Course Listings

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This course introduces the core components of media: idea, image, sound, and sequence, while teaching the technical fundamentals involved in shooting and editing video.

Introduction to the study of the moving image. Basic elements of style across media including film, television, and interactive media. Focus on close analysis of texts to find significance. Carries humanities credit.

Unlike RTVF 220, which teaches textual analysis in media studies, this course focuses on contexts of production and reception, situating media texts within larger social, economic, and political systems and structures which shape their functions, meanings, and values. Readings comprise key critical essays in film and television studies with an emphasis on industries, audiences, and cultural studies. Carries humanities credit.

This introduction to screenwriting and television writing addresses the development and revising of scripts. Topics include idea generation and visual storytelling; format and genre; dialogue, subtext, and exposition; characterization and relationships; turning points, twists, surprises, and suspense; conflict, obstacles, and stakes. The course also explores what it's like to be a writer in Los Angeles: networking, script submissions, pitching, agency representation, script sales, work-for-hire, staff writing, contracts, and resources for writers.

This course cover the skills necessary to take a film project from outline to script. Students take a completed outline and are responsible for completing the first fifty pages of a screenplay. Storytelling models beyond orthodox three-act structure are studied, giving students a more complex understanding of the craft of screenwriting. Class time is divided into workshops, lectures, discussions, and screenings of films. Prerequisite: RTVF 260 or completion of a film outline, or permission of instructor.

Students who are fans of television shows like The Office, 30 Rock, and Seinfeld, or animated series like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park, can, in this course, learn to write episodes for programs like these. In this course, students learn everything needed to know to write a proper (and hilarious) spec script -- pitching, breaking stories, formatting, outlining, writing drafts, and fine-tuning (comedy is all about the fine-tuning) -- and may even consider writing a spec script that actually can be used as a calling card in Hollywood. Though the competition there is fierce, in this course students receive honest and constructive feedback from an instructor who knows the difference between a fantastic script and a so-darn-fantastic-maybe-even-get-you-a-meeting-with-a-producer script. Prerequisite: RTVF 260. Students who have not taken RTVF 260 may contact the instructor for consent to enroll.

This studio course will cover the principles of graphic design as they apply to the interactive world of the web. Sensitivity to the visual elements of online interfaces will be developed through analysis of existing site designs. Software such as Dreamweaver, Flash, and Photoshop will be introduced through a series of exercises. Students will eventually conceive and create their own web-based projects. Students should be familiar with Macintosh or Windows operating systems. Carries science credit.

As long as filmmakers have been adapting literary works for the screen, there have been some texts thought unfilmable because of content, structure, style, or scope. Yet there are those who love a challenge and have attempted those screen adaptations, contrary to conventional thought and practice. The resulting films are often experimental, creatively pushing the boundaries of cinema. When faced with any literary work, the filmmaker strives for a visual and auditory interpretation which will not only do justice to the spirit of the written word, but which will effectively transfer to the screen. For some works of literature, finding an effective cinematic interpretation can be problematic, and it is that process upon which we will focus. In this course we will read and discuss such texts and view the films created by these brave filmmakers. Texts may include works by Sterne, Kafka, Nabokov, and Woolf. The films we view will also vary from early 20th-century works to recent adaptations. This course is for adventurous readers and viewers. Carries humanities credit.