Stories That Matter, Skills You'll Need. Put Your Perspectives To Work As You Learn Digital Filmmaking Skills

FTV 301H: Digital Filmmaking and Community Media Outreach
Monday & Wednesday 12:00-1:50pm
Instructor: Beverly Seckinger

Interested in making a difference locally? Want to cultivate filmmaking skills? Why not combine these two interests by enrolling in FTV301H? This class is an accelerated introduction to digital filmmaking for honors students from all majors. Drawing on your diverse academic backgrounds and research interests, you will gain camera, sound and editing skills, and learn how to represent your observations, experiences and point of view through a series of short creative non-fiction projects. Using DSLR cameras and Zoom sound recorders you will learn how to create and interpret sounds and images, and then to edit your work using Adobe Premiere. Class meetings will consist of brief lectures, discussions, lab tutorials, group exercises, screenings, project work, presentations and critiques. Through class critique, you will learn how to process feedback and use it productively to revise and strengthen your work.  The class also includes a significant community engagement component. After developing skills in documentary media storytelling, you will work in teams on our community-based youth enrichment program, DocVisions, mentoring refugee and immigrant teens in media production. Participating in a project that nurtures creative expression among youth from diverse cultural backgrounds, you will not only sharpen your skills in media production, but also develop teaching/mentoring skills and learn about refugee and immigrant populations here in Tucson, while contributing to the students’ language learning, acculturation, skill-building in media production, and self-expression.