Fall 2024 Courses

SCRN Courses

Number
Title
Days
Time
Instructor
Introduction to Screen Arts
W
3:30-6:20 PM
Paul Catalanotto
Introduction to Screen Arts
M
4:30-7:20 PM
Paul Catalanotto
Introduction to Screen Arts
T
4:30-7:20 PM
Meghan Hodges
Global Cinemas
T/TH
9:00-10:20 AM
Jacopo Aldrighetti
Global New Waves
T/TH
12:00-1:00 PM
Kalling Heck
Cinematography
M
6:00-8:50 PM
Glen Pitre
Film Editing
W
6:30-9:20 PM
Paul Catalanotto
Film Directing
M
3:00-5:50 PM
Glen Pitre
Italian Cinema
TH
6:00-8:50 PM
Kevin Bongiorni
J-Horror
W
4:30-7:20 PM
Kathryn Barton
Defy Classification: What Is It?
T/TH
1:30-2:50 PM
June Pulliam
Virtual Production
TH
3:30-6:20 PM
Jason Buch
Agnes Varda
T/TH
12:00-1:20 PM
Patricia Suchy

Screenwriting Courses

Number
Title
Days
Time
Instructor
Writing Screenplays
T
3:00-5:50 PM
Jason Buch
Writing Screenplays
MWF
9:30-10:20 AM
MJ Weerts
Intermediate TV & Film Writing
T
3:00-5:50 PM
Zachary Godshall

Approved Electives & General Education Courses

Please note that courses offered by other programs and departments may have additional prerequisites or enrollment requirements. Please consult the schedule booklet and/or the course catalog for more information.

Number
Title
Days
Time
Instructor
AAAS 2410
Black Pop Culture
TBA
TBA
Eldon Birthwright
ANTH 2423-1
Intro to Folklore
T/TH
9:00-10:20 AM
Corrie Kiesel
ANTH 2423-2
Intro to Folklore
MWF
8:30-9:20 AM
TBA
ANTH 2423-3
Intro to Folklore
T/TH
10:30-11:50 AM
Corrie Kiesel
ANTH 3401-1
Study of Folklore
T/TH
1:30-2:50 PM
Corrie Kiesel
The following ART courses may require prerequesites for enrollment. Please consult the catalog for more information.
ART 2050-1
Digital Art I
MW
8:30-9:20 AM;
Lab 9:30-11:20 AM
TBA
ART 2050-2
Digital Art I
MW
12:30-2:20 PM;
Lab 2:30-3:20 PM
TBA
ART 2050-3
Digital Art I
T/TH
3:00-3:50 PM;
Lab 4:00-5:50 PM
TBA
ART 2050-4
Digital Art I
T/TH
12:00-1:50 PM;
Lab 2:00-2:50 PM
TBA
ART 2210-1
Creative Coding
MW
3:30-6:20 PM
Hye Yeon Nam
ART 2210-2
Creative Coding
MW
12:30-3:20 PM
Hye Yeon Nam
ART 2230
Virtual Space
T/TH
12:00-2:50 PM
George Robins
ART 4240-1
Virtual Production
MW
12:30-3:20 PM
Jason Jamerson
ART 4240-2
XR Performance
T/TH
12:00-2:50 PM
Derick Ostrenko
ART 4240-3
Intro to Rhino
MW
12:30-2:50 PM
Sidney Church
ARTH 4420-1
Early Modern Venice
MWF
9:30-10:20 AM
TBA
ARTH 4420-2
Sites of Contemporary Modern Art
T/TH
3:00-4:20 PM
Allison Young
ARTH 4420-3
Museum Studies
W
3:30-6:20 PM
Courtney Taylor
ARTH 4420-4
American Art & Architecture
TBA
TBA
Susan Elizabeth Ryan
ARTH 4420-5
Studies in Art History
TBA
TBA
TBA
CHIN 2070
Chinese Cinema
TH
3:00-5:50 PM
Gang Zhou
CMST 2012
Intro to Film
T/TH
10:30-11:50 AM;
Lab TH 6:00-850 PM 
William Kahalley
CMST 2040
Intro to Performing Literature
Various days, times & instructors available. Please consult schedule booklet for more information.
CMST 2060
Public Speaking
Various days, times & instructors available. Please consult schedule booklet for more information.
CMST 3040
Performance Composition
T/TH
10:30-11:50 AM
Naomi Bennett
CMST 3107
Rhetoric of the Contemporary Media
MWF
10:30-11:20 AM
Joni Butcher
Agnes Varda
T/TH
12:00-1:20 PM
Patricia Suchy
ENGL 2005
Intro to Writing Short Stories
Various days, times & instructors available. Please consult schedule booklet for more information.
ENGL 2029
Drama
T/TH
1:30-2:50 PM
Michele Turner
ENGL 2231
Reading Film
Various days, times & instructors available. Please consult schedule booklet for more information.
ENGL 2423-1
Intro to Folklore
T/TH
1:30-2:50 PM
Corrie Kiesel
ENGL 2423-2
Intro to Folklore
MWF
9:00-10:20 AM
Sussette Lane-Housel
ENGL 2423-2
Intro to Folklore
T/TH
10:30-11:50 AM
Corrie Kiesel
Contemporary Global Cinema
This course requires SCRN Director approval to count towards degree requirements.
MWF
11:30-12:20 PM
Touria Khannous
Film & Poetry
This course requires SCRN Director approval to count towards degree requirements.
M
3:30-6:20 PM
Zachary Godshall
MUS 2745
Intro to Computer Music
MWF
9:30-10:20 AM
TBA
THTR 3026
Intro to Acting for the Camera
T/TH
9:00-10:20 AM; Lab TBA
Joe Chrest
THTR 4026
Acting on Camera II
T/TH
12:00-1:20 PM
Sonya Cooke
WGS 2200-1
Gender & Pop Culture
T/TH
10:30-11:50 AM
June Pulliam
WGS 2200-2
Gender & Pop Culture
T/TH
3:00-4:20 PM
Peter Cava

