Observation & Play

Observation & Play. Additional enrollment will
take place at Course Advising Day.
How can we engage our exterior surroundings
through our animation practice? How can
observation inform our filmmaking? When does
making become play? This process-driven course
explores nature and exterior space through
scrutiny, research, play, and (of course)
animation. Students will draw inspiration from
different forms of looking at the world: obsessive
surveillance, relaxed observing of flow, irregular
or disruptive intervention. We will reimagine how
we pay attention to our external surroundings and
then bring that into our animation. We will
translate smell, work with light and dark,
investigate mapping, bring the world into
animation through chance and unusual slices of
reality. We aim to witness how different tiers of
attention affect our work; students should expect
to be inspired to work in new ways. This class
will also include reading and discussion that will
help students deepen their conceptual
understanding of animation and learn to interact
with the world in a more meaningful way.
Assignments include weekly exercises and
workshops, readings, screenings, and the
completion of a polished final project. A broad
definition of animation is welcome in the course.