Courses

• COM FT 593: Introduction to Cinematography
  Based on a fundamental knowledge of technical and creative procedures of film production, this course pays deeper attention to important elements of cinematography such as composition, raw stock, sensitometry, lighting, movement, colors, and space. Emphasis is on a conscious usage of pictorial elements in the picture-building process.
• COM FT 701: Media in Evolution
  A course that examines the business of entertainment media industries. History, structure, business models, regulatory and social issues will be discussed. An assessment of the emergence of new media businesses, and how technologies, that offer many new content distribution options, are changing the definition of traditional media. 4 cr. Fall
• COM FT 703: Media Business Entrepreneurship
  This course will provide students with the practical knowledge and skills needed to heed the call of entrepreneurship. Classes will include guest speakers from various business sectors including venture capital professionals, angel investors, accountants, attorneys, marketing experts who are skilled in launch phases of PR, as well as media entrepreneurs who succeeded against all odds. Students will also participate in the development of a core business idea, from concept through the creation of a sound business plan as a final project/presentation. 4 cr. Fall
• COM FT 706: Acting for Directors and Writers
  For first-year graduates. Develops the director's knowledge and understanding of actors, the "human equipment" of filmmaking, through direct acting experience. Students learn the language and tools of the craft through sensory exercises, improvisation, text analysis, and scene study.
• COM FT 711: Screenwriting I
  Principles of drama and screenplay structure are analyzed. Students prepare characterizations, perform certain scene exercises, and write a screenplay for two short films.
• COM FT 712: Television, Culture, and Society
  Issues of content, representation, regulation, effects, and ethics in television. Specific areas include children's programming, representation of women and ethnic groups, violence, educational, and prosocial aspects. Also covers methods of social inquiry, including students' own practical assignments.
• COM FT 713: Screenwriting II
  Students compose a feature-length film and a set of revisions based upon the film outline created in COM FT 711. Further examples of dramatic structure are analyzed from the library of world cinema.
• COM FT 716: Video Production II
  Emphasizes longer-form television programs and stresses the role of the producer/director. Course includes both documentary and dramatic productions using both field and studio equipment and techniques.
• COM FT 721: International Masterworks
  A selective survey of important films from outside the United States from the earlier twentieth century to the present. Films will be selected to represent important stylistic movements in film history, such as Expressionism and Surrealism, and to represent diverse possibilities for what the medium of the feature theatrical film can accomplish. The course will include work of such directors as Eisenstein, Murnau, Lang, Renoir, Rossellini, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Antonioni, Buñuel, Ray, Godard, Sembène, Akerman, and Kiarostami. The course will concentrate on analysis of individual films and will develop skills for shot-by-shot reading and critical writing.
• COM FT 722: American Masterworks
  Subjects vary with instructor. Directors include: D.W.Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, King Vidor, Frank Borzage, Victor Fleming, Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, John Huston, Elia Kazan, George Cukor, Orson Welles, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, and Woody Allen.
• COM FT 727: Creative Producing I
  An introductory course that takes the student through the various stages of production beginning with a concept and ending with a full-fledged, camera-ready proposal. Students are introduced to issues of finance, scheduling, and organization; they learn what a producer must do to keep budget and concept on track.
• COM FT 728: Creating New Ideas With Existing Content
  Introduces students to the tools and techniques used to produce multi-platform content. Students learn multimedia concepts, elements, and production to extend the brands of properties and to attract new audiences. Training in the use of computer-based hardware and software for multimedia creation. 4 cr. Fall/spring
• COM FT 729: Script Analysis
  TK
• COM FT 730: Screen Adaptation I
  More than half of Oscar nominated films are literary adaptations. This course analyses the current commercial and artistic reasons behind the surge in adaptations, touches upon adaptation theory, and studies novels and short stories that have been adapted for film. Student's present papers on film adaptations and adapt a short story.
• COM FT 731: Screen Writing IV
  In this fourth of the MFA screenwriting students' screenwriting workshop courses, students write a feature screenplay, write coverage on each other's work, and study films that shed light on their projects.
• COM FT 808: Line Producing
  Required of all Film Production graduate students, this course covers all aspects of what is sometimes called "physical production--" the logistics of making a media project. Topics covered include contracts, rights, negotiation strategies, working with and without unions, crew responsibilities, scheduling and budgeting. Students apply the lessons covered to actual projects that they take through the first phases of pre-production.
• COM FT 825: Thesis Project
  Creation of an original work in any one of four areas: producing; scriptwriting; directing/production; or a research paper. One-on-one advisor supervision throughout the entire process.
• COM FT 849: Film Production I
  A practical, hands-on introduction to film production techniques. Lectures and demonstrations cover such topics as cinematography, studio and location lighting, sound recording, transferring, bench and flatbed editing, and sound mixing. Workshops and assignments coincide with lectures to give students practical experience and extensive hands-on training. Each student produces a short 16 mm film, which must be brought to the interlock stage (edited picture and separate mixed magnetic sound track) by the end of the semester.
• COM FT 850: Film Production II
  Students master the equipment and techniques of synchronous sound filming. Using a range of professional sync cameras and Nagra tape recorders, students complete several shooting and editing assignments and, working in groups of three, write and produce a short dramatic film. Emphasis is placed on shooting coverage of scenes to allow for dramatic editing possibilities.
• COM FT 851: Thesis Preparation
  This course, required of second semester film production graduate students, explores the aesthetic and technical parameters of the short film format with the goal of celebrating the short form as a genre unto itself. Students also develop and write their thesis scripts in preparation for thesis production the following year.

Back to full list of College of Communication