Course Projects
One Day in 30 Seconds (10%)
Using your smartphone in horizontal mode, record your experience of one day in short 2 to 6-second shots.
- Try to capture various types of images and sounds, in various shot positions (close-up, medium, long-shot) and in various locations (in your home, with friends, commute, job, errands, campus).
- Take lots of shots throughout the day and be willing to put only 30% of these into the final video.
- See if you can make visual, auditory or even metaphorical connections from shot to shot. In other words, consider what you are framing in each shot.
- With Premiere, edit shots into a 30-second video. Export with Format setting of H.264 and a preset of YouTube or Vimeo at 720p. Upload to YouTube or Vimeo and post to the blog.
This is an assignment to use a variety of framed shots (close-up, medium and long) to create a montage of one day in your life — morning to night — this week. You may use text if you like, but no music or voice over. Use only the sound you capture in the shot. Also, this is to be “first person” shooting: what you see around you, where you are. So no selfies, please. You can show parts of yourself, just no direct shots of you staring at the camera.
* Please shoot all videos in this class in landscape (horizontal) mode (like YouTube), NOT portrait/vertical mode (like TikTok).
** In Adobe Premiere, export your videos to H.264 format with a preset at 720p for YouTube or Vimeo. Bring an exported file to class.
Sculpting Space (5%)
In this project, you will treat space as an active presence—almost as a character—rather than a neutral backdrop. Through framing, camera movement, editing, and sound, you will reveal how a space feels, how it shapes behavior, and how it directs attention over time. Instead of recording a location from a single viewpoint, you will construct it cinematically, allowing the viewer to experience its openness or confinement, its clarity or confusion, and its psychological or narrative pressure.
The space may feel welcoming or hostile, expansive or constricted, calm or tense. What matters is not what the space “is,” but how it is revealed—where the eye is drawn, what changes within the frame, and how movement and sound guide the viewer through it. By the end, the viewer should have a clear sense of how this space operates and what it does to those inside it.
Requirements
- Final video length: 60 seconds max
- Shoot in landscape (horizontal) orientation
- Use a range of shot scales: long shots, medium shots, close-ups
- Define a space through framing, movement, editing, and sound
- Use sound that you record yourself
- Upload to YouTube or Vimeo and post to Slack and submit to Canvas
Suggestions
- Think of the space as having a personality: is it open, constricted, orderly, chaotic, isolating, or disorienting?
- Use a moving subject to reveal the space—someone walking, searching, waiting, or passing through can guide both framing and editing
- Let changes in movement, direction, or pace suggest where to cut and what the viewer should notice
- Pay attention to where the eye goes within each shot: toward motion, depth, light, or offscreen cues
- Use sound to shape the space: footsteps, movement, room tone, distant voices, wind, or mechanical noise can suggest scale, distance, and unseen areas
- Record sounds separately if needed, and allow them to bridge cuts or suggest spaces beyond the frame
- Ask yourself: Does the space feel open or constrained? How does it affect movement, attention, or mood?
Project Ideas
- Space as Documentary: A short observational portrait of a place such as a farmers market, campus hallway, workshop, gym, or transit stop. Use framing, movement, and sound to reveal how the space functions, where attention flows, and how people move through it. Avoid interviews or explanation—let the space speak through activity and rhythm.
- Space as Experience (Subjective POV): A short film experienced from a single point of view, as if we are inside someone’s perception. Use camera movement, framing, and sound to shape how the space feels—open or claustrophobic, calm or anxious, familiar or strange. The story is not what happens, but how the space is encountered.
- Space as Character (Fictional Scene): Create a simple fictional situation where the location is the dominant force. A person enters, waits, searches, or leaves. The space should influence mood, movement, and attention more than action or dialogue.
- Transition Through Space: A short sequence focused on moving from one area to another—inside to outside, public to private, light to dark. Use cutting, sound, and camera position to make the transition meaningful. The emphasis is on how spaces connect, not on arriving at a destination.
- Empty Space, Traces of Use: Film a space with little or no human presence. Use framing, sound, and duration to suggest recent or imminent activity. The absence of people should make the space feel inhabited rather than dead.
- Compressed Space: Use close-ups, partial views, and sound to construct a space without ever showing it fully. Let the viewer assemble the space mentally through fragments.
Loop Series (5%)
No more than 10 seconds per loop.
Shoot and edit 3 video loops (6-10 second mini-narratives) that depict or evoke different subjective experiences of time: cyclic, slow, timeless, frantic, rhythmic.
In one loop try to incorporate continuity editing — POV shot, match on action, etc — to maintain unity. In another, try out a more discontinuous/montage style by contrasting edited shots — dark/light, fast/slow, close-up/long-shot. In the third, attempt a perfect/infinite loop or a mini-narrative loop.
Create a variety of shot durations for emphasis. A 4-second shot sandwiched between 2-second shots will seem to stretch time.
The best way to show the loop is to repeat (3-5 times) the edited loop in the video track before uploading to YouTube or Vimeo.
Sound & Color (10%)
In this project, you will create a short audiovisual work that explores how color and sound shape mood, emotion, and meaning. Rather than focusing on narrative or realistic space, this assignment emphasizes expression—how color palettes, contrast, rhythm, and sound design can evoke a state of mind, atmosphere, or inner experience. The result may be abstract, surreal, dreamlike, or poetic.
