Attendance and Participation are key dimensions of this class. Although this is an intro class, we dive deep in our analyses and creative work, both in class conversation and online. I know speaking in class is not equally comfortable for all, and I do take this into consideration, but I encourage you to do your best to make yourself feel comfortable participating in our class conversations in person, online, or both. I hope you’ll feel comfortable wrangling with ideas, going out on a limb offering interpretations, and exploring new technologies and forms of critical and creative expression. Attendance at screenings is also important; through the shared experience, our weekly in-class screenings contributes to the collective experience of media analysis that is at the heart of this class.
Every week, we’ll have an asynchronous discussion on Teams or Flip where you will respond to and draw connections between the readings and screenings, and respond to one another. You can choose to respond via video on Flip or via text in Teams. Either are fine and equivalent. I will post a few prompts to get you started, but you’re welcome to take the conversation in other directions. Once you have made your initial response, respond to at least one fellow classmate’s comment. Any extra responses beyond those first two count as extra credit! Feel free to embed images, video, links, etc. No need to be overly formal in these conversations. Have fun with it!
For one class session, you’ll be one of 2-3 students who will prepare in advance for the thursday class discussion. Your responsibilities are as follows: Do the readings carefykky in advance and prepare 2-3 questions for our conversation in class that connect readings to screening. I will alsi share the screening with you early if you’re able to give it a first watch. Pay special attention during the screening, and please come with specific clips from the screening in mind (with time stamps) that you want us to discuss & questions that you would pose in relation to those examples. If you like, you can also bring in some clips of media not from our screenings that you feel connect to the week’s topic or offers an interesting comparison to the screening.
Before 10am on the day of your discussion leading, email me with the questions, time stamps, and links to media that you have in mind.
How much can a single image say? This is your chance to find out. Choose a single image — a still — from a piece of media (it could be a screening we’ve done, or another piece of media you’d like to analyze…be it film, TV, YouTube, TikTok…) or take a photo yourself using whatever camera you have access to, taking into careful consideration the mise en scene. Analyze your chosen image (in a 500 word statement) by deploying the terminology for visual film analysis offered in our various class readings. Submit the assignment (image and photo) via Teams (in Assignments), and then share your image and analysis in the Teams discussion channel for that purpose. Respond to one fellow classmate’s analysis, noting what you see in their chosen image or if their analysis helped you to see the image in a new way.
For this assignment, we will divide into groups of four–that’s your creative team, and each team will choose “montage” or “long take.” Within each team there will be 1 director, 2 camera people, and 1 editor. You need to work together on a concept. The director is responsible not for controlling the concept but helping your team come to a shared vision, and coordinating the process as you go. The two camera people will be in charge of creating footage (with the help of their group members), and the editor will link it together in conversation with the other members. While only the editor needs to actually edit the footage, they shouldn’t be conceptualizing the edit entirely on their own. Please share the load.
LONG TAKE/MONTAGE CHALLENGE PARAMETERS
Choose from a television credit sequences (Some notable ones include: Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Damages, Dexter, Deadwood, The Wire, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Sherlock, to list just a few more “classic” ones–you can go far beyond these); use the vocabulary of film analysis (mise en scene, editing, sound etc.) and the tools of semiotics, narrative, genre, and/or ideology to offer insight into your credits of choice, in a 500-750 word essay. Your essay shouldn’t just be descriptive, but rather deploy and synthesize these tools to flesh out a thesis and thus offer an interpretation of the credit sequence you’ve chosen.
For your final project, you’ll pair with another student to create an audiovisual remix (be it videographic essay, mashup, or (fan)vid), reworking an already-existing visual source text and audio to transform and create a new narrative, affect, or experimental outcome, in so doing to engage in some way with a topic we’ve focused on over the semester. Working together on this remix could be tricky this semester since you can’t be editing in the same room together — but you can divide the remix up into parts. Alternatively, you can also choose to each create separate remixes as long as you also give each other feedback throughout and serve as creative support/a listening ear/outside critical eye. You can think of this as writing an academic argument through and with media in the form of videographic criticism (aka the video essay), or you can think of this as a way of engaging with the ideas we’ve discussed in class through more vernacular popular cultural forms [for example, a fake trailer, supercut, anime music video (AMV) or political remix (PRV)]. You could choose to remix something we’ve seen in class or another audio visual source of your choice. Use this as an opportunity to play around with your favorite film, music, or television show, or to explore an unfamiliar aesthetic. You will also each write an individual 500-1000 word component where you discuss the process and outcome of your remix, drawing in a substantive way to the concepts discussed in readings and in class. We will screen your remixes in class for our last session.
After each completed assignment, you’ll respond to a series of prompts about your experience and process with the assignment, what you learned, what you might wish you did differently, etc. There will also be periodic reflections for flip & teams discussion, likewise due on Teams as assignments.