Objectives:

  • Students will complete an extensive body of amateur work as writer/directors.
  • In addition to training as writer/directors, students will become proficient in other production and postproduction skills (camera, lighting, sound, editing) and have the ability to enter careers in the entertainment industry, broadcasting, journalism, art, advertising, and arts management.
  • Students will be able to apply theoretical, critical, and historical concepts when making style choices in their own projects and in referencing or analyzing the medium of cinema.
  • Students will learn the rudiments of narrative filmmaking in the short form and be able to apply these skills to long-form work.
  • Students will learn the fundamentals of documentary filmmaking and forms—direct cinema, cinéma vérité, re-enactment, the documentary essay, the place film, diary forms—and the documentary of systems and abstract processes—finance, globalization, and the environment. Young people have a healthy sense of outrage; they are inspired by the greater good. Documentary trains them to envision the possible, to make films that matter.
  • Students will engage in the use and analysis of emerging technologies.
  • Students will be able to research, gather, and synthesize information.
  • Students will demonstrate the ability to depart from traditional or comfortable ways of thinking, to explore, to wander, to get lost, to journey down unfamiliar channels and emerge with renewed perceptions in order to innovate and add to cinematic practice.