This course explores the tools, concepts and methods of moving image production with an emphasis on digital production and post-production using Adobe editing software. Students will be introduced to a full array of technical competencies to film, edit and exhibit their projects. This course will also explore the relationships between Narrative, Documentary, Portraiture, Experimental and Video Art genres. Through screenings, technical workshops, readings, and discussions, students will begin to develop a time-based language along with the skillset to craft distinguished short films.

Students make films that deal with composition, camera movement, editing and time/space manipulation. Topics covered include the use of 16mm cameras and film editing. The development of a visual language of film and creative uses of the medium are stressed. All equipment is provided except film and processing. Students will produce 2 short film projects and 1 longer final project. NOTE: Students are responsible for the purchase of two materials packages from the MICA Bookstore. The Film Stock Package, covering the cost of 5 rolls of 100' 16mm B+W reversal film, is $274.35, and the deadline to make the purchase is February 14th. The Film Processing Package for these 5 film rolls is $113.40 and the deadline for purchase is April 1st.

This course focuses on the art of storytelling, exploring the building blocks that make a strong and compelling story. Students will study examples from film, literature, art and graphic novels, radio programs, television, advertising and public speaking. Students will participate in in-class writing exercises, complete a number of short written assignments at home and present their work in class. The final project, prepared over the course of the semester, will be a story in a medium of your choosing with accompanying milestones (treatments, beat-sheets, and log lines) throughout the course.

Explores the significant role sound can play in shaping, placing and defining our connection to film & video, animation, and other moving-image based works. Through the use of practical hands-on activities students are introduced to sound recording techniques, tools, track mixing and sound composition. Technical and creative sound design applications are used for story development and immersive sound construction. In-class workshops include: field and studio recording, Foley and sound effects, automatic dialogue replacement (ADR), and score composition.

Many artists have utilized both film and video to tell personal stories, explore the formal qualities of the medium, and invent new and unusual methods to express different realities. The course views, discusses, and analyzes the histories, philosophies, and structures of experimental film and video, and students make experimental films and videos.

Students learn professional high definition cameras and advanced production techniques while working both individually and in groups. Readings and screenings explore artistic uses of moving images and continues to develop a sophisticated understanding of the language of the cinema. Each student creates a final project that involves shooting with a crew.

This course instructs students on what happens to a film after it is completed. Students devise marketing and distribution plans for one of their own films and work with social media, plan film festival submissions, create a promotional trailer, write loglines, compose synopses, and complete a press kit; they also learn to create their own budgets for marketing and distribution expenses. Students are also introduced to film budgeting for DIY, independent and Hollywood films, and to the growing number of distribution platforms like theatrical, broadcast, DVD/BluRay, and VOD. The semester culminates in a public showcase of the students’ promotional materials and marketing/distributions plans with guest filmmakers.

This course presents students with an investigation into the various origins and forms of moving image art; spanning the history of the video medium to more contemporary approaches and presentation formats. Structured to create a focused environment for individual experiments, students will present and discuss their work in a series of group critiques. Assignments will address both technical and thematic topics including: portraiture, the studio as space/place, the screen & counterculture, installation & performance and the realm of the cinematic. Lecture discussions, screenings, and technical demonstrations will follow historical, aesthetic and theoretical interests as related to video, moving image art and trans-media storytelling.

In contemporary cinema and video art sound occupies a crucial role both in the development of storytelling and in creating three-dimensional experiences for viewers. This course is geared to cultivate student’s audio skills for field, film set, and studio situation recordings. Students will learn both technical and creative aspects of the recording process, by working with professional audio production equipment and mixing their own final soundtracks and compositions in the JHU MICA Film Centre’s sound studio.

This course explores a wide variety of documentary styles and genres with an overview of the history of documentary filmmaking. Topics covered include: pre-production planning, shooting interviews and verite material, recording sound in the field and editing in post-production. Students will produce short projects throughout the semester in addition to a longer final project, individually or in teams.

Personal computers have provided a low-cost method for previously high-cost video post-production. Through invention and with patience one can develop unique visual effects. This course explores 2-D animation, matting, keying and visual effects utilizing Adobe AfterEffects.

This course challenges how video pieces are considered, developed, and viewed. Students are asked to abandon preconceived notions of movie-viewing environments and build visually exciting and engaging pieces that can occupy a number of different contexts: projections for live performance, animations that function as moving paintings or sculptures, and more. The practices of contemporary moving-image artists that create innovative bodies of multimedia work for galleries, concerts, and/or for online audiences is examined. Topics address how media has been incorporated into the Internet age, and consider how artists deal with society’s shortened attention span. Through a rigorous schedule of lectures, workshops, and projects, video is taken out of its comfort zone.

Film editor Walter Murch (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) says that "editing is now something almost everyone can do, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does." Through screenings and seminars students will study the art of editing in experimental, documentary and narrative genres while developing a vocabulary to discuss both the function and art of the cut. Additionally, this course will teach advanced editing and finishing techniques including the basics of high definition media formats, frame rates, color correction techniques and working with Photoshop and After Effects. The entire post production work flow will be covered from input to editing to output. Exercises will be part of the course and students are expected to work throughout the semester on one project. Students will learn and have the opportunity to work on AVID's Media Composer. Other edit platforms will be demonstrated including FCP X and Adobe Premiere.

This pre-production course brings together student filmmakers from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU), providing intensive training in the crucial aspects of preparing to shoot a successful narrative film. Students work with a professional screenwriter, allowing students to hone and improve their existing screenplays, practice the elements of writing for film, and learn how to do a script breakdown. Workshops on working with actors, taught by a professional actor, will teach students the ins and outs of casting and directing. Supplemental workshops will cover elements of pre-production such as budgets, production schedules, call sheets, and legal issues. Film screenings will train students to see films with an eye towards what constitutes exciting, innovative filmmaking. Students who wish to enroll in this course should have a prepared treatment, outline or script for a short film that they wish to develop during the semester.

