. Students will learn about and create the elements that will make their particular projects and stories resonate and become marketable. Through this process, students will also learn how to develop a project into a pitch package and how to pitch that project and engage with the gatekeepers of the myriad platforms where audiences seek stories on screen. Course work is designed to guide students in how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their ideas, scripts, treatments, and projects and to explore what platforms may best suit their project and why. Guest workshops with industry professionals will include writer pitches and understanding talent representation in the entertainment industry. The semester’s work will culminate in a final pitch presentation—an essential skill for all writers, filmmakers, directors, and producers. Whether pitching a colleague to collaborate on your project or pitching a studio or network to finance your project, students will learn how to ensure that a script or project is ready to pitch, how to understand studio and network needs, how to establish industry contacts, how to be a skilled communicator, how to understand and grapple with changing audience tastes, and, overall, how to sell an idea. Students must have a completed script or treatment for which they wish to develop a pitch. 

Faculty

• Heather Winters

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3432

This course will pair the core concepts of cinematography (lighting, framing, lens choice, exposure principles, camera movement) with the equally important question of “why?”. Students will learn the tools of the trade with an emphasis on collaborative art-making. How does one take ideas from a script—emotion, tone, nostalgia—and translate that into images using practical tools? How do you develop a shared language with your collaborators on a project to make something unique? The course will emphasize developing each student's unique eye and visual taste. Using a weekly approach to core concepts, students will learn to operate a cinema camera, light creatively, construct a scene, and shepherd their creative vision through color grading. This will be achieved through hands-on work with equipment, detailed conversation about photographic techniques, and the recreation (and reinterpretation) of scenes through cinematic history. At the end of this course, students will possess the tools to craft images for their own projects and confidently work on larger film productions.

Faculty

• Adam Kolodny

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3205

Directing actors is one of the most essential skills a filmmaker can develop—because performances are what audiences remember. This directors-focused workshop will be a deep dive into how to communicate with actors on set in ways that unlock truthful, specific, compelling work. Students will build a practical, performance-based toolkit: script and scene analysis, a shared vocabulary, playable direction, efficient rehearsal strategies, and methods for creating a set where actors can take risks and do their best work under pressure. Directors will also gain hands-on experience with casting—how to audition, evaluate, and choose actors who can bring the story to life. A key component of the course will be that students rotate roles as director and actor. Getting in front of the camera changes everything: directors gain firsthand insight into vulnerability, clarity, and what kinds of notes actually help (and what immediately shuts the work down). Course work will draw from film/television scenes chosen by students and/or original material. For conference projects, students will complete either an original short filmed outside of class or two reimagined scenes from a film or television show of their choosing.

Faculty

• K. Lorrel Manning

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3239

Film is a language that most of us, from a very young age, have learned to read through immersion. This course is designed to help students deepen this literacy, as well as to learn how to speak the film language for themselves and in collaboration with peers. The seminar will be structured as a crash course in filmmaking that emphasizes a “learning-by-doing” approach. Students will regularly be assigned creative assignments of conceiving, writing, preproducing, shooting, editing, and postproducing various film exercises. Much of the creative work will be done outside of class time. In class, a workshop environment will engage us in screenings, discussions, critiques, revisions, and re-edits of those exercises. Working in groups—in an ever-shifting relation of creative roles and authorship—will afford students the support and resources to explore increasingly complicated film projects. We will engage firsthand in both the problems and pleasures of one of the most highly collaborative art mediums.

Faculty

• Daniel Schmidt

Open, Seminar—Fall | 2 credits

FILM 3118

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of recording sound for film and moving images. We will explore the vital role of the sound recordist in capturing clean dialogue and immersive environmental sounds. Through hands-on demonstrations and active participation, students will learn techniques to record high-quality sound on and off the film set with the equipment available to them at school, while emphasizing the essential connection between sound and images. Class lessons will be supplemented with texts, sound recordings, and films to bring the conceptual into the technical as we form our understanding of recorded sounds.

Faculty

• Andrew Siedenburg

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3030

This course will explore the intersection of personal narrative and cinematic craft, guiding students through the process of transforming lived experiences into compelling documentary films. From initial ideation to the final cut, students will learn to identify the "story" within their own history, moving beyond mere information to create emotionally resonant narratives. The course will balance technical fundamentals—cinematography, sound, and non-linear editing—with deeper dives into documentary ethics and the art of the interview. Students will learn post-production essentials using editing to shape footage, archival materials, and sound into a cohesive film. By the end of the semester, each student will have directed, shot, and edited a personal short documentary film that serves as a powerful testament to their unique perspective.

