Courses

Core Film Courses

FTT 20101 / 21101 / 22101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab  | Tutorial | Pam Wojcik

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 30202 | 31202 : Global Cinema II and Lab | Olivier Morel

This course traces the major developments in world cinema from the post-WWII era to the present. The course will examine the shifting social, economic, technological, and aesthetic conditions of this period, especially the demise of the Hollywood studio system, the rise of new technologies and auxiliary marketing outlets, and the increasing globalization of cinema. The course will not be limited to Hollywood filmmaking, but will also look at various international movements, including Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, and recent Asian cinemas.

FTT 30456 | 31456: Critical Approaches to Screen Cultures & Lab | James Collins

In this course, students will learn different theories, methods, and approaches to understanding and writing about screen cultures. We will explore approaches that consider aesthetics/style, narrative, authorship (directors, show runners, stars), genre (e.g. the musical, horror), history (history of film/media industries, history of visual spectacle, historical context for films/media, etc.), technologies (sound, color, digital technologies, etc.), identities (considerations of gender, sexuality, race, nation, age, etc.), and audience (reception, fandom). Students will: Read theories that articulate and advocate each approach; consider the parameters, value, and appeal of that approach, as well as its limitations; practice each approach in written exercises; and research and write a final paper using one or more of these approaches. Students may also use video essays or other media as tools of analysis and critique. This is a course in academic criticism, not journalistic reviewing. Strong emphasis will be placed on argumentative writing.

Core Television Courses

FTT 20101 / 21101 / 22101: Basics of Film and Television | Lab  | Tutorial | Pam Wojcik

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 | Mary Kearney

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 | Michael Kackman

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 storytelling 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 I | 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 20801: Acting for the Non-Major | Anton Juan

This course introduces the non-theatre major to the basic elements of the art and craft of acting. The student will explore the spaces of memory, the body in an external space, voice and diction, and the choices s/he has to make, through the observation and imagination of realities. S/he will explore the process of looking for the sense of truth and urgency in expressing a dramatic text and a character's will and action. This course is participatory and will involve students' scene study presentations as well as written textual analysis to introduce scene studies.

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 21006: Playwriting | Anne García-Romero

This course is designed to introduce students to creating original work for the theatre. The course will explore the writing process as well as models from contemporary U.S. theatre with the aim to present a variety of paths toward creating new, vibrant plays. This is primarily a writing course. In addition, by reading and discussing ten separate dynamic play texts, we will analyze dramatic writing. Weekly writing exercises, movement work, visual arts approaches, improvisation techniques and collaborative discussions will create resources for rich play material, which each student will eventually use in a final scene, presented in a public reading at the end of the semester.

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 30020: Stage Combat | Matt Hawkins

This course will expose you to basic stage combat while exploring physical risk and maintaining safety measures. We will engage in unarmed fight choreography, as well as practicing sword technique.

FTT 30022: Acting: 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: Art & Performance | 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 30032 (1 credit hour course): Plays of María Irene Fornés | Anne García-Romero

María Irene Fornés (1930-2018), considered by many to be the mother of Latinx playwriting in the United States, was an influential and award-winning playwright, director, and teacher. Born in Havana, Cuba, Fornés immigrated to the United States in 1945 and resided in New York City for the rest of her life. Fornés wrote and directed more than fifty plays that were produced throughout the United States and internationally. Tango Palace (1963) was her first produced play and Letters from Cuba (2000) was her final play. She won an unprecedented nine Obie Awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. This one credit course will engage in an analysis of the entire published Fornés canon: eighteen award-winning plays written from 1963 to 2000, with topics as diverse as an absurdist musical exploring class struggle, a 1930s Anglo women’s fight for education, a 1940’s Cuban-American woman’s search for empowerment, a 1890’s British female actor's efforts to produce Ibsen and a 2000 Cuban-American woman’s connection to her Cuban brother. Taught by Professor Anne García-Romero, a leading Fornés scholar, this seminar provides a unique immersion into the work of one the most important female playwrights of the twentieth century.

