HDCC208G
Seminar in Digital Cultures and Creativity: Expanded Cinema
HDCC
208G
Course Description
“Expanded cinema does not mean computer films, video phosphors, atomic light,
or spherical projections. Expanded cinema isn’t a movie at all: like life it’s a process of
becoming…” Gene Youngblood
With rapidly evolving digital technologies the film industry is being transformed.
Smart phones, motion capture, 3D as well as the proliferation of web series, and ‘appisodes’ are changing how we look at, create and experience movies and television.
This seminar will explore the theory and practice of how these new technologies are
expanding boundaries of the moving image and how this is reflected in society. In
addition, through hands-on, experimental and collaborative projects, the course will
include a practical introduction to video production and editing.
As a class we will critically screen and discuss “movies and art of influence.” Experimental film, web series, video art, and installation will be considered in tandem with
more traditional forms of narrative and documentary cinema. While not a historical
survey or a traditional film appreciation course, key films and videos have been selected that serve as an introduction to major themes within cinema. The first half of
the semester will focus on notions of “expanding perspectives” considering topics
related to authorship, truth, identity and politics. The second half will be dedicated
to “expanding screens” or how artists and filmmakers are experimenting with new
models of dissemination, participation and installation.
Professor
Krista Caballero
klc@umd.edu
www.kristacaballero.com
Office Hours
By appopintment
Class Times
Wed from 4-6:30pm
ANA 0120
Learning Outcomes
• Students will be able to critically evaluate, discuss, and write about the history of
cinema and apply this scholarship through the creation of original projects.
• Students will learn key terminology relating to the language of cinema and be able
to use this knowledge as a tool to better analyze and understand film and video.
• Through both research and practice students will communicate major trends,
ideas and issues that new technologies raise in a global context.
• Students will understand how their own critical thinking develops through the
process of creating original projects both individually and collaboratively.
• Students will critique, revise, and perfect projects proposals.
• Students will gain foundational hands-on experience with video and sound editing in Adobe Premiere
• Students will have read and be able to discuss key papers and imaginative works
by artists, filmmakers, theorists, and other influential thinkers.
• Students will synthesize insights from one another as well as the instructor and
their readings in order to produce a final project that demonstrates real depth of creativity and insight in the area of expanded cinema.
HDCC
Grading
208G
Active Engagement / Participation
Quiz #1 on Sept 25
Expanding Portraiture due Oct 16
Quiz #2 on Oct 30
Group Project Proposal due Oct 30
Quiz #3 on Nov 20
Final Video Project due Dec 4
(10%)
(5%)
(20%)
(5%)
(10%)
(5%)
(25%)
Readings
All readings will be posted in Canvas or provided as links to online articles.
Important Resources
http://www.ubu.com
http://archive.org/details/movies
http://www.vdb.org
http://www.lib.umd.edu/nonprint
Screenings:
This is a screening-intensive course and the films selected are an integral component
of the lecture. Therefore, it is expected that you approach these screenings with the
same intellectual rigor and curiosity you bring toward course readings. The successful student will watch attentively, take notes, and participate in all group discussions.
Not all films will appeal to everyone or are intended to be “entertaining.” However,
each film selected is meant to provide a context for exploring the history and future
of cinema. Many topics addressed by these films may be controversial. Please contribute your perspective while remaining respectful and thoughtful of others viewpoints.
During screenings please do not talk, text, e-mail, or otherwise cause distraction for
others.
Quizzes will be given throughout the semester that will cover both course readings
and screenings.
Film Analysis due Dec 18
(20%)
Computing Policy
Active and thoughtful engagement with the
DCC is a program that actively utilizes emerging technologies to explore new meth-
course material and participating in all group
ods of learning and scholarship. We welcome and encourage the use of laptops, tab-
discussions is expected. Please come to class
lets, and similar electronic devices in class for note-taking or class-related research.
having read all of the day’s pertinent required
However, all phones must be turned off or set to vibrate prior to entering the class-
readings. Attendance alone does not guarantee
room. Students who consult non-course related content on electronic devices during
an A in class participation.
class (such as checking e-mail, texting, or shopping) will be asked to leave.
Academic Integrity
The University of Maryland, College Park has a nationally recognized Code of Academic Integrity, administered by the Student Honor Council. This Code sets standards
for academic integrity at Maryland for all undergraduate and graduate students. As
a student you are responsible for upholding these standards for this course. It is very
important for you to be aware of the consequences of cheating, fabrication, facilitation, and plagiarism. Cheating includes: reusing portions of coursework for credit, allowing others to prepare work, and utilizing external aids including commercial term
paper and internet companies. If you have a question regarding any of the above or
the code in general, consult immediately with one of the instructors. For more information on the Code of Academic Integrity or the Student Honor Council, please visit
http://www.studenthonorcouncil.umd.edu/whatis.html.
