Note: This course listing is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a contract between CIEE and any applicant, student, institution, or other party. The courses, as described, may be subject to change as a result of ongoing curricular revisions, assignment of lecturers and teaching staff, and program development. Courses may be cancelled due to insufficient enrollment.
CIEE Study Center Syllabi
To view the most recent syllabi for courses taught by CIEE at our Study Centers, visit our syllabi site.
Required CIEE Intensive Language Course
CZEC 1101 PRFS
Intensive Beginning Czech Language
The two-week intensive (three to five hours per day) course provides students with the basic skills needed to communicate on a daily basis. The course focuses on grammar, conversation, listening, and reading comprehension. The class continues on a weekly basis until the start of the pre-production period. Contact hours: 50. Recommended credit: 3 semester/4.5
quarter hours.
Production Track
Required CIEE Courses
FILM 3001 PRFS
Topics in Production
This seminar-style course consists of workshops and seminars which encompass theory and practice and culminates in the pre-production of a short 16mm film. The specific units are screenwriting (short form), cinematography, camera and film language, directing, acting, editing, and sound. During this course, in which lectures and preliminary exercises introduce students to techniques and theory in a variety of filmmaking disciplines, students form creative teams, preparing for the end of semester 16mm film projects. Contact hours: 60. Recommended credit: 4 semester/6 quarter hours.
FILM 3002 PRFS
Filmmaking Practicum and Mentorship
This mentorship and practicum is a continuation of topics in production. Entering the practicum with a fully prepared technical script, students engage in pre-production, production, and post-production of a short 16mm film, under the supervision of faculty mentors and the support of FAMU studio production staff. Students consult with the entire FAMU faculty, but each team also has one primary mentor who oversees, guides, consults, and helps troubleshoot for the project. Contact hours: 60. Recommended credit: 4 semester/6 quarter hours.
Screenwriting Track
Required CIEE Courses
SCWR 3001 PRFS
Script Analysis
Through the intensive analysis of films, students examine the following principles: three act story structure, plot points, turning points, the function of exposition, the catalyst, rising action, crisis, climax, culmination, resolution, main tension, theme, as well as scenes and sequences, sub-, double-, and multi-plots, and internal scene structure. Analysis also covers the role of the protagonist, the creation of empathy, the journey of the protagonist (spine), active and passive characters, supporting characters, “string characters,” character arcs and motivation, the role of the antagonist, use of conflict and obstacles, and a comparison of objective vs. subjective conflict and action vs. activity. The course also explores interpretations of film as a temporal-spatial art by examining pacing, rhythm, accelerating action, the handling of time and space, montage, transitions, sound, and music. Employing dialogue, the dramatic use of props and costumes, staging, and the creation of atmosphere in the screenplay are also covered. Students are expected to recognize these dramatic and narrative elements and to present a cogent analysis of a film selected for a mid-term exam and final paper. Instructor: Pavel Jech
SCWR 3002 PRFS
Feature Screenwriting
In this writing workshop, student screenwriters embark on the creation and writing of the first draft of a feature-length screenplay. Following a strict writing plan that is based upon the inherent structural demands of feature-length dramatic scriptwriting, each student submits five installments of their project to be read and reviewed in class. With theoretical lectures on related topics and through the analysis of submitted work, the instructor also introduces students to various components of the craft and process of screenwriting, and proposes pragmatic approaches that have been employed by experienced writers. Additionally, as a collective of young writers supporting each other in the pursuit of learning how to create effective and functioning screenplays, all students are expected to actively participate in the critical and constructive analysis of the work of their peers. Contact hours: 60. Recommended credit: 4 semester/6 quarter hours. Instructor: Jan Fleischer
Production and Screenwriting Tracks
FAMU Elective Courses
The following is a sample list of CIEE-approved regular elective courses offered in English through FAMU. Production and Screenwriting track students must choose two of the following courses. The following courses have a recommended credit of 3 semester/4.5 quarter hours and 45 contact hours, unless otherwise indicated. Final course lists are given to students during orientation.
