Courses

• COM EM 888: Doctoral Collaboratory Project
  This year long course develops a higher level of sophistication for students in the emerging media studies field in terms of the theories,methods and conventions of applied research in communication and the social sciences.
• COM EM 889: Advanced Issues in Emerging Media Content Production
  The object of this course is to provide students with substantial theoretical training understand and interpret the emerging media creation and co-creation activities. We will explore and discuss a range of contemporary theories and concepts, which cut across economical, sociological, cultural and psychological dimensions of analysis. Special attention will be paid to how collaboration takes part in content creation practices. Students are also encouraged to take a step forward developing their own concepts, models and theories to explain the emerging communication phenomena. The enduring theme of this course is to examine how new communication technologies affect the ways people create media content, and how that process changes our lives at the individual, institutional, and societal level.
• COM EM 901: Ind Study
  
• COM EM 902: Directed Study Emerging Media
  Directed Study for Emerging Study PhD's.
• COM EM 993: Thesis Research
  Thesis research for PhD program
• COM FT 101: History of Global Cinema I: Origins through 1950's
  This course is the first of a two-part sequence that aims to give students an introductory overview of the history of global cinema. The present course covers the period from the beginning of cinema through the 1950's. This course introduces students to various aspects of cinema that have to be considered un the rubric "film history:" modes of production, national and transnational frameworks, film aesthetics, film art and authorship, and various historical and socio-cultural factors that have influenced the production, circulation, and reception of films around the globe.
• COM FT 102: History of Global Cinema II: 1960's to the present
  This course is the second of a two part sequence that aims to give students an introductory overview of the history of global cinema. The present course covers the period from the 1960s to the present. The course introduces students to various aspects of cinema that have to be considered under the rubric "film history:' modes of production, national and transnational frameworks, film aesthetics, film art and authorship, and various historical and socio-cultural factors that have influenced the production, circulation and reception of films around the globe.
• COM FT 201: Screen Language: The Aesthetics, Grammar and Rhetoric of the Moving Image
  This course is designed to help students communicate through audio, still images and moving pictures. We will study how films and photographs of various kinds communicate ideas, tell stories, and convey artistic expression. Students will then be given many opportunities to demonstrate their own grasp of fundaments of communication and storytelling through images, sounds and montage. The aim of this course is not simply to reinforce existing rules but rather to test the validity of those norms. Accordingly, students will be asked both to employ and to violate conventions.
• COM FT 250: Understanding Film
  Understanding Film will introduce students to key aesthetic aspects of film. Students will explore a range of styles and genres in film, including narrative and non-fiction forms, and dominant and alternative styles. Students will also study a variety of historical examples of theses different styles that illustrate the expressive possibilities of image and sound. Finally, students will learn to analyze and write about these formal elements, viewing both complete films and individual sequences.
• COM FT 303: Understanding Television
  Television as an industry, a technology, and a cultural object is currently experiencing a period of accelerated change. Despite the accelerated nature of this change and its amplification through social media discussions, understanding television's history will help us to understand television's present. This is a history course with American television as its subject. By exploring the history of television, we also must study the history of radio as television's precursor medium and television through the digital transition. Thus, the course covers the late 19th century through to the present. While the focus is on American television and its related media, the forms these media take occur in the context of other nations, particularly Great Britain, creating their own broadcasting structures. The nature of this particular history is heavily reliant on cultural, social, industrial, and political histories, so those will be the foci through which we will study the history of each "new" media--radio and television were once new media, too--as it emerged, stabilized, interacted with other media, was regulated and deregulated, and was shaped by and shaped the culture around it. Moreover, in light of current television practices, we will be exploring television's national mass-medium foundations and how the origins of broadcasting created an environment that eventually led to today's fragmented media environment.
• COM FT 304: Film Industry
  A survey of current business trends in the motion picture industry. Focuses on script development; studio structure; agents, attorneys, and contracts; independent filmmaking; and distribution.
• COM FT 310: Storytelling for Film & Television
  Required of all undergraduate students in Film & Television. An introduction to the art and craft of storytelling through the moving image. Particular emphasis will be given to writing short scripts. Topics covered include character development and narrative structure as it applies to shorts, features and episodic television.
• COM FT 325: Producing I
  This course takes students through the process of creating non-fiction TV programming. Think talk shows, reality programs, and documentaries. How to create a concept, write a proposal, cast a program, and develop a marketing reason to do the program. It's all part and parcel of being a creative producer.
• COM FT 353: Production I
  An intensive course in all the fundamental aspects of motion picture production. Students learn to use cameras, sound recording equipment and editing software and then apply these skills to several short productions. The course emphasizes the language of visual storytelling and the creative interplay of sound and image.
• COM FT 401: Romantic Comedies and Melodramas
  This class will view and discuss romantic comedies and domestic melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1930's and 1940's. these films were some of the most popular and culturally significant of their time, involving many of the era's best screenwriters and directors and most prominent stars. The films set standards for dialogue writing, rich characterization, film performance and story structure.
• COM FT 402: Production II
  Intermediate motion picture production with an emphasis on narrative storytelling, high definition cinematography, sync-sound location recording, and multi-track editing. Students develop, produce, direct, shoot, record and edit medium-length productions that are of film festival quality, and which can be incorporated into highlight and demo reels.
• COM FT 404: Asian Cinema
  Surveys important and influential films from India, Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere in East Asia from the 1950s to the present, taking in the work of such directors as Satyajit Ray, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Zhang Yimou, Tsai Ming-liang, and Wong Kar-wai. The course is designed to make students familiar with foundational styles of realism and fantasy in Asian film and with ways Asian films address changes and evolution in Asian culture and society. The course should help students understand certain traditions in Asian film, and prepare them to engage critically with the ever burgeoning, new, and compelling filmmaking that comes from this part of the world.
• COM FT 411: Screenwriting II
  Writing the feature-length narrative film; creation of characters, narrative outline; writing the first draft of an original screenplay.
• COM FT 412: Screenwriting III
  Writing an original (second) feature-length screenplay (a first draft and set of revisions required). Further study of dramatic structure: tone and rhythm.
• COM FT 456: Acting for Directors and Writers
  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.

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