An Evaluation...

I would like to begin by thanking Professor Anderson and Professor Lucas for a very informative semester. I learned several new concepts of film and media production in FilmP 150. I would also like to thank Dylan, our lab instructor, for further elucidating the concepts for practical use in the production field. The lab portion of the class also enabled us to interact with fellow classmates and film enthusiasts who would have otherwise been strangers to us in the large, dark lecture hall.

In terms of course content, as I mentioned above, I did learn quite a few ideas that familiarized me with techniques of image composition, lighting set-ups, different film gauges, and the history of how motion pictures came to be. I, however, felt that some of the topics discussed in class were a bit unrelated to film and media, and more along the lines of a “Introduction to Computer Science” course. For those who have never really been exposed to the binary system, GUIs, computer programming, and website architecture, those few lectures must have been very disorienting.

I do recognize that as film and media students we must have some knowledge of computers and how to present our works to a wider audience through the Internet, or how colors and images are broken down into bits and pixels in order to be digitally stored on memory. However, I wish we had spent a little more time exploring the physical “creation” aspect of film and media, rather than what they become after they have been created. Also, if it is absolutely necessary to include the scientific section in future sections, I recommend that the “New Media” and “Internet” topics be taught either in one lecture, or two consecutive lectures to maintain cohesiveness in the structure of the course.

I hope my feedback is useful to the professors and lab instructors, and is seen merely as constructive criticism. I enjoyed every day of lecture and lab this semester, even if some of the material were difficult to follow. Since the course is still relatively new, I am sure it will only get better with each passing semester. I look forward to FilmP 160, and hope that I get the chance to learn with familiar faces in spring of 2010. Good luck to all!