Courses

• COM FT 702: Script To Film
  Exclusive to Graduate Screenwriting students (required in 1st year. An introduction to the relationship between the written script and the image on screen. Through in-depth analysis, we will study screenplays, films and the mind of the screenwriter in order to decipher the process of developing story from character, plot and theme. Students will be required to write expository papers and present their own analysis of a chosen film.
• 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 704: Genre for Screenwriters
  This class will touch upon the basics of genre theory, identify genre conventions using the courses "study" films. The films will be discussed in terms of theme, structure, characters, setting, subject matter, visual motifs or recurring icons, and tone/mood.
• COM FT 705: Comedies and Melodramas for Graduate Students
  This class will view and discuss romantic comedies and domestic melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1930's and 1940's.
• 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 707: Introduction to Video Production
  An introduction to the techniques of producing and directing video projects, including videography, lighting, editing, sound, and special effects. Emphasis is on execution and design of both "live" on tape and postproduced works using both field and studio equipment.
• COM FT 711: Screenwriting I
  Exclusively for screenwriting graduate students, an introduction to principles of drama, screenplay structure characterization, screenplay description and dialogue through lecture and discussion of produced screenplays. Students begin with exercises and then write outlines/treatments in preparation for completing a first act (approximately 30 pages) and full treatment of an original feature screenplay. Student work will be discussed in workshop format.
• 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 714: Asian Cinema for Grad Students
  This class will view and discuss major influential films from India, Japan, People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong from the late 1940's to present.
• 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 723: Amrcan Indepndt
  
• COM FT 724: Screenwrtng III
  
• 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.

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