Section Number: 17856R

Introduction to the expanding field of visual effects; topics include integration for cinematic storytelling and the study of digital productions employing the latest visual effects.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17865R

Workshop exploring concept and structure of long and short form animated films through practical writing exercises.

Section Number: 17891D

Lecture and laboratory in computer animation: geometric modeling, motion specification, lighting, texture mapping, rendering, compositing, production techniques, systems for computer-synthesized animation.

Note the sections for Non-majors to register for are: 17891 or 17894 or 17895

D-Clearance is required.

Multiple Sections: Check the schedule of classes for more details. This course may have an additional lab or lecture section you may need to add.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17919D

The fundamentals of lighting and rendering in real-time. Creating complex, compelling and dynamic scenes and manipulating them in real-time using Unreal Engine.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 17900D

Survey of contemporary concepts and approaches to production in the current state of film and video effects work. Digital and traditional methodologies will be covered, with a concentration on digital exercises illustrating modern techniques.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]  [Immersive Media]  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 17912D

All aspects of digital effects animation, including particles, dynamics, and fluids. Creating water, fire, explosions, and destruction in film.

Prerequisites: 1 from (CTAN 452 or CTAN 462)

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 17921D

Introduction to software packages and practices exploring current animation techniques that leverage simulation systems. Artificial intelligence as a tool for animation.

Prerequisite: CTAN 452

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17920D

Focus on film grammar, perspective, and layout, staging and acting as it relates to storyboarding for animation.

Section Number: 17990D

A creative studio course in producing both a linear cinematic virtual reality short film and associated real-time immersive experience.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]  [Immersive Media]  [Future Cinema]

Section Number: 17925D

A comprehensive overview of compositing techniques to effectively create film looks in 3D/2D animations and visual effects.
Prerequisite: CTAN 452 or CTAN 462

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17991D

Create 3D models for environments for urban and natural settings and props including vehicles, rocks, trees and furniture.

Prerequisite: CTAN 452

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17947D

A creative development workshop for animated pitch storytelling, supported by an introduction to character development and story structure fundamentals.

Section Number: 17931D

Constructing a persuasive fictional animated world via narrative techniques, a fixed premise and a degree of believability supported by five fundamental visual design elements.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Students will explore the craft of stop motion animation, using historical and current examples of stop motion as a framework for creating their own projects. 

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Section Number: 17997D

Fundamental principles of motion capture technology explored while working through a structured series of assignments based around performance, gesture and motion. Prerequisite: CTAN 452 or CTAN 462.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]  [Immersive Media]  [Future Cinema]

Section Number: 17999D

A creative 3-D motion graphics course focusing on animation technique, design and skills in Cinema 4-D.

Minor Course:  [3-D Animation in Cinematic Arts Minor]

Section Number: 17827R

An overview of the entertainment industry and the tools needed to secure jobs and survive and succeed in the market.

Minor Course:  [Digital Studies]  [Entertainment Industry]

Section Number: 17829R

This course will delve into philosophical, business, ethical, and creative effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the entertainment industry and beyond.  

Rated one of the top six USC classes you cannot afford to miss and fulfilling the GE-A requirement, this course explores the formal properties of movies and their social context: literary design, performance, art direction, cinematography, post-production, sound design, genre, style, and the production process. If you enroll, you will learn how movies are made, how they work their magic on us, how we can improve our perceptive abilities when it comes to filmgoing, and how the wider cultural, sociopolitical, and industrial environment of film shapes our perceptions of the world. A perennial favorite, open to all majors.

Professor Matthew Ellis

Minor Course:  [Cinema-Television for the Health Professions (CNHP)]  [Cinematic Arts]  [Entertainment Industry]

 This course examines the industrial structures, programming, audiences, and social and cultural 

significance of American television. Television was the dominant mass medium throughout the twentieth century television. As a technological and commercial form, television came of age co-constitutively, in the US and globally, with new network and conglomerate-driven media industries, technological infrastructures, and negotiations of the relationship between the commercial, regulatory, and the domestic spheres. Throughout the twentieth century, its programming functioned as a shared cultural forum, reflecting and informing our understandings of the social world and shaping the routines of domestic life. But what is television today, and how has its role as a cultural forum changed? In this class, we will analyze the shifting ontology of television, including its digital convergence. We will focus especially on the evolution of television programming, including the polysemic textual dimensions of its narrative structure and aesthetics; genres; and representations of race, gender, and sexuality. Students will gain an understanding of how the frameworks of television studies are central to understanding our transforming media ecosystem. 