HDCC
208G
Plagiarism and Citations
The definition of plagiarism is broader than commonly assumed. Plagiarism includes:
direct quotation, paraphrasing, summarization, and fabrication of materials. All quotations taken from other authors, including paraphrasing and all sources from the
Internet (including Wikipedia, blogs, and forums) and other digital media, must be
indicated by quotation marks and properly referenced. When writing a blog or blog
comment, cite at least the author’s name and enough information for a reader to find
the work on their own (e.g. a hyperlink if available.) Some of the works we’ll be reading may not be covered by the MLA style guide (e.g. project development); if this is
the case, please give at least the work’s title, author, date of publication, and the web
address for the work (if any). If you are ever uncertain about your need to cite some-
Learning Assistance Service
If you are experiencing difficulties in keeping
up with the academic demands of this course,
contact the Learning Assistance Service, 2202
Shoemaker Building, 301-314-7693. Their educational counselors can help with time management, reading, math learning skills, note-taking
and exam preparation skills. All their services
are free to UMD students.
www.counseling.umd.edu/LAS
thing or how to do so, please contact the instructor before turning in your work.
Note on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism:
Any source that you draw ideas and quotes from must be cited accurately. If you use
any source in your work without correctly citing the work, this constitutes plagiarism.
Any intentional plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the assignment and may
result in a failing grade for the course.
Types of Plagarisms
1. Buying papers, borrowing papers, or recycling former papers unrevised and claiming these types of papers as your own for your assignment in this course.
2. Cutting and pasting parts of a webpage or borrowing passages from a book for
your paper without properly citing these parts and claiming the material as your own
for the expressed intent of cheating.
3. Using another’s creative work such as photos, data visualizations or artwork without proper credit or alteration.
Administration
If you have a registered disability and wish to discuss accommodations, please email
the instructor by the end of the second week of class. Disabilities can be registered
through Disability Support Services (4-7682 or 5-7683 TTY/TDD).
It is the student’s responsibility to inform the instructor by email of any religious
observances that will conflict with your attendance, assignment deadlines, or final
exam. The student should provide emailed notification to the professor by the end
of the second week of the term; the notification must identify the religious holiday(s)
and the date(s). If this notification is not given to the instructor by this date, all missed
assignments, quizzes, and exams are subject to grade penalties.
Syllabus Subject to Change:
This syllabus is subject to change at any time according to the professor’s discretion.
COURSE SCHEDULE:
PART I: Early and Expanding Perspectives
SEPT 4: Introductions: Early film and theories of expanded cinema
• Class Screenings: The Story of Film: An Odyssey: “Birth of the Cinema” (2011)
and excerpts from Metropolis, Fritz Lang (1927)
Read:
• Gene Youngblood, “Preface,” pages 41- 44 from Expanded Cinema (1970)
Recommended viewing:
• Race Horse, Eadweard Muybridge (1878)
• First films, The Lumiere Brothers (1895)
• Falling Leaves, Alice Guy-Blaché (1912)
• Adventures of Prince Achmed (excerpt), Lotte Reiniger (1926)
SEPT 11: Cinema Eye
• Class Screening: Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov (1929)
• Technical Workshop: Camera Perspective
Read:
• John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapter 1
• Dziga Vertov, “WE: Variant of a Manifesto” (1922) from 100 Artists’ Manifestos
Watch:
• Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren (1943)
• La Jetée, Chris Marker (1962)
Recommended viewing:
Blade Runner, Ridley Scott (1982)
SEPT 18: “Reading” the moving image
• Class Screening: Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
Read:
• Thomas Elssesser and Malte Hagener, “Cinema as window and frame” from Film
Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses (2010)
• James Monaco, How to Read a Film (1977) pages 121-132.
Watch:
John Berger Episode 1: Psychological Aspects
SEPT 25: The “Gaze” and Popular Culture
• Class Screening: Awkward Black Girl created by Issa Rae (2011-2012)
• QUIZ #1
Read:
• bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” from Black Looks:
Race and Representation (1992)
• Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), originally published
Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18
Watch:
Color Adjustment, Marlon Riggs (1992) -- Found online / UMD library
Recommended viewing:
Kill Bill: Vol 1-2, Quentin Tarantino (2003 and 2004)
OCT 2: Documentary and Myth
• Class Screening: The Return of Navajo Boy, Jeff Spitz (2000)
• Technical Workshop: An Introduction to Premiere
Read:
• Louie Yang, “Reassemblage: The Enlightenment of Documentary”, Discoveries
#2 Fall 1997, The John S. Knight Institute at Cornell University
Watch:
• Reassemblage, Trinh T Minh-ha (1983)
• Sioux Ghost Dance (1894)
Recommended viewing:
Nanook of the North, Robert J. Flaherty (1922)
OCT 9: Third Cinema
• Class Screening: Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment), Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (1968)
Read:
Nancy Berthier, “Memorias del Subdesarrollo / Memories of Underdevelopment
from The Cinema of Latin America
Watch:
Michael Chanan, Roots of Third Cinema, extracted and re-edited from New Cinema of Latin America (Channel Four, 1983)
Recommended viewing:
Hour of the Furnaces, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (1968)
OCT 16: Video Critique
• DUE: Video Assignment 1 (including short paragraph)
PART II: Expanding Screens
OCT 23: Early Video Art and the New Language of Cinema
• Class Screenings: Nam June Paik, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Joan Jonas, Bill
Viola, Martha Rosler, Dara Birnbaum, John Baldessari, etc.
