New Classes

FILM 4043, 3 semester hours, section 200, Class No. 12857
ARTF 5043, 3 semester hours, section 200, Class No. 12858
term B: July 5–august 5, 2011
T TR 12:45 -- 4:45pm
P. Adams Sitney
ATLAS 102

Students will see films and examine the theoretical writings of Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga
Vertov, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, AndreyTtarkovsky, HollisFrampton, Peter Kubelka, and
Abigail Child. Students will write two substantive papers drawing connections between any
two of the readings and any one of the films. Prepares students for advanced film studies
critical studies courses. Subject matter varies each semester. May be repeated up to 9
total credit hours, provided the topics are different.

 

FILM 4024 - Adv. Research Seminar
Snapshots, Memoirs, & Home Movies: Plumbing the Personal Archive
MW 3:30 pm -- 6:45 pm
Melinda Barlow
ATLAS 1B29

Vehicles of memory ranging from intriguing to mundane, snapshots, memoirs and home movies are valued for their intimacy and authenticity, but because they reveal and conceal, their relationship to history is multifaceted and their forms are complex.  While some memoirs are graphic novels (Persepolis), literary memoirs frequently take inspiration from snapshots (Reading Lolita in Tehran; Speak, Memory).  Many narrative films and documentaries make use of "real" and "fake" amateur footage (Peeping Tom, JFK, Capturing the Friedmans, Grizzly Man), and since the 1950s, experimental filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, and Phil Solomon have evoked, incorporated and transformed the conventions of home movies in innovative ways.  In this course, readings on amateur filmmaking, vernacular photography and personal memoir illuminate an eclectic mix of narrative, experimental, documentary and animated films that plumb the relationship between history and memory, truth and fiction, the amateur and the avant-garde.  Students will write about family or found snapshots and home movies lyrically and critically, and take a field trip to Boulder's version of national Home Movie Day.

FILM 4010
Recycled Images
TR 0100pm-0250pm
Jeanne Liotta
ATLAS 342

This course combines a DIY collage filmmaking workshop with readings and screenings examining the history of collage in visual culture from early 20th c forms to the mass mediascape of our present moment. Beginning with the film-material itself, we learn to create images and sound directly on 16mm film using a variety of practical processes. Students will be encouraged to create their own tools and methods, inventing a personal vocabulary of techniques. All film work is without cameras and focus is split between direct processes and editing strategies. Next we will become media archaeologists by critically investigating images as cultural documents, and by looking at collage and appropriation in the cinema as well as in the other arts. Topics include questions of originality/ reproducibility, the found object, the amateur, authorship, sampling, copyright and left, culture-jamming, and new digital practices in creative free culture. Students will work with images in and out of the classroom, participate in a class blog, and will be focused on completing a short work for a screening at an outside venue.

FILM 4010
Focus on the Frame
Monday & Wednesday 3pm – 4.50pm
Christina Battle
ATLAS 342

A focus on the frame allows artists to shape time, motion and the overall experience of a film’s unfolding. Considering the role of the frame through theoretical and studio based investigation, this course will explore various techniques to disrupt and invigorate the 16mm film image: DIY handmade techniques (cameraless, hand processing, colour toning, hands-on manipulation); (re)framing through printing (optical printing with the JK); and alternative methods of presenting the frame during projection. Contemporary and historical artists’ works will be viewed and discussed to provide both inspiration and insight into techniques discussed.