FILM - Film and Digital Media

Taught by a working professional, lectures and workshop provide students with career-related information and insight into a specific profession in film, television, and digital media. Students research various aspects of a film, television, or digital media profession.

An introduction to the basic elements, range, and diversity of cinematic representation and expression. Aesthetic, theoretical, and critical issues are explored in the context of class screenings and critical readings. If space allows, restrictions may be lifted after priority enrollment.

Introduction to the basic forms of televisual presentation, including differing narrative structure from movies and situation comedies to soap opera, plus modes of direct discourse in news, advertising, sports, music, television, and other genres. Alternative forms and modes in electronic media, such as independent video art and documentary, public television, cable, and electronic networks are explored, with their potential for expressing cultural diversity set in relation to social, cultural, and political conditions. If space allows, restrictions may be lifted after priority enrollment.

Introduces fundamental features of digital media and examines the immense visual, social, and psychological impact of the digital revolution on our culture. Topics include the concepts and forms of the digital hypertext interface, Internet, and web, and the impact of digital media on conceptions of the self, body, identity, and community. If space allows, restrictions may be lifted after priority enrollment.

Introduction to the production processes of visual/aural, time-based, creative work. Students work on a range of creative projects: performed, written, photographed, and created digitally. Assignments emphasize imaginative problem-solving, collaboration, visualization, and critical media literacy. 

Students learn to understand how films reach the public through a collaborative, industrial, and artistic practice; how films work in a narrative sense; how they construct meanings for viewers; and how their formal techniques construct different possibilities for meaning and interpretation.

Introduces students to contemporary concerns, issues, and topics of media and media criticism. With an emphasis on visual analysis, students develop conceptual tools to think critically about photography, cinema, television, video, and print journalism.

Study of selected aspects of film, television, and/or digital media. Includes weekly screenings and historical/theoretical readings.

Examination of recent films classified as thrillers that approach technology (computers, robotics, biotech, the Internet, etc.) through suspense, anxiety, and paranoia. It will also address how technologically produced popular culture negotiates attitudes toward technological change.

Through aesthetic, medium-specific and critical theories of electronic games, course introduces histories, ideas, and debates that inform critical game studies. Themes include: games and cinema; race, class, gender, sexuality and representation; visual/cultural studies approaches; topical issues in games.

Examines the historical representation of sexual difference, orientation, and politics in film and video using cultural studies, political and economic historiography, and feminist and queer theory and paying special attention to intersections of U.S. political movements with filmmaking and reception.

Explores media theory. May be organized thematically or chronologically. Selects from key debates and movements central to understanding media forms in relation to self, society, politics, and aesthetics.

Presents the development of silent film as a cultural form from the early period to the beginning of sound, addressing its historical evolution, technological development, aesthetic transformations, and varied cultural contexts. Usually offered in alternate academic years.

A survey of significant developments in narrative film outside Hollywood from the advent of sound technology to the late '50s. Differing inter/national contexts, theoretical movements, technological innovations, and major directors are studied. Usually offered alternate academic years.

A survey of significant developments in narrative film outside Hollywood from 1960 to the present. Major film movements and directors from around the world are studied. Usually offered in alternate academic years.

A survey of American narrative cinema from 1930 to 1960. Examines developments in film style, film technology, and the film industry in relation to American cultural history.

A survey of American narrative cinema from 1960 to the present. Examines developments in film style, film technology, and the film industry in relation to American cultural history.

A survey of various experimental styles and practices in film and video, addressing the historical developments of these media formats. The course situates experimental film and video work within the larger contexts of artistic traditions as well as networks of production and reception.

Survey of the historical development of broadcast television from its origins to the present day phenomena of cable, satellite, and electronic networks. Examination of major genres, forms, and modes of production and consumption within cultural, social, and economic contexts. Offered every other year, alternating with FILM 136A.

Explores the relationship between technology and change and surveys the history of various technologies of visual culture from print to computer based imagery and the Internet.

