Fall 2023

Core Film Courses

FTT 20101 / 21101 / 22101: Basics of Film and Television Lecture, Lab, & Tutorial | Matthew Payne

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 | Ted Barron

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.

FTT 30456 / 31456 – Critical Approaches to Screen Cultures & Lab | Jim 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 Lecture, Lab, & Tutorial | Matthew Payne

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 to Theatre | Anne García-Romero

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 they have to make, through the observation and imagination of realities. They 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 30050 Film Curation | Ricky Herbst

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.

Application required.

FTT 30103 Europe Through Film | Jim Collins

This course is tied to the Fall Nanovic Institute Film Series. In this course we’ll focus on four recent films that envision new European realities from very different perspectives. We’ll begin with an introductory lecture in which I'll set up the critical scaffolding for the films in the series by detailing how we can talk about the "European art film" as something which has defined itself as an alternative to Hollywood filmmaking in terms of stylistic practice, political content, business models, and cultural prestige. The rest of the course will consist of the four film screenings, followed by a discussion after each film. The films will be introduced by a Nanovic Fellow who specializes in that national culture. After the screenings, that professor and I will serve as co-discussion leaders. At the end of the course, you will be asked to write a short essay (5 pages) in which you compare two of the films according to one of the major issues discussed throughout the course. 1 credit.

FTT 30118 Storied Landscapes IRL to CHI | 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 30140 The Art of Production Design | John Corba

The Art of Production Design explores the area of production design and art direction as narrative art forms in cinema and other media. The term “Production Design” and its affiliated disciplines are constantly evolving, but essentially are responsible for creating the atmospheres, settings, and characters which establish a film’s look or “feel.” It can also help with narrative, move the plot, comment on the action, or add symbolic content. Art directors, scenic designers and painters, set decorators, property masters, special effects, costume designers, and hair/make-up personnel are just a few of the many craftspeople that work under the title, “Production Design”. In this course we will examine these areas and the evolution of mise-en-scene. We will explore the many choices with regard to production design through multiple media, (film, tv, theatre, branded content, music video, commercials, & print). Through lectures, screenings, visual presentations, and guest speakers; students will get an in-depth perspective of the overall involvement production design plays in storytelling. Students will also explore their own creative choices through exercises and assigned projects. This may include but is not limited to: architectural, decorative, costume, and cultural research, location scouting, set dressing, lighting design, color theory, graphic design, and photography. In this course students will be asked to extend their knowledge and experience of the arts while developing their critical and reflective abilities. Students will interpret and analyze particular creative works, investigate and explore the relations of form and meaning, and through critical and creative activity, come to better understand the intended audience for a given work of art and how its meaning and significance changes over time.

FTT 30143 Broadcasting the News | Coleen 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 | 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 30162 Latinx Representation in Hollywood | Jason Ruiz*

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 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 | Terrance Brown

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 30408 Video Essays | Matthew Payne

This upper-division course introduces students to "essayistic" approaches to media analysis and production. As the name signals, this class explores the sometimes experimental and sometimes playful "video essay" mode of expression with the goal of understanding how media makers and artists utilize sounds and images for fictional and non-fictional ends. By emphasizing the multiple points of connection that exist between media theory and praxis, this course aims to help students understand how to craft compelling arguments and evocative, impressionistic sequences using this unique form of storytelling.

FTT 30410 Intro to Film & TV Production | 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.

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 30459 Gender and Rock Culture | Mary Kearney*

An introduction to the study of gender and rock culture, this course provides students with a broad, foundational understanding of the concepts, theories, and methodologies used in critical analyses of rock's various gendered constructions. Rather than taking a musicological perspective, this course uses a socio-cultural approach to examine a myriad of gendered sites within rock culture, including performance, music video, and rock journalism. Therefore, music and song lyrics will not be our only or primary objects of study; our exploration of rock's gendered culture will also include studies of the various roles, practices, technologies, and institutions associated with the production and a synthetic, interdisciplinary approach is employed which draws on theories and methodologies formulated in such fields as popular music criticism, musicology, cultural studies, sociology, ethnography, literary analysis, performance studies, and critical media studies. In turn, the course is informed by feminist scholarship and theories of gender.

FTT 30520 Drama/Poetry in Ukraine at War | Peter Holland and 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 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 30635 Drunk on Film | Ted Mandell & Anre Venter

Long Title: Drunk on Film: The Psychology of Storytelling with Alcohol and Its Effects on Alcohol Consumption. 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 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 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 30804 Draping and Flat Patternmaking | Lynn Holbrook

Students will learn how to develop sewing patterns for theatre costumes through the two standard methods used in the profession: draping and flat patternmaking. Students will learn the basics of creating various patterns needed to construct contemporary and period costumes for stage and film.

