Aesthetics of Film

Professor: Richard Suchenski  

Course Number: FILM 109

CRN Number: 10447

Class cap: 25

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 110

Screening:

Tue      7:00 PM  Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Designed for first-year students, this course will offer a broad, historically-grounded survey of film aesthetics internationally. Key elements of film form will be addressed through close analysis of important films by directors such as Griffith, Eisenstein, Dreyer, Hitchcock, von Sternberg, Rossellini, Powell, Bresson, Brakhage, Godard, Tarkovsky, and Denis, the reading of important critical or theoretical texts, and discussions of central issues in the other arts.  Midterm exam, two short papers, and final exam. Open to all students, registration priority for First-Year students and film majors. This film history course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

Introduction to Video

Professor: Ben Coonley  

Course Number: FILM 111 A

CRN Number: 10448

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This course is designed to introduce various elements of video production with an emphasis on the fundamentals of moving image art. The course work centers on several individual assignments and one final group project. To facilitate this final project, there will be several camera and editing assignments that are designed to familiarize you with digital video technology while investigating various aesthetic and theoretical concepts. Class sessions will consist of technology demonstrations, screenings, critiques, and discussions. Technology training will be conducted during the Lab on Fridays and will include cameras, Adobe Premiere, studio lighting and lighting for green screen, key effects, microphones and more. Prerequisites: All students must complete one Film History course prior to taking this course. Registration open to second semester First-years and Sophomores. Students must also select a Lab section. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

Introduction to Video

Professor: Fiona Otway  

Course Number: FILM 111 B

CRN Number: 10449

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This course is designed to introduce various elements of video production with an emphasis on the fundamentals of moving image art. The course work centers on several individual assignments and one final group project. To facilitate this final project, there will be several camera and editing assignments that are designed to familiarize you with digital video technology while investigating various aesthetic and theoretical concepts. Class sessions will consist of technology demonstrations, screenings, critiques, and discussions. Technology training will be conducted during the Lab on Fridays and will include cameras, Adobe Premiere, studio lighting and lighting for green screen, key effects, microphones and more. Prerequisites: All students must complete one Film History course prior to taking this course. Registration open to second semester First-years and Sophomores. Students must also select a Lab section. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

Introduction to Video Lab

Professor: Marc Schreibman  

Course Number: FILM 111 LBA

CRN Number: 10450

Class cap: 12

Credits: 0

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This course is designed to introduce various elements of video production with an emphasis on the fundamentals of moving image art. The course work centers on several individual assignments and one final group project. To facilitate this final project, there will be several camera and editing assignments that are designed to familiarize you with digital video technology while investigating various aesthetic and theoretical concepts. Class sessions will consist of technology demonstrations, screenings, critiques, and discussions. Technology training will be conducted during the Lab on Fridays and will include cameras, Adobe Premiere, studio lighting and lighting for green screen, key effects, microphones and more. Prerequisites: All students must complete one Film History course prior to taking this course. Registration open to second semester First-years and Sophomores. Students must also select a Lab section. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

Introduction to Video Lab

Professor: Marc Schreibman  

Course Number: FILM 111 LBB

CRN Number: 10451

Class cap: 12

Credits: 0

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This course is designed to introduce various elements of video production with an emphasis on the fundamentals of moving image art. The course work centers on several individual assignments and one final group project. To facilitate this final project, there will be several camera and editing assignments that are designed to familiarize you with digital video technology while investigating various aesthetic and theoretical concepts. Class sessions will consist of technology demonstrations, screenings, critiques, and discussions. Technology training will be conducted during the Lab on Fridays and will include cameras, Adobe Premiere, studio lighting and lighting for green screen, key effects, microphones and more. Prerequisites: All students must complete one Film History course prior to taking this course. Registration open to second semester First-years and Sophomores. Students must also select a Lab section. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

History of Cinema since 1945

Professor: Masha Shpolberg  

Course Number: FILM 116

CRN Number: 10452

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Avery Film Center 110

Screening:

      Sun 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

This is the second part of a year-long survey course, but may be taken independently. The course explores the evolution of cinema since World War II around the globe. We will learn about Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, postcolonial cinema, Bollywood, New Hollywood, American Independent Cinema, the New Iranian Cinema, and other movements. Directors studied include Rossellini, Ozu, Resnais, Hitchcock,  Sembène,  Varda, Godard, Muratova, Mambéty, and Farhadi, among others. We will pay particular attention to changes in film style and the way these works responded to broader cultural and technological shifts.

