Production Design

First Year

Scenic Design I

DESG-GT 1054-1055   Lecture   4 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This class will work to help make the invisible visible, the picture in your mind’s eye seen. We will do this by experimenting with how to read plays, examining ways to respond to the text, and exploring different methods to turn a response into a realized design.

Set Studio I

DESG-GT 2006   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Nishikawa

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The Set Studio 1 class will be in close conversation with your Set Design 1 class. Primarily, the goal is to support your design work and be a resource for any technical skills that are needed to achieve your design. Secondarily, the course is designed to further your understanding of specific skills to help with your design process. We will be focusing on various skills which will help execute a successful ½” scale physical model as well as the continued dialogue between drafting (hand and digital) and the model. If things come up in your design class that demand extra attention or warrant more exploration, either individually or with the entire group, this class is a forum for these needs. We can and will adjust the syllabus accordingly throughout the semester to meet the specific needs, demands, and strengths of your cohort.

Drawing Year 1

DESG-GT 1004-1005   Lecture   2 Credits

Instructor(s): Muller

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

A drawing class for scenic designers and lighting designers that focuses on forms in space, revealed by light. Equal emphasis on drawing from observation and invention. Color theory and a variety of materials are explored.

 

Culture, Costume, and Decor

DESG-GT 1022-1023   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Muller

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

A weekly 3-hour class taking curated deep dives into aspects of world culture, especially in the intersections of influence, change, and design. The course will mix lectures, analysis of images, research projects, discussion, field trips, guest
speakers, and student presentations. Attention will be paid to how we know what we know and how knowledge is discovered, hidden, lost, reused, misused, and reinterpreted.

Stagecraft I

DESG-GT 1012   Studio   2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

As designers at NYU, you will learn much about collaborating with many different people and specialties in the process of designing produced work. This includes the subject of this class, your work with production artisans who will build, prop, paint, and otherwise execute the designs you and your creative team create. Stagecraft I will focus on this production process and how designers interact with their technical staff. There will be a heavy focus on the budgeting and technical design processes because that is the phase where designers and production staff have a meaningful interaction and when iteration of design ideas can happen with intention and support. This course will elaborate on the scenery, paints, and props production processes with a focus on how designers can successfully work alongside their production teams in the creation of theater pieces at NYU and beyond.

 

Performance by Design

DESG-GT 2000-2001   Lecture   2 Credits

Instructor(s): TownsendHelfrich

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Through creation of devised work students will examine the structure of performance and the relationship with design. Additional focus will be on critique styles and ways to engage new works.

GRAD Film Course: Aesthetics

GFMTV-GT 2010      2 Credits

During the first 6 weeks, students are introduced to basic film techniques and their function in visual storytelling. Studied closely for their dramatic effects, techniques are also viewed with an eye toward their patterns and variations in creating coherent work. Clips are screened from films by directors world-wide, past and present, to demonstrate the use of location, activity, movement, gesture, camera placement, lighting, blocking and staging as tools integrated into the visual fabric of the story. After the production period, students examine basic principles of the documentary, particularly as an observational character study. Clips are screened to highlight examples of compelling locations, activities, interactions, and situations. Students are also introduced to the notions of “structuring audience sympathy” and the director’s stance.

CAD Drawing and Visualization

DESG-GT 2009    Lecture   2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The goal of CAD Drawing and Visualization is for students to become familiar with the principles of Computer- Aided Drafting as it applies to design for theater, film, and television, using the software Vectorworks. This course will focus on developing your abilities to use this software to create design drawings, to aid in the development of designs and models, to create technical schematics, to interface with other software, and to publish and print a package of drafting for a theater or film/TV set. This course will be focused on two major goals. One goal is to familiarize your understanding of the Vectorworks software, its tools, and its environment. The second goal is focused on your understanding of drafting for theater, film and television, and projects will be aimed at holistically developing your abilities to generate a complete package of drafting to communicate your designs to a production manager, your collaborators, or a builder. Class time will be devoted to examining techniques to utilize the CAD software and to looking at specific examples, while the homework assignments will be a chance for students to practice applying what you have learned in class. We will devote the last portion of every class to beginning the homework assignments together and spend some amount of each subsequent class looking at the previous week’s homework, especially if there were difficulties that need addressing and/or synthesizing.

Choreographers, Composers, and Designers

Lecture   2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The class combines first-year design students of all disciplines, along with dance students, and musical composition students into creative teams- to create original works of dance, music and design. The teams create a dance piece from the ground up, as advisors evaluate concepts and assist them to move the pieces into production, culminating in executing the scenic, costumes, and lighting designs and technical execution of all the elements as the choreographers, dancers and musicians assemble and refine the performance aspects.