Explores the category of nonfiction through a historical and theoretical study of documentary in film and video. Addresses ethnographic film, Soviet and Griersonian documentary, cinema verite and/or other selected documentary texts and the issues of representation they raise. Students are billed a course materials fee.

Teaches social media documentary theory and production. Students review current scholarship around social media campaigns, cellphone footage as evidence, and the creation of original media to expand messages for social justice. Students shoot a body of source footage on their smart device and create a social media-based outreach strategy that could support future work for a grassroots initiative.

Problems in writing for film and television are explored through the writing of original material and analysis of existing works. Various film genres, conventions, and styles, both fictional and nonfictional, are examined. Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Workshop that explores the director's involvement in film and video production. Topics will include the manipulation of time and space, continuity, script planning and blocking, and working with actors and crew. Students will participate in group and individual exercises in pre-production and scene direction. Prerequisite(s): FILM 20A, FILM 20P, and/or FILM 170B are recommended. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Students analyze diverse narrative techniques, dramatic structures, and genre forms to understand the craft of screenwriting and prepare for their own creative writing and filmmaking. Students read finished scripts and view films.

Concentrated study of films from one cinematic grouping with similar themes and narrative structures such as westerns, musicals, or science fiction, or a comparative study of different genres. History, theory, and criticism of the genre are covered.

Examines the history, practice, and emergence of documentary animation in contemporary film, on the Web and as activist media with emphasis on the discourse central to social documentary, decolonial theory, and the politics of representation.

Intensive critical study of the work of one film auteur (director, screenwriter, actor, cinematographer). Themes, style, and structure are explored using various critical modes of analysis.

Examines contributions that female and non-binary filmmakers have made to world cinema.

A study of texts, theories, and issues of gender in film and/or video. Changing focus on one or more topics, including production and authorship, representation, reception, theories of identification, sexual preference, and related issues. Usually offered in alternate academic years.

Review of historical and critical tools to interpret representations of race on cinematic, television, and computer screens. Class will consider the place of race in theoretical and historical scholarship and examine the debates about race produced within and across film and digital media. Usually offered in alternate academic years.

An overview of homosexuality and LGBT representations in American film. Explores the format and historical significance of New Queer Cinema. Recent independent queer film and video discussed. Topics include: authorship; spectatorship; genre and genre reappropriation; historical gender constructs; the art film; mainstream versus independent production; and the relationship of film to popular music.

Examines media representations about, as well as by, Asian Americans. Using critical essays on film theory, racial studies, feminist criticism, and independent cinema, students develop the skills necessary to conduct critical analysis of Asian Americans in film and television.

Examines emergence of Chicana/o cinema and video from a place of social displacement, resistance, and affirmation. Looks at Chicana/o representation and spectatorship as it pertains to ethnicity, class, gender, and the beginning of a new Chicana/o film aesthetic.

Offers students historical and critical tools to investigate global film through the framework of gender. Focused in particular on contemporary film (from 1960 to present), the class is structured both chronologically and via national industries.

Study of a specific cinematic or other media tradition of a region, nation, language, diasporic collectivity or other unifying cultural entity. Not a survey, this course selects one focus or offers a comparative of cross-cultural framework.

Introduction to the diverse cinemas of the Arabic-speaking world. By introducing a wide range of films and clips every week, the course gives students a historical grounding in cinema from across the region, paying attention to the interconnections and influences between films, filmmakers, and countries. While history and politics are considered to understand the films' contexts, attention is paid to form and aesthetics, too: one of the course aims is to illustrate that Arab films are more than just political or sociological texts, even if they are usually read that way in the United States.

Introduces students to the diverse cinema of French-speaking African nations and interrogates the role of empire and language in relation to cinema and decolonial politics. The course presents a wide array of films by Francophone (French-speaking) filmmakers from Africa, including some made by diasporic or itinerant filmmakers based in France. Film viewings and discussions of work from Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, and other countries. Critically engages with debates around the meaning of francophonie in a contemporary context.

