Video Production Sem I

Catalog description

Yearlong seminar in ethnographic documentary video production using state-of-the-art digital equipment for students in the Program in Culture and Media. The first portion of the course is dedicated to instruction, exercises, and reading familiarizing students with fundamentals of video production and their application to a broad conception of ethnographic and documentary storytelling approaches. Assignments undertaken in the fall raise representational, methodological, and ethical issues in approaching and working through an ethnographic documentary project. Students develop a topic and field site for their project early in the fall term, learn to write and pitch their documentary proposals and treatments, begin their shooting, and complete a short, 5 minute video preview/trailer by the end of the semester. This work should demonstrate competence in shooting and editing using digital camera/audio and Adobe Premiere Pro nonlinear editing systems. Students devote the spring semester to intensive work on the project, continuing to shoot and edit, presenting work to the class, and completing their (approximately 20-minute) ethnographic documentaries. Student work is presented and critiqued during class sessions, and attendance and participation in group critiques and lab sessions is mandatory. Students should come into the class with project ideas already well-developed. In addition to class time, there are regular technical lab sessions on the use of equipment. Students who have not completed the work assigned in the first semester are not allowed to register for the second semester. There is no lab fee, but students are expected to provide additional memory cards as needed, and their own external hard drives for backing up their project. (Sponsored by ANTH-GA 1218 )