Graduate Approved Electives

Number
Title Days Time Instructor
CPLT 7140 Verbal Visual Theory T 3:00-5:50 PM Adelaide Russo
CPLT 7150 French Film T 6:00-8:50 PM Kevin Bongiorni

 


Course Descriptions

SCRN 2001-1&2 | Introduction to Screen Arts

Paul Catalanotto

In this introductory course taught by Artist-in-Residence Paul Catalanotto, students can expect to get a taste of different aspects of filmmaking and video production as well as study a variety of filmmakers, styles, and genres.

SCRN 2001-3 | Introduction to Screen Arts

Meghan Hodges

This communication-intensive section of SCRN 2001 offers students a survey of the roles that a professional in screen arts may take on. We will learn about gear, writing, directing, acting, workshopping, and professional and technological communication. Students who successfully complete this class may be eligible for LSU’s Distinguished Communicator certificate.

SCRN 2203 | Global Cinema

Jacopo Aldrighetti

Documenting Socio-environmental Conflicts: Filming & Writing 

How has cinema responded to the impacts of the extraction of resources from our planet? In this course, we will delve into films that portray the socio-economic conflicts surrounding environmental issues and their effects on the people and places involved. We will use films from different continents and a range of environmental literature to gain insights into the intricate relationships between humans and their environments. Films to be studied include: There Will Be Blood (USA, 2007), Sand Wars (Canada, 2013), The Good Life (Germany, 2015), The Path of the Anaconda (Colombia, 2019).

SCRN 3001 | Global New Waves

Kalling Heck

This class is designed to introduce students to the function and form of “New Wave” filmmaking. It has, since at least 1959, been a tradition in the study of Global Cinema to label new—often youth oriented—films arriving from particular countries in a short span of time “New Waves,” a title that seems to highlight their status as a departure from previous styles of filmmaking. But what makes a New Wave? And what is the use of labeling a new group of films as such?