Faculty

• Heather Winters

Open, Seminar—Year | 10 credits

FILM 3475

Working within a genre can greatly assist the fledgling filmmaker by suggesting content and stylistic elements, thereby freeing the artist to focus on self-expression. While exploration of all genres is welcome, our class discussions and video exercises will explore various ideas present in the so-called “lesser genres” of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Students will shoot several short video exercises, both individually and in groups, each with a certain directing and thematic prompt. Film viewings will demonstrate how genre films handle sexual politics and repression, societal and personal anxieties, naturalism as opposed to fantasy, as well as the smart use of special effects and other strategies for the low-budget, independent filmmaker. This course does not require previous filmmaking experience. The first semester will focus on screenwriting, and students will write short scripts that they will then produce and direct in the second semester for their conference project. Simultaneously, students will learn to use the school’s filmmaking equipment and editing software and utilize those skills in a series of short, targeted video exercises. These exercises will not only familiarize students with the gear at their disposal but will also introduce them to concepts of visual storytelling; i.e., where to put the camera to tell the story. The second semester will focus on preproduction and previsualization of the student’s conference film. Students will learn how to craft shot lists, floor plans, look books, and other tools to help them organize their film shoots. They will practice directing actors and finding a method for effective communication with their cast. And they will learn some basic production management skills, such as breaking down scripts for production and scheduling. After shooting their conference films, students will workshop their rough cuts in the classroom and fine-tune their edits in preparation for the final class—THE SCREENING!

Faculty

• Rona Naomi Mark

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3446

This course will focus on acquiring the skills a writer-director needs in order to prepare a short screenplay for production. As students develop their screenplays in class, we will focus on the craft of narrative three act structure, character development, and dialogue. This will be followed by filmed exercises from, and based on, the screenplay that will further help the writer-director develop their vision for the screenplay, ultimately developing a grasp of cinematic storytelling along with concepts of staging, camera, lenses, and editing. For conference, students will continue to work on their screenplays. They will also have the opportunity to direct several scenes from pre-existing screenplays that will be assigned by the instructor, focusing on the craft of directing exclusively.

Faculty

• Maggie Greenwald

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3238

This is a film production course in which we will deepen our knowledge on how to find a voice in audiovisual language and be able to do a short film after exploring all of the areas of staging and styles. The course objective is to provide tools to critically digest all of the information we can make out of the script from the very first impression of our story, through the actual image, until the editing. We will work with each other on projects in a constructive and meaningful way and explore an audiovisual style. The course will provide interaction with and exposure to a broad range of types of film styles, from small to large productions. Students will also do exercises trying to find their voice and to develop possible types of mise-en-scène in regards to their audiovisual ideas and research. To better inform our discussions of the students’ materials, we will watch crucial fragments of films relevant to their research. Some of our guiding questions will be: How can we understand the core of our image? How do we see scripts from a directing point of view? How is the image able to transmit emotions and thoughts? How can we develop critical and well-formulated thoughts of a film idea and expand our personal visual research?

Faculty

• Jazmín López

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3467

In an era where anyone can shoot video, the difference is craft. This seminar/workshop will give emerging filmmakers a practical foundation in the fundamentals every director needs: core film language, set etiquette and crew roles, camera basics, shot sizes and composition, camera movement, lighting essentials, sound recording, and editing workflow. From there, students will learn how to break down a script for low-budget production—translating story into a plan. We will cover shot lists, floor plans, look books, schedules, and other director tools that turn an idea into something shootable. To develop artistic eye and voice, students will complete a series of short shooting assignments—some solo, some collaborative—then screen and discuss the work in class. Because filmmaking is built on collaboration, students will rotate crew roles and gain hands-on experience both leading and supporting a team. For conference projects, students will write, develop, and prep a short film over the course of the semester.

Faculty

• K. Lorrel Manning

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 3239

Film is a language that most of us, from a very young age, have learned to read through immersion. This course is designed to help students deepen this literacy, as well as to learn how to speak the film language for themselves and in collaboration with peers. The seminar will be structured as a crash course in filmmaking that emphasizes a “learning-by-doing” approach. Students will regularly be assigned creative assignments of conceiving, writing, preproducing, shooting, editing, and postproducing various film exercises. Much of the creative work will be done outside of class time. In class, a workshop environment will engage us in screenings, discussions, critiques, revisions, and re-edits of those exercises. Working in groups—in an ever-shifting relation of creative roles and authorship—will afford students the support and resources to explore increasingly complicated film projects. We will engage firsthand in both the problems and pleasures of one of the most highly collaborative art mediums.

Faculty

• Daniel Schmidt

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3323

The goal of this course will be to develop, workshop, and write a short screenplay—approximately 15 pages. Students will pitch stories in an open roundtable process that will provide an opportunity for them to understand the potential and feasibility of their ideas. The course will explore the elements of screenwriting—including dramatic story structure, character development through action (behavior), dialogue, visual storytelling, and point of view—in order to expand and deepen the writer's narrative craft. We will schedule table readings of the work in progress, followed by critiques and discussions of the work. The course will culminate in a table read of the completed screenplay with classmates as actors in each role, leading to a final production-ready draft. For conference, students may choose to develop another idea for a short script or begin work on a feature screenplay. Those who need extra attention on their in-class projects may also work towards its completion as part of their conference work.

