Art 2040 Digital Filmmaking: Visual Narratives

Art 2040 COLLABORATION / Attendance Policy: Because filmmaking is a collaborative artform, please be prepared to participate as a reliable team player. Attendance is required. It will be crucial for all participants to honor the scheduled shoot times. Select classes and video shoot sessions will be held in the MMADlab chromakey video studio (24 Bohannon Hall near VenDen) or on location / off campus.
Evaluation on multi-step short film projects, on individual short film edits, and on engaged participation in all class activities: film screenings, demos, presentations, editing tutorials, critiques, and short assignments on class blog. Students are required to maintain a vimeo page for uploading final videos.

20% of Final Grade
Short Exercises / Participation / Viewing, Sketching, Reflecting
• Storyboarding Exercise : Shots + Angles (5 points)
• View 5 Shorts / What makes a good short film? (5 points)
• View "The Cutting Edge" and "Visions of Light" (5 points)
• Zinema 2 / go, view, reflect (5 points)

80% of Final Grade
on Film Projects / Ideation, Planning, Shooting, Editing

Art 2040 Planned Projects for Fall 2017: PDF of Schedule

Project 1: Capturing the Light / Explore a simple subject through deliberate choices of Light + Shots + Angles in a short video sequence that employs at least 10 shot types. Edit to exactly 20 seconds. (10 points)
Project 2: Abundance / Crowd-Sourced UMD Farm Documentary. This short project engages with the concept of community agriculture and crowd-sourced creativity. Visit the UMD Sustainable Agriculture Project Farm at least twice to shoot video of selected subject. Contribute rough clips to shared class folder. Using clips from the class folder, edit your own viideo portrait of the farm or festival to 30 seconds. SAVE THIS DATE: UMD Food Farm Festival on Sunday Sept 17 (10 points)

Project 3: PITCH a Collaborative SHORT FILM
Develop an idea, story outline and visual approach for a collaborative short film that makes use of equipment, talent, skills, and locations available in our community. Pitches can embrace a specific filmmaking genre or propose an experimental approach. Pitch the project to the class using required slideshow format, then vote on best ideas and divide into video production teams. (10 points)

Project 4: Collaborative SHORT FILM Shoot
Work in teams on preproduction planning and shooting on location. Demonstrate your ability to be a reliable collaborative team player. Track all team work with reflective writing on your location experience. This project should reflect your interests and aesthetic approach, You may choose to work in short fiction or documentary forms. (15 points)

Project 5: Your Final Cut / Edit SHORT FILM
Each student will edit their own unique final cut of the collaborative short film project. Employ quality choices using audio and visual editing skills to craft one version of the team video project. Edit to 3 minutes MAX. (shorter is better) (15 points)

Project 6: Visual Narrative Solo Project Use this final project to bring together what you have learned about digital storytelling by combining layers of audio and visual content. Select a compelling personal subject and create a reflective traditional or expressive experimental documentary. Employ strong camera choices (Shots + Angles + Light + Movement ). Use appropriate audio tools to capture voice and ambient audio to support your visual narrative.(2 mintues MAX) (20 points)