DMS Student Showcase 2021

DMS 462/562 Game Design

DMS 462 is a production course that allows students to explore the fabulous and sometimes frightening world of Game Design. Games are all around us in modern culture, ranging from video games to board and card games to sports to politics (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and beyond.

Games are everywhere for a variety of reasons: they are fun, they have rewards, and, importantly, they have meaning. In other words, games tell us something(s) about who we are, what we value, and what we can imagine. Students are introduced to the basic elements of games as systems, cultural texts, ludic experiences, and platforms for representing and exploring meaning. Game design draws on many other disciplines (writing, drawing, graphic design, architecture, and programming), and familiarity with the assumptions and languages of these disciplines is essential for a game designer. Core issues of games design include: what is the most effective use of sound and visuals in a game? How can narrative, rules, and mechanics be used in games? How do you engage your players and give them meaningful, balanced interactivity and choices? How do you iterate on your game design using playtesting? Students work individually and in teams to produce a series of short games projects.

Timothy Georger, Famous Clark, and Anny Mytcul

asidikhj

462 Image.

You've just returned from your first semester at UC (University College), and it's gone off to a rough start. After getting bored with sitting around doing nothing during winter break, you decide to join a 48 hour game jam, utilizing what few skills you've learned over your first semester. Can you finish a game from start to finish within 48 hours?

asidikhj (Play Here)

Timothy Georger

Dada Да

DADA image.

A game about writing poetry. (Caution to those sensitive to flashing lights)

Dada Да (Play Here)

2021 DMS Courses

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DMS 201 Green Media
5/11/21
This course analyzes fictional and documentary media that investigate our relationship to nature: climate change, pollution, environmental justice, wildlife extinction. The course interprets the word media broadly to include film, games, social media, media-art, big data visualization, simulation and sensing. It examines the consciousness-raising power of film, media and journalism; traces the ecological impact of our obsession with the latest media device; and ponders the relationship between our feelings about our changing planet (denial, engagement, optimism, hopelessness) and our actions.
DMS 534 Media Archaeology
5/11/21
In this theory/practice seminar, students will interrogate the strain of scholarly and artistic practices concerned with the cultural and material histories of media technology known as media archaeology.
DMS 342 Intermediate Documentary Workshop
5/13/21
Intermediate Documentary is an intensive workshop in nonfiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of documentary filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of nonfiction filmmaking. Production projects helpedstudents develop conceptual and technicalproficiency, including knowledge of the development, production, and post production ofnonfiction films. Readings, writing assignments, and class presentations will deepen students’understanding of nonfiction filmmaking and storytelling.
DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 1)
5/14/21
Basic Video is a beginner level production class on the uses of digital video, moving image, and media as a medium of artistic expression and communication. There is a mixture of history, theory, artistic practice, technique, analysis, and there is a distinctive focus on learning while making.
DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 2)
5/12/21
This course provides an introduction to the technical and aesthetic practice of video production and post-production, with a critical eye to both form and content. Through lectures, readings, exercises, and projects, as well as screenings of historical and contemporary film and video work, students will gain an understanding of film and video language and explore conceptual strategies for the development of creative approaches to digital video making.
DMS 598 Project Supervision
5/12/21
Graduate Student Project Supervision taught by Margaret Rhee
DMS 474 Media Theories and Approaches
5/15/21
Media theory investigates the technoculturaloperation of media, including media technologies and social practices. The basic question media theory must ask is “what is media?” If something is identified as media, is it always media or only under certain circumstances? For example, paint is a mediumwhen used for a painting, but what about on a wall or in a can? Air is a medium for sound and music, but what about when the world is silent? Fiber optic cables, wifi signals, and the internal operations of a computer delivering a film on a laptop are media, but so is the film. How do they relate? Conversely, what is not media?
DMS 213 Immigration & Film (Section 2)
5/21/21
This course offers an introduction to South Korean drama and cinema with attention to
Korean culture and history, TV/cinema/visual cultural analysis, and within the contexts Korean cultural global reach also understood as Hallyu or the Korean Wave. Students will study South Korean drama and film through thematics such as historical development, aesthetics, genre, auteur theory, stardom, subtitling, and the politics of distribution.
DMS 435/535 Scriptwriting
5/15/21
In this production workshop students concentrate on writing and editing script elements for all kinds of media including film, video, game, installation, AR, VR location- or web-based projects. The course explores traditional and experimental methods for generating and structuring text for any genre of fictional, documentary or hybrid work. Scripts include original writing, interviews, collaged or found fragments - which may be performed, heard or displayed in the final piece.
DMS 441 Advanced Video Production
5/14/21
This production course is designed to build on and further students’ conceptual and technical skills in video production. Through a combination of in-class workshops and exercises, assigned projects, and close attention to visual, creative motion picture ideation, students will strive to produce thoughtful, personally meaningful, technically proficient videos.
DMS 462/562 Game Design
5/12/21
DMS 462 is a production course that allows students to explore the fabulous and sometimes frightening world of Game Design. Games are all around us in modern culture, ranging from video games to board and card games to sports to politics (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and beyond.
DMS 418/518 Landscape Projections
8/18/22
“Landscape Projections” is an advanced special topics course exploring landscape as a medium, predominantly through the lens of time-based media. “Projections” implies cinematic presentation, but we expand this idea of projection (from Latin projectio(n-), from proicere ‘throw forth’), exploring ideas around forecasts, mappings, visions, and transmission, as we consider a wide range of artists and filmmakers re-envisioning both the natural and manufactured landscape through cinematic geographies and spatial practices.
DMS 448 Games, Gender & Culture
5/12/21
DMS 448: Games, Gender And Culture provides a comprehensive investigation of the emerging field of Games Studies, the critical analysis of games and interactive environments made possible by the computer. We will address different theoretical perspectivesthat view games and gaming as historical, social, cultural. aesthetic, technical, performative, and cognitive phenomenon.
DMS 302 Experimental Moving Image
5/14/21
“Experimental Moving Image” is an intermediate level undergraduate production class introducing students to alternative approaches to the moving image, from abstraction and collage, personal documentary and hybrid narratives, to stop-motion and video installation, across single and multiple screens.
DMS 606 Sound and Space
5/11/21
In this course, students interested in learning more about music and sound, and sound’s relationship with and existence ins pace, have been experimenting with creating virtual spaces. (This was particularly germane since the class took place over Zoom, an entirely virtual space.) We have analyzed how sound behaves in real spaces, both natural and human-built, with the goal of understanding how these spaces influence sound, and human perception.
DMS 480 Social Media & Networks (Section 1)
5/21/21
In this online course, we will learn about, critique, and create social media and networks theory. Through media theory and case studies, we will analyze social media and networks; through online discussion, we will develop our ideas; and finally, through creation we will implement our learning into action. By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding and will be able to critically read, analyze, and write about social media from a variety of perspectives. Along with rigorous reading and writing, students will engage through creative making and collective presentations. In doing so, we adhere to learning through creating.
DMS 341: Intermediate Video
5/13/21
This course took place in the fall of 2020 and was an intensive workshop in fiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of fiction filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of fiction filmmaking.