UCSC/FILM + DIGITAL MEDIA DEPARTMENT | |
FILM 20P INTRODUCTION TO PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE | |
SPRING 2009 | |
Exercise 1: Alien Anthropologist/Show + Tell..............due week 3/in section.............. 5% | ||
One must die as a sighted person to be born again as a blind person and the opposite is equally true: one must die as a blind person to be born again as a seeing person.
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Exercise 2: Still Images in a Sequence—creating compositions..............due week 4/ in section ............. 10% | ||
1. Working individually, shoot 36 pictures of a PLACE you know well. YOU WILL BE TURNING IN just [6] PHOTOGRAPHS, so try alternate compositions of the same subject.
. Please number your images, let us know how to sequence
our movement through them (1-6) |
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Exercise 3: Study of a Space .............. due week 5/ in section .............. 10% | ||
Write a 2-3 page essay about some PLACE. This is an observational assignment and should be based on what you see, hear and experience. Look for the events and characters that animate the space – it’s your job to make it an interesting story to tell, to provide structure and coherence. Write in a prose style using complete sentences. You may use small amounts of dialogue [over heard] if its appropriate but don’t allow dialogue to dominate the writing. Do not interview anybody. This is a writing exercise designed as ‘pre-production’ research. Think of this as a short story, a piece of non-fiction that will be adapted for the screen. It is not a screenplay and should NOT be formatted as one. This is a WRITING assignment—drafts should be proofread for spelling and grammar!! |
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Exercise 4: Writing a scene .............. due week 6/ in section .............. 10% | ||
Write a 2-3 page TREATMENT for a short film (the 20P final project). Your film can be in any style ( genre, non-fiction,...). But it must be 3-5 minutes long, comprised of still images with a sound track. Re-read the 2 short stories in your course reader from the course reader (“Forever Overhead” and “Chunky in Heat”) and pay attention to how cinematic they are. This is the proper prose style for the treatment-- visual, cinematic, descriptive. Do not write in a specialized language or screenplay format. Give your story a significant ending.
Please include the following: • a working title • a discussion of the premise • a discussion of who the 'characters' are and what happens to them over the course of the movie •a discussion of the visual style--- your strategies for the images and sounds
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Exercise 5: Performance .............. due week 7/ in section .............. 5% | ||
You will be working in groups of three—(1) director and (2) actors (there may be a group of two-- that's fine. You will need to direct yourselves)
It may be helpful to write out your "script"--
ORIGINAL SCRIPT: A: Well |
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Exercise 6: Portrait/Image and Text ............. due week 8/ in section .............. 15% | ||
Think about the documentary projects you read and have seen in class (Studs Terkel, John Berger, Errol Morris). What does it mean to make a portrait of a person? To turn them into a characterization of themself? What is the relationship between the portrait-maker and the portrait subject, and how is this relationship manifest in the portrait? Define your stance towards directing your subject – are you trying to spontaneously capture your subject without intervention or are you creating images that are more staged? What can you convey about the essence of a person in just a few images and words?
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Exercise 7: iLife compilation project (picture w/sound).............. due June 4th (at the beginning of class).............. 25% | ||
This is a 3-5 movie comprised of still images, in sequence, with a soundtrack. It must include a title and credit sequence. With your images constructed and timed in imovie, export the timeline as a quicktime movie (titled, for example as, irene’s 20P project.mov). Remember to export out of imovie as 320x240. You may have built a rough soundtrack in imovie but you will be building another one in Garageband. When you import the quicktime movie (irene’s 20P project.mov) in to garageband, it will appear as a picture or video track.
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Final Exam.............. Monday June 8th 4-6pm .............. 10% | ||
In class;
closed book; no notes Exam covers pertinent concepts and required readings |
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