This course teaches students to write a feature-length screenplay in acceptable format. The class will focus on such subjects as screenplay structure, plot and subplots, characterizations, shots, scene, sequence, dialogue, thinking visually, and soundtrack. Students will also learn the importance of rewriting their work. As part of the process, the class will study select screenplays, then view the films which were made from these scripts. Students will also read and discuss each other's work.
Students can expect to write between five and ten pages a week.
The History of American Film. This course is required for concentrators in the Program in Film and Video Studies, but is open to all students. The course will trace the history of American film from the earliest days of the kinematograph and the Nickelodeon to movies in the age of video, with concerns both for the contributions of individual filmmakers as well as the determining contexts of modes of production and distribution. The primary emphasis will be on the Hollywood narrative film, but some attention will be paid to independent cinema movements. The course aims to develop a sense of the continuing evolution of American film, in its internal development, in its incorporation of new technologies, and in its responses to other national cinemas.