Class meets 5 Fridays during the semester. Dates: January 20, 2023 February 3, 2023 March 3, 2023 March 31, 2023 April 21, 2023

 

FTT 30040: Production Workshop: Tuko! | Anton Juan

The course supports the creation of FTT’s spring production 2023: TUKO! TUKO! or Princess of the Lizard Moon (Alexander Onassis International Award for Playwriting) written and directed by Dr. Anton Juan (his final production for FTT). Student artists enrolled in the course will form part of the acting and production ensemble itself. They will have the opportunity to learn and engage in the aesthetics, principles, practice and methods of production and expression in a variety of genres and styles of theatre: 1) Yu-gen and Sound-Sense - the essence of Noh and Kabuki; 2) Bunraku – the unity of puppeteer and the puppet; 3) Butoh- tracing the inner spaces in the movement from memory to history; 4) Cubism in dramatic narrative- breaking the moment into non-temporal presences and surfaces; 5) Contrasting styles between Eastern and Western Theatre techniques. The plot, based on historical documents, counters historical revisionism and resurrects the buried voices of the oppressed through poetic theatrical expression. The ghost of a comfort woman in World War II and the ghost of a tortured murdered sex slave in Japan 1990’s meet in the memory of a Butoh actor who embodies them and claims justice for them. TUKO! TUKO! has been performed in Greece, Korea, Philippines, and Chile.

FTT 30132: Applied Multimedia | TBD

This course is a hands-on examination of the latest digital tools and techniques used by journalists as they produce stories on multiple platforms. Students will learn how to take digital photographs, how to shoot and edit high-definition videos, and how to produce audio stories and podcasts. Students will also study the legal and ethical issues surrounding the use, creation, and publication of digital media.

FTT 30150: Decolonizing Gaming | 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 30196: Theories of Media & Tech | Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal

This course offers a multidisciplinary introduction to the vast variety of theoretical approaches used to understand media and technologies. From film, TV, and videogames to computers, internet, and social media, we will study different methods and concepts that help us understand our mediated condition(s) better. Moving historically and geographically, we will also encounter the many ways in which the term 'media' itself gets deployed and critiqued in scholarship across humanistic and social scientific disciplines. We will plug some of these (critical) theoretical understandings of media and culture into the longer histories of politics, philosophy, language, and literature, considering, for example, books as media technologies. And finally, we will ask what studies of media and mediation can do for our comprehension of the politico-economic, sociocultural, racial, and environmental crises surrounding us today.

FTT 30357  |  31357: Shadow of the Empire in Cinema & Lab  | Tetyana Shlikhar*

Over the last two decades of Putin’s presidency, Russia’s geopolitical strength and imperial ambition were placed at the center of Russia’s political line. Military incursions in the neighboring countries have expanded Russia’s territorial claims and reasserted its aspirations to former Soviet spheres of influence. While Russian identity continued to be imperial after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians set off on a journey of building their national identity. The course considers how post-Soviet cinema revives tropes and aesthetic tendencies of the earlier periods, such as stark depictions of the self and Other, spiritual superiority and monumentalism, as well as updates them for a contemporary context. The class explores the Putin-era Russian cinema and Ukrainian national cinema of the last two decades in the light of the common past that these two countries share and how the past is reshaped for the present. No previous knowledge of Russian is required, the course is taught fully in English.

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 30480: Televised Sports Production  | Ted Mandell

The Game, as we experience it on screens big and small, is an ever evolving story. A human competition turned into a visual narrative by producers, directors, and broadcasters. How is that three hour ebb and flow of emotions turned into an engaging narrative for fans? How has that story evolved over decades? How has the evolution of technology changed that story? And has the televised broadcast changed the meaning of the game itself? From the Super Bowl to March Madness, ESPN SportsCenter to WWE Smackdown, we'll dissect the process, storytelling techniques and technology that form the American sports story on television, as well as experience the actual game production operation from inside the control rooms of Notre Dame Studios. Assignments include on-camera and off-camera production exercises, as well as written assignments deconstructing historical and current broadcasts. No prior television production experience required.

FTT 30635: Drunk on Film | Andre Venter and Ted Mandell

Alcohol Use Disorder is a chronic relapsing brain disease. But when presented on screen, it's entertainment. Why do we laugh, why do we cry, why do we emulate fictional characters whose drinking habits result in a life of debilitating addiction? From James Bond to Jonah Hill, the psychology and seduction of alcohol on film, television, and online will be analyzed. Furthermore, what is the relationship between the manner in which alcohol use/abuse is presented on screen and the manner in which alcohol is used and abused on, for example, college campuses? Surveying recent film history, we will examine how alcohol is used in story structure, as a character flaw or strength, and as a narrative device in the story arc of films across multiple film genres (action/adventure, comedy, romance, etc). Why do characters drink, where do they drink, and how does the result of their "getting drunk" advance the narrative? We'll also look at non-fiction films that tackle issues of addiction, as a way of comparing character development in Hollywood films to the results of this same behavior in everyday life. Film materials will include weekly screenings outside of class, and academic articles relating to portrayal and analysis of alcohol use in film and television, including the business of marketing alcohol in print and television advertising. From the psychological perspective we will discuss the topic and process of social influence and how the presence of others influences our behavior. Questions of interest will include the following: what are the mechanisms by which group influence unfolds? How and why might we be persuaded? Does the manner, and if so how, in which alcohol use is portrayed in movies and the media reflect the processes and principles of social influence? Readings will include chapters on social influence, persuasion and academic articles evaluating the manner in which alcohol is portrayed and advertised and the effect this has on alcohol consumption. In addition, issues of addiction will be discussed - from understanding the basis of addiction to examining the efficacy of addiction treatment.

