Filmmaking, With Limits
The recent popularity of lipdubs – music videos consisting of a single take, shot with a moving camera, and featuring as many performers as possible – is only the latest example of how setting arbitrary restrictions on the making of creative work serves to facilitate invention. In fact, lipdubs are part of a long tradition in cinema, one in which filmmakers set strict formal guidelines that they must adhere in the making of a movie. In this course students will take up a series of video production assignments with strict (and highly arbitrary) formal guidelines. Can you make a one-minute video about a childhood memory with the lens zoomed all the way in and the camera in constant motion? (3 hrs. lecture/3 hrs. screening) (FMMC 0105 or instructor approval)