Faculty-led study abroad course taught in Rabat, Morocco. In-depth investigation of Moroccan cinema and culture, including literature and art. Includes visits and field trips around Morocco. 

Introduction to the conceptual and technical fundamentals of making digital media. Covers principles of digital image manipulation, basic web authoring, and interface design through projects that introduce production techniques and methods.

An introduction to the art and craft of making films and videos. Covers principles of cinematography, videography, editing, production planning, and lighting involving both production techniques and methods. Students are billed a course materials fee of $190. Prerequisite(s): FILM 20A or FILM 20B and at least one upper-division film and digital media critical studies course. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

The cinematic equation equals images plus sound. What are sound-specific properties? What is the relationship between sound and image? Course examines these and other questions through the creation of audio and audiovisual pieces. Students are billed a course materials fee of $161. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170A or FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter. 

Students consider the practice of transforming or recycling found images and other visual materials to create new meanings. In addition to assigned readings, screenings, and technical workshops, students produce creative found moving image projects and writing responding to course materials. Prerequisite(s): FILM 20A; priority given to students with digital editing experience. Enrollment is by instructor permission and application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Investigates how information spaces can be designed to be inhabited, socially navigable spaces. Emphasizes the social navigation of information spaces, a set of techniques and ideas from computer-supported cooperative works, human-computer interaction, and architecture.

Students explore autobiography as a filmmaking genre and practice, using experimental, fictionalized, documentary, and hybrid forms. Readings and screenings provide a theoretical context for production work. Topics include: strategies of (self) representation, reenactment, performance, portraiture, memoir, confession, and diaristic film. Students are billed a course materials fee of $210. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Intermediate workshop-style production course which addresses diverse themes and approaches. Content changes quarterly according to faculty research interests and changing technologies/discourses in digital audiovisual production. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Admission is by application; application materials are available during the last three weeks of the preceding quarter. Students are billed a materials fee of $175.

Intermediate workshop in film and video production concentrating on narrative production, development of critical standards, and technical methods. Topics include cinematography, sound, and non-linear digital editing techniques. Each student is responsible for the completion of short narratives from assignments. Students are billed a course materials fee of $292. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Analysis of cinematic codes and narrative structure through digital video, Internet and interactive multimedia projects. Required readings address contemporary research in narratology and hyper-media, exploring the potential of digital technology to reconfigure the role of both author and audience. Students billed a course materials fee of $210.

Part 1 of an intensive two-quarter course sequence in which UCSC students collaborate with students from Georgetown University to reinvestigate and document five cases of wrongful conviction. Small teams of students from both universities work together as investigative journalists, filmmakers, and social justice activists, producing short documentary films, websites, and social media campaigns providing humanizing portraits of the lives, families, and complicated legal cases of five wrongfully convicted incarcerated people. Commitment to enrollment in FILM 174B in the following quarter is required. Enrollment is by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter. Enrollment is restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

Part 2 of an intensive two-quarter course sequence in which UCSC students collaborate with students from Georgetown University to reinvestigate and document five cases of wrongful conviction. Small teams of students from both universities work together as investigative journalists, filmmakers, and social justice activists, producing short documentary films, websites, and social media campaigns providing humanizing portraits of the lives, families, and complicated legal cases of five wrongfully convicted incarcerated people.

Workshop in documentary video production, development of critical standards, ethical issues, and technical methods. Each student is responsible for the completion of short documentaries from assignments. Students are billed a course materials fee of $210. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Introductory workshop in video production (non-narrative, experimental). Topics include a survey of non-narrative experimental video from a historical/theoretical perspective and an introduction to videography, fundamentals of video editing, and sound. Students are billed a course materials fee of $210. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Introduction to the computer as a medium as well as a tool. Students explore art practice within digital imaging and information and communications environments through projects, readings, and screenings. Assignments may include designing virtual communities and /or interactive, multimedia web works.