This class will explore these questions by examining the aesthetic and industrial configurations of four of these New Wave movements: those from France, Japan, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. Each of these New Waves took place in the 1960s, and each responds to a remarkably different context. The task of this class will be to map the similarities and differences between these various movements in the hope of understanding their respective impacts; we will additionally examine what makes a New Wave, and why it might (or might not) be of use to label the disparate films that make up these movements as such. Through this process, students will gain an understanding of film history, as well as an account of the effects and outcomes of transnational media flows.

SCRN 3010 | Cinematography

Glen Pitre

A mostly workshop course, SCRN 3010 is designed to teach motivated beginners how to use digital cameras and associated gear to tell compelling stories with moving images. Students complete successively more ambitious film assignments working hands-on with gear available for check out from Screen Arts. Planning and reviewing students’ films and practicing film industry procedures occupies the bulk of the 3 hour weekly class time. Emphasis is on how to control and manipulate lighting, framing, movement, sound, and image qualities to shape mood, convey emotion, tell story, and create a coherent look, first working individually, then as a crew. Classes will offer some basic, relevant cinema history but will concentrate on a workshop style, largely nuts-and-bolts approach. While grades remain private, the instructor’s critiques of each student’s work will be shared publicly among all students.

SCRN 3011 | Film Editing

Paul Catalanotto

SCRN 3011 explores editing theory and history as well as offering students a chance to learn practical skills on the Adobe Premiere editing platform. The course functions as an in-depth study of the history, concepts, and skills involved in film and video editing techniques. Additionally, students will receive formal instruction and practice in non-linear editing software as a means to gain a better understanding of concepts such as montage, continuity, and narrative.

SCRN 3012 | Film Directing

Glen Pitre

Students interested in directing, producing, acting in, or crewing on movies will learn the elements, techniques, and disciplines that go into directing a film as they develop skills in on-screen storytelling; manipulating performance, mood, and emotion; logistical, technical, and artistic problem-solving; and managing time, money, and people.

SCRN 3502 | Italian Cinema

Kevin Bongiorni

This course as both an Italian and Screen Arts course is designed first to introduce students to Italian culture through film. The course will trace the history of Italian cinema from Neo-Realism beginning in WWII to the 1990s and briefly beyond. Secondly, it will expose the students to some of the cultural and cinematic exchange between Italian and American cinemas. At the conclusion of the course through readings in Italian culture and film and by viewing Italian and some American (and an Austrian) films students will learn to see film not only in a national cultural context, as the expression of culture, but in a global and aesthetic context that crosses all national boundaries. So in addition to watching Italian films, in the end, students will watch films in other national cinemas and examine an Italian cinematic connection. Students will develop critical analytical skills through class discussions and assignments. Students will have regular reading and viewing assignments to be completed at home prior to class. These assignments will serve as the basis for discussion. The course requires active student participation in discussion. The course will be divided into 5 basic segments: Neorealism, Federico Fellini, the Spaghetti Western, Commedia All’Italiana and Michelangelo Antonioni.

SCRN 3503 | J-Horror

Kathryn Barton

Contemporary Japanese horror cinema has spawned so many imitators of its subject matter, style, and cinematic technique that it has practically become a movement unto itself. We will consider everything from vengeful ghost stories to serial killer thrillers, body horror to techno-horror, while considering the following: 1) What does J-horror owe to traditional folklore and forms of visual art? 2) How are monsters conceived and depicted, 3) modernity problematized, and 4) what makes us afraid? How does horror elicit feelings of dread, suspense, terror, shock, and fear? What is so pleasurable about horror and what is the sociological function served by such affective states? No previous classes in Japanese culture or language are required, and all readings, films and discussions are in English.

 

SCRN 3505 | Defy Classification: What Is It?

Most horror films center around a recognizable type of monster such as the vampire, the zombie, the werewolf, etc. However, a small but sizable number of horror films focus on monsters or horrific scenarios that are sui generis such as The Thing, Titane, Pontypool, It Follows, It, The Blair Witch Project, and The Babadook. Monsters are frightening because they cross borders between categories such as life and death, male and female, reality and the imaginary, so horror films with monsters that defy classification are even more terrifying. In SCRN 3035: What Is It? We will examine a variety of horror films that defy classification.

