Filmmaking (FLMM1-CE)

From CEOs and marketing executives to politicians and reporters, professionals value the skill of storytelling, and in today’s world, social media platforms often are where these stories are told. These platforms are the means for spreading a concept, but an understanding of how to craft just the right message is crucial. Effective storytellers engage their audiences in order to explain, persuade, inform, or entertain. In the first week, students learn the fundamentals of storytelling. In the second week, they are introduced to the world of video creation. The students then incorporate what they have learned about storytelling as they create a video to reach the different audiences of social media platforms. Each week includes a site visit associated with the content covered in class. The program culminates in student group presentations of their final projects and a closing ceremony.

In this course, gain practical experience in the various techniques and styles of documentary filmmaking including expository, observational, and story development, as well as in the framing and conducting of subject interviews. Also, experiment with effective use of video, sound recording technologies, and lighting, while exploring how these evolving technologies and new distribution platforms have become important parts of a filmmaker’s tool kit to create documentary films. You will be exposed to the roles, responsibilities, and skills needed to become an independent digital documentary filmmaker, as you gain hands-on experience developing and writing a proposal that includes a synopsis, treatment, pitch, top budget sheet, and sample five-minute documentary-style interview.

Visual communication is a key asset in business, as well as an essential tool in today’s growing media exchange. Gain a hands-on overview of how to produce quality content videos for your company’s website. Whether your goal is to translate information, to entertain, or to promote, this class covers concept development, planning, research, resources, video, audio, editing, and basic graphics. Each area of the video production process is explored using basic technology that you can replicate on your own. Learn how to publish your material online using the proper formats for the web and for mobile devices.

Learn the fundamentals of professional filmmaking with award-winning faculty who teach the basics of pre-production, screenwriting, cinematography, production, and post-production. Through demonstrations, critiques, and practice, develop technical proficiency and aesthetic sensibility. Produce, write, and direct projects, shooting 16mm B/W reversal film with Arriflex cameras and editing using Final Cut Pro. Become familiar with using a DSLR camera to shoot HD video. Learn to collaborate effectively in small production teams, while developing the capacity to critically analyze a project. Students can enroll in four or eight weeks, or the full twelve weeks of this program.

The ability to create nonfiction content that meets audience expectations is a powerful asset for communication and promotion. If you wish to develop original content for corporate, business, or entrepreneurial subject matters, then this course is for you. Through hands-on production exercises, create an individualized two- to three-minute nonfiction video appropriate for digital distribution platforms such as mobile, tablet, and web. Basic topics include script writing and development, DSLR camera operation, lighting, editing, audio, graphics, and technical output formats. Important points such as insurance, clearances, and resources are examined, so you are able to create compelling videos of quality and interest.

Multimedia storytelling provides context and depth to news stories. In this hands-on course, receive a comprehensive overview of multimedia storytelling, which is crucial for professional success as a journalist today. While participating in an intensive group project, gain hands-on experience in all facets of digital story production for news and documentaries. Explore fundamental theory and practice while developing a five-minute multimedia product appropriate for digital distribution platforms such as the web, mobile devices, and social media. Topics include story research, planning and scripting, DSLR photo and video techniques, sound acquisition, and lighting. Enhance your storytelling skills using post-production techniques, including editing, audio mixing, and graphics.

Learn to tell stories visually using still images. Producing films or videos for festivals, YouTube, blogs, or websites requires an understanding of the storytelling process. Students work on elements of storytelling, learning shots, angles, composition, and editing techniques. Learn to create vivid stories with digital images, narration, and music on your home computer. The skills learned here translate readily into film and video projects. This class is based upon the film <i>La Jetee</i>, produced and directed by Chris Marker, which used still photographs, narration, sound effects, and music to tell the story. <i>La Jetee</i> was the model for <i>Twelve Monkeys</i>, directed by Terry Gilliam.

Movies, television, streaming web content&mdash;we are surrounded by stories that pull us in and capture our attention. But how do they work? It&rsquo;s a vast landscape of innovative plot structures and ever-evolving high-tech equipment. Through discussion and lecture, we will explore how filmmakers throughout history have used this unique blend of technology and story to reach audiences. Learn who is on a film set and what they do, what equipment is needed, how the cameras work, and what goes in to telling a compelling story. At the end of the class, you will have a broad view of the entire filmmaking process, which is an ideal starting point for those interested in everything from screenwriting to acting, directing to cinematography, and digital effects to producing. Build the essential tools to begin telling your own stories using the medium of motion pictures.

In this survey course focusing on the history of new media art and performance in video, explore the period in which video and new media applications developed&#8212;the late 1950s to the present. Readings and exercises are equally important components in the course, and they help to develop concepts and applications for individual works of new media art, which are then presented as formal examples of conceptual ideas.

