Anahita Ghazvinizadeh

This course is designed to introduce students to the language and histories of the moving image arts and the diverse ways in which artists have contributed to them. Throughout the semester we will examine a range of approaches to creating moving image work. We will compare and contrast established ?norms? with radical and experimental approaches to these various media, leading to an understanding of the rich, complex, and evolving landscape upon which individuals have been making, and continue to make, moving image art.

Students will engage with this expanded field through lectures, readings, screenings, meetings with visiting artists as well as becoming active in discussions and practitioners in the field via group projects.

Working in small groups, students will complete a series of short projects to introduce them to the various pathways of the department. By the end of the semester, students should have gain basic production and postproduction skills as well a good understanding of the key concepts relevant to contemporary film, video, new media, installation and animation.

An interdisciplinary studio that develops skills specific to the challenges of writing for time-based projects, especially works in film, video, installation, and performance. The primary focus is in-class writing, a range of textual experiments, and workshop /critique of students' writing in relation to their own works-in-progress. We pay attention to 'invisible' texts--the writing before the script, free-writing, conceptual issues--as well as overt ones. Special emphasis is placed on developing the ear in work on monologue, dialogue, and voice-over. The class reads and discusses selected scripts and writings by artists, screens films and videos, attends exhibitions and performances, and performs close analyses (another form of 'reading') of texts.

This course is a production class designed for students interested in alternative modes of narrative production in film and Video. Through workshops on writing, acting, and directing, students learn to work with actors, dialogue, and alternative narrative structures. Students apply the concepts covered in class to their selected projects, from production through editing. Throughout the course, a wide range of narrative films utilizing experimental modes of production are screened. Technical issues are covered in cinematography workshops, but it is assumed that students have a solid technical grounding in their medium of choice. Though the body of this class focuses on film and video production, the class is also appropriate for students working in performance and sound.

This Professional Practice course is designed for students with practical experience and understanding of the language and process of fiction, non-fiction, hybrid or experimental film production, and who would like to prepare themselves for professional survival and growth as emerging filmmakers outside of school. The topics covered at the class will include: producing project proposals for grants, fellowships and labs; learning about local, national and international film communities, networks and institutions; discussing festivals and other conventional or DIY distribution models; learning about programming and writing about film as career paths; and strategies for building film communities and production teams such as companies and collectives.
We will watch and discuss works by notable SAIC alumni such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and will have in-person and virtual visits and discussions with local and global filmmakers, programmers, distributors, centers and platforms. Selected successful recent film projects will be discussed as case studies; we will research the life of each project from ideation to fund-raising, production and distribution.
Students will practice professional development by working around one of their own past or in-progress film projects and producing a body of documents around it, including a proposal for a grant or a lab, an artist/director statement, visual treatment and mood-board, and a written festival and distribution plan.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.