This course teaches students to become fluent in the visual language of fiction film directing at a beginner level. The focus of the class is to develop the conceptual and technical skills needed to shoot coverage of simple, silent fiction film scenes using the paradigm of the continuity system. This includes: understanding the formal foundations of cinematic storytelling (with an in‐depth exploration of film‐shot typology), basic technical skills and concepts of video camera and lens operations, scene pre‐visualization using blocking and shooting diagrams, the basic skills of shooting on location, and also understanding the relationship between shooting and editing. The class consists of a mixture of lectures and analysis workshops, as well as hands-on shooting exercises.

*Course content subject to change