Bard College Catalogue 2009-2010
2009-2010

Film and Electronic Arts

http://film.bard.edu

Faculty

Overview

Areas of Study

Requirements

A student’s first year is devoted primarily to acquiring a historical and critical background. The focus in the sophomore year is on learning the fundamentals of production and working toward Moderation. Before Moderation each prospective major presents to the review board a completed 16mm film and videotape, a full-length script, or a 10-page historical/critical essay. The junior year is devoted mainly to deepening and broadening the student’s creative and critical awareness, and the senior year to a yearlong Senior Project, which can take the form of a creative work in film or video, a full-length screenplay, or an extended, in-depth historical or critical essay.
Students majoring in the program are expected to complete the following courses prior to Moderation: Film 113-114, History of Cinema (or any other introductory-level film history course); two 200-level production courses in film and video; a history course within the program; and one course in the division but outside the program. Upper-level students are required to complete a Major Conference; a course outside the program related to proposed Senior Project work; Physics 118, Light and Color (or another related laboratory or social science course); and a senior seminar (noncredit).

Recent Senior Projects in Film

• Games, an installation combining the essence of single-player video arcade games with avant-garde cinema
• That Four-Letter Word, a documentary on the filmmaker’s hometown in Texas, which stages a play every year dramatizing the first public trial against the Ku Klux Klan
• Creation of Destruction, in which characters seek enlightenment in a fairy tale–style world built from virtual environments

Facilities

Courses

Introduction to Documentary Media
Film 106
An introductory survey of the documentary, from the silent era to the digital age. Topics addressed include the origins of the documentary concept, direct cinema and cinema verité, propaganda, ethnographic media, the essay film, experimental documentary forms, media activism, fiction and documentary, and the role of changing technologies. Filmmakers studied include Flaherty, Vertov, Riefenstahl, Rouch, Pennebaker, Maysles, Wiseman, Marker, Farocki, Spheeris, Honigman, Morris, and Moore.

The History and Aesthetics of Film
Film 109
Weekly screenings and lectures explore films by Chaplin, Deren, Griffith, Hitchcock, Keaton, Renoir, and Rossellini, among others. Students also read theoretical works by authors such as Arnheim, Bazin, Eisenstein, Munsterberg, Pudovkin, and Vertov.

History of Cinema
Film 113-114
This one-year sequence is designed to give the student a broad introduction to the history and aesthetics of film from a roughly chronological perspective. There are weekly screenings of films widely acknowledged as central to the evolution of the medium as well as reading assignments that provide both a narrative history and a strong encounter with the leading critical and theoretical issues of cinema.

Survey of Media Art
Film 167
An introduction to the history of moving-image art made with electronic media, with a focus on avant-garde traditions. Topics include video art, guerrilla television, expanded cinema, feminist media, Net art, music video, microcinema, digital feature filmmaking, and video games.

Introduction to the Moving Image
Film 201-202
This two-semester course introduces the basic problems (technical and theoretical) related to film production. It is designed to be taken in the sophomore year, leading to a spring Moderation project. Prerequisite: a 100- or 200-level course in film history.

Electronic Media Workshop: Sound and Image
Film 203A
The primary focus of this course is the artful juxtaposition of sound and image through the production of short film or video projects. The course consists of technical instruction, readings, in-class screenings, and critiques of student projects.

Digital Animation
Film 203B
Students make short videos using digital animation and compositing programs (Macromedia Flash and Adobe After Effects) in a workshop designed to help them find personal animating styles. Techniques and aesthetics that challenge conventions of storytelling, editing, figure/ground relationship, and portrayal of the human form are explored. Prerequisite: familiarity with a nonlinear video editing program.

Narrative Film Workshop
Film 205
This workshop considers various approaches to visual storytelling and narrative strategies as well as solutions for practical and aesthetic problems as they are encountered in the making of a film.

Screenwriting I
Film 211-212
The scriptwriting process is studied from idea through plot and outline to finished script, including character development and dramatic/ cinematic structure. Student work is analyzed throughout the course. Open to students with a demonstrable background in film or writing and a willingness to share their work.

