Courses

Core Film Courses

FTT 20101/21101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab | Jim Collins & Olivier Morel

This class is designed to enhance your understanding and appreciation of film and television. It operates on the philosophy that the better we understand how film and television texts work, the more intelligently and perceptively we will be able to consume them, which is an invaluable skill to have in our media-saturated world. You will learn about the basic elements that distinguish films and television programs from other aesthetic forms, such as editing, cinematography, sound and set design, and how these components work together to develop stories and characters. We will also work with interpretive frameworks that uncover deeper meanings and patterns in film and television, such as genre theory, the idea of authorship, political economy, and ideological analysis. Finally, you will acquire the skills and tools needed to write your own educated analyses of film and television texts. The class screenings present a range of films, from Hollywood classics to independent and international films, as well as television shows both old and new. This course is required for all concentrators in Film and Television.

FTT 30201/31201: Global Cinema I | Lab | Pam Wojcik

This class traces major developments, movements, artists, and aesthetics within global film culture from the beginning of cinema in the 1890s to about 1950. We will consider different national cinemas from Europe and Asia, as well as the rise of Hollywood and emergent African American cinema. We will consider certain prominent directors and film movements with attention to how they conceive of cinema, and will read contemporary theories and critiques of cinema. We will consider the development of the film industry and technical developments that shift the aesthetic, and changes in modes of production and distribution, and spectatorship. We will consider cinema in the context of modernity to consider how cinema reflects, refracts, transmutes and negotiates the effects of modernity to consider cinematic responses to urbanism, changing gender roles, mass production, race and immigration, among other topics.

Core Television Courses

FTT 20101/21101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab | Jim Collins & Olivier Morel

This class is designed to enhance your understanding and appreciation of film and television. It operates on the philosophy that the better we understand how film and television texts work, the more intelligently and perceptively we will be able to consume them, which is an invaluable skill to have in our media-saturated world. You will learn about the basic elements that distinguish films and television programs from other aesthetic forms, such as editing, cinematography, sound and set design, and how these components work together to develop stories and characters. We will also work with interpretive frameworks that uncover deeper meanings and patterns in film and television, such as genre theory, the idea of authorship, political economy, and ideological analysis. Finally, you will acquire the skills and tools needed to write your own educated analyses of film and television texts. The class screenings present a range of films, from Hollywood classics to independent and international films, as well as television shows both old and new. This course is required for all concentrators in Film and Television.

FTT 30455: Critical Approaches to Television | Matthew Payne

This course offers an introductory survey of the primary critical approaches used to analyze television, and thus serves as a foundation for other TV-specific courses within the major. Through an examination of pioneering and contemporary studies of television, we will explore how television has been analyzed as a communication medium, a technological apparatus, a commercial industry, and a cultural forum, as well as a form of recreation, education, and social bonding. We will also consider critical approaches that focus on how television shapes our personal identities and values. While examining methods developed to study TV production, reception, and texts, we will explore such concepts as publicness, liveness, quality, art, and representation. In addition to discussing how television was analyzed in the past, we will consider how both television and TV studies have changed as a result of globalization, industrial convergence, digital media, and participatory culture.

FTT 30461: History of Television | Christine Becker

Television has been widely available in the United States for only half a century, yet already it has become a key means through which we understand our culture. Our course examines this vital medium from three perspectives. First, we will look at the industrial, economic and technological forces that have shaped U.S. television since its inception. These factors help explain how U.S. television adopted the format of advertiser-supported broadcast networks and why this format is changing today. Second, we will explore television's role in American social and political life: how TV has represented cultural changes in the areas of gender, class, race and ethnicity. Third, we will discuss specific narrative and visual strategies that characterize program formats. Throughout the semester we will demonstrate how television and U.S. culture mutually influence one another, as television both constructs our view of the world and is affected by social and cultural forces within the U.S.

Core Theatre Courses

FTT 20720: Collaboration: Intro Theatre | Kevin Dreyer

Collaboration, the Art of Making Theatre explores the roles of the artists who create the material world in which a performance exists and most importantly, the collaborative nature of those relationships. Students will be challenged to understand the thinking behind the work of the designers, writers, directors, and off-stage personnel who bring stories to life on stage. Incorporating hands on projects as well as lecture/discussion formats, students will experiment with story telling through the visual elements of scenery, costumes, lighting, etc. Collaboration, the Art of Making Theatre is an excellent entry point to the Theatre Concentration.

