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Production Classes

(Note: some of the classes listed below might not be taught every semester)

  • COMM 130 Introduction to Production (3) – Instructor: Kristin Hondros
    Prerequisite for all production courses. Introduces students to basic tools, techniques, and conventions of production in audio, video, and film. Interactive laboratory work included.
  • COMM 150 Intro to New Media. Instructor: Rudinsky
  • COMM 230/Audio/Video/Film Production/Writing (3) – Instructors: Ed Rankus,  Kristin Hondros, Julia Haslett, Bill Brown
    Prerequisite, COMM 130 and 140. The material, processes, and procedures of audio, video, and film production; emphasis on the control of those elements of convention that define form in the appropriate medium. Lecture and laboratory hours.
  • COMM 534/Narrative Production. Instructor:  Brown (3)
    Prerequisite, Comm 230 and co-requisite, one of COMM 645, 546, 547. The course focuses on narrative, representational and aesthetic strategies of narrative production.
  • COMM 635/Documentary Production (3) – Instructor:  Haslett
    Prerequisite, Comm 34 and corequisite, one of COMM 645, 546, 547. A workshop in the production of video and/or film nonfiction or documentary projects. The course will focus on narrative, representational and aesthetic strategies of documentary production.
  • COMM 636/Interactive Media (3) – Instructor:  Rudinsky
    Prerequisites, Comm 230, 140, or permission of instructor. Explores interactive media through creative projects that include sound, video, and graphic elements. Technical information will serve the broader goal of understanding the aesthetics and critical issues of interactive media. BA-level Aesthetic Perspective.
  • COMM 638/ Game Design Instructor: Rudinsky
  • COMM 644 Documentary Production: First Person Filmmaking. Instructor: Haslett
  • Comm 653/Experimental Video (3)- Instructor: Rankus
    From watching mainstream media we are familiar with the dominant conventions of film and video. There is also a lesser-known body of work that radically challenges these conventions. This work can be compelling, disturbing, confrontational, provocative, frustrating, and inspiring. Experimental Video will explore this alternative media by viewing a mix of classic and contemporary work, by reading essays that interpret, theorize on, and give  the history of this form and, most importantly, by having the students create their own video productions that use these productions as models. Performance-based, autobiographical, lyric/visionary, didactic, conceptual/formal, subversions of narrative, subversions of appropriated materials are some of the types of work explored. Their subject matter can range from issues of the body, sexuality, spirituality, gender, family, race, class, psychoanalysis, language, politics, post-colonialism, life, death. This course assumes a working knowledge of basic video production and postproduction techniques. It will introduce some additional techniques probably not learned in the more elementary courses, (e.g. chroma-keying, compositing, and some special effects).
  • Comm 654/Motion Graphics, Visual Effects, and Compositing- Instructor:  Rankus            In this course course students will learn a wide range of post-production techniques for video projects, using primarily After Effects (and Photoshop to a lesser extent). Topics explored include: Compositing, that is to say the integration and collage-ing of multiple video/film/still/text layers. Motion Graphics deals with the movement through 2D and 3D screen space of these layers, and Visual Effects will consider the myriad ways one can distort, color manipulate, and modify these layers, or create such phenomena as clouds, fire, etc. Besides creating projects using these techniques, we will also screen and analyze how this form of image manipulation is used in television and motion pictures.
  • COMM 431/ Audio Production (3) – Instructor:  Robinson
    Prerequisite, COMM 130. This course covers an introduction to sound-as-art, effects, processors, hard-disk recording and studio work.
  • COMM 639/Advanced Projects (capstone course) – Instructor: faculty rotation
    Prerequisite 130 and one of the above 500-600 level courses. – application review by jury of profs.  In this course, students will work on directed projects (similar in concept to an Independent Studies) that reflect their pre-registration proposal. Class time will be spent working on these projects and expanding an awareness of technologies and techniques pertinent to media production.
  • COMM 690/Film Audio. Instructor:  Brown
  • Comm 690/ New Media Studio – Instructor:  Rudinsky
    New Media Studio is the capstone course for the New Media Track. Students
    from various departments work in collaborative teams to develop several new
    media projects. The topic and media are based on student interest. The class focuses on
    idea development, design, and critical making. Enrollment is by permission of
    the instructors.