FTT 30660: Adapting Oz  |  Dr. Hampton

In 1900, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published. Often discussed as a quintessentially American fairytale, this children's novel and the fantasy world in which it takes place has spawned a wealth of sequels, revisions, and adaptations across a multitude of media platforms--from print sequels and revisions to films, serial television shows, cartoons, games, and Broadway shows. This course will investigate not only the cultural significance of Baum's fantasy world within American culture, but also the theoretical concept of adaptation. Looking closely at multiple iterations of Oz across different platforms, we will discuss questions such as: what is the cultural significance of Oz? what does it mean to adapt a text? how does a story change when it moves from page, to stage, to screen, and back again? Why is it important to examine these changes? What roles do historical/cultural context and audiences play in adaptation? For students of film and media, American culture, and literature this course will provide an opportunity to explore critical concepts of culture and myth, examine the relationship between popular culture and identity, and develop and practice skills in formal analysis.

FTT 30708: Performance Techniques  | 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 30707: Theatre Management Seminar (one credit hour) | Dreyer & Schulfer

FTT 30716: Postcolonial Theatre  | Julian Dean*

This course takes a historically centered look at the use of theatre in the Anglophone postcolonies. We will start by exploring the role of theatre in colonialism—how it was deployed to both Europeanize the colonized subject and simultaneously to enforce ideas of cultural superiority. The rest of the course will analyze how colonized subjects use theatre to write back to empire, write around empire, or write through it. In order to do this, we will study indigenous forms of theatre and performance to best understand how theatre becomes a site for contesting colonial legacies through strategic mixes of European and traditional theatre practices. This course will begin by looking at the emerging Irish theatre as it was reacting to anti-colonial nationalism before moving on to similar movements in Nigeria, South Africa, the United States, and the Caribbean.

FTT 30803: Costume Design  | Lynn Holbrook

This course teaches the principles of costume design for the stage. The course will explore the use of costumes to express character traits by analyzing play scripts. Students will design costumes, and explore the process of organizing the script from the costume designer's viewpoint. The course will include projects, discussions, and lectures. The course will end with a portfolio presentation of the work completed throughout the semester. Students will be expected to provide their own materials and supplies.

FTT 30890: Media Industries  | Christine Becker

How do the contemporary film and television industries work? How can an analysis of the "business of entertainment" enable a greater understanding of contemporary media aesthetics and culture? This course will explore these questions by focusing on the structure, practices and products of America's film and television industries, and students will engage with academic readings, screenings, trade publications, current events, guest lectures, and written and oral assignments in order to understand the activities of the film and television industries. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand prominent practices employed by media conglomerates and independent companies today, recognize the ways in which industrial structures and practices can shape media products, and examine how television shows and movies are influenced by business strategies. The course should be especially beneficial for students intending to pursue scholarly or professional careers related to film and television through its comprehensive overview of how these industries work, why they work as they do, and the broader practical and theoretical implications of media industry operations.

FTT 30905: Special Effects Studio & Stage  | Ken Cole

From Singing in the Rain to Star Wars to Beauty and the Beast, special effects existed before CGI. This course will cover the design, budgeting, and execution of special effects.. Theoretical and hands-on experience with some common and not-so-common effects used on the movie studio lot and Broadway stage.

FTT 31002: Voice and Movement  | Siiri Scott

A course designed to help the advanced acting student focus on kinesthetic awareness. The actor will identify and work to remove physical and vocal tensions that cause habituated movement and impede natural sound production. Through movement and vocal exercises created for actors, students will experience what "prepared readiness" for the stage consists of, and how to meet the demands of a live performance.

FTT 31005: Theatre Production Workshop  | Kevin Dreyer

A workshop course in the process of theatre production in which students assume a major nonperformance production responsibility including, but not limited to: stage manager, assistant stage manager, prop master, costumer, technical director or assistant director. This course can be repeated for up to four hours credit. Requires Instructor's permission.

