5x5
Leading up to the 5x5 exercise, students are introduced to basic camera skills and functions. The exercise itself encourages students to tell a cohesive story using five separate shots that are each only five seconds in length. This gives the students an opportunity to learn both proper camera techniques and basic storytelling.
Lighting Recreation
Leading up to lighting recreation workshops, classroom instruction focuses on the proper use and technique required to utilize film lights. Students receive hands on training setting up, placing, and safely tearing down both hot lights and LEDs. During the workshop, students are split into groups that are then tasked with selecting an image that their group would like to attempt to recreate.
Soundscape
Leading up to creating a soundscape, students learn the fundamentals of recording sound for film. Student receive hands on training utilizing various microphones and audio recorders. Students are asked to use this knowledge to create a short film that evokes the aural mood of a specific location of their choosing.
FINAL PROJECTS
Each semester closes out with a final project. Students are assigned to groups and asked to complete either a short narrative or a short documentary. This project is utilized so that students are given a chance to combine the various skills that they have learned while also giving them an opportunity see how their work has evolved over the course of the semester. Groups are largely given free artistic reign over the subject matter of their final film and encouraged to make the work their own.
