Course Description
This class is an introduction to the fundamentals of video production. The goal is to familiarize students with the use of the video camera, microphones and sound recording equipment, tripod, and non-linear editing systems. This class encourages a critical, creative approach to the medium, non-traditional solutions, and an open-ended engagement with different techniques and modalities found in video art, experimental and avant-garde film, documentary, and other media-making practices. The class is critique-driven: the discussions that follow the screening of each exercise are the principal method by which the successes and shortcomings of that work are evaluated. Production assignments and critiques are augmented with discussions of readings and visual material that survey the history, theory, conceptual and formal ideas of video.

Students will create 5 2-minute video works. Video projects may be done individually or collaboratively. Grades are individual and will reflect the arc of your development across the semester. All assignments will be carefully explained long before the due date.

Prerequisite: MS49: Introduction to Media Studies or MS50: Introduction to Film.

Statement of Student Learning Outcome
By the end of this course:

• Students will learn technical skills of high-definition video production
• Students will learn basic video and sound editing in Premiere
• Students will gain critical knowledge of how formal and aesthetic concerns affect meaning in video media, as both art form and communication tool
• Students will become familiar with work of various contemporary film and video makers
• Students will complete five short video assignments/portfolio pieces
• Students will be prepared to continue with upper division MS production courses

Course Organization
Class meetings take place on Mondays and Wednesdays 1:15pm-3:45pm PST. Monday classes with the professor can include short lectures and media presentations (e.g. PowerPoint), screening of videos and film, group discussion of reading, as well as critiques of student projects. Wednesday labs with IMS (Intercollegiate Media Studies) Production Center staff are devoted to technical instruction and training in the use of IMS cameras, light kits, microphones, and other equipment as well as in working with Adobde Premiere. Students are expected to work with IMS equipment and editing facilities unless you have proposed an alternative to the professor and been approved to use that alternative ahead of time. You will lose points for using your own equipment without discussing it with the professor in advance.

Select guest speakers (filmmakers, media artists, scholars, etc.) will join us remotely via Zoom, or in person nornally during the Wednesday labs. Depending on level of interest expressed and availability, required events outside of the class meeting time will normally be balanced out with class time off.

Laptop computers with an internet connection and appropriate software, sometimes smart phones and other mobile digital devices can be used in class only for class-related activities (e.g. taking notes or relevant web searches). I ask students to agree to these conditions for class: no recording of audio, photo, or video unless pre-approved by instructor; no emails, texting, messaging, checking your social media accounts and other non-class related activities on your device. I encourage thoughtful experimentation with new media technologies (e.g. AI) in your work, and that you make these transparent in your projects or papers. Violation of class media technology policies will, in some cases, affect your class grade or result in your removal from class.

Attendance
You are expected to arrive on time for class and be present for the entire class period. Your attendance and active participation is central to the class’s success and to your success in the class. Attendance is determined by when I take roll. Illness (including symptoms), isolation, emergencies, or religious observances will be excused, and I normally ask for documentation (e.g. a note from Student Health if you are ill) Please contact me as soon as possible if you need to miss class for one of these reasons. If you are absent, you will need to submit any work that was due that day, within one week. We will not be offering Zoom as a method to attend class. You have two “free passes” for when you need a personal day. All other absences will negatively impact your total grade percentage by one point.

Class Participation
Your active, well-prepared participation in class discussions is essential to creating a dynamic (i.e. not boring!) learning environment. Although you will not receive a letter grade for class participation, it will figure into your final grade based on my observations.

We may study sexually explicit, political, and otherwise challenging material in this course. These are not included for shock value, but are legitimate investigations of controversial subject matters in media. You are certainly encouraged to explore difficult and complex subject matters in your work, and you should be prepared to consider these issues intellectually, emotionally, and with responsibility. Our class is a safe space in which students can express their beliefs and opinions within the context of the course material. You always have a voice, but please be respectful of others as well. Abusive language and behavior are not tolerated. Open-mindedness is encouraged!

Reading Assignments
All required readings and videos are available on our class's Canvas site, under "Modules"

Michel Chion. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Claudia Gorbman, trans. New York: Columbia Unviersity Press, 1994.
John Gibbs and Douglas Pye, eds. The Long Take: Critical Approaches. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Kate Horsield. "Busting the Tube: A Short History of Video Art" in Feedback: The Video Data Bank Catalog of Video Art and Artist Interviews. Kate Horsfield and Lucas Hilderbrand. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006, pp. 1-9.
Rosalind Krauss. "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism" in October, Spring, 1976, Vol. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 50-64.
Ming-Yuen S. Ma and Erika Suderburg, eds. Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
Laura Marks. The Skin of the Film : Intercultral Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000.
Jan Roberts-Breslin. Making Media: Foundations of Sound and Image Production. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Ebook: https://ccl.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1013499253


Video Assignments
Students will create 5 video projects. Projects maybe done individually or collaboratively (more than 50% of your projects should be done by you, e.g. 3 out of the 5 projects) You are encouraged to assist each other with camera, crew, as actors or in other capacities - this is how independent videos are made in the real world! Projects have a 2-minute time limit and must be handed in on time.  Please title each assignment: [Lastname]_[Assignment#]_[Title]

Grading and Other Policies:

* Your general performance in class including participation, attendance, and punctuality, except in the special cases listed above, such as if you have more than 3 unexcused absences.