Faculty

• Maggie Greenwald

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3221

In a world filled with moving images, we are all highly capable spectators as well as screenwriters. In this course, we will deepen and complement our existing knowledge of the cinematic medium, challenge our assumptions, and experiment with new ways of conceiving and making cinema. This course will explore a creative and deep examination of the foundations and processes of writing with images and sounds, unveiling the knowledge that the students already have and work from there. The course will provide a path to a certain type of sensitivity that helps the writer to create not just the screenplay for the course but also all of their screenplays to follow. Understanding the capacity of the medium is the most important objective: to explore its own capacity of expressing emotions by the hand of narration—but not only by it; introducing a variety of ways film can be made and seen; investigating in a creative way the mise-en-scènes aspects that can be explored in the writing process; from contemporary to classical screenwriting sensitivities; from European to Latin American filmmaking. The idea will be to expand the knowledge of the variety and range of films beyond the most mainstream productions. What are the fundamental skills you need for writing a film? What is the time of observation we need to do in order to be able to translate it into words? The script is a descriptive representation of the images and sounds that the writer has created in his/her imagination, beginning with the construction of an image that nests a story and exploring its possible forms and shapes, imagining characters from the inside outward, and then situating them in the image to let them grow. In other words, to be able to pack entire worlds of thought, feeling, and imagination into the writing of scenes.

Faculty

• Jazmín López

Sophomore and Above, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

FILM 3313

Note: This is the first course in a two-semester sequence and is a requirement for enrollment in the spring course, Advanced Television Writing: Writing Original Pilots (FILM 4187). Closed to students who have taken Writing for Television: From 'Spec Script’ to Original Pilot (FILM 3312).

In this course, we will practice the fundamental skill of successful television writers—the ability to craft entertaining and compelling stories for characters, worlds, and situations created by others. Though dozens of writers may work on a show over the course of its run, the “voice” of the show is unified and singular. The way to best learn to write for television is to draft a sample episode of a pre-existing show, known as a “spec script.” Developing, pitching, writing, and rewriting stories hundreds of times, extremely quickly, in collaboration and on tight deadlines is what television staff writers do every day, fitting each episode seamlessly into the series as a whole in tone, concept, and execution. Students will be introduced to these fundamental skills, working step-by-step through the writing of their own spec script for an ongoing scripted television series, effectively taking students from premise lines, through the outline/beat sheet, to writing a complete draft of a full teleplay for a currently airing show. No original pilots will be pursued in the fall. In conference, students will work on deepening characters, understanding dramatic and comedic techniques, and developing additional components of their portfolios. Students are expected to have an extensive working knowledge across many genres of television shows that have aired during the past 25-30 years domestically, and a commitment to developing work from concept through premise lines, beat sheets, and outlines with multiple drafts of each, and with extensive peer collaboration, before writing script pages. Students will not be permitted to write pages until their outlines have been “green lit.”

Faculty

• Marygrace O’Shea

Open, Seminar—Year | 10 credits

FILM 3333

To make a great film, you need three things—the script, the script, and the script. —Alfred Hitchcock

The world’s directors are in agreement—a solid screenplay is the foundation of any great film. This course is designed to help beginner screenwriters find their voice as a film artist using the written language of visual storytelling. Students will learn how to write narrative screenplays with an eye toward completing a feature-length work. The course will cover basics of format and style, with weekly assignments aimed at developing students’ screenwriting muscles. In fall, students will write scenes and short screenplays; plus, students will learn about structuring feature-length work. Students will “pitch” ideas and rigorously outline their stories. In spring, students will write their feature-length screenplay. The pages that they present will be “table-read,” and students will receive critical feedback for future revisions. By the conclusion of the course, students will have completed a first draft of their screenplay. 

Faculty

• Rona Naomi Mark

Advanced, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

FILM 4187

Prerequisite: Introduction to Television Writing (FILM 3313)

Note: Closed to students who have taken Writing for Television: From 'Spec Script’ to Original Pilot (FILM 3312).

This course will build on fundamentals learned in Introduction to Television Writing (FILM 3313), with the focus on creating new work for original television pilots. Students will be expected to enter the course with a pitch for an original pilot. That pitch will be revised and turned into an original one-hour or half-hour show (no sitcoms). Focusing on engineering story machines, we will power characters and situations with enough conflict to generate episodes over many years. Having taken both courses in the television writing sequence—“spec” and pilot—students will have the beginnings of the components, in first draft form, that they will need for a professional portfolio. In conference, students may wish to begin to develop character descriptions and pieces of a series pitch for their show or to work on previously developed material. Students are expected to have an extensive working knowledge across many genres of television shows that have aired during the past 25-30 years internationally, and a commitment to developing work from concept through premise lines, beat sheets, and outlines with multiple drafts of each, and with extensive peer collaboration, before writing script pages. Students will not be permitted to write pages until their outlines have been “green lit.”

Faculty

• Marygrace O’Shea