Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
View courses in
-
COM FT 724: Screenwriting III
Advanced screenwriting for 2nd year Graduate Screenwriting Students. Based upon lectured material, the feedback received during workshops, and one-on- one consults with the professor, students will write and revise a full feature-length screenplay. Students will be expected to have a firm grasp on narrative structure, character development, and cinematic storytelling. The material covered in the first year of the graduate screenwriting program will be applied to this intense workshop atmosphere. -
COM FT 727: Creative 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 728: Creating New Ideas
This course provides students with the practical entrepreneurial tools and strategies needed to test and refine a new venture concept or existing product innovation that will eventually serve as their Thesis Project for the Media Ventures program. Students will take this idea from concept to working model/wireframe and will present to investors and industry executives at the end of the Media Ventures Program. -
COM FT 729: Script Analysis
A detailed and exhaustive analysis of selected screenplays through which we will focus on the cultivation of critical skills leading to a sharpened perception, and a heightened awareness of how a screenplay can be vastly improved. Utilizing these analytical skills, students will provide in-depth analysis for participating production companies who are in need of pre- production revisions. Each student will examine the chosen scripts, write coverage, write a more in-depth report for some of the production companies and meet with representatives from each project. Using the model of our workshops, the class will conduct story meetings with writers, directors and producers involved in each project. Students will be expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner through both their written reports and their verbal consultations. In addition, students will look at how source material, such as short films, stage plays and/or books can be adapted for the screen. Each student will then design a pitch based upon chosen source material and do pitch presentations. -
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. Students present papers on film adaptations and begin the adaptation of a short story. -
COM FT 731: Screenwriting IV
Restricted to Graduate Screenwriting students. Through a rigorous writing schedule, the students complete a feature-length screenplay. A solid first draft of a new feature-length screenplay and two sets of revision. -
COM FT 808: Line Producing
CMP students only. This course will focus on the steps and procedures involved in the physical production of a project from development to wrap. We will review general production management tools and techniques; staffing the production; working with directors, cast and crew; choosing and managing locations; and dealing with the unexpected. We will use software to breakdown a script, schedule and budget the project and create a production binder. We will review contracts, union basic agreements, ethics, safety and risk management. -
COM FT 810: Web Promotion and Development
The course introduces students to entrepreneurial concepts and provides the practical tools needed to take a creative work to market. Students will learn about online funding sources, Web distribution platforms, social media marketing, legal issues relating to protecting creative work and the business side of the industry. -
COM FT 814: Production Lab 1
CMP students only. Production Lab 1 is a workshop-driven section of the CMP program that addresses the artistic and technical challenges of working in the modern filmmaking landscape. Students will work on developing 6 non- dialogue visual short films. In additional, they will be given weekly tasks and real on-set problems to solve as a team. These tasks will add up to a list of advanced technical skill sets that they will be able to employ on their short films. Students will also be able to tap into the Advanced Cinematography class as a crew resource. -
COM FT 815: Production Lab 2
CMP students only. Students will start to workshop the potential technical problems that they will face in their thesis projects. Each week, students will bring their ideas and issues of their thesis projects to the table and the class will work together to solve them. The Cinematographers will be given the additional tasks of doing the in-depth technical tests to achieve the look and quality of the thesis film. -
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 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. -
COM FT 852: Thesis Project
Devoted to completion of thesis projects in film production and film studies. -
COM FT 855: Telecommunication Seminars
Seminars by individual faculty members on topics of their choice, normally ones in which they are engaged in research or special study. Not more than two such seminars are offered in any one semester. Subjects and instructors announced before registration. -
COM FT 856: Telecommunication Seminars
Seminars by individual faculty members on topics of their choice, normally ones in which they are engaged in research or special study. Not more than two such seminars are offered in any one semester. Subjects and instructors announced before registration. -
COM FT 951: Directed Studies
Individual projects: opportunity for advanced graduate students who have completed a major portion of their degree requirements to engage in in-depth tutorial study with specific faculty in an area not normally covered by regular curriculum offerings. -
COM FT 952: Directed Studies
Individual projects: opportunity for advanced graduate students who have completed a major portion of their degree requirements to engage in in-depth tutorial study with specific faculty in an area not normally covered by regular curriculum offerings. -
COM FT 953: Internship 1
This course description is currently under construction. -
COM FT 954: Internship 2
This course description is currently under construction. -
COM JO 150: History and Principles of Journalism
This course surveys the evolution of the American news media. Students examine press freedom, censorship, changing definitions of news and shifting business models underlying journalism. Based on that history, students examine the enduring values and principles of journalism in modern society. (Formerly JO357, cannot be taken for credit if JO357 has been taken.) Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.