FTT 30714: World Theatre: Text and Performance Across Cultures | Tarryn Chun

This course examines world theatre history from the origins of performance to the present. Students learn techniques of script analysis, performance analysis, and independent research as tools for analyzing theatre from the literary, aesthetic, and historical perspectives. Throughout, the course emphasizes the importance of cultural context and historiography to understanding the creation and transformation of theatre as an art form. Each semester will be a stand-alone course and can be taken in any order. Students are encouraged to enroll in adjacent semesters. At least one semester of this sequence is a prerequisite for the upper-level electives required to complete the major.

Electives

FTT 20691: Haunting: Page, Stage and Screen | Kristen Sieranski

If you visit any major city in the United States (and beyond), ghost tours are perennially one of the most popular tourist attractions, whether equipped with spooky, mist-decaled buses or bloody-faced period costumed walking guides. Why does this delightful and disturbing tourist trap thrive in so many locations? Perhaps the best way to understand any person, any place, and culture is to understand their dead. In Haunting: Page, Stage, and Screen, we will examine haunting as a method of representing grief, loss, systemic violence, and survival in spite of all that. By reading haunting across genres of prose, drama, and film, we will consider how metaphors of haunting function as an orientation to the past across mediums and cultural contexts. Does be haunting mean the same thing in different historical moments and geographical locations? What kinds of haunting are made available on the page, on the stage, or on the screen? Can a text or a person be haunted even without a ghost? Beginning with Hamlet (one of the earliest and most important literary ghosts), we will trace haunting to the present. Ultimately, by thinking critically about haunting, we hope to learn a little about living.

FTT 21001: Acting: Process | Carys Kresny

Acting Process introduces the student to the core techniques of acting for the stage. The course engages both the analytical and the creative mind as students use research and analysis to support their physical, vocal and imaginative approaches to creating compelling scripted and improvised scenes. Students will rehearse and prepare scenes outside of class (with a partner and solo) for in-class performance. All students must see two live theatrical performances and turn in a reflection for each.

FTT 30013: Shadow Puppetry & Modern Performance | Marcus Stephens

We will explore the rich cultural history of shadow puppetry and its translation into modern theatrical performance. Through lectures and workshops students will shepherd their ideas from the classroom to a final public performance.

FTT 30017: Body on Stage: Best Practices | TBD

This course will explore and examine how we, as theater and film & TV actors/directors/artists, can use best practices to create production and rehearsal rooms that reduce harm. Through readings, case studies and lab work, we will investigate the politics and history of the body onstage and how that has impacted best practices in creative processes. Topics will vary from creating open spaces, Check-Ins, how intimacy direction parallels best practices, and how to be a radically more inclusive artist.

FTT 30022: Acting: Comedy, Physical Theatre & Wit | Carys Kresny

This course introduces students to some of their artistic ancestors, including Commedia Dell'Arte, Absurdism, and American Vaudeville, as a scaffold-format for investigating comic acting traditions, leading to meeting the demands of heightened characterization and style in both classic and contemporary theatre work. A class designed to help actors overcome the anxiety that comes from a sense of obligation to be funny and to develop a comedic point of view: emphasis is on the need to approach comedic material with the same process and commitment appropriate to any other acting challenge. Class exercises and scene study focus on continuing the discovery and development of imaginative and technical skills gained in previous class(es) to enable the student to discern the living world of a play and to embody a vibrant character within it.

FTT 30026: Voiceover: the Art & Performance of Voice Acting | Siiri Scott

In this upper level acting course, students will learn to translate their traditional acting skills for non-visual mediums. When the global pandemic closed theatres and abruptly halted film and television sets, many actors pivoted to professional voiceover work. The skill set(s) required by commercials, radio, podcasts, video games, audiobooks, and radio drama vary depending on the genre/sub genre. The hybrid course will look at vocal production, diction, script analysis, tone, style (in relation to medium), character creation, technique, and studio and microphone setup. Students will record and edit project based assignments, offer peer review, and develop original content.

FTT 30050: Film Curation | Ricky Herbst

1 cr. hr.