Requirements
- Final video length: 30–60 seconds
- Shoot in landscape (horizontal) orientation
- Use color and sound as the primary expressive elements
- Choose a dominant color or palette and work intentionally with contrast
- Use sound design to shape mood and rhythm
- You may use: sound you record yourself, public domain sound, and optional AI-generated visuals/audio
- Upload to YouTube or Vimeo and post to the course blog
- Bring an exported file to class for critique
Suggestions
- Start with an emotion, sensation, or state of mind (calm, tension, isolation, anticipation, disorientation, wonder)
- Limit your color palette and let variations in tone, saturation, or contrast do the work
- Use montage to create color contrast rather than relying on a single look
- Let sound and color interact: sound can intensify color, and color shifts can respond to changes in sound
- Experiment with abstraction: blurred imagery, repetition, slowed motion, or nonliteral sound
- AI effects can be used to transform color, texture, or sound—but should serve an expressive goal
- Ask yourself: If the image were muted, would the sound still carry meaning? If the sound were removed, would color alone communicate something?
Group Project (15%)
In this group project, the class will collaborate on a shared studio production focused on cinematic presence, voice, and listening. Students will record a series of interview-based performances in a controlled studio environment, emphasizing framing, lighting, camera position, and sound quality. Rather than scripted dialogue, subjects will respond naturally to a small set of open-ended prompts around a shared theme.
All recorded footage will be shared with the class. Each student will then create their own 1–2 minute edited montage, shaping meaning through editing, sound, color, rhythm, and structure. The emphasis is on how cinema constructs voice and presence—not through explanation, but through duration, silence, juxtaposition, and tone.
Requirements
Production (Collaborative)
- Participate in the studio shoot as part of a rotating team
- Take on multiple roles (subject, camera, sound, lighting, interviewer)
- Focus on framing and camera position, lens choice and focus, lighting for face and figure, and clean voice recording
Post-Production (Individual)
- Create a 1–2 minute video using the shared interview footage
- Shape the piece through editing, sound, color, and titles
- Upload the final video to YouTube or Vimeo and post to the course blog
- Bring your final cut to class for screening and discussion
Post-Production Options
- Montage: Juxtapose voices to create contrast or resonance; use repetition, pauses, or interruptions to shape meaning
- Sound Design: Layer voices, room tone, or ambient sound; use silence as structure; add music if it supports tone and does not overpower voices
- Color & Image: Apply consistent or expressive color correction; use contrast or shifts in tone to suggest emotional movement
- Structure: Organize by theme, rhythm, or emotional arc rather than chronology; let duration and pacing guide attention
- Illustrative or Associative B-roll (Optional): Add images that extend, contradict, or reflect what is being said. B-roll may include footage you shoot yourself, public-domain or properly credited found footage, or AI-generated imagery/video. B-roll should support the voices rather than replace them.
- Titles & Text: Introduce voices, ideas, or thematic framing; use text sparingly and intentionally
- Optional Experiments: Subtle visual or sound effects; abstract transitions or overlays; AI-assisted effects (optional and not required)
Evaluation Criteria
- Attention to cinematic presence and voice
- Quality of editing and montage decisions
- Use of sound to shape meaning and mood
- Thoughtful color and visual treatment
- Clarity of intention and overall coherence
Video Essay (25%)
Create a 2–3 minute video essay on a subject of your choosing. Video essays combine thinking and making: rather than presenting a traditional academic argument, your goal is to develop a point of view through images, sound, rhythm, and voice. Use cinematic language—montage, pacing, sound, and audiovisual relationships—to explore an idea, question, person, place, object, or cultural phenomenon. Written text and/or voice-over is required.
Project Development
- Subject & Focus: Identify a central idea, question, or line of inquiry. Articulate it concisely to guide your project.
- Materials: You may use a mix of video you shoot, screen recordings, public-domain or properly credited found footage, still images, graphics, and optional AI-generated visuals or sound. Credit all external materials.
- Essay Form & Pace: Choose how your essay unfolds (argumentative, reflective, associative, poetic). Use pacing, repetition, and silence intentionally.
- Editing & Refinement: Assemble and refine your piece in Premiere. Let structure and meaning evolve through editing.
- Text & Voice: Use text overlays, voice-over, or both. Aim for a conversational, reflective tone rather than academic writing.
- Finalization: Mix audio carefully for clarity; apply color correction intentionally; add titles and credits.
Supplementary Exercise: Trailer & Social Post
- Create a 30-second trailer that introduces the tone, question, or central tension of your essay.
- Write one short social media post (text only) that would accompany the trailer when shared online.
Evaluation Criteria
- Conceptual Clarity & Insight: Strength of the central idea, question, or perspective
- Cinematic Thinking: Effective use of montage, sound, rhythm, and visual structure to develop meaning
- Integration of Media: Thoughtful combination of video, sound, text, and (optional) AI-generated elements
- Craft & Execution: Editing, sound mixing, color, pacing, and overall polish
- Trailer & Contextual Framing: Effectiveness of the trailer and accompanying post