Digital Animation

Professor: Jacqueline Goss  

Course Number: FILM 203

CRN Number: 10453

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon       1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Crosslists: Experimental Humanities

In this course we will make video and web-based projects using digital animation and compositing programs (primarily Adobe Animate and After Effects). The course is designed to help students develop a facility with these tools and to find personal animating styles that surpass the tools at hand. We will work to reveal techniques and aesthetics associated with digital animation that challenge conventions of storytelling, editing, figure/ground relationship, and portrayal of the human form. To this end, we will refer to diverse examples of animating and collage from film, music, writing, photography, and painting. Prerequisite: familiarity with a nonlinear video-editing program. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement. Registration open to Sophomores and above.

Gesture, Light, & Motion

Professor: Kelly Reichardt  

Course Number: FILM 205

CRN Number: 10454

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

A filmmaking workshop introducing the student to the narrative form through the qualities of gesture, light and motion on screen. Focusing on these elements above dialogue and literary approaches to storytelling allows the filmmaker to develop expressive control to communicate a deep sense of character.  Approaches to visual storytelling, examination of narrative strategies, hands-on shooting, and solutions of practical and/or aesthetic problems, as they are encountered in the making of a film. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement.

Introduction to 16mm Film

Professor: Carl Elsaesser  

Course Number: FILM 208

CRN Number: 10455

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 319

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

An introduction to filmmaking with a strong emphasis on mastering the 16mm Bolex camera. Students will be required to shoot six different assignments designed to address basic experimental, documentary, and narrative techniques. A wide range of technical and aesthetic issues will be explored in conjunction with editing, lighting, and sound recording techniques. Prerequisite: all students must complete one Film History course prior to taking this course. This production course fulfills a moderation/major requirement. Registration open to Sophomores and above.

Cinema and the City: NY and LA

Professor: Joshua Glick  

Course Number: FILM 212

CRN Number: 10467

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Avery Film Center 217

Screening:

Mon       7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Avery Film Center 117

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Crosslists: Architecture; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

Cinema shares an entwined history with New York City and Los Angeles. Not only have these cities served as centers for film production and exhibition since the medium’s inception, but filmmakers have continually shaped cultural understandings of these places. Exploring a wide breadth of experimental films, documentaries, slapstick comedies, horror films, and crime dramas will provide a useful lens to explore how the film industry has evolved from the late nineteenth century to the present as well as major shifts in New York and Los Angeles’s own development. We’ll also examine how moving images influenced and were influenced by social movements, urban planning initiatives, as well as race and gender relations within these cities. Major filmmakers in this course include: Jules Dassin, Thom Andersen, Shirley Clarke, Robert Nakamura, Agnès Varda, Charles Burnett, Helen Levitt, Jesús Salvador Treviño, Spike Lee, Susan Seidelman, and the Safdie brothers. Assignments will consist of a film diary, two scene-analysis essays, and a longer paper that involves researching primary and secondary sources. Screenings related to course material will be held one evening a week outside of class.

The Essay Film

Professor: Carl Elsaesser  

Course Number: FILM 217

CRN Number: 10456

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 117

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Galvanized by the intersection of personal rumination, research and the investigation of history, the essay film has been a major stylistic force in nonfiction film production since the 1950's.  The form traditionally includes the 'voice' of the maker and operates on multiple discursive levels of political argumentation, intellectual inquiry, social engagement and artistic innovation.  Makers to be discussed range from Alain Renais and Agnes Varda to Eric Baudelaire and Laura Poitras. Students are required to write short response papers to weekly screenings and complete an ambitious final project. This course counts towards moderation requirements.