SCRN 4001-1 | Virtual Production for Film

Jason Buch

Get practical experience with Virtual Production techniques by collaborating on a series of interconnected short film segments to be produced on LSU's Extended Reality stage. Students will take on roles in various departments or specialties of a film crew and will have the opportunity to fill different positions on each segment of the production while learning the ins and outs of the Virtual Production workflow filming against an LED wall with backgrounds rendered real-time in the Unreal Engine. 

SCRN 4001-2/CMST 4312 | Agnes Varda

Patricia Suchy

Agnès Varda’s filmmaking career spanned six decades, from her innovations as the “mother” of the French New Wave in films like Cleo from 5 to 7, through her experimental blending of fiction and documentary amid youth culture in 1960-70s California, to her award-winning fiction films and essay films like Vagabond (1984) and The Gleaners and I (2000), and to her collaborative road movie with the artist JR, Faces Places (2017). She was also a prolific photographer and groundbreaking intermedia artist. Female directors have historically not been accorded enough space in curricula; Varda belongs in the pantheon of extraordinary film artists of any sex or nationality.

In this course, we will screen and study the works of this versatile and inventive filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist to derive artistic methods, modes, and forms to use in our own creative projects. No prior experience with video making is required; willingness to learn from Varda's works in order to experiment with video making and/or multimedia art is required.


ENGL 2009-1 | Writing Screenplays

Jason Buch

Want to write a movie? TV Pilot? Learn the form and structure of Screenwriting to bring your ideas to life, while reading, watching, and discussing current films and television programs. Workshop your scripts to get friendly and helpful feedback from your fellow students. You will write your own short script and begin work on a feature film script or television pilot.

ENGL 2009-2 | Writing Screenplays

MJ Weerts

Want to write a movie? TV Pilot? Learn the form and structure of Screenwriting to bring your ideas to life, while reading, watching, and discussing current films and television programs. Workshop your scripts to get friendly and helpful feedback from your fellow students. You will write your own short script and begin work on a feature film script or television pilot.

ENGL 4009 | Intermediate TV & Film Writing

Zachary Godshall

Prerequisite: ENGL 2009  Writers: come and workshop your pilot for TV or a feature film script. Using your own scripts, you’ll learn to scene card or outline your scripts as well as critique each other’s work. You’ll watch films or TV shows of your own choosing and present a journal of your observations at end of semester. This is a workshop to complete a rough draft of your script, not a lecture course, so having fun while writing is part of the process.


HNRS 2021-60 | Contemporary Global Cinema

Touria Khannous

This course is an introduction to contemporary global cinema covering the films of internationally recognized filmmakers from a diverse range of countries. We will examine the aesthetic, cultural and political aspects of the films, their cinematic techniques and genres, their distinctive national cinemas and the composition of their film audiences. We will particularly focus on the different images of the body represented in contemporary global cinema. Main topics are gendered bodies, digital bodies, racialized bodies, body and trauma, religious bodies, etc. The course’s theoretical framework includes readings by film critics. 

HNRS 2021-61 |The Image and the Word: Film and Poetry 

Zachary Godshall

In this course, we'll write about films & make films about poems. We'll explore the realm of the image-makers where the pen becomes a camera and the camera a pen. A creative class for Louisiana's image-makers by Louisiana's image-makers. Examining the power of image-makers, the course reveals the tools of both poet and filmmaker. Students will learn by reading and watching, discussing and writing, and by doing. We will read poems and watch films in order to ground ourselves in the techniques unique to each medium. Through discussion and further inquiry and research, we will identify the most effective means of integrating words and video to create original work. Throughout the semester, students will experiment with words and video images in order to understand both mediums more completely. Ultimately, students will create videopoems, a unique medium that integrates words and visual images.