Prepares students for critical practices in contemporary media cultures in a global context. This course explores the diversity of media practices, including narrative and non-narrative forms, emphasizing aesthetics and visual studies. In lectures and labs students will explore video, sound, the internet, and other multi-media platforms of expression.
Surveys the history of information technologies and modern techniques of information production, storage, transmission and retrieval. Equips students with an understanding of technological transformations in interpersonal, organizational and mass communication. Emphasis is on the technological, social and political changes that underlie the movement toward a digital society.
Investigate historical and cultural discourses in the formation of media practices. Examines practices such as performance media; cinematic media, media art, and their aesthetic alignment to cognate movements throughout history.
Builds students' ability to watch, reflect on, and write about media images. The course will be grounded in the analysis of media practices with special focus on media style and storytelling techniques. Explores media aesthetics from formal, cultural, and theoretical perspectives. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade D-).
Working in design groups, students will explore the expressive potential of media through the production of short projects, discussions, readings, formal analysis, and critique. Provide a basic introduction to media practices as an extension of "visual thinking" and through approaches to storytelling, and hybrid media forms. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade D-).
Training in narrow topics of media practices. Requisites: Restricted to College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI) or Arts and Sciences (ARSC) majors only.
Focus on developing an understanding of the principles, forms and aesthetics of media production. Working in design groups on small-scale media preproduction and production exercises, screenings and critiques, students learn creative solutions to problems in realizing expressive media projects. Requisites: Requires prerequisite courses of CMDP 1400 and CMDP 2500 (all minimum grade B-).
Explores creative approaches to idea formation, conceptualization, and organization for the moving image employing critical thinking, improvisation, and visual storytelling techniques. This course includes forms of creative writing, storytelling, and preproduction techniques and strategies. Requisites: Restricted to College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI) or Arts and Sciences (ARSC) majors only.
Explore computer animation in the making of short projects that may address topics such as: nonfiction, immersive environments and digital compositing. Designed to develop the student's understanding of movement, timing, scripting, editing and color composition. Through screenings and discussions students will gain an appreciation of history and practices of animation. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade D-).
Investigates documentary cinema and media practices through class discussions, research papers, hands on exercises and the screenings. The course cross-references documentary photography and moving-image documentary in the production of short digital projects. We will likewise explore the distinctive contributions of digital technologies to documentary image making. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade D-).
Explores the concepts of culture and gender from an anthropological perspective through media. By experiencing texts, images and sounds about other ways of life, students will learn the basic concepts of cultural anthropology and learn to think critically about documentary and ethnographic media material.
Provides an overview of the recording process from the performer's perspective from soundcheck through final mastering, addressing contemporary issues in technology, web, and performance media. Uses recorded material from in-class sessions. Department consent required. Same as MUSC 2081. Requisites: Restricted to College of Music (MUSCU) or Department of Critical Media Practices (DCMP) undergraduate students only.
Provides hands-on instruction in various sound recording techniques. This course addresses acoustics, sound reinforcement, studio maintenance, and troubleshooting. This course is taught through labs and individual recording projects. Department consent required. Same as MUSC 2091. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2860 or MUSC 2081 (minimum grade D-). Restricted to College of Music (MUSCU) or Department of Critical Media Practices (DCMP) undergraduate students only.
Explores the development of electronic media art through screenings, readings, lectures and discussions. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2400 (minimum grade D-).
Examines how the uses of interactive media have changed the classical dynamics of human communication, allowing multidirectional, non-linear and multimedia practices. In this course, students will study the various aesthetic, narrative, emotional and cultural elements of the interface in areas such as non-linear video, the web, games and hypermedia. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2400 (minimum grade D-).
Reflect on the cultural construction of old and new performance media through the lens of emerging practices and contemporary discourse. From ancient theatre to cinema, interactive television to YouTube, and multi-media dance performances to computer games, this course explores how media shape, and are shaped by, various historical and contemporary audiences and contexts. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2400 (minimum grade D-).
Introduces students to the variety of practices by examining their emergence, evolution and cultural impact in the global sphere. Students discover the major themes and genres in documentary work from photography, cinema, audio, hypermedia and the public debates they have engendered. Through lectures, screenings and research, develop critical perspectives on the international and transcultural dimensions of documentary media history. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade D-).
Examines the contemporary landscape of media practices across platforms, such as film, social media, painting, video, and web art. This integrative exploration focuses on production contexts, circulation and reception through the lens of critical and interpretive frameworks. Drawing from key texts by major scholars and the works of media practitioners, students develop globally informed, critical perspectives for understanding. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade D-).
Explores the creative possibilities of photography; students work on projects that combine concepts and techniques with contemporary practice and current modalities of exhibition and social distribution. Emphasis is placed on the student's personal growth through aesthetic and intellectual development in relation to current technologies. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2600 (minimum grade D-).
Provides students the technical skills for in depth exploration of the evolving principles and strategies of digital image making. Students will create small-scale projects with the primary emphasis on cinematographic experimentation and innovative visual techniques. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3500 (minimum grade D-).
Learn and apply innovative non-traditional approaches to scripting and storytelling, including automatic thinking, idea sketches, visual notes, outlines and storyboards, serials, aleatoric methods, diagrams, locations, photographs and short stories. Focuses on methods of exploring scripting methods outside of the fixed and rule-bound traditional model of storytelling as a means of introducing students to discover their own scripting techniques. Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 2600 (minimum grade D-).
Introduces techniques, software and related concepts of digital design and image making through individual and group projects. Emphasizes digital animation, digital audio, digital video and website design and development as a means to formal and expressive ends. This course also introduces students to critical readings and theories related to digital media practice. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2010 (minimum grade D-).
Combine writing with media such as video, music, animation, and podcasting on the computer. The course includes a unit on web-site design and ends with each student creating his or her own website and positing on it the project he or she created for the course.
Combining research, scripting methods and field trips, students produce short media non-fiction storytelling projects emerging from an engagement with historical events, contemporary issues and the world around us. Requisites: Requires prerequisite courses of CMDP 2600 and CMDP 2810 (all minimum grade D-).
Develop a performance vocabulary within the context of various media platforms. Through creating individual and collaborative performance projects, students will explore performance design issues such as movement, blocking and staging with projection, sensors, sound and other media tools. Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2600 (minimum grade D-).
