Intermediate Video: Footwork

Course Description

Summary

Since the early 20th century cameras have been on the move, not always stuck to a fixed point of view but rambling, sometimes overhead or moving as fast as a train. Cameras take on the movement cues from the culture—peering over the shoulder, through keyholes, onto phone screens in moments of cultural paranoia,or drone-ing about like the all-seeing eye of warfare. In Kiarostami’s films they spend many hours as car passengers, other filmmakers love to fly, Maya Deren made the camera into another dancer, structural films apply movement rules to the camera that have nothing to with conventional cinematic grammar. Some moving cameras search, some peer, some follow, some meditate. In this course we will study movement of the camera in historical, conceptual and technical richness. We will also learn to use gimbals, steadicams, wheels of many kinds from dolly shots to rollerskates and we will probably also dance. This is an intermediate production course. Intro to Video is a pre-requisite.

NOTE the singular structure of this course. 

This course is structured as two intensive non-consecutive modules. We will be meeting twice a week during the 1st and 3rd modules on M/Thu 1:40 to 5:20, with an additional meeting time on the last week for screenings and presentations in Kinoteca, which will be collectively arranged. The structure is one of alternating periods of instruction with individual experimentation and production, culminating in a final critique and presentation.