FTT 30809 Story Structure | Anne García-Romero

Story Structure is designed to engage students in exploring a variety of approaches to playwriting and screenwriting structure. The course will delve into structural analysis utilizing models from contemporary world theatre and film with the aim to present a variety of paths toward creating new, vibrant plays and screenplays. Students will write one-act plays and short screenplays throughout this course, which culminates in a public reading of their work. This course is ideal for any student interested in writing for theatre and film.

FTT 31001 Acting: Character | Siiri Scott

The second course in the acting progression, this course expands on basic methodology and incorporates physical techniques for building a character. Students explore psychological gestures, Laban effort shapes, and improvisation as they develop a personal approach to creating a role.

FTT 40012 Seriality and Multiversality | Jim Collins

This course will trace the evolution of "expanded textuality." We'll begin by investigating how serialized narrative emerged in the nineteenth century, focusing on how new delivery systems reached reading publics, and how new forms of storytelling emerged in the process. Once we've established that critical framework, we'll look closely at two interconnected phenomena – quality television seriality and the conglomerate-driven multiversality which generates adaptations, re-boots, re-makes, sequels, prequels, fan fictions, adaptations, etc. Featured texts will likely include: Watchmen (both the graphic novel and the HBO series); The Many Saints of Newark and the ongoing Sopranos renaissance; No Time To Die and the history of Bond; Alcott, Armstrong, and Gerwig's Little Women; the Marvel Cinematic Universe (WandaVision, Black Widow, the new Hawkeye Disney + series, and maybe even Eternals), Jenkins' The Underground Railroad ... to be continued... Prerequisite: FTT 30455 or 30456

FTT 40024 MT Lab: Analyze Create Musical | Matt Hawkins

This class is designed to support the innovation of new work, specifically musicals. The intention of this course is to 1) analyze existing musicals, such as Oklahoma!, Gypsy, Fiddler On The Roof, Wicked, and study their structures and overall dramatic narratives while 2) beginning early stages of writing your own musical. This will involve partnering together new student composers, lyricists, book writers, dramaturgs, designers, etc. At the end of the semester there will be a pitch of the new musicals, generated from the different student groups in class, to the Creative Producer of the New Works Lab with the possibility of one of those musicals to be produced in the future. Contact instructor (Matt Hawkins) for approval and make your case why you should be granted permission to enroll in the class. Book Required: The Secret Life of the American Musical by Jack Viertel

FTT 40052 East Asian Cinema | 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 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 toward 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.

Students must complete and submit an application to receive permission to add this class.

FTT 40126 Home/Homelessness in U.S. Cinema | Pam Wojcik

If, as John David Rhodes argues, “the detached single family home is one of the most powerful metonymic signifiers of American cultural life – of the dreams of privacy, enclosure, freedom, autonomy, independence, stability, and prosperity that animate national life in the United States,” that is not to say that then home in American cinema is by no means a simple or stable construct, but is, if anything, represented most often as troubled, precarious, invaded, porous, unstable, or out of reach. This class considers meanings of home in American cinema by looking at films that confront the problem of how to live in a home, offer alternate structures, and show the fantasy of home to be out of reach. The class will analyze films about unhoused figures during the Depression, housing shortages during World War II, the rise of modern homelessness in the 1980s, and contemporary precarity. We will consider fantasies of home related to family, class status, age, and race. We will consider the roles of banks, landlords, gentrification, and other institutions and structural causes of home insecurity and homelessness. Students will read various theories and histories of housing and homelessness to frame understanding of films. Students will write weekly one-page reflections, an 8-10 page paper, and a 15 minute conference presentation.

FTT 40306 Dictatorship Resistance Cinema | Olivier Morel

This is a course on cinema, sovereignty and the resistance to oppression, especially in its visual forms (cinema, media, digital devices...). Dictatorships and other authoritarian regimes need images. They depend to a great degree on stories, legends, slogans and choreographies, on music and spectacles, on what I propose to call "sovereign performances" that perform sovereignty. Dictators stage their own actions and persona, and their public appearances are always carefully organized in order to dominate the audiovisual field. In this context, it is not incidental that the age of cinema is also that of societal control, of the standardization and industrialization of masses, of the most criminal, dictatorial regimes on record that also lead to the industrial violence of repressive strategies. What is the relationship between cinema and power? How do cinematic techniques play a role in resisting, defying and destroying authoritarianism? This class will, in most parts, consist of seminar discussions (including Canvas discussions and oral presentations) (60%), and lectures (40%).