&ldquo;Pitching&rdquo; is a technique as old as time. It&rsquo;s a skill used extensively in everyday life, but it&rsquo;s paramount in the film and TV industry, whether pitching oneself or a project. For aspiring writers, agents, producers, managers, and executives, pitching is a required skill throughout the industry. This course will introduce you to the brief and succinct teaser pitch, which is roughly three to five minutes, for feature films and TV. You then will have the opportunity to create and hone your own teaser pitch for a project you currently are developing or for a hypothetical future project. Additionally, you will be asked to outline and possibly rehearse an extended version of your pitch (15 to 20 minutes), which is a common next step in selling a project. In the final class session, you will perform your teaser pitches for industry guests and receive feedback. You will walk away with a confident sense of how to pitch your stories and yourself, as well as with the tools to craft an effective narrative that will engage listeners.

From Instagram TV to YouTube channels, video formats are constantly evolving and new opportunities to expand are always popping up. Learn how to make and edit one video for the disparate audiences of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube by examining how the Internet&rsquo;s most viral videos encapsulate the best parts of their respective platform&rsquo;s potential. This will involve critiquing successful practices by news publishers, commercial brands, and other media organizations, as well as looking at ways that channels are experimenting in an effort to invent what&rsquo;s next in social video. Learn how to edit one video into three stories&mdash;a four-minute narrative clip for YouTube, a series of six 15-second clips for Instagram Stories, and a video for Facebook.

Many factors affect the construction of a compelling narrative in cinema. Editing, dramatic arc, multimedia, and the use of cinematic space all play important roles in a film&rsquo;s cinematic structure. Drawing upon examples of historical and contemporary cinema, analyze the patterns that are used frequently to create this visual structure, and examine how these techniques heighten meaning and tell a story to its greatest effect. Discussion topics include parallel action, slow disclosure, and moving versus static camera. Explore how the director uses these tools to convey a story visually.

The digital revolution is upon us, and now is the time to gain a competitive advantage by maximizing your use of cutting edge tools of the trade. Acquire hands-on experience in all of the basic technical skills necessary to make digital films. Learn professional DV camera operations, lighting for digital video, and sound recording techniques. Gain experience in basic digital editing with Final Cut Pro, including ingesting footage, building a timeline, cutting options, titling functions, building audio tracks, and mixing. By the end of this workshop, you will have the technical knowledge necessary to create your own DV projects.

In this lecture-based course, gain a clear understanding of the art and technology used to write, produce, and finalize live-action media projects shot in digital video and incorporating computer graphics. This course specifically addresses the needs of students and professionals who have concepts for nonfiction media projects related to science, medicine, engineering, and business fields with the purpose of educating, informing, training, documenting, and promoting. Such techniques may be employed for the realization of all types of projects.

<p>Survey the development of new media art derived from the use of video, telecommunications, mass media, and digital electronic modes for delivering artwork. Explore the history and diverse applications of new media art while developing ideas for and collaborating on group projects and a final presentation. Create concepts and applications for the development of group-generated new media and collaborative art projects, which can take the form of conceptual or virtual art and may include performance and/or site-specific installations.</p>

<p>In the last few years, video and media creation on the web has changed the methods of communication and the speed at which information travels. Whether you have been charged with managing your organization&#8217;s online presence or you are trying to make your YouTube channel generate income, this course presents methods for thinking and working that help you to bring a media project from concept through the various stages of production. Receive an in-depth, hands-on overview of pre-production, video production, editing, and distribution, with an eye toward distribution over the web. Topics include creating effective content and stories, planning production based on budget, and video editing. Also covered are sound and post-production, as well as the best methods for delivery and distribution.</p>

Writing a short film requires the same skill set as writing a long-form script. They both require the same understanding of act structure, dialogue, dramatic conflict, character development, screenplay format, and visual storytelling. For short films, however, writers must accomplish the same storytelling in a condensed time. In this rigorous course, learn the fundamentals of screenwriting while writing a five-minute short film that is ready to shoot. Discuss examples from popular films, complete in-class exercises, and workshop your scripts. Each week, you will receive coaching as you work through a script draft. Also, you will be introduced to the essential work of the director, including casting, locking locations, and preparing storyboards and shot lists for your script. <strong><em> This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/tv-and-film-producing.html" target="_blank">Certificate in TV and Film Producing</a>.</em></strong>

Critiquing and analyzing film requires a careful eye and an understanding of basic film structure, grammar, sign, and syntax. Examining a wide range of films--from feature-length narrative and documentary to animation and experimental--students begin to apply contemporary film theory to works studied in class. Directors such as Méliès, Griffith, Ford, Welles, Godard, Renoir, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Scorsese, Errol Morris, Maya Deren, and Wong Kar-wai are among those covered. Movements in film history, such as French New Wave, film noir, and surrealism, are surveyed to provide students with relevant perspectives on recent developments in the form.