This course explores how films are booked and exhibited and, moreover, how to best serve audiences through thoughtful, engaging, and provoking film curation. Students will collaborate to program Notre Dame Film Society's weekly screenings, which involves writing copy, recruiting discussants, and creating programs involving feature films, short films, and other media.

FTT 30103: Europe Through Film | James Collins

What can we learn about Europe by exploring its cinema? Based on an extended version of the Institute's film series each semester, the content of this course will focus on the relationship between contemporary European cinema and the European ideas and realities it finds compelling in terms of social and imaginative power. The course will include some history of cinema, but emphasis will be laid on using cinema as a way of stimulating questions about the nature of Europe today. Open to students of all years and majors.

FTT 30118: Storied Landscapes IRL to CHI: from st. Patrick to Derry Girls and Ferris Bueller | Amy Mulligan

Storytelling allows us to make a place, and a past, come alive, and it is through narrative that certain people, locations, and experiences lodge themselves in our memories. How, and why, do we reshape our own environment to convey certain stories about our past, our accomplishments, and our collective experiences? Why is it that road-trips loom so large in American cultural memory, and what do they have in common with other placelore stories, such as those featuring Native Americans, Irish saints and TV characters like Northern Ireland's "Derry Girls"? How can words, sounds and imagery be used to map out and draw us into new and often fantastic virtual geographies? In this class, we will think about how stories gain power by being anchored in evocative depictions of specific places, both real and imagined. We will examine verbal and visual stories, from medieval manuscripts like the Book of Kells and tales of St. Patrick's travels around Ireland, to contemporary animation (Song of the Sea), murals from Northern Ireland, place-based television series (Derry Girls) and Chicago-based road-trip films (The Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller's Day Off). We will contemplate how icons of ancient Ireland were used to create new spaces in Chicago, and we'll look at the massive 1893 World's Fair that put a newly rebuilt Chicago on the world map, as well as dramatic histories of Chicago and some of its murderous inhabitants (Devil in the White City). We will also turn to regional storytelling traditions and will study songs and stories about "home" composed by those who experienced diaspora and migration.

FTT 30143: Broadcasting the News | Colleen Wilcox

This course is a practical immersion into the world of broadcast journalism. Class will function much like a television newsroom, with time dedicated to workshopping and exploring a variety of reporting techniques. Students will spend time outside of the classroom engaging with asynchronous materials, practicing on-camera skills, and exploring the many roles that make up a newsroom. Students will build a professional reel or portfolio to demonstrate storytelling techniques essential to broadcasting the news.

*FTT 30150: Decolonizing Gaming: Critical Engagement Through Design and Play | Ashlee Bird

This course aims to change the way you think not only about the way that we play games, but also about the way that video games teach their players to behave within their digital worlds. This course will encourage students to reflect on and utilize their lived experiences as players, and utilize these experiences to locate themselves within their analysis and writing as well as their design practices. This course will undertake an intensive, interdisciplinary focus on the history of video game development, representation in video games, and the languages that digital games work in as well as decolonial theory and diverse theories of design. This class will engage with a variety of scholarly texts, video games, media posts, videos, and design exercises, in order to illustrate the ways in which video games have shaped the ways we play, think, and behave within their spaces. Students will be required to write and design around these lessons and address and push back against the problematic behaviors and colonial narratives around violence, race, gender, sexuality, and relationship to the land that these gamic languages and lessons have created.

*FTT 30186: Indigenous Cinema | Ashlee Bird

This course will examine the global field of Indigenous Cinema. This class will utilize screenings of Indigenous film along with accompanying lecture, reading, and discussion, to examine the ways in which Indigenous filmmakers, actors, and communities are subverting genre and decolonizing the industry to tell and reclaim Indigenous stories and make room for Indigenous futures.

FTT 30205: Ethics of Journalism | Brendan O’Shaughnessy

This class will focus on how print, broadcast and online journalists work - how they think and act as well as the ethical dilemmas they face today in delivering news, analysis, and commentary. We will study the processes involved in the creation of news and the effects or consequences of the news on the public. This is not a course that teaches the techniques of journalism. Rather it is an examination of the practices of professional journalists and a survey of the impact of what they do.

