PRO 500: Finance and Distribution Fundamentals
SPRING TERM
.5 CREDIT HOURS
REQUIRED
This intensive 5-week course is dedicated to the fundamentals of film financing and distribution covering topics such as private equity, foreign sales, distribution windowing, film festivals and markets, and who the players are in these spaces. Fellows will be exposed to financing waterfalls and distribution profit participation statements to understand how money flows once a film is released and how a financier recoups their investment. By dissecting the rapidly changing landscape, learning both from the past and the present, Fellows will gain an understanding of how the industry’s business models have evolved and how the economic viability of a project is determined.
PRO 504: Movie Engines 1
SPRING TERM
1 CREDIT HOUR
REQUIRED
This course unpacks the story and craft logic of scenes and sequences from contemporary feature films, shorts and TV in order to give filmmakers more tools to develop their own voice, vision and stories. Week after week we will dive into a wide range of classic and contemporary filmmakers, using scenes from their work to examine their different craft choices in acting styles, choreography, cinematography, production design, sound design, music and editing. The main focus is on how filmmakers construct emotional connections between audiences and characters, particularly protagonists, by using character arc structures, empathetic machinery, cinematic techniques, emotional POV (especially through sound design, editing style and music) and through the careful construction of movie tone.
PRO 506: An in Depth Look at TV: Pitching and Selling
SPRING TERM
1 CREDIT HOUR
REQUIRED
This course is designed to prepare producers for the process of developing and selling a project. The class covers everything from identifying and shaping material to targeting markets/buyers. Fellows will also practice pitching to their peers and industry professionals – learning techniques for successful presentations in various formats and specific elements that contribute to success across platforms.
PRO 511: Producing Workshop: Development
FALL TERM
1 CREDIT HOUR
ELECTIVE
Using various writing exercises, this workshop focuses on the basics of developing and writing narrative screenplays. The goal of the course is to expand the Producers’ understanding of the writing process and foster a facility in the arena of story and story development. The course also requires Fellows to actively engage in giving and taking notes on their own and their colleagues’ creative work.
PRO 512: Producing Workshop: Intro to the Business of Producing
SPRING TERM
2 CREDIT HOURS
REQUIRED
This is the first part of a two-term course that will introduce Producing Fellows to the business aspect of creating and producing content. The instruction, which includes modules on securing intellectual property, above-the-line deals and distribution models, will also examine the history, evolution and current state of various business practices that will take the Fellow from project inception through release.
PRO 517: Rush Hour – Weekend Read
FALL TERM
2 CREDIT HOURS
REQUIRED
Producers will look at various forms of narrative material – pitches, pilots, in particular screenplays with a critical eye to develop the crucial skills so important to collaboration: written and verbal analysis and communication. With a heavy emphasis on class participation, Producers will review their reading in class and focus on developing the clearest and most strategic articulation of their comments. This class culminates in a cross-discipline meeting with first year Screenwriters where each Producer will give individual notes on a Screenwriter’s treatment draft.
PRO 524: Story’s Frame – Choice and Consequence
SPRING TERM
1 CREDIT HOUR
REQUIRED
Flannery O’Conner said, “Stories are about a character who makes a choice and the consequence of that choice on the character.” This course focuses on the grammar of stories: how they work, what they mean, what they look like in script form – building tools essential to producing no matter the size of the screen or the form.
PRO 541 and 542: Creative Producing I & II
FALL AND SPRING TERMS
2 CREDIT HOURS TOTAL
REQUIRED
This course explores the role of the Creative Producer in guiding a project from idea to script to screen. The first term takes that journey through the development process and the second term follows that process through production and post-production. Both the Fall and Spring terms share a focus on the skill-set necessary to navigate the collaborative process.
PRO 544: A Producer’s Guide to Post-Production
SPRING TERM
1 CREDIT HOUR
ELECTIVE
This course will cover an in-depth approach to post-production responsibilities that fall under the prevue of the producer and the post-production supervisor including all aspects of post-production, highlighting the considerations and the scheduling that starts in prep and continue through delivery to the distributor. Producing post-production can have an enormous impact on the film that an audience sees, but the strategies and fitness of that process requires skill and planning. PRO 614 will prepare emerging Producers to anticipate and plan for challenges that arise in Post by reviewing best practices, outlining traditional workflow that will carry through to final delivery to a distributor, and familiarizing them with scheduling and budgeting features of post-production.
First-Year Fellow Comprehensive Review
At the end of the first year, the Producing Discipline Head and Faculty critically evaluate each Producing Fellow’s progress, participation and output in both physical production and curriculum. In individual meetings, the Producing Discipline Head will discuss the Fellow’s growth over the past year and provide constructive direction to succeed in second-year curriculum and their thesis projects, while also building a slate of projects to shape their futures as producers.
