This course will focus on the three major phases of cinematic storytelling: story development, principal photography, and post-production. Through class exercises, workshops, guest speakers, and critical evaluations of ongoing projects, students will learn the importance of the script, visual design, subtext, the staging of action, and the value of collaboration, with the goal of developing a more nuanced approach to the nuts and bolts of the entire film production process.
Sample reading list:
Nicholas Poferes, Film Directing Fundamentals: See Your Film Before Shooting
Stephen Katz, Michael Weises Productions, Directing the Film Shot by Shot
Ken Dancyger, The Technique of Film and Video Editing
Syd Field, Screenplay
Lyver and Sawinson, Video Lighting
Reading/Writing assignments:
Weekly work in writing, planning, filming and/or editing
About the Instructor:
JASON FOX is a filmmaker and professor based in New York. He has taught in the Graduate School of Cinema Studies at New York University, Vassar College, Cooper Union, and CUNY Hunter College. His award-winning work as a director, cinematographer, and editor has screened internationally in film festivals including Sundance, AFI Fest, and Venice, on broadcast television, and in gallery installation settings. He has worked as a film programmer in conjunction with The American Museum of Natural History, The Flaherty Seminar, and the Museum of Modern Art, among other venues. He is a recipient of a Union Square Award for social justice, and he is also the founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal of documentary studies, World Records, published by UnionDocs in Brooklyn, NY.
