This course is designed to introduce students to the languages and histories of moving images and media arts, and the diverse ways in which artists and filmmakers have contributed to them. The course will examine ideas of radical content and experimental form by establishing normative models and procedures while showing the ways artists challenge these conventions.

Transfer Coursework at the 1000 level. Departmental approval may be required.

Introduction to Digital Filmmaking is an introduction to the basic theoretical and practical techniques of film production in the documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. Topics include digital storytelling basics, essential cinematography tenets and techniques, introductory sound recording and mixing, and foundational editing skills.

Narrative Filmmaking is a continuation of skills and techniques covered in Introduction to Digital Filmmaking. This course will introduce the student to the techniques of lighting, makeup, scheduling, budgeting, directing, and editing. This is a laboratory course in which a major portion of the student’s grade is based on his/her successful execution of several film production projects.

This course analyzes documentary film aesthetics and practices while employing hands on production & coordination, post-production, editing, and distribution. Previously listed as DMPC 3050.

This experiential, workshop-style course will teach students the fundamentals of documentary visual language and allow students to practice various documentary filming techniques. May be taken for credit up to 3 times.

This experiential, workshop style course will allow students to explore and practice the many ways they might employ camera movement in films. May be taken for credit up to 3 times.

This course serves as a collaborative practicum lab for students in Acting for Other Media, Directing Actors, and Lighting & Cinematography. It meets once per week for 3 hours and is required of all students enrolled in these courses.

This course offers an exploration of games as media and investigates methods by which game authors extend the visual traditions and conceptual ideals of contemporary media theory and visual communication into the gaming medium. Games represent a rapidly emerging medium, the history of which must be analyzed through the lenses of art history, representation, new media studies, and game studies in order to be fully contextualized. Students will explore different game genres while analyzing and playing games in order to gain an understanding of their frameworks and programmatic strategies. The readings and lectures in this course are intended to incite an active and critical perspective on contemporary game practices in art, digital interfaces, game culture, and the game industry. There will be a focus more on independent game designers and artists and different strategies for gaming, such as VR, internet-based games, personal narratives, and machinima. No coding experience is required for this class.

Video games are a huge part of the entertainment industry and a vital part of many people’s lives. Open source programs have made it easier for individuals outside of the game industry to make poetic, personal, political, critical and revelatory games. In this class, we will be looking at tools for independent game making (Twine, Bitsy and Unity) to ultimately create mini games of our own. While we are learning to make games, we will also explore different game genres while analyzing and playing games in order to gain an understanding of their frameworks and programmatic strategies. The readings and lectures in this course are intended to incite an active and critical perspective on contemporary game practices in art, digital interfaces, game culture and the game industry.

We produce caches of data within our networked lives, from social media interactions to mass surveillance systems, mostly to the benefit of corporate or state entities. These data sets also reveal a story about us, although sometimes abstract and obfuscated. Through a combination of lectures and workshops, we will explore how data has been used, both historically and contemporaneously, to control, manipulate and influence the body and how artists, writers and activists have responded to issues of privacy, representation, gender and identity. We will look at how our physical, social and personal digital presence is reduced to data, surveilled and analyzed through our online behavior, mobile devices, CCTV, 3D scanning, computer vision and machine learning algorithms. Throughout the semester, students will learn how to code for the web while collecting and visualizing data about themselves to form a personalized narrative about how they interact with these spaces and how these spaces might see them.

This course investigates the historical, political, and technical dimensions of podcasting as a technology for advancing social and economic justice in the United States and across the world. We will explore pertinent theories of sound, genre, and storytelling while learning some of the fundamentals of podcast production. We will also interact with guest speakers who are both experienced practitioners of the form and politically engaged advocates and organizers.

In this course, students will develop intermediate skills with all components of the podcast production process, including interviewing, audio recording, and audio editing. They will do so through producing, recording, and editing three episodes of a podcast with a partner in three discrete formats: interview-based, essayistic, and experimental or avant garde. These efforts will be supported by close study of cutting-edge scholarship in podcast studies and sound studies throughout the semester. By the end of the course, students will have gained competencies as both practitioners of podcasting and theorists of sound.

Transfer Coursework

This course introduces the art and craft of screenwriting by learning the essential principles necessary to analyze and write screenplays.

This course familiarizes students with the complex process by which film and television projects are found, proposed, sold, and produced. The course covers the search for stories, writing coverage, pitch pages, beat sheets, script notes, developing screenplays, and packaging a project for presentation to potential buyers.

This course is designed as a laboratory for directors who wish to develop skills and techniques for collaborating to achieve compelling and believable on-screen performances. During the course students write, direct, and edit short dialogue scenes in collaboration with actors.

