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Graduate Film History (2023SP) Section 2

This course provides an advanced introduction to the history of cinema from the end of the nineteenth century through the international development of film as a transformative technology, art form, and commercial medium up to the present time. We will explore major movements in cinema (including the early silent era; classical and post-classical Hollywood cinema; German Expressionism; Italian Neorealism; French New Wave; Third Cinema; Asian cinema; video and installation art.) By concentrating on the historical development of filmic mise-en-scene, the photographic image, editing, cinematography, and the relation of sound to the image, students will learn to view film as a complex audio-visual language and to understand how the combination of sound and image articulate a film’s psychological, social and ideological purposes. We will integrate our investigations of cinematic issues with those of class, gender, and race.

Instructor: Nilgun Bayraktar
Instructor: Topiary Landberg

Directing Studio (2023SP)

This course is designed as a workshop focused on increasing a library/knowledgebase of films and film language, building a directing mission statement or style, crafting, and maintaining a collaborative work environment, and fostering a self-reflective modality to critique peer and industry work. Lectures will include screening examples and coursework will be reading-, pop quiz- and exercise-based. All in-class exercises will be filmed and screened (as dailies) with seven major exercises covering 7 different directing styles/genres. Students will work in groups of 4 alternating as Director, Cinematographer, and 2 Actors to direct and perform scenes based on the genre/style/technique the class is studying that week. These scenes will be filmed and screened and critiqued. Students will keep all their dailies throughout the course to track their own growth and development as a director. Towards the end of the semester, each student will select 2 scenes/styles/techniques to revisit and master. Their master scenes will be re-shot and used in a Directing Reel that will constitute their final project in the course.

Instructor: Jon Ayon Alonso