CMS 480: Women Media Makers & Audiovisual Research
Do women make films, streaming series or television shows that are categorically different from those of men? Are they also different from those of other women? This senior capstone is designed in part to explore how and why gender is a productive lens for thinking through the media landscape of the past three decades. It is also designed as a videographic workshop in which you will reflect on the work of contemporary women directors (and your experience as a CMS major) through digital editing exercises: examining, deforming, lengthening, overlapping, remixing, scrutinizing and playing with an array of media made-by-women from the 1990s to the present.
The women makers whose work we will explore in these ways include talents such as Ana Lily Amarpour (Iran), Andrea Arnold (UK), Cheryl Dunye (US), Ava DuVernay (US), Karyn Kusama (US), Issa López (Mexico), Jeong Jae-eun (South Korea), Jenji Kohan (US), Jennifer Kent (Australia), Nia DaCosta (US), Nadine Labaki (Lebanon), Kimberly Pierce (US), Marjane Satrapi (Iran/France), Celine Sciamma (France), Amanda Strong (Canada/Manatoba Métis Federation), and the Wachowski Sisters (US) among others.
Previous digital editing experience is not required, although students entering the class without preexisting knowledge will need to allow additional time in the first several weeks of the quarter to develop basic skills. The software program we will use is DaVinci Resolve 20, a professional-level editing suite that is free to download. Class members are encouraged to purchase an external hard drive of approximately 1TB to store their media files and projects. You also will be required to bring a laptop or similar electronic device capable of supporting DaVinci Resolve editing software to many of our class sessions. The Student Technology Loan Program has laptops available for individual checkout through their offices in the HUB and Kane Hall, if needed.
Assignments include 7 weekly videographic exercises that ask you to reflect on the research skills you have developed as a CMS major by “filming” that process on your desktop, for instance. Other assignments extend in audiovisual form fundamental CMS analytical skills such as scene breakdown, shot identification, analysis of set design, and so on. Class participants also will be introduced to the many rhetorical forms of audiovisual criticism. Each member of the class will produce a concluding audiovisual research project on a subject of their choosing that relates to course concepts.
This class meets twice a week, M/W 12:30-2:20, in an active learning classroom in Odegaard Library, OUG 141. The classroom structure is designed for small groups to sit together in a circular structure, rather than face a single speaker at the podium. This spatial arrangement will facilitate the experimental, workshop-style nature of this class in which your regular attendance, immersion in course materials, weekly practice of digital editing, and active engagement with your peers’ work will be critical.