In this interdisciplinary critique-based class, advanced students take a rigorous look at the various ways time-based imagery functions in their work. With an emphasis on post-cinema, research- based, site-dependent, and performative practices, students in Meeting Points: Open Media examine their studio projects in-depth, through group critiques, a close analysis of critical concepts, and working with focus and discipline in their medium of choice.

This course is required for FAV seniors in Open Media and is well-positioned to be a critical support for senior and graduate students looking for additional insight into the development and refinement of their work in the area of cross-disciplinary media art practice. Course work includes research, readings, critique sessions, group discussions, and visiting artist lectures.

Fall semester includes a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

Spring semester includes an emphasis on curatorial exhibition strategies, a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Open Media

In this interdisciplinary critique-based class, advanced students take a rigorous look at the various ways time-based imagery functions in their work. With an emphasis on post-cinema, research- based, site-dependent, and performative practices, students in Meeting Points: Open Media examine their studio projects in-depth, through group critiques, a close analysis of critical concepts, and working with focus and discipline in their medium of choice.

This course is required for FAV Seniors in Open Media and is well-positioned to be a critical support for senior and graduate students looking for additional insight into the development and refinement of their work in the area of cross-disciplinary media art practice. Course work includes research, readings, critique sessions, group discussions, and visiting artist lectures.

Fall semester includes a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

Spring semester includes an emphasis on curatorial exhibition strategies, a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Open Media

For centuries, portraits have created a visual record of someone’s existence. They shape how we understand history, power, and the complexities of the human experience. But what happens when we introduce time to a portrait?

In this studio course, students will explore the history of portraiture while considering what time-based media can offer the form. We will rethink the relationship between artist and sitter, consider who is documented and by whom, and experiment with new possibilities for portraiture today. How might duration, repetition, movement, and performance shape how a portrait communicates?

Looking at the work of artists including Isaac Julien, Gabrielle Goliath, Tacita Dean, Molly Soda, and Tehching Hsieh, students will use moving image, installation, projection, and their own bodies to create time-based portraits that expand our understanding of what portraiture can be.

Elective

This course examines pre-production methods for animation, including storytelling and cinematic language particular to the animation medium. Emphasizing practical approaches to research and concept development, the course will introduce structural tools including storyboards, writing, color scripts, animatics, and preliminary soundtracks. We will ask the central question "Why Animation?" as we cover topics such as point-of-view, expressive scale, use of metaphor, and transformation.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This is a year-long course of study, for which the student will complete a 10-20 minute live action work to final professional screening format. Students are free to choose genres and formats in which they want to work. Students have weekly meetings for screenings, guests, and technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress. During Wintersession, the students perform production work in video and film, organize crews for filmmaking, review rushes and do initial editing and sound work on their degree projects.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

During the senior year, students synthesize and apply what they have learned in their previous studies to the creation of a year-long project. Students develop, design, animate, direct, and produce these projects independently. Students receive weekly individual guidance from instructors and two critiques by established professionals from the world animation community. Class meetings are devoted to film screenings, group critique, and specialized technical workshops.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

During the senior year, students synthesize and apply what they have learned in their previous studies to the creation of a year-long project. Students develop, design, animate, direct, and produce these projects independently. Students receive weekly individual guidance from instructors and two critiques by established professionals from the world animation community. Class meetings are devoted to film screenings, group critique, and specialized technical workshops.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This course is designed to teach students how to utilize the computer to create animation. Special emphasis is placed on exploration and experimentation as it applies to computer-generated or computer-assisted animation. The class covers hand drawn non-computer originated animation, cut out animation, computer generated drawn animation, painting under the camera, rotoscoping, and an introduction to the concepts used in 3D animation. Additionally, an introduction to sound design and editing will be explored in the final animation project.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $40.00

Elective

Over the course of a year, senior students integrate their media skills through a cross-disciplinary approach with time-based media practice, resulting in a developed work or a series of smaller related works meant for exhibition or performance. This path is for students that wish to engage with time-based media in non-traditional ways, such as through installation, performance, public art, interactivity, intervention, networked/collaborative production, activism, etc.. Students research, develop, design, prototype, direct and produce these works independently. Students receive weekly individual guidance from the instructor and partnered peers. Class meetings are devoted to lectures, informational workshops, student presentations of related research, individual meetings and group critique. During Wintersession, students perform production work, test and analyze parameters and results. Students have weekly meetings for lectures, guests, technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This course serves as an introductory exploration into enduring legacies, cultural evolution, and critical analysis of the moving image, encompassing film, animation, and video. With an emphasis on interrogating prevailing forces, structures, and terminology historically associated with these forms, the course aims to question and deconstruct prevailing modes of thinking and making in the medium. It also fosters a space for new perspectives, counter-histories, narratives, and abstractions to emerge in the context of cinema, the moving image, and time-based media.

The course does not merely focus on formal aspects; instead, it delves into a comprehensive examination, analysis, and questioning of how the formal elements and conventions in film actively shape both the functionality of the films themselves and the themes they depict. Questions before each screening prompt active viewing and discussion.

With a significant emphasis on the intersections between cinema and contemporary art practices, we will screen films representing different styles and periods of filmmaking, video art, and animation. Students will develop a shared language by learning the meaning and appropriate usage of common film terms, as well as considering the histories and values that gave rise to them.

Through screenings, lectures, visiting artist presentations, discussions, readings, and assignments, students will expand and deepen their understanding of 'cinema' and the moving image, develop conceptual tools for analyzing time-based imagery and sound, and begin to create direct links between film history and analysis and their studio practices.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video