Introduction to the specific applications of computers for film and video. By using computer-generated, enhanced and imported graphics, animation, text, sound, and moving video, students create still and time-based works in a computer environment. Students are billed a course materials fee of $147. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170A or FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Study of advanced computer tools in digital media, including exploration, creation, and manipulation of sound with the same level of complexity as required in composing the moving image. Students produce a final project that demonstrates skills learned. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170A or FILM 170B. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter.

Provides opportunities to learn technical skills in animation while engaging in critical analysis of animation and design. Students are encouraged to pursue their personal artistic vision as well as to develop a collaborative and problem-solving mindset. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170A or FILM 170B.; Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of the preceding quarter.

A project-based production seminar in documentary animation: students learn diverse animation styles and techniques, and apply them to a documentary-animation class project. FILM 161B and FILM 170A are strongly recommended as preparation (or equivalent background). Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of the preceding quarter.

Improves students' ability to write and edit, and invites students to explore different kinds of writing related to film, television, and digital media including historical, theoretical, cultural criticism, popular reviews, grant proposals, online forums, and publishing.

Explores theories and critiques of sound in culture and analyzes sound in relation to media images in film, video, and other media. Voice, noise, and music are addressed.

Study of a selected aspect of film history, theory, and/or criticism. Usually offered in alternate academic years with rotating topics.

History and theory of the remake through case studies across cultural, gender, and genre boundaries. Examines changing cultural, social, stylistic, and technical values and explores notions of originality, repetition, homage, allusion, quotation, and intertextuality from Feuillade and Hitchcock to Raimi and Johnny To.

Study of a selected aspect of film history, theory ,or criticism. Includes weekly screenings and historical/theoretical readings. Usually offered in alternate academic years with rotating topics.

Seminar and workshop on writing, producing, and publishing a journal. Students engage in assignments and exercises directly and indirectly related to the production of a web launch as well as a print copy of EyeCandy. Permission of instructor required based upon student's participation in EyeCandy in winter and spring quarters. Preference given to film and digital media majors and minors; others may apply based on qualifications and as space allows.

Study of a selected aspect of television history, television criticism, or national television. Includes weekly screenings and historical/theoretical readings. Usually offered in alternate academic years, with rotating topics.

Study of a selected aspect of digital and/or electronic media history and criticism. Topics can include virtual environments, electronic networks, video installations, computer games, and hyper-media. Usually offered in alternate academic years.

Teaching a lower-division course under faculty supervision (see FILM 42). Proposal supported by a faculty sponsor and department.

A program of independent study arranged between a group of students and a faculty instructor. Tutorial may not be used to satisfy major requirements. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Advanced senior seminar examining classical and contemporary film theory and those theoretical paradigms and methods that have illuminated the medium: formalism, realism, structuralism, semiology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, and phenomenology. Primary texts are read.

Study of the major theoretical approaches to electronic media and their critical application to texts from television, independent video art and documentary, and electronic networks. Readings include a range of theoretical approaches selected from semiotic, ideological, feminist, cultural studies, reception theory, postmodernist, and other critical traditions.

Study of theories of emerging genres of electronic culture, with emphasis on the discourse about computer-assisted and computer-generated forms of art and mass culture such as digital imagery, virtual environments, telematics, hyper- and multimedia, and electronic networks

In-depth study of film history investigating developments in cinematic style, technological innovation, and industrial practice against the broad canvas of cultural history. Students will acquire the basic tools necessary to conduct informed film historical research.

In-depth study of the history and theory of international cinemas with changing topics such as globalism and resistance, postcolonial theory, international productions and querying race, the national, and cinema.

Examines the use of artistic media within films and of films that thematically are about other media. What do other art forms allow for in terms of the story, the film's meaning, the gaze, and the spectator?

Addresses the role of new media technologies in the production, distribution, and reception of the news, especially international news. Examines software and network technologies as amplifying, filtering, extending, and countering the forces of media.

Online senior seminar that addresses long-standing ethical dilemmas including filmmaker/participant relationships, ethical ethnographic filmmaking, and conversations regarding the role of social media and new media. Explores issues such as allyship, privilege, and insider/outsider responsibilities for filmmakers working with topics such as class, the environment, gender, feminism, race and sexuality.