FTT 40335 Anthropocene in Iberian Film | Pedro Aguilera-Mellado*

This course offers an introduction to some of the recent thinking and cultural phenomena on the Anthropocene. In order to do that, we will pay particular attention to contemporary Iberian Cinema, Cultural Critique, and Critical Theory. Although we will focus on contemporary Spain in particular, we will ultimately attempt to come to terms with our current geological and civilizational epoch as mainly humanly driven. For that purpose, under examination and question will be primitive accumulation and Capitalism, humanism and posthumanism, rural depopulation, consumerism, energy use, industrial relocation, technicity (social networks, smartphones, big data, Google, etc.); droughts, wildfires, human and planetary finitude, etc. We will ultimately seek to bear witness to the Anthropocene and its consequences through cinema, culture and thought, if such a thing is possible. Taught in English and Spanish.

FTT 40358 Screening the Stage | Tarryn Chun

This course will examine connections between screen media and live performance from the mid-20th century to the present. It will be structured around three key ideas: adaptation, remediation, and intermediality. First, students will look at case studies of plays reworked for film and theories of adaptation. Next, we will examine films about the theatre, in order to understand how newer forms of media "remediate" older art forms and how that affects the relationship between the two. Finally, the course will conclude by looking at instances of intermediality wherein theatre artists incorporate projections, live video feed, and other forms of screen media onstage during their performances or use virtual platforms to perform. What different relationships are engendered by these various combinations of screen and stage? How do artists mobilize media in performance to achieve disparate aesthetic, political, social, and economic goals? And how do films and performances from different countries reflect culturally specific understandings of the relationship among technology, media, and art? This course will emphasize transnational and transmedia connections, while also introducing students to works of theatre and film from around the world. All course materials will be in English (or translated/subtitled in English) and no background knowledge necessary; FTT students may benefit from having completed their concentration core requirements before taking this course.

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 | William 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 that honestly portrays its subject(s), while at the same time, challenges its audience.

FTT 40469 Cold War Media Culture | Michael Kackman

From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Red Dawn, this course explores the popular media of the Cold War. The course explores the interconnections between film and television, popular music, foreign and domestic policy, and U.S. social movements. Topics include anti-communism, the Red Scare, invasion films, sub-urbanization and domestic "containment culture," anxieties about the nuclear bomb, Beats and the counter-culture, the civil rights and women's movements, and youth culture. The course centers on the ways in which the Cold War was experienced culturally, with particular attention to its impact on everyday cultural practices and identities.

FTT 40512 Italian Cinema II | Charles Leavitt*

This course begins in the 1960s, when Italy stood at the center of the film world, and traces the history of Italian cinema to the present day. We will focus on the heyday of Italian auteurs – Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini – examining how each brought a singular vision to the collective medium of cinema. Working against the hegemony of Hollywood, Italian filmmakers in the twentieth century created new forms of representation that inspired audiences worldwide. They continue to do so in the new millennium, building on the innovations of illustrious predecessors like Bertolucci and Pontecorvo, Wertmüller and Cavani to reveal new realities to moviegoers across the globe. We will analyze how questions of class, faith, gender, identity, and ideology intersect on screen as Italian directors seek both to expose and to recreate the illusions by which we live. With a filmography featuring both masterpieces of world cinema and cult classics, this course will investigate how pioneering Italian directors reshaped every genre of film, including action and adventure, comedy, crime, documentary, melodrama, mystery, thriller, horror, and more. The course is taught in English and all films will have English subtitles.

FTT 40600 Shakespeare on the Big Screen | Peter Holland

This course explores the phenomenon of Shakespeare in the cinema/movie theatre, examining ‘Shakespeare and film' by concentrating on the meanings provoked by the "and" that joins the terms. We shall be looking at examples of films of Shakespeare plays both early and recent, both in English and in other languages, and both ones that stick close to conventional concepts of how to film Shakespeare and adaptations at varying degrees of distance from his language, time, plot, reaching a limit in versions that erase Shakespeare from the film. We will also be looking at the recent phenomenon of "Live from" broadcasts of live theatre to movie audiences. The transposition of different forms of Shakespearean texts (printed, theatrical, filmic) and the confrontation with the specificities of film production have produced and continue to produce a phenomenon whose cultural meanings will be the subject of our investigations. There will be screenings of the films to be studied in the Browning Cinema.

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. Offered fall only.