Sound and Picture

Professor: Jacqueline Goss  

Course Number: FILM 240

CRN Number: 10457

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This course will explore the principles and practices of sound design in motion pictures. Through analysis of existing works, discussion of weekly readings, and through our own creations, we will develop a deeper understanding of the mutual influence of sound and picture.  In the class, we will think about sound, not as accessory to image, but as a unique, fruitful site for making meaning within the context of film and videomaking.  We will consider how filmic sounds are different from images and music and pay particular attention to human voices as soundmakers.  We will also investigate the complex relationship of sound to the real and imagined spaces they activate, how sound design suggests modes of time and tense, and we will consider the roles silence and music play in filmmaking.  During the course of the semester these conversations will inform the making of our own timed-based media --with particular emphasis on sound design. Some familiarity with video production and editing required.

Writing the Film

Professor: Brent Green  

Course Number: FILM 256

CRN Number: 10458

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Avery Film Center 117

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Crosslists: Written Arts

An introductory writing course that looks at creative approaches to writing short films and dialogue scenes. Starting with personal histories, lineage, and identities, students learn the tools to write invigorating, character-driven short screenplays. The course will focus on poetic strategies creating the blueprint for a narrative fiction film. Building characters through transcription, investigation, and fictionalizing of family and friends to enhance character development, story arc, creating a visual language. With writing assignments and vigorous analysis establishing the bedrock, students develop and workshop a short screenplay (maximum 10-15 pages). This course will require extensive outside research. You are responsible for committing to a rigorous writing and rewriting process. Registration open to Sophomores and above.

Introduction to Film Theory and Criticism

Professor: Joshua Glick  

Course Number: FILM 269

CRN Number: 10459

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Avery Film Center 110

Screening:

      Sun 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

A survey of how major thinkers have conceptualized and debated cinema since its inception. We will read works by Walter Benjamin, Maya Deren, James Baldwin, Glauber Rocha, Stuart Hall, Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze, Trinh T. Minh-ha, bell hooks, and Bilal Qureshi. Their ideas continue to shape our understanding of moving images and their impact on society. Each week we investigate a different theoretical concept through a core set of texts and a central film. Along the way, we engage with questions of realism, authorship, spectatorship, aesthetics, race and representation, and emerging technology. Looking across different genres of writing, including philosophical treatises, manifestos, reviews, and videographic criticism, leads to an understanding of how and why moving images make meaning in the world.

Reframing Reality: Doc Prac II

Professor: Fiona Otway  

Course Number: FILM 315

CRN Number: 10461

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

How can documentary filmmaking open a portal for learning about ourselves and the world we live in? This advanced production course is designed as a laboratory to explore curiosities, complexities and conundrums. We will use documentary filmmaking as a means to articulate provocative, nuanced, juicy questions about how the world works and what it means to be human. In the process, we will interrogate how power is embedded in authorial voice, question how documentary grammar can be used to subvert or reify metanarratives, probe the relationship between form/content and process/end product,examine the intersection of filmmaking and social justice, challenge our own assumptions and the assumptions of others. We will use filmmaking exercises, field research, writing, theoretical readings, screenings, critiques, and class discussions to build creative muscles. Skills and ideas introduced in "FILM 278: Documentary Film Workshop" (Fall 2023) will be expanded and deepened through the completion of a more ambitious documentary project this semester. Advanced students who did not take FILM 278 but would like to take this course should email fotway@bard.edu one paragraph explaining their interest in taking this course and their video production background. All students are expected to have prior experience with video camera operation and editing. This production class fulfills a moderation requirement.

Script to Screen

Professor: Kelly Reichardt  

Course Number: FILM 330

CRN Number: 10462

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

This is a live-action film workshop. Concentration will be on the narrative form as a means of exploring visual storytelling strategies. Students will collectively produce a dramatic re-creation of a feature film chosen by the professor. Each student will produce, direct and edit a sequence of the feature-length film. The production course fulfills a major requirement and is intended for Junior level Film and Electronic Arts majors.

Color

Professor: Richard Suchenski  

Course Number: FILM 340

CRN Number: 10463

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 110

Screening:

Mon       7:00 PM - 11:59 PM Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

An exploration of the aesthetics of color in cinema and the related arts. Topics include the development and impact of color processes; the perceptual, cultural, and historical registers of color; changing theoretical approaches to color and light; the relationship between figuration and abstraction; the preservation, restoration, and degradation of filmic color; and the effects of digital technologies and methodologies. Grades based on in -class discussion, short writing assignments, and a final research essay. Upper-college students who have taken courses in film criticism and history will have priority.

