So I wanted to talk about my undergrad studies for a moment.
I'm an undergrad, in my sophmore year, at the University of Iowa. I'm a Cinema major. I'm on the production side of the major more so than the analysis/theory side. I want to focus on writing and directing.
I'm going to list off the courses I've taken so far. I'll list the course name, brief description, and what I did for the course in terms of assignments.
MODES OF FILM & VIDEO PRODCUTION :
This course is the level one prodcution course every undergad in Cinema MUST take. You are exposed to the general filmmaking process (writing, filming, editing). The course had a written mid-term and final.
For this course I had four main projects: one shot film, a soundscape, a class project, a short screenplay, and a final video project.
For the one shot you had to simply tell a story in one minute without any editing. It also had to be non-synch. The soundscape needed the student to create an audio story. The class project was called Bran & Park. We took a two-page, only dialogue, screenplay and, as a class, had to visually create a story for it. This was a studio shoot. The short screenplay was just as it sounds. The final was a video project. We shot on Canon MiniDV camcorders. The audio had to be non-synch. You were given the choice to do whatever you wanted for a story concept. We edited on Final Cut Pro.
INTRO TO FILM ANALYSIS :
Through film screenings and scholarly readings we learned about how to analyze films. That simple.
The course was all about reading and viewing. The assignments we had were two, five page, papers and a written mid-term and final.
The films we watched were...
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941, USA)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Fassbinder, 1979, Germany)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001, USA)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001, USA)
Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951, USA)
Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929, Soviet Union)
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967, France)
Who Killed Vincent Chin? (Christine Choy and Renee Tajima, 1987, USA)
Ballet Mecanique (Fernand Leger, 1924, France);
Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel, 1929, France)
The Seahorse (Jean Painleve, 1934, France);
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943, USA);
The Act of Seeing With One's Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971, USA);
Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998, Austria);
Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassy, 1999, Austria)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorcese, 1976, USA)
Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975, USA)
Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932, USA)
Stranger than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984, USA)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004, USA)
And that's it for that!
16MM FILM PRODUCTION :
An introduction to 16mm Film. You are introduced to the Bolex H16 Rex-5 and ArriS. The course requires you to keep an on-going journal; which you can use to write down anything. There are a few quizes you take and a written final.
You have a few film projects as well. You have a test shoot -- you and a couple others take some film stock and shoot whatever you want; it serves as your introduction to the camera and lightmeter. You have a handmade project -- using found footage that you manipulate or using clear leader to create an animation, you create a film. There is a film shoot with the ArriS as an in-camera edit -- the same thing as the test shoot only with the ArriS and you use color stock. Then you have a film final. You shoot whatever you want. You can add sound if you want. You shoot on whatever kind of stock you want. Editing is done on old school Moviolas and hand splicers.
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And that's it. That's as far as I've gotten in my studies of Cinema. More to come though!