Open to all majors. You must also register for a discussion section.

Professor: Jennifer Hessler

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18206R

This course studies the history of rap music and hip hop culture. Using film, television, and music videos, the course explains hip hop’s birth and evolution as an American cultural movement, with global implications, from its origins in the 1970s through contemporary society. The course studies hip hop’s influence in relation to art, sports, popular culture, style and fashion, along with various social and political issues, among other topics. Screenings to include; Wild Style, Paid in Full, Basquiat, Straight Outta Compton, La Haine, Judas and the Black Messiah, Atlanta, The Wire, and Snowfall, among other titles. 

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Theatrical Film Symposium, taught by world-renowned film critic Leonard Maltin, brings you face-to-face with leading film directors, writers, producers, and actors working today. Each week, students watch sneak previews of upcoming movies, followed by exclusive Q&As with the creative teams behind the films.

Recent semester screenings included: Killers of the Flower Moon, The Killer, Fair Play, Bottoms, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3., John Wick: Chapter 4, Turning Red, Missing, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Woman King, Bros, Do Revenge, and The Fabelmans.

Guests in recent years have included: Emma Seligman, Rian Johnson, Rostam Batmanglij, Julia Cox, Erik Messerschmidt, Alexander Payne, Cord Jefferson, Sebastian Silva, Chad Stahelski, Kevin Feige, Stephen Williams, Kenya Barris, Damien Chazelle, Elvis Mitchell, Sanaa Lathan, Ryan Coogler, Chloé Zhao, Matt Reeves, Kogonada, Nicholas Britell, Stephen Chbosky, Robert Eggers, Alice Brooks

Professor: Leonard Maltin

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]  [Entertainment Industry]

Taught by Mary McNamara, Pulitzer-prize winning TV Critic and Cultural Editor for the LA Times. Each week, students meet with current TV Creators and Showrunners for Q&As about writing and producing their shows.

Recent guests include: Reggie Rock Bythewood (Swagger), Syreeta Singleton (Rap Sh!t), Chris Storer (The Bear), Eric Kripke (The Boys, Gen V), Meera Menon (Ms Marvel),  David Goyer & Allan Heinberg (The Sandman), Craig Mazin (The Last of Us), Al Gough & Miles Millar (Wednesday), Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso), Jen Statsky (Hacks), Julie Plec (Vampire Academy), Hiro Murai (Station Eleven, Atlanta), Tazbah Rose Chavez (Reservation Dogs), Justin Halpern & Patrick Schumacker (Abbott Elementary), Dong Hyuek (Squid Game), Gloria Calderón Kellett (With Love), Jac Schaeffer (WandaVision), Scott Frank (The Queen's Gambit), Malcolm Spellman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Jay Roach & Sarah Paulson (Coastal Elites), Prentice Penny (Insecure).

Professor: Mary McNamara

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Jointly taught by faculty in economics and film studies, this course systematically explores the interaction between economics and film. The first half of the course examines how filmmakers use economic and financial motives as central forces in plot development and as key motivations for characters’ actions. Films can offer a powerful way to understand economic ideas and phenomena in concrete and compelling terms. For example, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra makes vivid the complex idea of self-fulfilling bank runs, while Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane illustrates the dangers of industrial concentration. Through the analysis of a series of films, students will develop a deeper understanding of both economics as a narrative force in cinema and cinema as a laboratory for exploring, evaluating, and debating economic concepts. 

The second part of the course turns to the economics of the movie industry itself, examining the distinguishing features of creative industries: development timelines, the risk of flops, the cultivation of talent, the creation of “cinema cities,” and transformations in global taxation regimes. For example, the rise of intangible asset classes has a decisive impact on Barbie; the complexities of human capital development on the cultivation of stars, as in Moneyball. 

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Professor: Jennifer Hessler

Professor: Matthew Ellis

Minor Course:  [Game Studies]  [Cinematic Arts]

Cinematography is the key element of what we often think of as ‘cinematic style,’ and yet the field and its practitioners are greatly understudied in media studies (and in the media). In this course, we will explore the history of Hollywood style from the point of view of cinematography and cinematographers, as well as engaging with issues such as labor, technology, gender, race, and the collaborative nature of the production process. This class will focus primarily on American cinema and explore the soft style of silent cinema, the invisible Classical Hollywood style, deep focus, film noir, realism, modernism, color, New Hollywood, and digital photography while considering the influence of technology, genre, and other cinemas along the way. 