Special Topics in the History of Cinema
Film 213-214
This seminar offers an in-depth examination of a particular period, style, filmmaker, or national school of filmmaking. Weekly screenings of acknowledged and influential masterpieces and related lectures make up the bulk of the course, with supplementary reading. Recent seminars have included Filmmaking in Latin America, Avant-Garde, Postwar Film in Italy and France.

Theories of Film
Film 218
An introduction to classic and contemporary film theory and criticism. The course covers key texts (Kracauer, Eisenstein, Bazin, Metz, Mulvey, Bordwell) and examines issues such as the specificity of film form; cinematic realism; the politics of cinema; the relation between cinema and language; the way meaning is constructed in the process of viewing a film; the representation of women and racial and sexual minorities; and the formation of film canons and hierarchies.

A History of American Independent Film
Film 220
cross-listed: american studies
American independent cinema emerged as an avenue for innovative approaches to storytelling, generally dictated by low budgets and propelled by an alternative, critical view of American society. It has also been a more favorable arena for women directors and filmmakers of color. This course examines a wide range of cinematic voices and styles, from John Cassavetes and Melvin Van Peebles to Spike Lee, Shirley Clarke, and Kelly Reichardt.

Graphic Cinema Workshop
Film 223
This course explores the materials and processes available for the production of graphic film or graphic film sequences. It consists of instruction in animation, rephotography, rotoscoping, and drawing on film. Films primarily concerned with the visual are screened.

Documentary Film Workshop
Film 231
This advanced filmmaking workshop, intended for students interested in dramatic, documentary, or reportage cinema, teaches hands-on shooting and ways to work out solutions to practical and/or aesthetic problems as they are encountered in the making of a film.

Video Installation
Film 235
Since the beginning of video, artists have experimented with installation. Wolf Vostell and Nam June Paik used multiple monitors in the 1960s, Joan Jonas incorporated video with live performance, Juan Downey and Steina Vasulka experimented with interactive laser discs. Through readings and screenings, the class examines these diffuse practices. Students are encouraged to explore high- and low-tech solutions to their audiovisual desires. Prerequisite: Film 201-202.

Cinema of Asia
Film 239
cross-listed: asian studies
This course concentrates on the feature film production of Japan, China (including mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), and India (Bollywood, in particular). Limited enrollment.

Video Strategies
Film 247
An advanced production course centered on the basic aesthetic, theoretical, and technical issues of electronic media production. The course consists of technical instruction, readings, in-class screenings, and critiques of student projects.

Framing the Election
Film 248
cross-listed: american studies
Fiction and documentary works like Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, TVTV’s Four More Years, Robert Altman’s Tanner ’88 and Nashville, and D. A. Pennebaker’s The War Room capture the complex narratives and legacies of election years over the last four decades. In this course, students process, frame, and produce some aspect of presidential politics in terms of their own personal experience.

Political Video
Film 253
This production course investigates the work of artists who have produced work critical of a specific social or political situation. Whether didactic, subversive, agitprop, rant, provocation, or documentation, these works employ inventive solutions to visual aesthetics and narrative structure. Works by Guy Debord, Carolee Schneemann, Jonas Mekas, Antonio Muntadas, and Yvonne Rainer, among others, are examined. Prerequisite: Film 201-202.

Film Production Workshop
Film 278
Class members function as a rotating production team, combining their talent, imagination, and industry in the creation of an original 16mm film. Each student has an opportunity to write, direct, and edit one scene, and to act as crew or cast in other scenes. Issues of art direction, narrative continuity, and collaboration are addressed as they arise.

Designed Obstacles and Spontaneous Response
Film 280
This class explores the process of story or script development through spontaneous written response to assigned problems, situations, complications, and possibilities. The purpose: to unhinge caution and access story by putting aside logic and judgment in the initial stages of creating an idea, character, or plot. Later in the semester, elements of structure, balance, collaboration, and evaluation are added to the mix.