GRAD FILM COURSE: CINEMATOGRAPHY

GFMTV-GT 2012      2 Credits

This course teaches the fundamentals of 16mm and digital cinematography with a focus on camera operation, light measurement, exposure, visual composition, as well as the observation and study of natural light and its effect on cinematography. The students will be taught to add, modify, and remove light to further enhance their imagery, and use filters to capture and control images. The students will also learn the essential job descriptions and division of labor that an efficient film crew requires, mastering the mechanical procedures and basic terminology required to be a successful cinematographer and artistic collaborator. In the spring semester, the course will introduce the students to basic color moving image-capturing techniques for digital media with a concentration in lighting.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Production Safety and Set Protocol

GFMTV-GT 2099     1 Credit

The course will illustrate the various skill sets and techniques used in film and television productions, and familiarize students with the industry’s standard of best practices on set. Learning these basic “nuts and bolts” not only enhances safety and productivity, it enhances our artistic purpose. Through a series of lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on exercises, students will become familiar with the many tools used in physical production, with the goal of fostering their creative vision in a safe and healthful workplace that is both professional and productive. This class meets two hours per week for five weeks.

Second Year

Production Design I

DESG-GT 1214   Lecture   4 Credits

Instructor(s): Myers

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

The course is an introduction to Production Design. A deep dive into the story, art and design in making a film by focusing throughout the semester on a single film project. During the arc of the project, students will production design a film including renderings, ground plans, models, location photos and mood boards with color and materials, prop, furniture and character casting and costumes ideas.

Film Studio

DESG-GT 1050  Lecture  3 credits

Instructor: Stein

Open to second and third-year Design students.

Film Studio is designed to support the technical needs of your film design class. It is concerned with tools - how and when to use the best tool, to make for yourself a process that flows, a process of choosing, refining, and describing the spaces and
objects you would use, to tell a moving-picture story. These are some of the areas that we study, to help us tell our stories:
- Understanding Materials and Building Elements
- Understanding Movie Building Systems, on Location and in a Studio.
- Improving our Detail Thinking and Drafting.
- Photographic and Film Vision – Visualizing Frame, Action and Camera.
- Improving our Design Process by using the tools of design.
- Mastery of Vectorworks as the key design tool and communication tool.
- Organization – Simple Research and Data management. Keeping a dated record of your work, so that you can find it.

Intro to Art Department

DESG-GT 1030  3 Credits

Instructor(s): Banakis

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The goal of Intro to Art Department is to develop further your computer-based design skills with a focus on surveying, drafting for film, set replication, construction drawings, 3D drafting, and digital rendering. This semester, we will try to simulate the tasks and deliverables that you will be required to know in order to successfully work in an art department in film. The most common thing you are asked to do as first-time Assistant Art Director is to survey a location, take extensive notes and photographs, bring those notes back to the office, draft that space in 2D (and often in 3D), draft any set builds or set extensions for that space, produce construction drawings for that set, 3D model that set, and render that set for presentation or photoshop a version of that set into a location photograph. Film work is fast, detailed, and multitudinous. You are expected to be able to understand a space quickly, both in its larger characteristics and in its details, and to use that information to develop designs and represent those designs quickly, clearly, and thoroughly.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Aesthetics Narrative Film Style

GFMTV-GT 2125    2 Credits

This course provides students a sophisticated understanding of film techniques that combine to effect a particular film style. Each week is devoted to a different topic including casting, location, production design, camera, lighting, mise-en-scene, sound design and editing. Comprehensive discussion in these areas will provide students with authority over their thinking and directing and will show that the choices made converge to reveal dexterity, precision, and narrative strength.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Narrative Editing

GFMTV-GT 2101    2 Credits

This course builds upon the principles of narrative editing, with a focus on the evolving grammar of cinema. In preparation for the 2nd year film, the class will examine pre-production and production strategies that insure the editor will have the optimum material for post-production. A number of creative tools used in post-production will also be explored - including the use of music, sound design, visual effects, and voice-over. Each student will then submit a short paper describing the design of his or her film with regard to the editing style.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Intermediate Cinematography

GFMTV-GT 2116    2 credits

In this course, students will gain practical experience with the tools and the hardware used in the industry. In-class cinematography exercises will help students work through aesthetic decisions to give their films unique life using lighting and composition: camera placement, camera angles, camera movement and lens choice. The course also includes technical instruction for the Sony F5 HD camera, essential lighting and grip equipment, color film stocks, hard light vs. soft light, color temperature, exterior lighting and control of natural light, continuity from a cinematographer’s point of view, and camera-actor choreography.

Film Production

DESG-GT.1062   Lecture   1 Credit

Instructor(s): Myers

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film and in the Graduate Film Department. 

The course is a survey into the work, tools and profession of Production Design. A companion to both physical and conceptual Production Design work that students create for graduate films and in designing class projects. This is an exploration of both practice and profession. During the course we will share and discuss films from development to work on locations both the processes and components in realizing designs for films ranging from Independent to Studio Budgets. We will also read scripts and do quick concepts and analysis - research, sketches and pitching of creative briefs for working in the field.