FTT 30238: Writing the Short Film | George Sikharulidze

This course is an introduction to the theory and craft of dramatic screenwriting. The class explores how a script is developed from concept to final written form. Through lectures, film viewing, and weekly exercises, emphasis is placed on plot and story structure, the adaptation of ideas into cinematic forms, how to tell a story with images, character, plot, and dialogue development. Each student writes two short 8-12 page scripts developed within the context of the workshop.

FTT 30410/31410: Intro to Film & TV Production & Lab | Ted Mandell

An introductory course in the fundamentals of writing, filming, and editing film and television productions. This is a hands-on production course emphasizing aesthetics, creativity, and technical expertise with the goal of learning the many aspects of successful visual storytelling. The course requires significant amounts of filming and editing outside of class. Students write and produce short, single camera narrative projects using Canon C100 cameras, editing with Adobe Premiere Pro. The principles of three-camera studio production are also covered. Cannot have taken FTT 30405 or FTT 50505. Cannot have taken FTT 30405 or FTT 50505.

FTT 30428: Video Art Production | Cecilia Kim

This course will use digital video and computer imaging as tools of artistic exploration and critical expression. Projects will engage creative and unconventional methods of moving image production, involving techniques and concepts in sound, animation, projection mapping, and personal storytelling. Students will be introduced to a range of video artists and artworks, using these as examples of the wide range of processes and conceptual framework in video art.

FTT 30465: The Business and Culture of Sports Television | Christine Becker

Sports have played an integral role in the television industry since the medium's early days. This course will highlight the history of sports on television and focus on the nuts and bolts of how television sports programming works today. The course will also examine the impact of televised sports on our culture as well as the ethical issues raised by the media's coverage of sports.

*FTT 30520: Drama & Poetry in Ukraines at War: Representatives of Injustice and Resilience in Ukraine, 2014 - 2022 | Peter Holland & Romana Huk

When war comes, many might imagine that theatre and other forms of performance stop. But, among the many forms of resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a vast increase in the number of new plays representing the suffering and the resilience of the Ukrainian people, many of which have already been translated into English. There has, in contrast, been less attention paid to other forms of performance writing: for example, poetry being created for, or disseminated through, digital media, reaching audiences instantly with all the urgency of the moment. This course has as its central aim the exploration of these materials, both ones already in English translation and ones that might become available. It seeks to understand what has been created and how it is disseminated as cultural practice during the Russian invasion. It will run as a classroom on the Notre Dame campus, meeting simultaneously with one taught in English at the Ukrainian Catholic University, enabling collaboration and shared learning between ND and UCU students.

FTT 30533: Global Screens & Local Screams: Contemporary International Horror Cinema | Matthew Payne

Shocking, brutal, sensational, lurid, and just plain gross: no genre enjoys more diehard fans and steadfast detractors than horror cinema. Fan or foe, these movies provoke rich debates about media theory, aesthetics, and cultural politics for how they voice a range of fears and anxieties. This course introduces students to contemporary international horror cinema with the goal of understanding how this maligned genre explores themes of difference concerning race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality. The horror genre is at once local and global. These harrowing stories simultaneously articulate regional folklore, myths, and cultural traditions, and they connect viscerally with audiences for how they articulate our shared humanity. What goes bump in the night, you ask? This class will answer that question. Timid students need not enroll.

FTT 30598: Cinema of Portugal and Luso-Africa | Ana Fauri

This course will survey the history of representations of Latinos in American cinema from the silent era to the present. We will examine how stereotypes associated with Latinos have been produced, reinforced, and challenged in American films - from greasers and Latin lovers to gangsters, kingpins, and border crossers. We will explore the fascinating contradiction that, despite a long history of misrepresentation and under representation, Latinos have made significant contributions to Hollywood and independent cinema. We will also examine the rise of Latino directors in recent years and their drive to reframe the Latino image for American audiences. Screenings will range from the silent epic Martyrs of the Alamo (1915) to more recent films such as Maria Full of Grace (2004). Our interdisciplinary approach to the subject will draw upon readings from history, film theory and criticism, and ethnic/American studies. Students will take a midterm exam and make class presentations.