Major Conference
Film 301
The Major Conference provides a forum for the exchange of ideas prior to Senior Project work and makes useful technical information available for individual projects through combined theory/practice sessions. Students are required to complete a short film and to share their work with others. In addition, films are screened and readings assigned to establish a common ground for discussion. Examples of Major Conferences include Found Footage, Appropriation, Hacks; Live Video and Systems of Surveillance; Recording Techniques for Film and Music Makers; Space, Sound, and the Moving Image.

Advanced Projects in Nonlinear Editing
Film 302
Students explore the process of building tracks on digital nonlinear editing systems and the technical, aesthetic, and sonic relationships between sound and image in the production of cinematic, electronic, and digital works. Students should be familiar with the fundamentals of computer-based electronic media. Prerequisite: Film 203A, equivalent experience, or by permission of the instructor.

Landscape and Media
Film 307
Designed for junior film and video majors, the course compares film and painted representations of the American landscape to those of television and video. Students are required to complete a short film or video referencing these issues.

Seminar in Contemporary Narrative Film
Film 311
An open-ended, investigative seminar on several prominent narrative filmmakers whose international reputation emerged within the last 25 years. The list of screenings may be augmented or altered by current releases or student interest, but includes films by Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Abbas Kiarostami, Aleksandr Sokurov, Peggy Ahwesh, Claire Denis, Guy Maddin, Hou Hsaio-hsien, Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier, Peter Greenaway, and Chantal Akerman.

Advanced Screenwriting
Film 312
An intensive writing workshop in which students create a long-form screenplay that reflects a complex original idea. Weekly writing assignments and class critiques are at the core of the workshop, although issues such as adaptation, production-imposed practicalities, and the role of the marketplace are also discussed.

Film Production Workshop
Film 317
This junior-level production workshop gives students working in film a more thorough understanding of a wide range of cinematic vocabularies and aesthetics unique to the language of film. Students finish short films that explore the qualities of film through extensive in-class exploration of film stocks, lighting techniques, and cinemagraphic strategies. The class visits a New York motion picture lab to better understand the photo/chemical implications of film in the age of digital imaging.

Film as Art: The Classical Theories
Film 318
This course explores the major theories of the so-called classical period (the first half of the 20th century), when both critics and filmmakers were trying to establish the groundwork for how to think of the new medium. Can the “cinematic” ever be isolated from other art forms? Can film be thought of as constituting a language? These are among the questions addressed in film screenings and readings.

Film Aesthetics Seminar
Film 319-320
Special film-related topics, both theoretical and practical, are studied in depth. The seminar is designed for students who have already taken a film course or who, through personal experience, have acquired some knowledge of the medium. Weekly screenings are held and a strong emphasis is placed on supplementary reading. Recent seminars include Avante-Garde Film and the American Poet, Theater and Film, and Women’s Experimental Film.

Thinking about Video Games
Film 323
An analysis of computer gaming through philosophy, history, cultural theory, and art. Topics include the nature of games and their function in society; the qualities of human-computer interaction; aesthetic theories of game design; “serious games,” game worlds, and virtual reality; and videogame modification, machinima, and artist-made videogames. Prerequisite: previous course work in film and electronic arts, art history, or philosophy.

Seminar in Science Fiction
Film 324
A critical examination of science fiction film from the silent era to today, with a special focus on the relationship between science fiction and the avant-garde. Readings include essays by Susan Sontag, Parker Tyler, Annette Michelson, Vivian Sobchak, Jean Baudrillard, and Scott Bukatman, as well as fiction by J. G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, Hugo Gernsback, Bruce Sterling, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and others. Past course work in film is required.

Cinematic Adaptation
Film 328
Is adaptation translation or response? This workshop takes on all kinds of inspirational forms—music, science, painting, literature, dance, philosophy, etc.—and uses them as the basis for cinematic adaptation. Through a series of exercises, students engage an outside work and translate it to film.

