AFVS 151BR: Nonfiction Video Projects

INSTRUCTORS

Robb Moss robbmoss@fas.harvard.edu

Vera Rosen-Bernstein (Teaching Assistant) vera_rosenbernstein@fas.harvard.edu

SYLLABUS

COURSE ENROLLMENT

You must complete the linked application, submit a petition on my.Harvard, and schedule an interview with Instructor Robb Moss and Teaching Assistant Vera Rosen-Bernstein.

Interview availabilities:

• Monday April 8 from 10am-2pm in Sever b3b.
• Monday April 8 from 2-5pm over zoom.
• Tuesday, April 9 from 1-3pm over zoom.

Students will be notified of admission on April 10th. 

Students must petition to enroll or decline their spot by 8pm Thursday, April 11. 

Students should come to their interviews with ideas for possible projects. Once admitted, written proposals are due on April 30. Email proposals to both robbmoss@fas.harvard.edu and vera_rosenbernstein@fas.harvard.edu. Please feel free to contact us by email of you have questions about your proposal. 

Final permission to enroll into the course will be given to students in August once they have recorded their media.

Vera will have a meeting for camera instruction with enrolled students on May 2 and another TBD.

Prerequisites: At least one AFVS half-course in live action film and video.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course is an editing workshop. Working from a proposal approved in advance by the instructor, each student plans, shoots, and edits a documentary video on a subject chosen by that student. Students may work in pairs, provided that they share all the tasks of production, shooting, sound recording, and editing. Shooting should take place over the summer and editing during the fall term. With approval of the instructor, the course may also accept projects that have been started but are unfinished.

NOTE: Students were admitted to AFVS 151b in April 2024 after submitting a nonfiction film proposal, approved by the instructor, to be shot over the summer.  Under special circumstances, the instructor will consider new proposals for short films that can be both shot and edited during the upcoming fall term. In such cases, the same course prerequisite requirements would apply, and interested students must submit their proposals to the instructor by AUGUST 29th. The films proposed can be on any topic, but must be primarily nonfiction / documentary in nature, and must be conceived so that they can be completed during the fall term.  But priority is given to the students who submitted proposals last spring and have shot their films over the summer.  Class enrollment is limited to ten.