Professional, high quality sound design practices in narrative film are analyzed and implemented in this course. This hands-on experience will explore techniques of recording, mixing, processing, synthesis, sampling, and analysis of digital audio with emphasis on the fundamental elements of producing, designing and editing sound specifically for the moving image. Topics to be covered include microphone techniques, field and studio recording, stereo and 5.1 surround sound distribution, and Foley and ADR techniques. Students will collaborate in designing the sound for the Senior films.

Techniques in the art and craft of lighting and digital cinematography are covered, from angles, frame composition, filters, and camera movement to image control through lighting, exposure, focus and lenses. Students learn from in-class demonstrations, out of class assignments, and analysis of the techniques of the masters in cinematography. The duties of camera department personnel are addressed. The class also includes instruction in the use of the dolly, slate, signal monitoring equipment, lighting styles and Steadicam.

This course covers the history and technique of color correction for the digital image in television and film.

The objective of this 3-credit course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of producing for the theatre, as well as cinema, television, and emerging media. Students will receive an overview of the role of the producer, from the initial steps of putting together script, talent, and the team (writer(s), director, actors, designers), through financing, and into marketing and the launch of a new production.

This course emphasizes the role of communication in building understanding and nurturing change. It will consider the art of expressing ideas combined with the science of transmitting information. In this hands-on experience, students will analyze a communication situation or problem and then design and implement a communication plan that will help the nonprofit community partner achieve positive social change, fulfill it’s mission, advance its program and policies and make its value known. Service Learning is a required element in this course.

Prerequisite(s): THEA 2070.

This 1 credit course centers on the development of educational video game resources for Louisiana teachers in collaboration with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network’s resources for K-12 Environmental Justice education. Students must have taken or be co-enrolled in at least one of the collaborating courses: DMPC 2500, DMPC 2510, DMPC 2700, DMPC 2700, DMPC 2710, DMPC 3000, DMPC 3750, ARST 1550, ARST 2550, MUSC 2300, APMS 3330, MUSC 4400.

In this class, we will be expanding on the skills we learned from Experimental Game Design and look at different frameworks for creating interactive, personal and narrative driven games using the game engine Unity. In addition to narrative games, we will be looking at virtual reality (VR) using the Index Valve VR system and motion capture using the Azure Kinect and a motion capture suit. VR is a burgeoning space for experimentation, and we will be making small VR experiences for PC and uploading them to the social VR platform VRChat. Motion capture allows for real-time applications using game software, such as in theatrical performances, musical performances, architectural projection, etc. as well as options for generating custom animations for avatars in games. We will also explore, play, and analyze different narrative driven games and VR applications in order to gain an understanding of their frameworks and programmatic strategies. The readings and lectures in this course are intended to incite an active and critical perspective on contemporary game practices in art, digital interfaces, game culture and the game industry. Formerly listed as DMPC 3500: Game Design 2.

Students in this course will develop advanced skills with all components of the podcast production process, including recording, editing, and mixing for conventional and leading edge audio-first content. They will do so through production of audio-first features in collaboration with a preselected community partner or organization.

This course immerses students in selected aspects of health communication using the digital media technologies currently revolutionizing the health communication field. The course highlights student mastery through tutorials using some of the new computer technologies and touches on theoretical and research approaches to studying "new media" and what this trend implies for community health practice. There is also exploration of the developing field of health literacy for both patients in the health care systems as well as the general public. This course requires a mandatory 20-hour service learning co-requisite.

Students complete a service activity in the community in conjunction with the content of a three-credit co-requisite course. Course may be repeated up to unlimited credit hours.

Specialty courses for undergraduates in Digital Media Production techniques and projects as designed by visiting or permanent faculty teaching in the program. Topics may be drawn from any area of film, television and multimedia production, for example advanced cinematography, film scoring, or documentary filmmaking and similar topics. May be repeated for credit on different topics. Prerequisites vary depending on the topic.

Specialty courses for undergraduates in Digital Media Production techniques and projects as designed by visiting or permanent faculty teaching in the program. Topics may be drawn from any area of film, television and multimedia production, for example advanced cinematography, film scoring, or documentary filmmaking and similar topics. May be repeated for credit on different topics. Prerequisites vary depending on the topic.

Specialty courses for undergraduates in Digital Media Production techniques and projects as designed by visiting or permanent faculty teaching in the program. Topics may be drawn from any area of film, television and multimedia production, for example advanced cinematography, film scoring, or documentary filmmaking and similar topics. May be repeated for credit on different topics. Prerequisites vary depending on the topic.

Specialty courses for undergraduates in Digital Media Production techniques and projects as designed by visiting or permanent faculty teaching in the program. Topics may be drawn from any area of film, television and multimedia production, for example advanced cinematography, film scoring, or documentary filmmaking and similar topics. May be repeated for credit on different topics. Prerequisites vary depending on the topic.

