This course gives students a comprehensive understanding on how to properly use and navigate the developments in web technology to create videos for online distribution. Through lectures, screenings, assigned readings and practical work, students will learn web video production techniques, creating proper aesthetics, editing for the web, compression and technical considerations for uploading, and social media and online marketing. Students will take the concepts discussed in class and apply them to create their online video projects.
In this project-based introductory course, students begin to think about and practice effective communication of their creative ideas. Topics covered include the ‘art of pitching’ and the design of an effective creative project business plan. Coursework is supplemented by expert industry professionals.
This introductory course surveys new directions and emerging trends in digital marketing, with a focus on entertainment and storytelling and its impact on the entertainment business. Digital technology is profoundly changing the way businesses and not-for-profits operate. This course will provide key skills for learners looking to better understand the field of digital marketing, develop meaningful content, conduct analytics to evaluate campaigns, and learn how to make the most of organic and paid tactics to best reach their target audience.
This course gives the beginning filmmaker an intensive, foundational overview of the process of directing a film or media project from its initial concept to the expression of a unified, compelling vision. Through lectures, screenings, and practical exercises, students will develop an understanding of the key responsibilities of the director, with an emphasis on strategies for working with actors, effective script analysis, and visual design. In the process, students will develop an original or adapted scene to deepen their knowledge of the craft of directing and their own directorial skills.
Entertainment is big business and multifaceted. From film production to the variety of television programming—series, reality, game shows—to videogames, web design, music producing, franchising and packaging, each segment of the industry requires both a general understanding of “entertainment” and specific dimensions of what various aspects entail. This course will provide a macro and micro view of the industry, from the global to the local, to enable students to understand the interconnectedness and possibilities of the field.
In an increasingly interconnected global marketplace, understanding the transnational nature of the construction and reception of film and media is essential. Through surveying a selection of transnational media, this introductory course provides frameworks for thinking about the transnational nature of film, media and culture.
This course gives the creative artist/beginning filmmaker a fundamental understanding of the importance of diversity of representation in film and other media. Through readings and screenings, students explore ways in which on-screen images may dialogue with larger issues of social equity and justice, including representations of gender, ability/ableism, class, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity. Students will develop a broad historical understanding of representations of identity and will be invited to think about ways in which onscreen representation may dialogue with real-life equity.
This introductory course surveys new directions and emerging trends in entertainment and storytelling. In addition to considering augmented reality, virtual reality and Transmedia storytelling, and the building of storyworlds, students will also be guided through the design of a simple, fully functional, prototype interactive game. (No previous experience or programming is required.)