• Technical Workshop: Premiere II
Read:
• Michael Rush, Video Art, Introduction, pp. 7-11(2003)
• Lev Manovich, “Digital Cinema and the History of the Moving Image,” pp. 293308 from The Language of New Media (2001)
Recommended viewing:
Cremaster Cylce, Mathew Barney (1994–2002)
OCT 30: Transmedia and Second Screens
• Class Screening: The Blaire Witch Project, Eduardo Sánchez & Daniel Myrick
(1999)
• QUIZ #2
• DUE: Written project proposal
Read:
• Jane Roscoe, “The Blair Witch Project: Mock-documentary goes mainstream”
Jump Cut, no. 43, July 2000, pp. 3-8.
• Ben Fritz, Fourth Wall does the ‘Dirty Work’ of innovation, Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2012
Watch:
Fourth Wall Studios, Dirty Work (2012)
NOV 6: Digital Remix
• Class Screening: Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann (2001)
Read:
• Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, pp. 68-83 (2008)
• Marsha Kinder, “Moulin Rouge” from Film Quarterly Vol. 55, No. 3 (Spring 2002),
pp. 52-59 Published by: University of California Press
Watch:
Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la lune (1902)
Recommended viewing:
Rebirth of a Nation, Paul D. Miller (2008)
NOV 13: Participatory and Crowdsourced Cinema
• Class Screening: Life in a Day, Kevin Macdonald (2011)
• Individual Group Meetings and lab
Read:
• Henry Jenkins, “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence and Participatory Culture“
Watch:
• Casey Pugh, Star Wars Uncut: The Empire Strikes Back TEASER
• *Chris Milk, The Johnny Cash Project
*Contribute a drawing and e-mail documentation for extra credit!
NOV 20: Immersive, Interactive and Interconnected Fields
• Class Screenings: Wolfgang Staehle, Natalie Bookchin, Jenny Holzer, Krzysztof
Wodiczko, Miwa Matreyek, Ryoji Ikeda, Joseph DeLappe, Les Leveque, Mary Flanagan, Scott Sona Snibbe, etc.
• QUIZ #3
Read:
• Gene Youngblood, “The Intermedia Network as Nature,” pages 54-56 and “Nature, Art, Entertainment, Entropy” pages 59-65 from Expanded Cinema (1970)
Recommended viewing:
Teknolust, Lynn Hershman Leeson (2002)
NOV 27: Hybrid Forms: Experimental Animation and Machinima
• Class Screening: Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (2007)
Read:
• Lev Manovich, Understanding Hybrid Media, Published in Betti-Sue Hertz, ed.,
Animated Paintings (San Diego: San Diego Museum of Art, 2007)
Watch:
• The Journey - Unreal Tournament 2003 Machinima, Friedrich Kirshner
• 6 Days (Call of Duty machinima), J. Joshua Diltz
• The Event, Julia Pott (2012)
• Night Hunter, Stacey Steers (2011)
Recommended viewing:
http://www.shortoftheweek.com
DEC 4: Final Project Screening / Installation
DEC 11: Expanded Futures
Final Class Screening: TBA
Read:
• Manhola Dargis and A. O. Scott, Film Is Dead? Long Live Movies How Digital Is
Changing the Nature of Movies, Published: September 6, 2012, New York Times
Final on Wed, Dec 18:
Film Analysis due by 3:30pm
ASSIGNMENTS
Expanding Portraiture:
The oldest portrait currently known was created approximately 27,000 ago revealing how ancient our desire is to reflect upon
and visualize self and society. The Oxford Dictionary states that a portrait is “a representation or impression of someone or
something in language or on film.”
One might argue that film and video are particularly suited to portraiture, providing a glimpse into the life and times of others.
For this project you will create your own moving portrait (3-4 minutes.) This vignette may be autobiographical in nature, or as
in Man with a Movie Camera, a type of cityscape portrait examining a particular location. Please consider what makes up your
identity (or the identity of a place) and how this identity is informed by societal ideas, constructs and perspectives. Course
topics should inform this project and a small paragraph (approximately 200 words) will be submitted alongside your video
project that addresses this relationship.
