C335 - Production as Criticism

This course teaches principles of media criticism by focusing on a
single genre and investigating its conventions of representation
through a combination of critical readings and hands-on video
production.  In the Spring semester, students will learn both to
analyze media texts and to produce video projects that employ and
critique the conventions of crime stories.  Course readings and
lectures will focus on particular narrative and/or stylistic tropes
of various types of crime stories as well as the kinds of critical
and cultural issues these types of stories frequently raise (e.g.
race, class, gender, nationality, etc).  Production labs will focus
on reproducing some of these keys stylistic tropes with an eye toward
engaging them as both technical and critical problems.  A combination
of course readings, class discussions, short writing assignments, and
production lab exercises will help students sharpen their
understanding of not only the techniques that film and television
directors use in producing crime stories, but some of the key
critical issues in contemporary media scholarship as well.  The
emphasis of the course is not on producing a final video project but
on producing a series of short videos which will enhance the
student's critical understanding of how the genre works.  All levels
of film or video production skill are welcome.  Pre-requisite: C312
(or T310) Introduction to Television Criticism or C190 An
Introduction to Film.