Generally, outstanding ('A') students in this class have good attendance and completed all their assignments on time. They are consistently well prepared for class, and actively participate in and advance our discussions with pertinent information, questions, and observations. Their work demonstrate their ability to innovate and respond to the topic at hand, awareness of the issues addressed by and the historical context for the media works and genres they are referencing, as well as their ability to articulate their observations and analyses in a clear and concise manner. Only letter grades are given out in this class.

Email Policy
Responding to students via email is a courtesy I extend to you. During the week I will do my best to respond to you within 48 hours (so please note: a “night before” email may not get answered in time!). If you write to me over the weekend you will not receive a reply until Monday. The best way to get my time and attention is to visit listed office hours or, if these conflict with another commitment, to email to make an appointment. Office hours are yours; please use them. I do not discuss grades or class performance over email; please see me during office hours.

Academic Accommodations
If you have a learning disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, please contact the academic support service of your home campus by email at the beginning of the semester if you have not already registered for accommodations. Your home campus is responsible for establishing and providing accommodations and notifying the faculty teaching the class. Below is a list of contacts for each campus: 

CMC: accessibilityservices@cmc.edu
HMC: access@g.hmc.edu
Pitzer: academicsupport@spritzer
Pomona: disability@pomona.edu
Scripps: ars@scrippscollege.edu

Academic Integrity
You are responsible for reading and adhering to the colleges’ policies regarding academic dishonesty and plagiarism (see below). If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism, you should direct them to the professor. All academic papers should include proper citations. Here are two of the often used forms of academic citations:

MLA: https://libguides.libraries.claremont.edu/mla
Chicago: https://libguides.libraries.claremont.edu/chicago/

Read your home college's policies on academic integrity here:
Claremont McKenna College Catalog
Harvey Mudd College Student Handbook
Pitzer College Student Handbook
Pomona College Student Handbook
Scripps College Student Handbook

Questions About Grading
I try my best to make my grading criteria as clear as possible, and you are welcome to come and discuss your grades and your class performance with me. However, I only consider legitimate concerns, and be aware that your grade is as likely to go down as it is to go up after I reassess your assignment. I do not tolerate haggling, bribing, threats, and any other pointless arguments. I consider all aspects of your performance before I assign a grade, please respect my assessment as I respect your efforts.

Extra Credit
Students are also encouraged to attend relevant programs in-person or remotely (e.g. screenings, lectures, conferences, podcasts, Zoom events, etc.) and write a 1-2 page report of the event or activity for extra credit. Incorporate the event's relevance to the class as well as your personal responses to it. Students are allowed two extra credit reports. Announcements for events of interest to this class are done in the first 5 mins. of each class. Web links can also be posted to the online syllabus (by instructor) and to the class Sakai forum (by all class members).

Equipment and Editing Facilities
Please review equipment usage policy, posted on the IMS Production Center site.

We recommend you purchase an external hard drive to store and create back-up for your projects and media files: Thunderbolt and USB (latest versions) are optimal; 1TB capacity or larger. There are hard drives available for purchase at the Huntley Bookstore or online. If this poses a financial burden to you, speak to the instructor or Production Center staff about alternatives.

* A note on general respect and care: we are all depending on each other to keep our equipment in good working order. If the equipment breaks down, no one can complete their work! You are responsible for reading and following rules for equipment usage. Production Center staff or the professor may revoke access privileges at any time if the rules are not followed. Use common sense and please be considerate of each other (e.g. return the equipment on time).

