WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2022-2023       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Introduction to Collaborative Documentary Filmmaking

FILM 104
Fall 2022
Section: 01  
Course Cluster and Certificates: Community-Engaged Learning, Service Learning

In this immersive, time-intensive, hands-on introduction to the documentary film process, students will create compelling stories where real people are the protagonists and narratives are informed by real life. Through close study and analysis of feature-length and short documentaries, plus active research, writing, producing, directing, shooting, sound recording, editing, and re-editing, students work in three-person crews to rigorously explore the power and possibilities of nonfiction storytelling and record, engage with, and understand our present moment. Each fall the course has a theme around which film screenings and student projects are organized; for 2022 the theme is sustainability, environmental justice, and water. Students should expect to spend up to 10 hours of work per week outside the class time shooting, editing, and working collaboratively with their classmates, including multiple weekends. Film production experience is not required. Lessons include how to craft a compelling nonfiction narrative based on interviews and research, how to build partnerships with the protagonists of the stories you want to tell, how to shoot on-camera interviews and observational footage, how to record and edit sound, and how to edit using Adobe premiere. Students will present works in progress in all phases of the creative process and actively participate in constructive critical discussions of one another's work.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA FILM
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (HRAD-MN)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459