*FTT 30603: Visualizing Global Change | Tamara Kay

The goal of the course is to compare the processes by which social scientists and filmmakers/photographers engage in social documentation. Students explore how global social problems such as rural and urban poverty, race and gender inequalities, immigration, and violence are analyzed across the social sciences, and depicted in a variety of documentary film and photography genres. The course also explores the role that documentary photography and film play in promoting rights and advocating for social change, particularly in the realm of human rights and global inequality. It examines the history of documentary film and photography in relationship to politics, and to the development of concerns across the social sciences with inequality and social justice. It also looks at how individual documentarians, non-profit organizations and social movements use film and photography to further their goals and causes, and issues of representation their choices raise. The course is also unique because it requires students to engage in the process of visual documentation themselves by incorporating an activity-based learning component. For their final project, students choose a human rights or social problem that concerns or interests them (and which they can document locally — no travel is required), prepare a documentary "exhibit" on the chosen topic (10-12 photographs), and write a 12-15 page paper analyzing how 2-3 social scientists construct and frame the given problem. Students also have the option to produce a short documentary film.

FTT 30708: Performance Techniques: How to Act a Song | Matt Hawkins

The intention of this course is to provide you with a context within which to understand the techniques of musical theatre performance and the foundational skills needed to personally inhabit these techniques. This course will give you the tools to "act a song." You will work on analysis and performance of five songs from the following categories: Golden Age, Modern, Rock, Pop and any other kind of song you love. These songs are assigned by era sequentially so that we may simultaneously introduce the context of this material within the genre-at-large. You will also apply your growing knowledge of technique and context to intelligently observe and comment on the work of your peers within a structured setting. Throughout the course we will incorporate short group exercises to better explore performance technique and promote a deeper understanding of the differences between traditional script/text analysis and score/lyric analysis. There will be reflection papers due after the exploration of your songs.

FTT 30801: Scene Design | Marcus Stephens

This is a beginner's course in basic scenic design techniques and hand drafting for the stage. This course will take the student through the process of design from how to read a script, research, presentation, rendering, basic drafting, and if time allows, model building. No previous experience necessary. Materials fee TBA.

FTT 37600: Notre Dame Film Society | Christine Becker

1 Cr. Hr.

The Film Society is a film screening group that meets on Sunday nights in the Browning Cinema to watch an independent, international, or classic film. Students can take the course for either zero credit or one credit S/U. Those taking it for one credit will have a minimum attendance and writing requirement. Contact the sponsoring professor for more information.

FTT 40020: Musical Theatre Laboratory: Workshopping The Musical | Matthew Hawkins

The intention of this course is to provide a collaborative space for students to create, develop and/or workshop a new musical. Throughout the process of creation we will explore how to collaborate as a creative team, including directors, writers, music directors, choreographers, actors and stage managers. This is an effort to allow class time to be rehearsal and development time for new artistic work. The hope of this class is to support the innovation of new work and prepare it for the possibility of heading towards production. - Please contact the instructor directly for approval to take the course.

FTT 40023: Musical Theatre Minor Capstone | Matt Hawkins

A capstone of the Musical Theatre Minor is a 3-credit course. The capstone will be project based, and individually designed towards the student's interest. The specifics of the capstone will be agreed upon between the student and the instructor and ultimately approved by the instructor. The chosen topic for the capstone project is intended to reflect the student's interest in Musical Theater and how it relates to their studies in the Minor. See instructor for details. Departmental Approval is needed to register for this course.

*FTT 40032: Politics and Performance in Modern China | Tarryn Chun

Politics has always been theatrical, but perhaps nowhere has this been taken to such an extreme as in modern China. From the celebrity-like "cult of personality" surrounding Chairman Mao Zedong to student protests to performances like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China has been home to some of the most spectacular political displays of the last century. This course explores how and why political performance became such a prominent phenomenon in China, especially under the People's Republic (PRC), through two lines of inquiry. First, it examines how theatre and performance themselves have been used as political tools, both in support of and in protest against ruling regimes. Second, it looks at the ways in which political events such as mass rallies, show trials, and protests have taken on highly performative and theatrical qualities in the Chinese context. It considers cases that relate directly to state and Party politics, as well as to the politics of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Through this course, students gain a deeper understanding of modern China, as well as the critical and theoretical tools necessary to analyze political theatre and theatrical politics in China and beyond. All readings in English or English translation. No prior study of China or Chinese language required.