FTT 31018: Production and Performance  | Matt Hawkins

This course is open to students interested in becoming involved with specific performing/non-performing roles on a departmental production. This research-driven course will examine the history of the production and research prior performances and the significance of the play in the overall scope of theatre history. Additional areas of research include dramaturgy of the production, historical context of the story, historical sources and innovative performance techniques, etc. This research will support the work of the designers and performers, as members of the class work to implement their research in a finished production. The course also seeks to teach the students all of the lesser known aspects of bringing a play and a musical into performance.

FTT 33208: Global Visual Culture  | Christopher Ball

Visual anthropology involves the cross-cultural study of images in communication and the use of images as a method for doing anthropology. This course proceeds through a non-linear integration of visual themes including water, earth, light, fire, flesh and blood with analytical themes including aesthetics, poetics, violence, history, materiality and subjectivity. We explore still photography, film, and popular media in domains from ethnography, social documentary, war photojournalism, to high art. Students watch, read and write about, and generate visual products of their own in multiple media.

FTT 35505: Paths to Entertainment Industry  | Ted Mandell & Christine Becker

It's commonly said that there is no set path to a career in the media and entertainment industries the way there is a path to working in, say, accountancy, law, or medicine. But a more accurate description would be that there are many paths because there are so many different jobs one could pursue in film and television, and each can have multiple routes of getting there. This course will focus specifically on the paths to becoming a producer within the media and entertainment industries, which may include areas such as feature film, scripted television, live sports, and news. Guest speakers will be included in the course to help illuminate particular producer roles and processes, and students will be charged with developing resources that describe production jobs and paths, which will subsequently be made available to future generations of students for career discernment and development.

FTT 35510: ND Studios Producers Capstone  | Ted Mandell

Advanced production practicum in collaboration with Notre Dame Studios.

FTT 37600: Notre Dame Film Society  | Christine Becker

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 40006: Filming the Economy  | Olivier Morel

In one of the very first films in the history of cinema by Louis Lumière (1895), we see employees leave a factory at the end of their work day. The workplace remains out of the frame. While symbolically going back to the factory, our class will explore examples of films that operate as a powerful telltale of the harsh nature of work and of the workplace environment. We will question our definitions of work and how cinema depicts its changing nature today. While the subject of “money” was featured in movies very early on, in recent history it is only around the late 1980s that we see the economy take center stage in cinematic creations. From social films revolving around the work place by the Dardenne brothers and Ken Loach, to countless movies about Wall Street, to movies describing the economic dynamics behind environmental crises, or films about white collar crime, and more, our class will explore the ways in which filmmakers have used an “unfilmable,” complex and cinematically boring discipline in order to turn it into calls to action and entertainment. Call to action? Entertainment? These questions will lead our studies and discussions as making a film on the economy ultimately interrogates the very essence of cinema. This class will, in most parts, consist of seminar discussions (and oral presentations) (40%), lectures (40%), and possible group work activities (20%). Group work will mostly consist in designing video essays made by individuals but potentially elaborated in groups through group discussions (peer-to-peer) and peer-editing. Written assignments (one research paper) and one video essay, group work, oral presentations as well as active participation in our class will constitute the basic requirements.

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 toward 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 Theatre and how it relates to their studies in the Minor. See instructor for details. Departmental Approval is needed to register for this course.

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 40121: Writing the Feature Film  | Terrance Brown

This workshop focuses on the theory and craft of dramatic writing as it applies to feature screenplays. 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. Students should come to class with two ideas for a feature script in hand and be prepared to develop one idea into the first half of a feature length screenplay (approximately 60 pages) at a minimum.

FTT 40125: Writing the Half-Hour Comedy  | Terrance Brown

This workshop focuses on the theory and craft of comedic writing as it applies to original half-hour screenplays. Through lectures, film viewing, group projects and weekly exercises, emphasis is placed on plot and story structure and the intentionally comedic expression of student ideas. Students will explore classic half-hour comedy pilots (script and screen) with an eye towards identifying and evolving the concepts of comedic character development and story arcs. Students should come to class with an expectation to write frequently and collaboratively in order to create two original half-hour television episode scripts.

