Fall 2021

Prerequisite: Requires sophomore and above standing

Movie marketing is a fast paced, highly interactive course designed to give students a basic overview and understanding of all aspects of a domestic movie marketing campaign, focusing  on business decisions with the goal of developing a competitive advantage for a film’s theatrical life and beyond. The course will examine a range of movies, from low-budget independent to  tent pole film franchises, and explore concepts, processes and different strategic approaches used by today’s distributors.

Movie Marketing - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: Requires sophomore and above standing

The course is designed to provide you with a framework for understanding the entertainment, media and technology industries and their intersecting points. The course covers recent activities in key sectors of the entertainment universe including: movies, home video, television, cable, OTT, social media, publishing and music. We will explore the sweeping trends that are affecting these industries: digitization,globalization, audience fragmentation and shifting models of monetization. We’ll also look at the strategies and models that are (and aren’t) succeeding in this ever-evolving landscape.

Entertainment and Media Industries - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: Requires sophomore and above standing

In the world of digital and networked media, the technology industries that provide the infrastructure for the entertainment and media industries have become important. In particular, platform- mediated networks have become very important. This course will cover platforms from a strategy and marketing perspective. The objectives will be to understand how platforms function, the unique challenges they face, and how platform oriented companies can leverage their strengths and achieve success in the marketplace. These objectives will be achieved through a combination of readings, class discussions, case analysis and a group project.

Digital Business Strategy - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: 1) Completion of FMTV-UT 32: Intro Drama and Visual Writing or FMTV-UT 56: Scriptwriting II or FMTV-UT 33:  Fundamentals of Dramatic and Visual Writing or FMTV-UT 20: Storytelling Strategies And 2) sophomore and above standing.

The aim of this class is to explore, analyze and understand the elements and approaches to screenplay writing.  In order to accomplish this goal we will examine how a screenwriter utilizes structure, character, plot, theme, and symbolism to create a screen story well told.

Script Analysis - Sample Syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: Must be Tisch Film and TV majors or Stern/Tisch Dual Degree BS/BFA Film and TV students 

This class is an examination of the creative, organizational, and managerial roles of the producer in narrative motion pictures and television. Topics include how a production company is formed, functions, creates and obtains properties, financing and distribution. The course gives specific attention to the issues that will be faced by students as future producers and/or production and studio executives.

This class is primarily a creative producing class—and it will focus on the Los Angeles entertainment industry. And it will examine both feature film development and production and the television industry.

This class will provide students a roadmap of how the Los Angeles film and television industry works. It will also help students decide what kinds of projects to develop and acquire, how to assemble the necessary elements, such as director, writer, cast, etc., and to construct a realistic overall producing plan. Today’s producer must be an entrepreneur, navigating and setting his/her own course in a dynamically changing world, as well as someone who can find and create content.

Producing for Film and Television - Sample Syllabus (PDF)

Note. Tisch Film and TV majors this course counts towards Tisch History & Criticism requirement.

A survey of the art and craft of the American animation industry, as an internationally popular art form developed in west coast studios by individual artists, producers and craftspeople using innovative artistic and cinematic techniques. Discussions include: the worldwide influence of “The Hollywood Cartoon”; the growth of the art form of animation; its place in popular culture; techniques, content and styles; use of ethnic and sexual stereotypes; evolving technologies past and present; the influence of Japanese anime on modern Hollywood cartoons and vice versa, among other topics.

History of Animation: The Hollywood Cartoon - Sample Syllabus

Prerequisite: Completion of first year writing requirements (EXPOS-UA 1, EXPOS-UA 4, CCSF-SHU 102, WRI-UF 101 or equivalent writing class).

This course introduces students to the complex relationship between interactivity and storytelling. Students analyze how an interactive structure creates narrative. Works explored in this course range from nonlinear novels, experimental literature, audio narratives, theater/performance to film as narrative databases and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and storyline is complemented by theoretical texts about authorship/readership, plot/story, and characteristics of interactive media.

Interactive Narrative - Sample Syllabus

Note. This course serves as a CORE Expressive Culture equivalent for Steinhardt students.

This course will survey American broadcasting from the wireless through digital television. We will examine how historically specific economic and political forces, regulation, technological innovation, advertisers, creative producers, and audiences have interacted to shape the development of commercial broadcasting and how these cultural products, narratives and processes have become part of our social history.

Television: History and Form - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Note. Tisch students this course can count towards Tisch general education requirements.

Communication and media scholars have long concerned themselves with the relationship between various media/technologies and ‘the audience.’  Different intentions and perspectives inform the discourse and research on how media and communication technologies and their audiences/users interact. This course will examine the history, theories, and methodologies of audience research, always questioning the construction of audiences and media users -- constructions that are shaped by commercial, academic, political and cultural interests. Students will examine different approaches to audience research that inform the concerns, questions, methods, findings, and implications of audience/user research.

Media Audiences - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Course prerequisite: REMU-UT 1215. Students who have taken REMU-UT 9241,should not enroll in this course.

The course defines the role of the motion picture music supervisor, who draws upon the combined resources of the film and music communities to marry music and moving images. This course is intended to lead students to a better understanding and appreciation of the use of music in the filming process. Lectures, assignments, presentations and present the principles and procedures of music supervision and their role in the filmmaking process.

Music Superision - Sample Syllabus