Auteur Studies: Luchino Visconti and the Operatic Imagination

Professor: Richard Suchenski  

Course Number: FILM 358

CRN Number: 10464

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Avery Film Center 110

Screening:

  Wed     7:30 PM - Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

In this seminar, we will undertake a comparative study of major directors, with the focus and theme changing each time the course is offered. This time, the primary subject is Luchino Visconti, whose rich body of work acted as a paradigm for both Italian neorealism and international art cinema. Among other things, we will examine the filmmaker’s relationship with both Italian and cross-European artistic, musical, and theatrical cultures (especially opera; chains of transmission and influence across periods and regions; and the development of auteurial film style, with a special focus on cinematic space, mobile camerawork, film sound, film scoring, cinematic adaptation, and artistic representations of historical periods. In addition to studying Visconti’s films, we will watch films by directors who shaped his approach such as Jean Renoir, contemporaries such as Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini, and filmmakers who he influenced such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola. We will study operas by composers such as Bizet, Verdi, and Puccini, read a range of relevant criticism, along with contextual material and literary works by Thomas Mann, Giacomo Leopardi, Giovanni Verga, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and Suso Cecchi D’Amico. Grades based on in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and a final research essay. Upper-college students who have taken courses in film criticism and history will have priority. Students should send an email explaining interest and motivation in advance of registration.

 Public Access / Local Groove

Professor: Ben Coonley  

Course Number: FILM 367

CRN Number: 10465

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 117

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

In this course, students will collaborate on the production of a bi-weekly video art program to be broadcast on PANDA TV, Northern Dutchess County’s local public access cable television station. With reference to the 50-year history of amateur "narrowcasting" and artists whose work has been exhibited on television, we will engage with methods for creating and distributing episodic artwork for a local audience. Students will collaborate in a studio setting designed to mimic and update the small production studios used by public access television stations, using both analog and digital video production tools. To take this course, students must have previously taken at least one other 200-level Film and Electronic Arts production course or have comparable videomaking experience and the permission of the instructor.

Ecocinema

Professor: Masha Shpolberg  

Course Number: FILM 370

CRN Number: 10466

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon       5:00 PM - 7:00 PM  Preston 110 (Screening)

 Tue   Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Avery Film Center 338

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

What can cinema tell us about the evolution of human attitudes toward nature? And how is it increasingly working to reshape those attitudes? Finally, how is cinema itself enmeshed in global cycles of production, waste, and pollution? The course explores these questions through close readings of films ranging from art cinema to Hollywood blockbusters, documentary to animation. Topics addressed include cinema’s reaction to climate change, the representation of disaster, animal rights, ecojustice, and human-nature relations. Throughout, we are attentive to the unique tools cinema, as a medium, possesses for reframing and retraining our perception of the natural world.

Senior Seminar

Professor: Brent Green  

Course Number: FILM 405

CRN Number: 10468

Class cap: 35

Credits: 0

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Avery Film Center 110

Distributional Area:

None   

A requirement for all Film majors, the Senior Seminar is an opportunity to share working methods, knowledge, skills and resources among students working on Senior Project. The course will have a number of film and video maker guests to discuss their process and techniques, artistic life-after-Bard skills workshop, a review of distribution and grant writing opportunities and critique of works in progress. The course is an integral aspect of Senior Project for all seniors in Film and carries no credit.

Writing about Images

Course Number: HR 324

CRN Number: 10302

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Professor:

Adam Shatz

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      9:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists:

Film and Electronic Arts; Photography

The interaction between Music and Film

Course Number: MUS 230

CRN Number: 10484

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Professor:

James Bagwell

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Blum Music Center N211

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Crosslists:

Film and Electronic Arts

Reading Jalal Toufic In The Studio

Course Number: PHOT 318

CRN Number: 10480

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Professor:

Walid Raad

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      6:15 PM - 9:15 PM Woods 128

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Crosslists:

Film and Electronic Arts; Studio Art; Theater and Performance; Written Arts