In this introductory practical workshop in 16mm filmmaking without sync sound, students have an opportunity to write, produce, direct, shoot, and edit using Final Cut Pro. Working in small production crews within a rotating responsibility system, students gain experience in a variety of roles on the film set. In the final project, students create their own film with transition effects, music, and credits. All necessary equipment, film supplies, laboratory processing, and video transfers are provided&#8211;&#8211;and students receive a digital video tape of their final project edits made in Final Cut Pro.

In this capstone course for the Certificate in Filmmaking program, students combine the technical experience and aesthetic knowledge garnered from other courses to produce an eight-minute, festival length, 16mm, live-action dramatic film. Students are guided through script development, pre-production, casting, and techniques for directing a narrative film with dialogue before advancing to synchronization, editing, and finalization of the picture and sound using Final Cut Pro. If you have a script, it may be submitted one week prior to the first class session to gain a head start. Film matchback procedures are demonstrated in class.

Storytelling is the conveyance of events in words, images, and sounds, and it often is communicated in short film. Whether you want to tell your tale through film or animation, this course gives you the screenwriting foundations specific to the genre of the &#8220;short.&#8221; Gain an introduction to the traditional compositional elements of most screen narratives: plot, character, tone, dialogue, and action. Consider the unique possibilities and constraints of shorts to maximize the impact of your story and to make efficient decisions regarding production technique. Heighten the visual impact on the viewer, leave a sense of mystery about the characters or plot, learn about the specific challenges to address, and understand the types of stories that naturally lend themselves to this format. Complete a five- to eight-page script for your short with the guidance of talented writers, filmmakers, directors.

<p><i>Digital Filmmaking Intensive</i> is a fast-paced, teamwork-oriented, accelerated course that develops the creative talents of aspiring filmmakers in the essential aspects of today&rsquo;s digital film technologies. Through practical assignments and hands-on instruction, develop an understanding of the concepts, techniques, technology, and underpinnings of the digital filmmaking process from pre- to postproduction by writing, directing, producing, shooting, and editing your own films. This experiential approach has a singular goal: immersion in the art and craft of visual storytelling. You will be introduced to the essential work of the director, including preparing storyboards, shot lists, and floor plans for your projects. Lectures will focus on screen direction, the 180-degree rule, the master and coverage approach to shooting, and an introduction to the organizational structure of a professional cinematic production. You will shoot in high definition without sync sound, and then advance into editing with Premiere Pro. During postproduction, you will work individually in a computer lab as you are guided through a workflow to bring your short film projects to completion by adding sound and credits.<br /><br><br>&nbsp;</p><br><br><br><br><p><em>This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/filmmaking.html" target="_blank">Certificate in Filmmaking</a>. Digital Filmmaking Intensive is <strong>equivalent to&mdash;and can be substituted for&mdash;both</strong> <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/writing-and-communications/filmmaking/FLMM1-CE9400-writing-and-directing-the-short-film.html" target="_blank">Writing and Directing the Short Film</a> <strong>and</strong> <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/writing-and-communications/filmmaking/FLMM1-CE9921-introduction-to-filmmaking-workshop-shooting-and-postproductio.html" target="_blank">Introduction to Filmmaking Workshop: Shooting and Postproduction</a>.</em></p>

Designed for those with some film production experience, this eight-week advanced intensive course provides a solid next step for honing skills. Learn the fundamentals of creating professional-quality narrative films in lectures and demonstrations which cover dialogue, advanced lighting techniques, cinematography, sync-sound production, sound mixing, and post-production. Gain hands-on experience in pre-production, production, and post-production. Using a script developed during the first four weeks and working with a production crew of fellow students, shoot on 16mm color film or use a DSLR camera to shoot HD video. Edit your short film with Final Cut Pro and submit to festivals or competitions upon completion.

Directors are the creative visionaries and the driving forces behind a film, translating script to screen. Directors craft the look and tone, and then they lead cast and crew while overseeing every creative aspect, such as set design and lighting. There are diverse methods and styles of directing, from the improvisation of Robert Altman and Spike Lee to the precise control of Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. Directors coordinate the actors&#8217; performances; determine camera position; and may be involved in writing, financing, or editing a project. The Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino, and Orson Welles are some of the directors best known for being involved in the entire filmmaking process. This course explores the concepts and aesthetics of directing, as well as the practical applications of the director&#8217;s craft.

With so much video content out there, it is difficult to be noticed as a content creator. In this intensive workshop, gain firsthand collaborative experience in short-form original content creation for brands and companies. Learn creative video workflows, from story ideation to production to postproduction, while gaining appreciation for the importance of a digital distribution strategy. Begin with creative ideation and get hands-on experience with preproduction, production, and postproduction workflows to finalize a commercial spot, an interview-driven testimonial, and a scripted voiceover product demo. Gain expertise in creating stories to align with innovative marketing strategies, while becoming proficient in processes and technologies that make it all possible. Most important, walk away with content in a reel to market yourself&mdash;the most important aspect of any digital video job application, professional website, and social media webpage.