Intensive research and writing on a changing topic chosen to demonstrate critical mastery in a specific area of film and digital media studies, for example, film adaptations and their literary sources, documentary/reality shows, or networked new media texts.

An individually supervised course, with emphasis on independent research, to culminate in a senior thesis/project/production. Proposals should be submitted to adviser one quarter in advance. Petition required, approved by instructor and department; thesis petitions available in the department office.

Students accomplish a range of production work focused on narrative production including script development, casting, and rehearsing to shooting and post-production work. Students are billed a course materials fee of $292. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Two production courses are recommended in addition to the prerequisite. Admission by application and instructor consent; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter. Enrollment is restricted to senior film and digital media majors. Students may apply a maximum of two times.

Students write a full-length (75-100 pages) screenplay in this seminar while studying structural concepts and character development in selected films. Scheduling, outlining, pitching ideas, and critique are all part of the workshop format of the class. Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements; FILM 150 or another screenwriting course. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of the preceding quarter. Enrollment is restricted to senior film and digital media majors.

Students are responsible for producing short documentaries (up to 12 minutes). In class, students discuss each other's work as well as view and discuss other documentary films. Students are billed a course materials fee of $292. Prerequisite(s): FILM 170B. Two production courses are recommended in addition to the prerequisite. Admission by application and instructor consent; application materials available during the last three weeks of preceding quarter. Enrollment is restricted to senior film and digital media majors. Students may apply a maximum of two times.

Incorporates independent projects using the computer as a medium as well as a tool. Students design and implement projects in digital imaging, information, and communications environments. Students' projects may include designing virtual communities, building collaborative networks, and/or interactive, multimedia web works. Admission by application; application materials available during the last three weeks of the preceding quarter. Enrollment is restricted to senior film and digital media majors.

Provides for department-sponsored individual study programs off campus for which faculty supervision is not in person (e.g., supervision is by correspondence). Students engaging in field study must complete application procedures for such study by the fifth week of the previous quarter. Field study may not be used to satisfy major requirements. Petition required, approved by instructor and department; petitions available in the department office.

Provides for department-sponsored individual study programs off campus for which faculty supervision is not in person (e.g., supervision is by correspondence). Students engaging in field study must complete application procedures for such study by the fifth week of the previous quarter. Field study may not be used to satisfy major requirements. Petition required, approved by instructor and department; petitions available in the department office.

Individual study in areas approved by sponsoring instructors. Tutorial may not be used to satisfy major requirements. Petition required, approved by instructor and department; petitions available in the department office.

Individual study in areas approved by sponsoring instructors. Tutorial may not be used to satisfy major requirements. Petition required, approved by instructor and department; petitions available in the department office.

Introduces graduate study in the critical practice of film and digital media. Conducted as a pro-seminar, with faculty presentations and discussion.

Investigates methods for rhetorical production of written and visual/aural texts. Emphasizes questions about delineation between theory and practice, and provides groundwork in theories relevant to key areas in film, television, and digital media studies.

Investigates methods for rhetorical production of written and visual/aural texts. Emphasizes interwoven practices of the artist/researcher/teacher, formal and expressive possibilities of hybridized research, and cultural issues raised by integrated methods of inquiry.

Prepares students for teaching assistantships and instructor roles. Topics include TAships, designing inclusive course syllabi and lesson plans, active learning, teaching technologies, and classroom environment.

Prepares graduate students with professional skills in the discipline, such as CV writing, grants research and writing, public presentation, exhibition, publication, and job seeking.

Explores practices and ethics of listening, noticing and audio recording. Students gain expertise with microphones for field recording, studio set-ups, and digital audio editing software, and create original sound works of their own. The course entwines theory and practice, considering various approaches to audio arts across platforms and contexts such as broadcast, podcast, installation, audio essay, performance, and art as social practice, as well as exploring strategies for sound design for audiovisual works.