*FTT 40052/41052: East Asian Cinema & Lab | Cecilia Kim

This undergraduate film seminar course will study East Asian cinema and its social and historical context mostly between the 1980s and early 2000s. We will focus primarily on three large topics/movements within East Asia: Slow Cinema, Neo-Noir, and contemporary short form film. Navigating the general arc of Trans-East Asian film history, we will learn to recognise the localized global through readings and films by prominent filmmakers such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wong Kar Wai, and Park Chan Wook, that define genres of East Asian film.

FTT 40060/41060: Indie Film & Lab | Ted Barron

Independent or 'indie' film often refers to works produced or distributed outside the Hollywood studio system. By that definition, the Lord of the Rings trilogy are the most commercially successful independent films of all time. Many films labeled as indie are often low-budget productions that adhere to the narrative conventions of dominant cinema. This survey course will consider these intra-industry tensions and trace the development of American independent cinema from its early roots in neorealism to more contemporary hybrid forms. We will consider the role of technology in this (r)evolution including the impact of 16mm cameras, analog and digital video and iPhones. This course will also recognize indie film as a site for inclusion of underrepresented filmmakers including women and BIPOC artists.

FTT 40405: The Art of Film Directing | George Sikharulidze

A film director is first and foremost a visual thinker, who translates a script onto the screen through the language of cinema. In this course, we will learn how to use this language and organize its syntax and grammar to tell a story. We will focus on the meaning of a shot as a singular capsule of cinematic time and space in service of the script. We will learn how to use shot progression in order to build a scene. And we will explore the methods of connecting scenes into a cumulative cinematic experience. This process involves conceptualizing a film from pre-production to post-production from the point of view of a director. Therefore, in addition to theories of directing, this course will include hands-on exercises that focus on preparing a film using various tools like a shotlist, storyboard, floorpan, lined script, visual references, color palettes, and notes for actors. We will learn how to analyze and break down a scene in order to answer the eternal question on every director's mind - how do I know where to put the camera? This course will help you understand your role as a film director and build your confidence at every stage of filmmaking. Filmmaking is a highly industrial process that involves technical expertise in lighting, grip, and camera. However, building on this knowledge, we must understand how to use these technical skills in order to tell an emotional story in any genre. As such, this course will complement the knowledge you will gain in introductory and intermediate filmmaking classes.

FTT 40410: Intermediate Filmmaking | Bill Donaruma

Through hands-­on, field experience and critical analysis, we will explore the tools and techniques used to produce professional video and digital cinema projects in all genres. We will explore the use of composition, cinematography, color and editing to create a narrative structure. This class will also provide you with a technical knowledge of the tools required in professional filmmaking including a variety of lighting and grip equipment, lenses, filters, light meters, etc. Using RED Digital Cinema RED Raven 4K cameras and various support tools you will produce, shoot and edit short projects or "challenges" including your final short 3-5min film. This will be a non-­‐dialogue driven film based with a post-­‐produced soundtrack. No other digital formats are to be used outside of what we utilize for this class. We will also discuss various filmmaking techniques and current industry topics, including film in relation to digital cinema and current workflows. Post Production will be done using Davinci Resolve.

FTT 40411: Documentary Production | Ted Mandell

A hands-on creative course for the advanced production student interested in the production process and storytelling techniques of the documentarian. Emphasizing the cinema verite approach of filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, and Frederick Wiseman, students learn the importance of capturing life's moments, being faithful to a subject, and understanding the filmmaker's point of view. The goal is to produce a short documentary film over the course of the semester which honestly portrays its subject(s), while at the same time, challenges its audience.

FTT 40422: Fix it in Post: Intermediate and Advanced Post-Production Techniques | Mark Witte

Often uttered by a director or producer short on time, the dreaded phrase, “Fix it in Post” typically refers to a noticeable mistake on set that, instead of being corrected and reshot, is punted down the road for the post-production department to reconcile. In all reality, “Fix it in Post” refers to pretty much all of post-production, as it is the process of improving and enhancing picture, sound, and story. In this hands-on course we will tackle a wide range of intermediate and advanced post-production topics, such as: green screen and visual effects compositing, motion graphics and 3D title animation, color correction, masking and tracking, workflow optimization, multicam editing, enhancing sound and more. We will delve deeper into Adobe Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve, enter the world of Adobe After Effects, and also learn how to utilize Adobe Audition for our editing needs. Through it all we will examine how the choices an editor makes directly impacts the way the audience experiences the story, and we will learn how to craft effective moments ourselves.