Through hands-on production of digital film projects, this course introduces the language of visual storytelling and presents an overview of the technology involved in digital filmmaking. Working in a small production crew with fellow students, you will write, produce, direct, and edit your and your team members&rsquo; film projects, and in so doing, gain increased confidence with professional practices. You will shoot in high definition without sync sound and then advance into editing with Premiere Pro. Lectures will focus on screen direction, the 180-degree rule, the master and coverage approach to shooting, and an introduction to the organizational structure of a professional cinematic production. During postproduction, you will work individually in a computer lab as you are guided through a workflow to bring your short film project to completion. <em>This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/filmmaking.html" target="_blank">Certificate in Filmmaking</a>.</em>

By utilizing the skills obtained from <u>previous course work in cinematography, audio recording, editing, and digital film or video production,</u> create a project approximately eight minutes long. Once your narrative or nonfiction idea is green-lighted, assist each other while producing individual projects. Shoot in high-definition video using Canon 7D DSLR cameras and Zoom H4n audio recorders, and then advance through postproduction with Premiere Pro.

The world of filmmaking is drastically changing as technology advances. However, the basic principles still apply. This in-depth course walks you through the traditional filmmaking process, from script to screen, and discusses how the distribution model has changed viewing habits. This process can be applied to live action and animation filmmaking as well as shorts, documentaries, and features. Screenwriting, cinematography, audio recording, mixing, editing, and graphics are demonstrated, discussed, and applied. Leave the class with a short film ready for distribution via the web or any digital screen. As a motivated self-learner, gain professional industry knowledge with this online course.

<p>By utilizing the skills obtained from previous certificate courses in writing, preproduction, cinematography, lighting, and digital film production, you will create a short film (approximately five minutes&rsquo; running time) during this course. Once an idea is green-lighted and a crew of three or four classmates is mutually determined, you will have the opportunity to produce an individual project or to opt for a group project. You will shoot with high-definition digital cameras using a double system that records dialogue separately with digital audio recorders. Then you will advance through postproduction using Adobe Premiere Pro, editing individually on NYU computer stations, to a polished digital film with credits, color correction, and a mix-down of multiple audio tracks. The finalized digital film file belongs to student(s) who created it.</p><br><br><br><br><p style="line-height: 20.8px;"><em>This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/filmmaking.html" target="_blank">Certificate in Filmmaking</a>.</em></p>

The solution to interpreting a story visually does not come in a box. As a student in this course, experience how even the simplest equipment may yield stunning results. This remote workshop introduces the work of the director of photography, also known as the cinematographer, who is the coauthor&mdash;along with the director&mdash;of the visual look and feel of a motion picture. Learn the math and science of photography, as well as see the proper setup and operation of camera systems, lighting, and grip equipment. Build technical knowledge before progressing to the aesthetic concerns and artistic choices that are paramount to the cinematographer&rsquo;s role. Through demonstrations and practice, tackle the unique challenges of interpreting a script visually and of incorporating the point of view of a project&rsquo;s director along with your own creative expression. Individual sessions cover exterior and interior shooting, digital exposure meters, lens selection and camera operation, the duties of the camera assistant, and an overview of video formats.

<p>All professional film and digital productions of movies, TV shows, documentaries, and commercials are shot in double system, meaning the image and sound of a scene are captured and handled separately until they are synchronized during postproduction on a digital nonlinear editing station. In this workshop, gain hands-on experience in the correct techniques of shooting using double system. After being introduced to proper techniques for recording professional-level audio, work together as a crew to use a digital camera, digital audio recorder, and slate to film a dialogue scene from a script provided by the instructor. Then, in postproduction, work individually to professionally synchronize the images and audio using Premiere Pro, organizing and editing the material into a scene. The techniques learned in this workshop will be used in <em><a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/courses/flmm1-ce9950" target="_blank">Advanced Filmmaking Workshop</a>,</em> the capstone course of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/filmmaking.html" target="_blank">Certificate in Filmmaking</a> when students make their own film.</p><br><br><br><br><p style="line-height: 20.8px;"><em>This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways/certificates/media-writing-and-communications/filmmaking.html" target="_blank">Certificate in Filmmaking</a>.</em></p>

Hollywood is swiftly embracing stereo 3D live action in films such as <i>Transformers</i>, <i>Hugo</i>, and <i>Titanic</i>. This newfound technology is rapidly becoming available to photographers, artists, and independent filmmakers. Through lectures, guest speakers, and hands-on stereo filmmaking, gain an introduction to all aspects of this technology and complete one-take 3D stereo shoots.