Specialty courses for undergraduates in Digital Media Production techniques and projects as designed by visiting or permanent faculty teaching in the program. Topics may be drawn from any area of film, television and multimedia production, for example advanced cinematography, film scoring, or documentary filmmaking and similar topics. May be repeated for credit on different topics. Prerequisites vary depending on the topic.

Transfer Coursework

Producing Media for Social Change is an experiential, Tier 1/2 service-learning course in which students will produce visual media stories (short documentaries, PSAs, photo essays, or social media campaigns) over the course of four weeks in Athens, Greece. These group projects will be developed, produced, and published in collaboration with local organizations working in the area of climate change and the intersection of climate change and Greek life, landscape, and public health.

The Hollywood filmmaking process from conception through distribution is analyzed in this course through the critique and reflections of some of the most significant contemporary contributors to the medium including directors, writers and producers and scholars. Many critique the industry in their films as well as in writing. These films will also be analyzed.

Internship in Digital Media Practices. May be repeated for up to 6 credits. Students are advised consult with their individual schools' policy on degree-applicable internship credit.

This seminar is designed for students completing internships for elective and public service credit. The seminar offers students an opportunity to discuss and explore issues related to their internship experience including the topics of community and civic engagement, social justice, the nonprofit sector, and service-learning in higher education. Finally, the seminar is meant to complement the public service internship experience in facilitating individual growth and career development. This seminar is worth 1 to 3 credits and satisfies the Tier 2 service-learning requirement. You must also register for SRVC 4890 with this class (0 credits) to have it on your audit. Course may be repeated up to 2 times.

A planned learning experience covering material not included in regular course offerings accomplished independent of formal classroom and/or laboratory sessions through written contract between a student and faculty member. A plan of study must be proposed by the student and approved by the faculty member who supervises and grades the project outcomes. The course is usually completed within one semester.

A planned learning experience covering material not included in regular course offerings accomplished independent of formal classroom and/or laboratory sessions through written contract between a student and faculty member. A plan of study must be proposed by the student and approved by the faculty member who supervises and grades the project outcomes. The course is usually completed within one semester.

Senior Honors Thesis.

Senior Honors Project in Fine Arts

For especially qualified seniors with approval of the faculty director and the Office of Academic Enrichment. Students must have a minimum of a 3.400 overall grade-point average and a 3.500 grade-point average in the major.

Senior Honors Project in Fine Arts

This advanced production course focuses on the development and pre-production phases of your capstone project. The aim is to help you develop your ideas, complete your script or proposal, hone your directing/project management skills, and prepare you for a smooth production. You may choose to complete a multi-episode podcast series or radio drama, an interactive media exhibition, an experimental video game or a combination of all these elements. For Majors only. Prerequisites: Junior Standing and at least 12 credits completed in the major.

This advanced production and post-production course supports the creation of Digital Media Practices students’ capstone projects. Students begin the semester with production on their projects. The remainder of the semester will be spent in the post-productive phase, as students hone and edit their stories into compelling digital works. Ultimately, their polished projects are exported for exhibition a DMP exhibition, or another public venue, in a celebration of student creativity and productivity. The projects students undertake in DMPC 5520 must be those “greenlit” in the DMPC 5510, Advanced DMP I. If a student decides to radically alter their project, they must re-enroll in DMPC 5510 and complete the pre-production process again.

Professional, high quality narrative film preproduction practices are analyzed and implemented in this course. Writing the script, selecting the cast, choosing locations, budgeting, financing, securing rights, art directing, and breaking the script down for scheduling the capstone film will be completed. At the completion of this two-semester course, each student will participate in a public screening of his or her film.

In this capstone experience, each student will produce, direct, promote and complete postproduction of the short narrative film he or she pre-produced in Advanced Digital Filmmaking I, the prerequisite class. Crew organization, responsibilities for narrative synch-sound shooting, the management of the set and the shooting day, and script supervision will be analyzed and implemented. Editing, color correction, sound design and scoring will encompass the post-production phase. At the completion of this two-semester course, each student will participate in a public screening of his or her film.(Students enrolling in DMPC 5560 must have received a grade of C or higher in DMPC/DMPR 5550.)

In this capstone experience, students will apply the art and craft of story, character, and plot development within a cohesive three act cinematic narrative to both create and analyze a feature-length screenplay. Successful completion of this course (with DMPC 3000 as a pre-requisite) counts as one option for the two-course DMP capstone project, required for graduation in the major. This course is not an exclusive capstone experience; students may choose to take this course and take the Advanced Digital Filmmaking I/II sequence.