Summer FVD courses for 2007 (PDF of classes)
Summer Session 1 (May 17 - June 28)
FVD 131S Screenwriting (ALP) Andrea Stolowitz
Section 1: M Tu W Th F 9:30 AM-10:45 AM (Allen 306)
Section 2: M Tu Th 6:00 PM-8:00 PM (Allen 304I)
C/L TheatSt 137S; English102S
By the end of the summer term you will have written the first 60 pages of your feature-length screenplay, as well as a detailed treatment and step- outline of the script. Topics will include the specifics of screenplay structure and plot, character, dialogue, creating dynamic scenes, and writing visually. Class activities include screenplay reading and analysis, movie screenings, generative writing exercises, and in-depth discussions of students' material.
Summer Session 2 (July 2 - August 11)
FVD 102 Introduction to Documentary Film (ALP, SS, STS, CCI) Gabriel Paletz
M Tu Th 12:30 PM-2:35 PM (Allen 226)
C/L: Art History 122, Doc Stud 107, Lit 120E
Introduction to the history, theory, and styles of nonfiction film and video. Transformation in technologies and their influence on form, from actuality films to contemporary digital documentaries. Documentary's marginal status and surprising commercial appeal; the mixing of fiction and nonfiction strategies in cultural construction. Use of documentary as a tool for exploring individual identity, filmmaker/subject relationships, and fomenting political change.
FVD 107 American Film Comedy (ALP) Gabriel Paletz
M Tu Th 6:00 PM-8:05 PM (Allen 103)
CL: English 186C, Lit 120G
His course offers a survey of American film comedy. It examines the traditions of U.S. silent film comedy, one of the most influential in world cinema, through the works of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and other slapstick comedians who came from vaudeville into movies. The class then looks at the Hollywood studio comedies of the sound era, from the Marx Brothers to screwball comedy and the mixed genre films of writer-director Billy Wilder. Beyond the studio era, the class looks at the variety of targets for American film comedy from the 1960s onwards, including politics, sports, and rock’n’roll. The class concludes by examining the movies of TV stars who came into film, comparing their work with the pictures of the earlier vaudeville comedians.
FVD 138S Documentary Film and Video Theory and Practice (ALP) Shambhavi Kaul
M Tu Th 3:30 PM-5:35 PM (Smith WRHS 228)
CL: CulAnth 131S, Eng 101CS, Doc Stud.
Documentary methodologies and the debates that surround these forms of "truth depiction" spark discussions about the relation between reality and representation, further challenging easy distinctions between objectivity and subjectivity as well as fiction and nonfiction. This seminar will include weekly screenings of documentary classics as well as contemporary works. As we read, watch and discuss topics in documentary realism, observational tactics, subjectivity, hybridity and the digital age, we will work towards mastering the fundamental tools of documentary filmmaking. Class assignments and readings will culminate in the production of a short documentary film.
Related Courses that will count toward the FVD Certificate
Summer Session 1 (May 17 - June 28)
CULANTH 104 Anthropology and Film (SS) Ralph A Litzinger
M Tu W Th F 9:30 AM-10:45 AM (Social Sci 119)
C/L: ICS 101C
The study of feature films and documentaries on issues of colonialism, imperialism, war and peace, and cultural interaction. An introduction to critical film theory and film production in non-Western countries.
THEATST 102 American Drama and Film: 1945-1960 (ALP) Charles Del Dotto
M Tu W Th F 12:30 PM-1:45 PM (Allen 306)
C/L: English 162B
This course will be an overview of post-WWII American culture and society, as seen through the plays and movies of the time; in particular, this is a course on “the Fifties.”
To better situate and understand the dynamic changes that occurred in nearly every facet of everyday life in the United States after the Second World War, the course will consist of three units: 1) Domesticity, Family, and Gender; 2) Ethnicity and Race Relations; and 3) The Cold War: From the Bomb to McCarthy. Readings and films will hopefully create in students a sense of how the contemporary American situation, politically, culturally, sociologically, and intellectually, is still very much a product of the post-war years.
See synopsis online for a list of plays and films to be studied.
Summer Session 2 (July 2 - August 11)
CULANTH 104 Anthropology and Film (SS) Ralph A Litzinger
M Tu W Th F 9:30 AM-10:45 AM (Social Sci 111)
C/L: ICS 101C
The study of feature films and documentaries on issues of colonialism, imperialism, war and peace, and cultural interaction. An introduction to critical film theory and film production in non-Western countries.
LIT 120BS Sp Topics in Film: Digital Third Worlds (CCI, W, ALP, CZ) Firat Oruc
M Tu Th 6:00 PM-8:05 PM (Social Sci 120)
C/L: ICS 101C
This course focuses on the visual representations of Third World spaces and subjects in the digital age. We will study digital, computer and video art forms that employ the globalized new media in order to attack the dichotomies of globalization themselves and to challenge the complex dimensions of race, gender, ethnic and class inequalities. Although globalization has rendered territorial divisions of the world increasingly difficult and the cartography of cyberspace has weakened physical boundaries, the digital divide regarding privileges of connectivity, access and virtual modes of production continues to exist. The promises of cyber-technologies, in other words, are haunted by political economic disparities looming over “forsaken” geographies. Even so, the digital revolution has been hailed by Third World artists as a means for emancipating themselves from the constraints of the “heavy industry” of classic film production. Digital media experiments have enabled those artists to transcribe the “actually existing” Third World situations into a critical visual language. See synopsis online for list of works to be studied..