Professor: Luci Marzola

Minor Course:  [Game Studies]  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18352R

Making a great game is only part of the equation, you also need to launch it. This course teaches publishing fundamentals, and by semester's end you will actually launch a game on Steam. Your education will come from industry experts and Ed Zobrist, the Head of Publishing who launched Fortnite. Whether you are doing it yourself or working with a marketing team, understanding principles of publishing is a key component of the game industry.

Section Number: 18519
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of video podcast production and the skills to develop, produce, record and post original episodes. Podcast formats vary by semester.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18520
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The course explores how visuals communicate emotions and ideas in streaming media, videos, theatrical films and television for scripted and documentary storytelling.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18527
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of planning, producing and crewing for classic Trojan Vision television shows that live stream weekly from TV multicam studios.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18523
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of planning, producing and crewing for classic Trojan Vision television shows that live stream weekly from TV multicam studios.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18528
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of planning, producing and crewing for classic Trojan Vision television shows that live stream weekly from TV multicam studios.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18530
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of planning, producing and crewing for classic Trojan Vision television shows that live stream weekly from TV multicam studios.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 18531
Comment: Limited seats are available.

The practice of planning, producing and crewing for classic Trojan Vision television shows that live stream weekly from TV multicam studios.

Minor Course:  [Cinematic Arts]

Section Number: 19152R
Comment: Counts for credit in: GE-A “The Arts”

An investigation into the choices TV and film writers make translating source material to your favorite series or feature film. Through lectures, special guests, and readings, we’ll examine how material changes and what liberties Hollywood takes in that process. Potential screenings/readings to include Hamilton, Watchmen, Little Women, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and others.

Taught by Beverly Neufeld, who worked in development and as a reader and screenplay consultant for over 6,000 scripts–spreading her industry knowledge to companies such as Slamdance Films, CAA, FOX, Gersh, Coverage Ink, The Page Competition, Roadmap Writers, and others.

Minor Course:  [Screenwriting]

Section Number: 19163R

Develop and write an original narrative podcast with an emphasis on auditory storytelling. The final project will involve taking that podcast and creating a pitch for a television series or feature film.

Suggested Listening: Limetown, The Burned Photo, Blackout, Homecoming, The Bright Sessions, Welcome to Night Vale, Passenger List, Next Stop, Unwanted, Electric Easy, Alice Isn’t Dead, Edge of Sleep, The Left Right Game, and others.

Taught by Jeremy Novick, a graduate of the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television. Jeremy has written for TV shows such as USA’s “Queen of the South,” as well as written, directed, and produced award-nominated narrative podcasts such as “Blackout,” “The Burned Photo,” and “Hum."

Minor Course:  [Comedy Writing]  [Screenwriting]

Comment: Counts for credit in CTWR-100g “Character, Conflict, and Catharsis” for major credit, not GE credit.

What’s your story? In CTWR 409, you’ll learn the nuances of writing Hollywood movies and television through small workshop-style classes in character, scene work, and story development. This course is the gateway class into the Screenwriting minor and, if accepted, will allow you to transfer into Year 2 in the BFA in Writing for Screen and Television degree.

All CTWR 409 instructors are professional Hollywood screenwriters. Across the multiple, a sampling of their credits include: Community, Malcolm in the Middle, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, VeggieTales, The King of Fighters, The Simpsons, iCarly, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, Frasier, and others.

Multiple Sections: Check the schedule of classes for more details. This course may have an additional lab or lecture section you may need to add.

Minor Course:  [Comedy Writing]  [Screenwriting]  [Cinematic Arts]

Learn to write coverage of feature-length screenplays and television pilots! In this course, you’ll learn the practical skills to make you an invaluable intern at any production company and how to get noticed for your expert script evaluation skills.

Multiple Sections: Check the schedule of classes for more details. This course may have an additional lab or lecture section you may need to add.

Minor Course:  [Screenwriting]  [Entertainment Industry]

How do you create a world that can sustain several seasons of television? What makes High Potential different from Murder in a Small Town? The Pitt from Grey’s Anatomy? Summer I Turned Pretty from My Life with the Walter Boys? In television, your world is as much a character as your protagonist. You’ll develop multiple original pilot ideas across several dramas all leading up to an outline of your own television series!

Multiple Sections: Check the schedule of classes for more details. This course may have an additional lab or lecture section you may need to add.

Minor Course:  [Screenwriting]

Section Number: 37402D

Introduction to media, art and technology in the context of various academic and professional disciplines. Students will study the history and theory of digital media while also gaining hands-on media authoring skills. Counts as a requirement for the minor in Digital Studies. 

Minor Course:  [Digital Studies]