COGN 21: Methods of Media Production

Winter 2009 | Professor Brian Goldfarb
Tuesday & Thursday 11:00 - 12:20PM, WL H 2001
Email: bgoldfarb@ signucsd.edu
Office Hours: Wed 10:30 AM- noon, MCC 205
TA office hour/locations posted at Comm Dept office.
TA mailboxes are located in MCC 123.

TA's:
          Camille Campion, ccampion@ signweber.ucsd.edu
          Katrina Boulding, kbouldin@ signweber.ucsd.edu
          Monica Hoffman, m1hoffma@ signucsd.edu
          Eduardo Santana , edsantan@ signweber.ucsd.edu

COGN 21 Sections:
A01 M 9-10:50, Katrina , MCC 133
A02 M 11-12:50, Katrina, MCC 133
A03 Tu 2-3:50 - Camille, MCC 133
A04 Th 8-9:50 - Edwardo, MCC 133
A05 Th 2:00-3:50 Camille, MCC 133
A06 F 9:00-10:50 Edwardo, MCC 133
A07 F 11-12:50 Monica, MCC 133
A08 F 2-3:50 Monica, MCC 133

COGN 22 Sections:
A01 M 12-2:50 Brad, MCC 222
A02 M 3-5:50 Aaron, MCC 222
A03 T 2-4:50 Andy, MCC 222
A04 W 9-11:50 Andy, MCC 222
A05 W 2-4:50 Aaron, MCC 222
A06 F 9-11:50 Brad, MCC 222 

 
 illustration: collage of cameras and media equipment

Jump down to: week: 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10

Course Description:

This course introduces you to the language and practice of media production. Through readings, lectures, and activities in section, you will acquire extensive knowledge of the art and practice of video production, cinema aesthetics, television studies, pre production planning, production management and editing aesthetics and practice. Creative process, issues of representation, and genre are also emphasized. With the acquisition of this language, you will recognize the choices available to a media maker. This information is valuable if you literally will become a media producer in the future, but more generally, knowledge of these choices improves your analytical abilities as a student of communication and as an interpreter of media culture and technology.

This class is organized into a lecture that meets twice a week, and a discussion section that meets once a week. There is an optional production lab (COGN 22) which meets 3 hours each week for two credits. The production lab offers hands on training in audio video equipment, specifically shooting with a Digital Video Camera, recording sound, and editing. If you wish to take advanced methods courses (COMT 120, 121, 100 for example) you must pass COGN 22. It is strongly recommended that you enroll in COGN 22 concurrently with COGN 21 (though you can take COGN 22 in a future quarter). If you are only enrolled in COGN 21, you will not obtain hands on training in audio-video production.

Course Requirements:

Reading and writing are integral to the course. Please purchase the texts and access online readings immediately. Keep up with readings and expect to read at least 50 pages each week. It is recommend that you read each assignment twice. Attention to detail is important Ð pay attention to syllabus requirements for labs and lectures. Some of the work you do in discussion section will be conducted in groups. You have a responsibility to participate in your group work as efficiently and with as much energy as you would contribute to your own work.

Media clips and technical instruction are an important part of lecture. These clips and this technical information will not be repeated in discussion section and is not covered in the reading. You will be tested on this material during the exams and essays, therefore it is strongly recommend that you attend each lecture. Lecture materials will not be posted online.

Attendance is part of your grade. Absences and lateness in discussion sections are not acceptable as they constitute a core portion of the course. You must arrive to labs and lectures on time. No sleeping or emailing / IMing / texting during sections or in lecture. If you are asleep in section, you will be marked absent.  For every unexcused absence in discussion section, your grade will be reduced by half a letter grade. Each tardy will result in 2% off your final grade. The short exams will be given during lecture period and no make-up will be given without an acceptable excuse (please email me and your TA if you have an urgent concern and will need to be excused; and in addition get a dated note from health sevices if you are too ill to attend class.) Late submission of projects is not acceptable. For each day a project is late, the grade will be dropped by one letter grade. No incompletes will be given under any circumstances.

If you require accommodations for disabilities, please communicate with the Professor immediately and register with the Office of Students with Disabilities (OSD). This way we may make arrangements to fit your needs.

Required Reading: Complete reading assignments before the lecture / lab on the day assigned.

Grading for COGN 21: The instructor may give you a different grade on your projects than other members of your production group based on her/his assessment of your contribution, level of participation, and demonstration of ability to work collaboratively.

Linked files:
Exercise 1: Framing and Composition
Preproduction notebook
Breakdown Sheet , Camera Report, Storyboards

Meeting Schedule:

Note: Readings and weekly topics are subject to change by the instructor. The online version of the syllabus is the official version (http://communication.ucsd.edu/goldfarb/cogn21w09). You will be notified as early as possible of any changes. Readings are due before each class.

Week One: The Language of the Visual

Read: Read Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art, Chpt 4 Mise-En-Scene pp. 111-161 and Bare Bones pp. 1-42

COGN 21 Section: screening and discussion of Mad Men (episode from Season One, created by Matthew Weiner for AMC, 2007-8) &  "Watching Cinema / Approaches to Looking and Listening"
COGN 22 Lab: Camera demonstration. Print and bring DSR 200 pamphlet to lab.

 
Week Two: Cinematic Motion; Classical Hollywood and it's Others
Read: Handout on shot composition and movement: the shot

COGN 21 Section: screening of La Jetee (Chris Marker 1973, 28 min); introduction of Framing and Composition Photo Assignment/Visualization of Ideas exercise (due at end of class next week)
COGN 22 Lab: Project One: In Camera Exercise. Bring to 22 Lab: 1 DVCam tape (60 min, no chip!)  