Notes of the Cinematographer
Film 336
“Provoke the unexpected. Expect it.” “Make the objects look as if they want to be there.” “Build your film on white, on silence, and on stillness.” Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer contains 25 years of the French director’s memos, observations, and critiques of his own filmmaking. Using Notes as a guide, students produce short film or video works in response to specific “directives” chosen from Bresson’s book. Prerequisite: Film 201-202 or comparable experience shooting and editing film or video.

Queer(ing) Cinema
Film 337
cross-listed: gss
This course explores the strategies that enabled the encoding of queer sensibilities into otherwise heterosexual systems of cinematic representation in classic Hollywood and European films. It considers the open and ever-more affirming images of gays and lesbians that followed the rise of the gay liberation movement, and concludes with an analysis of new trends among gay and lesbian filmmakers.

Script to Screen
Film 338
This workshop is designed for juniors and first-semester seniors in preparation for shooting an ambitious video or film project (narrative, experimental, or documentary). The first portion of the course is devoted to script revision and development, with an emphasis on craft and production feasibility. Using the revised screenplay as a map, the second half is devoted to creating a detailed production plan. Students are expected to present choices for media, stock, lighting, production design, editing strategies, sound, locations, and casting.

Analog Video
Film 341
This workshop investigates the making of video art using the recently abandoned technologies of analog video. Students focus on the video signal as a carrier of luminance and chrominance that can be manipulated and degraded through a reexamination of closed-circuit performance and real-time processing and mixing. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

Virtual Filmmaking: Landscape and Memory
Film 342
A video production workshop designed for the virtual classroom Bard shares with Smolny College in Russia. Students produce individual video works in response to assignments but also collaborate with their peers abroad on projects that utilize such communication and exchange possibilities as e-mail, iChat, and file exchange.

New Waves, New Visions I: European Cinema in the 1960s
Film 345
The 1960s was a decade of political upheaval, fast-paced social change, cultural ferment, and extraordinary creativity in cinema. This course, the first of a two-part series, presents the work of European directors who made their cinematic debuts in (or on the cusp of) the 1960s. Special emphasis is given to Italian filmmakers such as Pasolini, Bertolucci, Leone, and Ferreri; the French New Wave (Godard, Truffaut, Resnais, Varda, Chabrol); and the British Free Cinema movement (Richardson, Lester, Anderson). A basic knowledge of European film history is highly desirable.

Surrealism and Cinema
Film 346
This course traces the connections between surrealism and film culture, ranging from early 20th-century European experimental films to the narrative features of Luis Buñuel and Cinema Novo to Japanese avant-garde cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. Readings include works by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, André Breton, Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, and Fatimah Rony. Open to Upper College and qualified students by permission of the instructor.

Narrative Workshop: Directing
Film 351
Students explore visual storytelling strategies through weekly video exercises. They work both individually and on crews, rotating positions on a class production team, including planning, shooting, and editing. Students also construct a sound design for each piece, without the use of music.

New Waves, New Visions II: World Cinema in the 1960s
Film 356
This course, the second of a two-part series on cinema in the 1960s, presents the work of filmmakers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Special emphasis is given to directors from the Japanese New Wave (Teshigahara, Oshima, Imamura, Fukasaku, Suzuki, Masumura); India (Ghatak, Sen, Kaul); the emerging national cinemas in postcolonial Africa (Sembène, Hondo, Chahine, Rachedi); and the New Latin American Cinema (Rocha, Andrade, Solanas, Alvarez, Gutiérrez Alea, Solas).

Electronic Discourses: Art and the Internet
Film 362
An examination of the electronic networks of contemporary digital culture and its recent past, this course explores a variety of information systems, virtual communities, and online art projects and examines them critically in readings from cultural theory, policy, history, and aesthetics. Each student is expected to design and mount an online project.

Senior Seminar
Film 405
This seminar, a requirement for all majors in the Film and Electronic Arts Program, is an opportunity to share working methods, knowledge, skills, and resources among students working on Senior Projects. The course includes sessions with visiting film and videomakers, who discuss their processes and techniques; a life-after-Bard skills workshop; a review of grant opportunities; and critiques of works in progress.