 

Digital Visualization

DESG-GT 1014   Lecture   3 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.


In this class we will be learning to use new and emerging design tools and exploring different ways of integrating them into our design processes. The focus will be on 3D modeling and 2D image-making. The intention is to give each student the tools they need to effectively model a scene in 3 dimensions, and use that model to create compelling images which tell the story of their designs.

Film Collaboration II

DESG-GT.1213   Lecture   4 Credits

Instructor(s): Myers

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film and in the Graduate Film Department. 

Four teams (director, production designer, costume designer, director of photography) collaborate to produce a 10-minute portfolio quality film shot on location with high levels of production values, including locations, props, and costumes. This course underlines the essential aspects of the collaboration process and focuses on the team effort of producing a film.

 

Third Year

Production Design II

DESG-GT 1216-1217   Lecture   5 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

Continuation of Design for Film I on a more advanced level. To prepare the student for future professional work, this course is an in-depth exploration of all components of studio sets and the technical aspects of film design, including storyboarding. Thesis projects are undertaken in the second semester.

Film Studio II

DESG-GT 1064    3 Credits

Instructor: Landwehr

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The purpose of Film Studio II is to support and compliment your work in Production Design 2. This course is intended to give you the opportunity to continue and complete PD 2 assignments during our class time. I urge you to begin assignments before class time I order to make the best possible use of our time together. This spring you will design a Thesis Project based on a screenplay of your own choosing.

Transitioning into the Profession

DESG-GT 2002   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Cokorinos

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

The topics covered in this course are planned to assist you as a third year student to ease your transition from graduate school into the professional working community. We will provide you with a wide spectrum of information, much of which you have not explored in other Design Department courses. Guest speakers include recent alumni, a tax specialist, union representatives and an agent.

Film Production

DESG-GT 1062   Lecture    1 Credit

Instructor(s): Myers

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Students design film projects as collaboration with Graduate Film. The class is a forum for Year 3 students in production from all three disciplines. The class slot allows for weekly production meeting times, and budgeting process meetings.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Master Series Career Strategies

GFMTV-GT 2243       2 credits

This course will explore the crucial elements of running a successful independent production company through case history and analysis. Topics will include packaging material, attracting financing and distribution, and building the key relationships critical to bringing projects to fruition. Classes examine current and future avenues of financing/production/delivery/marketing and consumption, and the fusion of features and episodic content. Instructor John Sloss will examine his company’s own history and current endeavors in film finance, sales, distribution and talent management.

GRAD FILM COURSE: Directing Projects: Commercials

GFMTV-GT 2247      4 Credits

Special Collaboration classes with Grad Film and other Tisch Departments (ie: Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, Design for Stage and Film and Graduate Acting Program.) These special courses are enrolled by application. In Fall a collaboration with the Design Department on Commercials is offered which explores the art and business of directing commercials and examines various ways that film and advertising intersect and cross-pollinate. Through the prism of this very short format, directors will be asked to define their voice and point of view, as well as learn to express themselves succinctly. With the focus on each student's particular assets and interests as filmmakers, the course explores short, medium and long-term career strategies. For the actors and designers, the class will also function as an exploration of both the aesthetic and practical, working differences between the mediums of theater and film.

Playreading

DESG-GT 1034    2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

As theater and film artists, we are constantly required to react to new and unfamiliar work: in performance, on screen, at public and private readings, in scripts. The ability to think and talk about the work you encounter is an essential part of finding your voice and identity as an artist. At each class, we will discuss an assigned play, screenplay, or theater production. Brief written responses may be assigned before each class. This is not a literary analysis class, or a theater history class. The scripts are chosen for individual merits and also, as a collection, to constitute a broad range of ideas and challenges, but the collection is not chronological, nor drawn from any single genre, style, or cultural context. It is an intentionally diverse and eclectic set of texts. Students are encouraged to investigate each text as deeply as possible on your own; this should include, at a minimum, familiarizing yourself with the author and identifying some basic historical and cultural context in which to begin to understand the play.

Independent Study

DESG-GT 1060/DESG-GT 1061

1-2 credits

With the permission of the chair, students may participate in an individualized project or internship to gain professional experience related to their specific design concentration or to investigate an area or field of study not normally covered in the department’s regularly scheduled course offerings.  The schedule for the project must not interfere with courses that are required components of the curriculum and the scope of work is contingent upon approval by the chair.

The project should provide hands-on experience; students may work with a faculty advisor. Students must submit a written proposal of their project to the chair for review. The proposal should outline project concepts, expectations and goals as well as desired credits and plans for meeting with an advisor. Students will be registered by the department administrator upon acceptance of the proposal.