FTT 40433/41433: The Politics of Style: 1980s Film & TV Culture & Lab | Michael Kackman

This course explores the media culture of 1980s America. We will explore such topics as the rise of "high concept" blockbuster Hollywood, prime-time television at the peak of the broadcast network era, the emergence of Fox, the widespread adoption of cable television service, the development of the 24 hour news cycle, and media industry consolidation. In addition to studying these dominant industry practices and media forms, we will also explore such secondary and alternative media cultures as independent cinema, music subcultures, and video games. Our emphasis throughout will be on the interplay between shifting technologies, industrial modes of production and distribution, and cultural practices.

FTT 40511: Italian Cinema I: New Realisms in the Old World | Charles Leavitt

This course explores the history of Italian film from the silent era to the 1960s, an epoch stretching from Francesca Bertini’s Assunta Spina to Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita. At the center of this period is the age of Italian neorealism, when directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Luchino Visconti invented new ways of looking at the world that radically transformed the history of world cinema. Focusing their attention on issues and individuals that had gone unseen in Fascist and post-Fascist Italy, the neorealists challenged established norms by making the experiences of ordinary Italians increasingly visible, developing techniques for representing reality that continue to influence filmmakers across the globe. We will analyze how questions of class, faith, gender, identity, and ideology intersect on screen as Italian directors explore and attempt to intervene in a rapidly transforming modern world. With a filmography featuring both masterpieces of world cinema and cult classics, this course will investigate how the quest to capture reality reshaped every genre of Italian film, including action & adventure, comedy, crime, documentary, melodrama, mystery, thriller and more. The course is taught in English and all films will have English subtitles.

FTT 40520: Black Arts and Black Power Revisited | La Donna Forsgren

This interdisciplinary course examines the historiography of the Black Power and Black Arts movements of the sixties and seventies. The poet and theorist Larry Neal defined the Black Arts Movement as “the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept,” encouraging artists to use their work to celebrate Black art and confront contradictions within Western society. The Black Arts Movement encompassed all areas of Black cultural expression—from poetry, art, dance, and music to theatre, film, and television. As historiographers, we will approach the Black Power and Black Arts movements as a sequence of debates, rather than a consistent or monolithic practice. We will investigate how artists, theorists, and activists of the sixties and seventies fostered competing definitions of Black power, yet shared an unwavering commitment to the struggle for Black liberation. Throughout the course, we will focus on the following questions: • What were major aims, organizations, and critical debates within the Black Power movement? • Who were the key figures and lesser-known (today) individuals who furthered Black cultural and political thought of the sixties and seventies? • How did Black women artists and activists amplify, complicate, and/or critique the prevailing notions of Black Power? • What relationship did the Black Power and Black Arts movements have with the rise of the women’s liberation movement and Black feminist drama? • What relevance, if any, does the Black Power struggle of the past have to today’s fight for Black Lives? In so doing, we will explore various articulations of “Black power,” “self-determination” and “nationhood”; engage with critical approaches to the “Black aesthetic”; and consider the role of intersectionality within Black Power discourse.

FTT 40618: Modern China on Screen | Xian Wang

This course introduces contemporary cinemas of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan by focusing on a selection of internationally acclaimed Chinese films. In addition to examining cultural background, narrative themes and cinematic technique of the films, we will be exploring how these selected films response to fundamental issues such as history, gender, identity, memory, social justice, nationalism, and globalization. The goals of the course are to introduce students to major films and directors in contemporary China, to learn Chinese culture, value and history through films, and to refine students' abilities to analyze and write about film critically. All readings are in English, no prior knowledge of Chinese language or culture is required. All films selected for the course have English subtitles.

FTT 40702: Audition Seminar | Siiri Scott

Preparation for acting professionally and/or the advanced study of acting, directing and performance. A course of study is developed between the student and the faculty advisor(s) at the beginning of the semester. Students who are interested in taking this course but are not FTT majors should consult the instructor. Senior Acting majors only.