Please note: you may use DCC cameras, or experiment with your phone or iPad for this project. However, Premiere must be
used as the editing software.
DUE: OCT 16
Final Project:
For your final project you will select from one of the areas listed below that have been covered in class. Regardless of which
you choose there must be some component of “interactivity” as you consider current transmedia trends. This may be done
physically (as in developing an installation) or through technology (utilizing social media and the web etc.)
In addition, you will work collaboratively in groups of 3 - 4. Each group will submit a project proposal in class on October
30th, which must clearly describe individual roles. Your final project screening or installation will also include a brief 5-minute
presentation outlining process and how your project relates to course topics and readings.
Your video should be no longer than 8 minutes. Please select from the following:
•
Web series pilot
Your pilot may take any form but should be clearly developed with a well-written script outline (included in your project
proposal.) This outline will serve as a type of blueprint for your production. There are many useful online tools that assist with
scriptwriting and you are encouraged to research some of these. Please consider the following: genre, camera style/perspective, characters, plot, opening /closing Images, and audience and so forth as you create your pilot.
•
Experimental Video / Animation
Throughout the semester we have seen artists utilize video and film in unexpected ways with unconventional methods. Some
have focused on the relationship between performance, the body and documentation while others have examined our relationship to technology creating interactive and immersive environments. Drawing inspiration from these artists, use this as
a springboard for thinking through and experimenting with technology and pushing boundaries of image making. The final
piece may be an installation (Scott Sona Snibbe), play with interactive web elements (Johnny Cash Project), focus on collective
performance (Natalie Bookchin) or be screened in a more traditional sense. In addition to a project description and individual
roles your proposal should include a list of artists who have influenced the direction you plan to go as well as schematics if you
intend to create an installation.
•
Digital Remix
Properly “adopt, borrow, or sample” video clips and/or sounds from others in order to “repurpose” these images and create or
your own new content. Source clips may come from video games, pop culture, film, music, news outlets, sports or anything
else you might find interesting. However, you must use at least 3 different sources, taking existing content to create your own
message (your project proposal should discuss these sources.) You may also combine your own footage with appropriated
imagery if you so desire. Please keep in mind that the intention of appropriation is to reimagine what is already present as a
means to challenge perspectives and/or consider something anew.
PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE: Oct 30th
FINAL PROJECT DUE: Dec 4th
Film Analysis:
As we have discussed in class, film and video have the potential to offer great insight into particular historical moments providing a window to better understand society. It is a kind of language that can be read, analyzed, and discussed in relationship to the important questions of our time. For this film analysis you must write 3-5 pages on a film from the list below. This
should move beyond mere summarization to critically explore the relationships between concepts learned in the class and
the selected film. At least 2 course readings must be discussed in a substantive and thoughtful manner as you explore and
synthesize some of the major issues and questions posed by the course.
Some things to consider:
1.
What are the major theme(s) of the film?
2.
What issues does the film raise and how do these relate to course readings and class screenings?
3.
What do you see as the main purpose of the film?
4.
How do choices such as camera angles, sound, editing and so forth influence the way you understand the charac-
ters and/or plot? (See: How to “Read” a Film handout)
5.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the film?
Papers must be written in 12 point Times New Roman font, double spaced with 1’ margins. You must cite sources accurately
in MLA or APA style. This analysis is in lieu of a final exam and is therefore due during the scheduled final. No late work will be
accepted.
Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin(1936)
Citizen Kane, Orson Welles (1941)
Los Olvidados, Luis Buñuel (1950)
Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
The Graduate, Mike Nichols (1967)
Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky (1972)
The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky (1973)
Blade Runner, Ridley Scott (1982)
Tootsie, Sydney Pollack (1982)
Tongues Untied, Marlon Riggs (1989)
Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee (1989)
Twin Peaks (TV series), David Lynch (1990-1991)
Cremaster Cylce, Mathew Barney (1994–2002)
My Family, Gregory Nava (1995)
Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki (1997)
Smoke Signals, Chris Eyre (1998)
Boys Don’t Cry, Kimberly Peirce (1999)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee (2000)
La Ciénaga, Lucrecia Martel (2001)
Teknolust, Lynn Hershman Leeson (2002)
Whale Rider, Niki Caro (2002)
Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola (2003)
Kill Bill: Vol 1-2, Quentin Tarantino (2003 and 2004)
House of Flying Daggers, Zhang Yimou (2004)
Rebirth of a Nation, Paul D. Miller (2008)
Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy (2010)
DUE: Must be e-mailed by Wed, Dec 18 no later than 3:30pm.