Part of being an artist has always been about changing the perspectives held by society and showing different ways of seeing. Baltimore City is a prime example of America in that it holds vast differences in race, class, privilege and culture, and reveals social inequality. Students collaborate to make productions that give a voice to marginalized communities in Baltimore to tell their own stories; collectively make productions which include documentary interviews and storytelling. As well as teaching production structural forms, students teach the community group video skills such as: cameras, mics, lights and editing. Students also video the class to reveal the process of community engagement.

Students participate in the production of a short narrative film. Students are required to present one to two short scripts at the beginning of the course. Two to three of these screenplays will be selected for production. The class divides into production teams focused on one of the chosen scripts. Through a series of workshops on production design, directing, cinematography, and art direction, each group sees their project through to completion. The class also includes a number of screenings and workshops with film-makers. This course is a collaboration between MICA and Johns Hopkins, students from both institutions are eligible to enroll.

This course examines the signs and syntax that are the backbone of great narrative films. Mise en scene- the framed image and diachronic shot, use of color and tone, montage, use of sound and iconography is examined. Students produce a cinematic sketchbook of film moments based on the signs and syntax of films screened in class. Films and readings are based on the book, “How to read a film” by James Monaco. Filmmakers will include, Alodavar ,Antonioni, Bergman, Campion, Godard, Jones, Kurosawa, Ramsay, Varda and Von Trier.

A comprehensive, hands-on studio course, exploring the technical and theoretical dimensions of motion picture cinematography and lighting, using both 16mm film and mini-DV videotape as creative formats. The course covers the practical aspects of camera and lighting techniques as applied to a variety of genres (documentary, narrative and experimental); also screen and analyze a wide range of film and video material as examples of creative cinematography.

Throughout history, artists have explored and often romanticized demonized subject matter and categories that fall into the strange and inaccessible. Mysticism, magick and the occult have long been attractors to persons working creatively regardless of their spiritual beliefs. This thematic studio course examines various unorthodox traditions and the artists & artworks inspired by them. Lectures, screenings and readings focus on the occult and include topics such as: subliminal design, witches & spells, supernatural frequencies, and a guide to satanic verse. Although the focus of the works examined in this course will be primarily time based, students may complete their projects using a variety of mixed media.

This course is an in-depth exploration of the most advanced HD camera technology available in the industry today. Students are immersed in the highly technical levels of video camera set up and menu adjustment. Hands-on exercises with complex camera shooting situations. Assignments include working with available light and in low light, a collaborative project choreographing an extended shot where light and focal point changes. The goal of the course is to maximize the camera, light and environment to render a beautiful image.

"Heroes in all forms, gendered and non-gendered, expand our sense of possibility. As a result, similar metaphorical storytelling structures show up globally in narrative, documentary, and experimental films. The protagonist, whether human, animal, or of further invention embarks on a journey to seek an answer, goal, or treasure. In this course, storytelling structures will be examined via Hollywood Blockbusters and International Indie films. Filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa, Niki Caro, Maya Deren, Julie Taymor, Jean-Luc Godard, and even George Lucas are all fair game for metaphorical examination. When truly understood, Metaphor is one of the most powerful tools to connect with one’s audience. This course will enable students interested in genres such as dreamlike-experimental, poetic-documentary, and/or science fiction to gain a deeper understanding of the universal elements that structure these types of storytelling. Additionally, the class will actively engage in expanding the filmic-definition of a worthwhile life and hero. The course focuses on a semester long project in conjunction with a comprehensive Film Treatment and Shot List.

Students have the opportunity to explore topics in film and video that are not typically offered continuously within the department. The topic is chosen by faculty members and varies by semester.

Through projects, screenings, and guest artists students will explore the diverse ways film techniques can be used to incite laughter from an audience. Assignments and critiques will allow the students to discover and hone their own comedic abilities and unique comedic voices. Students explore such topics as sight gags, the uncanny valley, stand-up comedy, and storytelling.

Alternative narratives blur the boundaries of traditional forms: fiction-nonfiction, personal-political, linear and nonlinear narratives, mainstream movie formulas and video art. Using alternative structures of space and time, artists often portray alternative ways of looking, thinking, analyzing, viewing and existing. Course themes and subjects will include: identity politics; sexuality, race and gender, autobiographical based narratives, family relationships, addiction, comedy skits, love and the subconsciousness of a city. Alternative narrative structures also often allow stories to be told without: large crews, actors, dialogue and lengthy screenplay structures of the traditional 3 act mainstream movie. Students will produce short projects throughout the course which explore a variety of alternative narrative forms.

Geared as a course to help guide and moderate seniors while they produce their senior thesis projects. Students are expected to focus and cultivate an in-depth final project from beginning to end, beginning with proposal development and ending with a final public exhibition and screening event. Meetings are structured to highlight the benefits of feedback from within a group environment. The group will respond to project proposals and work in progress with a focus on strengthening individual artistic practices and work methods. Various aspects of production, post-production, and professional development will be addressed including the packaging, marketing, and screening of their work. This Seminar also emphasizes professional development skills and explores various options for artists within the film industry, not for profit organizations, and the fine arts market. Lectures, screenings, readings, speakers, trips and other related events will address issues pertaining to lecture topics and student inquiry.

This course is a continuation of the Senior Thesis blueprint with the completion of the course resulting in a finished thesis project and a professional portfolio package. While the focus of Thesis I tends to address the needs of research, development and pre-production; Thesis 2 addresses topics and student needs as related to production, post-production, and final presentation formats.