Introduces graduate students to critical methodologies in media studies and offers sustained examination of theoretical approaches to media studies. Methodologies may include (but are not limited to) contemporary theory (semiotic, psychoanalytic, ideological), cultural studies, intertextuality, feminist film, and television theory.

Focuses on essayistic approaches to scholarship and production, emphasizing relationships between theory and praxis that this mode of production requires.

Considers theoretical and strategic, situated difference in the era of (semi-)colonialism, post-colonialism, and globalism, examining theoretical writing alongside media works on the topic.

Today, our lives are woven into vast software systems that facilitate our family communications, personal relations, jobs, and cultural, economic, political, and social institutions. Course examines these conditions of life and thought using insights from the arts and humanities.

Examines queer subjectivities, practices, and theories in relation to globalization, transnationalism, and postcoloniality, focusing on film/media produced outside the United States. The course addresses representation and also uses queer theoretical work to engage wider contexts of film/media production, distribution, and exhibition.

Studio-based hybrid practice/theory to explore problems of historical representation in film, video, and new media and engage with the production of new cinematic/visual forms that take on issues of personal, collective, and national memories.

Explores moving image archives in relation to social movements, technological change, and moving image use and reuse. Theories of memory, information, and technology provide a framework for discussions, site visits, and individual projects.

Examines the forms, discourses, and practices of documentary film, television, video, and other media in relation to cultural, social, and political history and theory. While the thematic focus varies from term to term, each edition of the course places critical thought and documentary work in conversation around issues central to forms of social knowledge and action.

Students explore the aesthetic, political, and ethical dimension of new and expanded forms of documentary practice including: new media; database-driven, interactive documentary; participatory media; social media; and documentation-based art practices.

Explores topics in postcolonial theories and film and media around themes such as colonialism, modernity, and institutions of cinema; colonial histories and national or transnational film and media; race, gender, sexuality and colonialism; the uneven implications, pitfalls, and possibilities of the term postcolonial in relation to film and media.

Students learn the technical and critical skills required for fieldwork-based ethnographic video and audio media production. The course is structured around cumulatively building filmmaking skills with an emphasis on critically informed nonfiction ethnographic observation.

Investigates an ethics of new media. Using an intersectional approach, students read thematic units that consider issues of race, class, and gender as they crosscut questions of advanced technological tools and their implementation in modern society.

Investigates feminist histories of film, radio, television, video, technology, playable media, and digital culture from the 19th century through the present day. Students learn varied historiographic methodologies and also engage in primary historical research.

Through readings and assignments, students explore the notions of making and the temporal context of the Anthropocene. Making is broadly defined as any creative production. The Anthropocene and climate change are studied as urgent and compelling context.

Develops fluency in the languages of critical practice as expressed across media. Integrates critical and analytical writing about objects and experiences created by and through electronic and digital media with ongoing, student-driven critiques of audiovisual scholarship.

Explores the production and perception of information (news, stories, figures, identities, controversies, and complacencies). Students research, analyze, theorize, and define the scope of the politics of information, study the consequences of media(ted) knowledge, and propose possibilities for critical intervention and change.

Explores advanced media theory and the methodologies of media analysis. Themes and issues to be drawn from media history; material, popular, or mass cultures; network and information theory; and intellectual, institutional, political, or cultural contexts.

A study of new media art in the context of digital culture. Electronic, digital and online technology art are set in critical relation to discourse on history, aesthetics, hypermedia, the interface, hacks, embodiment, robotics, artificial life and other topics.

Traces the rise of motion picture culture from the late 19th century through the end of the 1920s, looking at film's emerging visual and narrative grammar, its changing cultural status, and its engagement with shifting registers of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

Directed reading that does not involve a term paper. Students submit petition to course-sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Independent study with primary advisor for graduate students prior to advancing to candidacy.

Either study related to a course being taken or a totally independent study. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. May be repeated for credit.

Students submit petition to course-sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Students submit petition to course sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Students submit petition to course sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.