Week Three: Editing
Read: Bare Bones 1-89,      COGN 21 Section: Complete Photo Assignment (Note: holiday on Monday) . Introduction of 1st Component of Preproduction Notebook: Premise for a Short Film (Due Next week)
     COGN 22 Lab: FinalCut Express Editing in Seq 142 . Read & Print FinalCut Express handout for 22 Lab (Note: holiday on Monday)

Week Four: Sound
Read: Rick Altman "Material Heterogeneity of Recorded Sound" on electronic Reserves

Read: TBA

     COGN 21 Section: Discussion and Review. First Component of Preproduction Notebook:Premise for a Short Film is due at end of class
     COGN 22 Lab: Instruction in sound recording for Sound Assignment. Read for 22 Lab: S. Alten "Manually Produced Sound Effects" pp. 605-612 and H.Zettl "Audio and Sound Control" pp. 151-183 on on ereserves  

Week Five: Documentary Beginnings
Read: Introduction to Documentary, Bill Nichols, Chapters 1 and 2; pp. 1-41 Read: Michael Renov, "Toward a Poetics of Documentary"; and Devin Orgeron and Marsha Orgeron, "Megatronic Memories: Errol Morris and the Politics of Witnessing"       COGN 21 Section: View Crisis (Rober Drew, Richard Leacock ; James Lipscomb, D.A. Pennebaker, Hope Ryden, 1963, 75 min.) Introduce first component of the Pre-production Notebook--Produce a two-page treatments/pitches for a short film ideas inspired by non-narrative essay or article.
     COGN 22 Lab: Record sound project and import material (allow one hour for import alone.) For COGN 22 Lab: meet in groups to decide on premise of project and sound recording list. Make spotting sheet and photocopy. Turn in photocopy at beginning of section.

 Week Six: Representing Reality? and Scriptwriting
Read: Introduction to Documentary, Bill Nichols, Ch 5

Read: "Kill the Documentary as We Know It" by Jill Godmilow on ereserves (at bottom of list) and her manifesto

     COGN 21 Section: Draft treatments due. View online --on e-reserves (pass-BGCO) before section Land Without Bread (Luis Bu–uel, 1932, 27min).
     COGN 22 Lab: Edit and complete sound project

Week Seven: Experimental Cinema
Read: Maya Deren "Film Medium as Muse and Means" and TBA Read: Film Directing Shot by Shot excerpt by S. Katz on ereserves, and Pre-Production Materials on Breakdown Sheet (and in Word format) and Rushmore Breakdown Sheet      COGN 21 Section: Group work on Script / Storyboard Project. Seq 142 (Note: holiday on Monday)
     COGN 22 Lab: Turn in sound / image paper. Listen to sound projects. Learn lighting techniques. Discuss final project. (Note: holiday on Monday)  

Week Eight: Issues of Representation
Read: Anneka Smelik "Feminist Film Theory" Watch Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991, US,. 113 min.) and The Body Beautiful (Ngozi Onwurah, 1991, UK) in Film Reserve Library or Online Reserves

Read: bell hooks "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators"

Week Nine: Global Media, Regional Media, and Third Cinema

Read: Sean MacBride and Colleen Roach, "The New International Information Order" in The Globalization Reader, pp. 286-292;
        John Sinclair, et al., "Peripheral Vision," in The Globalization Reader, pp. 301-306;
        Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy",in The Globalization Reader, pp. 322-330
        (all three are on e-resrves)

     COGN 21 Section: Group work on scripts / storyboards
     COGN 22 Lab: in prep for lab view dailies and create EDL. In Lab edit documentary.

Read: Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino ÒTowards a Third CinemaÓ (optional reading : Glauber Rocha "Aethetic of Hunger"

Week Ten: Digital Media

Read: Jenkins, Juul, Pearce, and Zimmerman, "Game Theories" in First Person, ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin, pp. 117-163 Read: "Database as a symbolic form" by Lev Manovich (on Course Website) Notes10      COGN 21 Section: Turn in scripts / storyboards and pre production notebook
     COGN 22 Lab: Complete documentary project and turn in at end of section with photocopies of Camera Report, Dailies Log and EDL.  

FINAL Exam (essays) CORRECTION: Thursday, March 19, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM

 

 
Watching Cinema / Approaches to Looking and Listening
 


There is more to film, video and television than plot or storyline, therefore as you watch and listen to cinema, you should consider the work as a text in which the sum of the parts contribute to the whole. Think of these six points when viewing and particularly when writing about media:
 
  1. Who (what group) made this and why ? When did they make it? Was a studio involved? Was this film/video/program made independently? What cultural, regional, and/or national frameworks might be significant to understanding this?
  1. What is the argument or message being presented by the maker(s)? Are there multiple arguments and various conflicting readings one may do of the text?
  1. What is the visual design of this work Ð how does the lighting, color, shadow, focus, depth of field, framing, media technology (film stock or video format, etc) relate to the overall experience or tone of the work or particular scenes?
  1. What is the sound design of the film/video/program? How does the maker use the following sound stems:
    1. voice
    2. music
    3. sound effects / sound objects
    4. wild / location sound / background sound
    5. silence
 
  1. What is the editing style? How do images fit together? How do scenes fit together? What is the overall structure?
  1. How does this relate to other media examples or genres (styles/types)? Does the media work quote, parody or in other ways refer to previously produced media? Why did the media producer choose to make this a fictional work rather than a documentary? Or why and how is this a documentary or a work of fiction?