FTT 40130: Shakespeare and Asia  | Tarryn Chun & Peter Holland*

Asian theatre- and film-makers have produced some of the most innovative and exciting versions of Shakespeare's work. His strong presence in Asia also speaks to the histories and legacies of colonization and cultural imperialism. This course explores several well-known Shakespearean plays through the lens of Asian adaptation, rooted in both close reading of the plays themselves and the historical-cultural contexts of their adaptations. How, when, and why have specific Shakespearean plays captured the imaginations of Asian theatre artists and filmmakers? How have they transformed Shakepearean texts through translation, the use of local performance forms, new geographic and historical settings, and other techniques? How do these reimaginings rethink what “Shakespeare” might mean? By exploring such questions, students will gain a deeper understanding of Shakespeare, Asian theatre, and the complexities of their conjoining.

FTT 40412: Advanced Filmmaking  | Bill Donaruma

This Advanced Filmmaking course will allow you to take the foundation you experienced in Intermediate Filmmaking to a new level and create a dialogue film with an exacting attention to detail using the RED Raven DSMC2 cameras along with more advanced lighting, tools, and techniques. We will explore the use of dialogue in crafting a short film story and how the visuals and sound can work together both technically and artistically. You will practice blocking actors and understanding and directing performance. Scripts will be chosen from the Writing the Short Film class. You may submit a script you have written from that class along with select scripts that are chosen by Prof. Brown. We will then read and choose the scripts to be produced by the class in groups of three as a collaborative producing team. Films will be finished on Davinci Resolve with a better understanding of workflow and more advanced color grading. The primary goal is to create a collection of solid films as a class working as a small production studio.

FTT 40422: Fix it in Post  | 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, editing stereoscopic VR, workflow optimization, multicam editing 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 40426: Israeli-Palestian Conflict: Films  | Atalia Omer*

What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict about? How did it start? How might it be resolved? Some interpretations rely on claims of ancient hatreds. Others invoke sacred and biblical narratives as their authority for claims to a land deemed holy by many different religions. Still others underscore the ills and legacies of settler colonialism and indigenous accounts of historical presence. Some invoke international law and human rights to make their claims. This course will explore these arguments surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through screening and discussion of cinematic representation, narrative argument, and documentary films. Multiple genres provide powerful tools to introduce students to multiple perspectives, conceptions of history, experiences of injustice and grievances and loss, and imagining peace and justice. Each screening will be paired with relevant and interdisciplinary reading material. The students will emerge from this course with a detailed and complex understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the present dating back to the late Ottoman period, the British control of historic Palestine, and the definitional moment of 1948 which is marked both as Israeli independence and the Palestinian catastrophe (the Nakba).

FTT 40428: Girls' Media & Cult. Studies  | Mary Kearney*

This course introduces students to critical analyses of girls' media culture. During the first half of the semester we will focus on constructions of girls and girlhood in intellectual theory, popular discourse, and media texts (particularly U.S. film and television), paying attention to shifts in such constructions as a result of sociohistorical contexts and the rise of feminist ideologies. The second half of the semester will be devoted to exploring the media and cultural practices of female youth, examining the expansion of girls' culture beyond consumer-oriented activities, such as magazine reading and music listening, to those involving media production, such as filmmaking and blogging. In addition to problematizing girls' sex and gender identity through intersectional explorations of age and generation, and vice versa, we will pay special attention to how issues of race, class, and sexuality impinge upon the formation of girls' identities, female youth cultures, and the representation of girlhood in popular culture.

FTT 40511: Italian Cinema I  | 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 40705: Digital Devices | James Collins

In this course we’ll explore how smart-phones, ereaders, tablets, and laptops have changed the ways we engage films, television series, books, music, museums, and videos. We’ll focus on how the production of art and entertainment is now shaped by the omnipresence of devices which can function, at any given moment, as personal stereos, movie screens, bookstores, TV sets, cameras, or photo-archives. How does that media adjacency within the box impact the relationship between what used to be distinct media but are now transmediated endlessly, for fun and profit. How has curation – practiced by artists, conglomerates, and amateur fans -- become a supra-medium which subsumes watching, reading, listening, and taking pictures into one of the most widely practiced forms of popular entertainment in the twenty-first century? How do we sort out the complicated interplay between media technology, consumerism, and identity formation in those devices? Featured phenomena: Recommendation mania and the listverse, The Song of Achilles and BookTok, the photos in your smart-phone, Wes Anderson and Accidentally Wes Anderson, Lost Children Archive, Questlove, algorithm culture, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, COVID and the “Make Yourself a Masterpiece” craze, WandaVision, playlisting as a way of life (not just a list of songs), The Carters “Apeshit” video, JR’s La Ferita…