Acting Studio
This is a practical course for directors, producers, scriptwriters, cinematographers, or editors to understand the actor’s craft. Students proceed from exercises and various improvisations to a given text, a dialogue, and a monologue. At the end of each semester the student performs a piece in front of the camera and assesses the work on video. Instructor: Dasha Blahova
Acting Theories
This course aims to cover essentials of acting theories—some historical, but mostly contemporary—in order to help film directors communicate effectively with actors from varying pedagogical and cultural backgrounds. Instructor: Mary Angiolillo
Central European Cinema within the Context of the World Cinema
This course provides a general overview of the primary trends, aesthetics, protagonists, and history of post-war Central Europe. National cinemas examined includes Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Czech, Slovak, and Yugoslav filmmaking. . Instructor: Dan Duta
Cinematographer’s Influence
This course gives an explanation of the cinematographer’s craft in the fields of exponometry, processing, and other postproduction technologies. It analyzes the use of various exponometric (photometric) methods and their effectiveness on the aesthetic of cinematographic image. It is a lecture/seminar format and students are given theoretical and practical assignments. Instructor: Michael Gahut
Circulating within the Modern Cinematic Image
This inter-disciplinary seminar is modeled on the epistemological notion of a U.S.-American informed postmodernity/globalization, which for ill or for better informs the conditions of possibility of our contemporaneity, and which by extension for us as such produces our individual-class-misson that pedagogically focuses a select band of becoming authenticallyglobal films from the following 20th century world directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Carl Theodor Dreyer, D.W. Griffith, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Friedrich Murnau, Dziga Vertov, and Orson Welles with special consideration given to those cinematic moments that teach and that train us in new non-dominatory viewing strategies, in new creative ways of circulating (our term for moving). The role of silence and of the unconscious in film culture is given special coverage. Clips and special features from the DVDs are also shown. Instructor: Erik Roraback
Documentary: Connection
This course is focused on exploring documentary cinema within its broad range of artistic and rhetorical methods toward representing reality -- from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint. At its foundation, the course will consider the theoretical approaches of Nichols, Bruzzi and Gauthier within the context of theories of representation (mostly Jost). Instructor: Vít Janeček
Film Adaptations on Literary Sources
The literary sources and the films made after them are to be compared with the goal of identifying and studying different ways of adapting to the screen a literary source: „true“ adaptations, „free“ adaptations, using some ideas, symbols or metaphoras from a novel or story for making a film etc. This could not only enrich the students´ aknowledge about the history of the world Literature and Cinema, but also help and inspire them for their future career of filmmakers. A special attention will be dedicated to short films adapting literary sources. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
Film Style and Form
The course will focus on the film style and form (FALL 2012: mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing; SPRING 2013: sound, narration) partly based on the readings of the book Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kritstin Thompson. In course students and teachers will discuss the means of film style and form and how they present themselves in a dozen of great films from various epochs and countries. Disclosure of possible meanings and interpretation of them is the aim of the course. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
History of Animation
History of Animation is a subject for more than 1 semester only. That´s why this one semester subject at FAMU is some kind of introduction into history of animation – the rich Czech and foreign panorama of Animated Films. Students should be acquainted not just with history of animation from early years but also with differences not between America and Europe only but among individual Masters of animation in different national cinematographies till 90ties of the 20th Century. The aim is to understand roots of this special art and serious historical tasks it had in the past in different parts of the World. Instructor: Edgar Dutka
Introduction to Intl Film/TV Production
This course focuses on the work and art of a film and television producer, the craft of the person who serves as a) highly skilled and organized project manager, b) counterpart and/ or partner to director and screenwriter, and on occasion, c) creative author of a project. The key areas of information for a producer (and this class) are marketing, financing, budgeting, legal, and business affairs in the stages of project development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. Instructor: Petr Sládeček
Nature and City in the Cinema
The aim of the course is to discuss the setting of the various films – variety of the natural setting, garden, countryside and the city – and to explain how applying the studies from the various subjects (architecture, environmentalism, philosophy, etc.) might be helpful for understanding the role that the particular setting fulfills. Students will discuss the films from the different epochs and different regions and will examine the significance of city/country/nature that those films present. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
Photographic Imaging
The practice of still-photography and cinematography is becoming more a branch of applied science and less an empirical craft; therefore, it is increasingly necessary to base the practice on a thorough understanding of photographic materials and processes rather than on rule-of-thumb methods. In a sense, the craft has been simplified by advances in the production of more satisfactory new materials and equipment and the development of new and better methods, but the very diversity of these materials and the tremendously increased scope of modern photography and cinematography combine to demand a more thorough knowledge of fundamentals than was formerly necessary. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
Visual Theory
This course explores how photographs are constructed, analyzing the use of various aesthetic and design elements and the effects of these on the viewer. The format is lecture/ seminar, and students are given practical as well as theoretical assignments. Slide and video presentations support the content of the lectures. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
Script Analysis
This course analyzes feature length films from a practical dramaturgical perspective, demonstrating dramatic structures, narrative techniques, and genres, while examining the process and craft of screenwriting.Instructor: Pavel Jech
Short Film Practical Analysis: Directing 1
This course provides students with an in-depth perspective to many forms of directing: from directing newscasts to directing feature films. This course explores directing methods, the director’s tools, and his/her relationship with the actors and crew from a variety of perspectives including practical, theoretical, psychological, and physiological points of view. Instructor: Petr Marek
Tools of Movie
This course explores Cinematography – its history, philosophy and contemporary prestige of the profession also European Federation of the Cinematographer’s National Associations and the tools of compositional procedures and methods. Instructor: Beth Lazroe
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