Principles and Guidelines on Generative AI
Generative AI (artificial intellegence) is a rapidly developing technology that already influences the production and study of media. While Generative AI can certainly be used ethically in academic reading, writing, and thinking as well as in media production, we should be mindful of how specific uses can promote or undermine Pitzer's goals for a liberal arts education. In order to try to navigate the unchartered and evolving terrain of thinking and learning in the context of proliferating LLM and Media generator tools, we will conduct class with these principles in mind:

• AI tools, if used in or as a part of our class, should be used to support Pitzer's educational goals
• Academic integrity is maintained in any use of AI in and for class
• The privacy and security of student and faculty data is protected
• Equitable access to all is ensured if AI tools are authorized or required for use in class

In this class we value:

• Slow methods over efficiency, cost effectiveness, and speed
• Risk-taking, friction, and creative process over product-oriented perfection and compliance
• Linguistic justice and neurodiversity over standardization, erasure, and productivity framed in quantity
• Awareness of the externalized environmental costs of a LLM or Media generator query or other use
  

Our class will operate under a dual disclosure policy to encourage a culture of transparency and academic integrity. Here are some common scenarios that may come up in class:

• AI is not different from other resources that are available to students and scholars at Pitzer. Just as proper citation of the sources of ideas in written work and just as the ultimate responsibility for the content of work submitted for credit lies with the author, the same is true in the case of any AI assistance in your work for this class
• Faculty will not use generative AI technologies when grading or evaluating student work, nor to write, design, or otherwise generate course material, unless said material is directly concerned with the subject of AI
• Student work will not be submitted to generative AI systems to check for plagiarism or grading without students’ explicit consent

These principals are summarized from "The Ethical Use of Generative AI", a document produced by Pitzer's Ethical Use of Generative AI faculty working group in 2026. Consult the full document for more detailed information and discussion.

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Introduction + Project 1 Assignment
Monday 8.31:
__ • Course structure
__ • Syllabus
__ • Class policy/structure
__ • Screening (in-class) of past student work
__ • Project 1 assignment

Wednesday 9.2 (Lab):
__• Policies and procedure contract, key cards, lab schedule, WebCheckout, Adobe CC Software, guest login to server, tour of Production Facilities
__• Watch the camera basics video (on Canvas/"modules")

Required Reading (for both weeks)
Jan Roberts-Breslin, Making Media, Ch. 2 "Composing the Frame"
Rosalind Krauss. "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism"

Suggsted Reading
Ming-Yuen S. Ma and Erika Suderburg . "Another Resolution: On Global Video" in Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video, pp. ix-xxx
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Film Art. New York: McGraw-Hill, Ch. 6

Media
See Canvas/"modules" (under "Introduction")

Week 2: Camera Part 1, Project 1 Assignment (cont.)
Monday 9.7: Labor Day Holiday - No Class Meeting

Wednesday 9.9 (Lab):
__ • C100 Camera (Part 1), lens basics and tripod workshop

Assignment: Camera shot list. Pair up with a classmate and shoot your shot list on the C100. Shoot in the different focal lengths of the 24-105mm lens, and try to change the depth of field by using aperture settings.

Required Reading (cont.)
Jan Roberts-Breslin, Making Media, Ch. 2 "Composing the Frame"
Rosalind Krauss. "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism"

Suggsted Reading
Ming-Yuen S. Ma and Erika Suderburg . "Another Resolution: On Global Video" in Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video, pp. ix-xxx
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Film Art. New York: McGraw-Hill, Ch. 6

Media (Watch at least one of these films before the lab on 9.9, Canvas/"modules" under "Assignment 1")
Los (2001) by James Benning
La Jetee (1962) by Chris Marker

Week 3: Premiere Part 1, Project 1 Critique, Project 2 Assignment
Monday 9.14
__• Critique for Project 1 / Group A
__• Project 2 assignment

Wednesday 9.16 (Lab):
__• Adobe Premiere Part 1: The Production workflow, Media Management, Premiere Interface, starting a new Project, importing footage and organizing clips in the Timeline. Exporting your videos.

Assignment: Ingest and assemble the footage you shot on the C100. Edit a rough-cut sequence and export video.

Required Reading
Kate Horsfield.,"Busting the Tube: A Short History of Video Art"
John Gibbs and Douglas Pye, "The Long Take: Critical Approaches"

Suggsted Reading
Chris Meigh-Andrews. A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function. Oxford: Berg, 2006, pp. 149-180

Media (on Canvas/"modules" under "Assignment 2")

Week 4: Camera Part 2, Project 1 Critique (cont.)
Monday 9.21
__• Critique for Project 1 / Group B
__• Discussion: Long Take

Wednesday 9.23 (Lab):
__• C100 Camera Workshop Part 2

Assignment: Practice the advanced C100 camera features shown in the lab (Magnification, Peaking, Zebra patterns, Custom Picture Setting, One-Shot Focus and ND filters).

Week 5: Premiere Part 2, Project 2 Critique, Project 3 Assignment
Monday 9.28
__• Critique for Project 2 / Group A
__• Project 3 assignment A

Wednesday 9.30 (Lab):
_ _• Adobe Premiere 102: Assembling clips into a sequence, adding titles, and basic motion graphics.

Required Reading
Erika Suderburg. "Database, Anarcheologies, the Commons, Kino-eye, and Mash: How Bard, Kaufman, Svilova, and Vertov Continue the Revolution" in Resolutions 3, pp. 92-104
Holly Willis. "City as Screen" in Resolutions 3, pp. 105-111
Michael Rush. "Installation and the New Cinematics" in Resolutions 3, pp. 112-120
(All readings in one PDF file)

Suggsted Reading
Sergei Eisenstein. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Jay Leyda, ed./trans. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1977.
Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Grigori Aleksandrov, "A Statement" and
Vsevolod Pudovkin, "Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film" in Film Sound: Theory and Practice. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, pp. 83-91
Guy Debord, Gil J. Wolman, on detournement in The Situationist International Anthology. Ken Knabb, ed. Berkeley, CA: Bureau Of Public Secrets, 2007, pp. 8-14, 53-54
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” New Left Review, 146, July/Aug 1984, pp. 53-92.

Media (on Canvas/"modules" under "Assignment 3")

Week 6: Microphone Workshop, Project 2 Critique (cont.)
Monday 10.5
__• Critique for Project 2 / Group B
__• Discussion: montage and multichannelB

Wednesday 10.7 (Lab):
__• Microphone workshop

______-

Week 7: Lighting Workshop, Project 3 Critique, Project 4 Assignment
Monday 10.12
__• Critique for Project 3 / Group AA

Wednesday 10.14 (Lab):
__• Lighting basics workshop

Week 8: Fall Break, Project 3 Critique (cont.)
Monday 10.19: Fall Break - No Class Meeting

Wednesday 10.21:
__• No lab today
__• Critique for Project 3 / Group B

Week 9: Sound Design, Project 4 Assignment
Monday 10.26:
__• Project 4 Assignment
__• Discussion: the audiovisual contract

Wednesday 10.28 (Lab):
__• Sound design (using sound library) and working with archival media

Required Reading
Michel Chion. Audio-Vision, pp. xxv-xxvii, 1-16, 21-34, 39-42, 185-189

Suggsted Reading
Chion, Audio-Vision, pp. 66-94, 189-213, 221-224
Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Resolutions 3, pp. 65-80
---, There is No Soundtrack: Rethinking Art, Media, and The Audio-Visual Contract. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. xix-xxxv, 27-65
---, "Claiming A Voice: Speech, Self-Expression, and Subjectivity in Early Asian American Independent Media", in The Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. Lori Lopez and Vincent Pham, eds. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 11-25.
Paul Hegarty. Rumour and Radiation: Sound in Video Art. London Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
Jan Roberts-Breslin, Making Media, Ch. 6 "Sound"

Media (on Canvas/"modules" under "Assignment 4")

Week 10: Cinematheque 1, Project 4 Critique (cont.)
Monday 11.2:
__• Project 4 Critique / Group A

Wednesday 11.4 (Lab):
__ • In-Class Cinematheque/ Ann Arbor Film Festival Part 1

Week 11: Cinematheque 2,
Monday 11.9:
__• Project 4 Critique / Group B
__• Project 5 Assignment

Wednesday 11.11 (Lab):
__ • In-Class Cinematheque/ Ann Arbor Film Festival Part 2

Required Reading
Laura Marks. The Skin of the Film pp.

Suggsted Reading
Chion, Audio-Vision, pp. 66-94, 189-213, 221-224
Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Resolutions 3, pp. 65-80
---, There is No Soundtrack: Rethinking Art, Media, and The Audio-Visual Contract. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. xix-xxxv, 27-65
---, "Claiming A Voice: Speech, Self-Expression, and Subjectivity in Early Asian American Independent Media", in The Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. Lori Lopez and Vincent Pham, eds. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 11-25.
Paul Hegarty. Rumour and Radiation: Sound in Video Art. London Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Media (on Canvas/"modules" under "Assignment 4")

Week 12: Visiting Artist, Project 5 Pitch + Proposal
Monday 11.16
_ _ • Project 5 pitch + proposal due
_ _ • Screening + discussion topic TBA

Wednesday 11.18 (Lab):
__• Visiting artist TBA

Week 13: Project 5 Critique, Thanksgiving
Monday 11.23:
__ • Project 5 rough cut critique / Group A (TBC)

Wednesday 11.25 Day Before Thanksgiving - No Class Meeting

Week 14: Project 5 Critique (cont.), Screening Program
Monday 11.30:
__• Project 5 rough cut critique / Group B

Wednesday 12.2:
__• No lab today
__• Class curates selection of video for Fall Screening (TRT 15 mins.)

Week 15: Final Class, End of Semester Screening
Monday 12.7
__• Screening program due
__• Project 5 final cut critique / both groups
__• Wrap up
__• Class evaluation

Wednesday 12.9 6:00PM Fall Screening in Benson Auditorium

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