This studio is an introduction to audio-video and animation production within the artistic practice. Coursework explores the making and critiquing of moving-image and audio works across a variety of contexts, and takes an active approach in learning how to produce your own new media works using both standard and experimental production techniques. Through analysis of contemporary and historical examples, class discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on studio practice, we will build comprehension of related histories and theories; explore the meanings and consequences of ubiquitous broadcast and social media; and learn how to interrogate and wield media paradigms to challenge their influences in our lives.

Carnegie Mellon University School of Art
Term: Fall 2025
Course number: 60110 Section D
Classroom: CFA 317
Days / time: Tuesday and Thursday 02:00PM – 4:50PM
Professor: Paolo Pedercini – paolop [andrew edu]
Graduate Assistant: Walter Smith wsmits [andrew edu]
Office: School of art 419A – 4th Floor
Office hours: By appointment

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This course facilitates a shift in awareness from media consumerism to media production, providing tools to create and critique media production across various cultural contexts. We are surrounded by media, much as we are surrounded by fast- food, and the impact on our health is not much different. This course promotes awareness and healthy media consumption habits, cultivating the confidence to cook up your own content.

This course provides historical and theoretical frameworks for creative time-based media practice. Class projects, readings, and discussions explore a variety of cultural media vernaculars, promoting contextual awareness, critical inquiry, and broad modalities of expressive media practice. This course will help students critically examine media, demystify its creation and empower them to produce content that engages audiences in meaningful ways. Classwork will help students ground the technologies they use within historical, critical and technical frameworks. Students will leave the course familiar with a wide range of approaches to making artistic projects with electronic time-based media.

LEARNING RESOURCES

Software: This course will make use of software and online resources that are accessible and freely available to all CMU students. Coursework will frequently utilize Adobe Creative Suite software; academic licenses of software and virtual computing resources are available at no-cost to students at Carnegie Mellon University Computing Services

Hard Drive: In this class you will be working with big video files that can’t be permanently stored on the lab computers or in the cloud. Having your personal external hard drive all the time will be essential.
The hard drive should be formatted to exFat (it will erase the contents) since other formatting modes may not allow access from both Windows and Mac systems.

Courseware: course updates, sharing of assignments, resources, and questions will happen though the class discord server. Canvas will be used for grades and tests.

Tutorials: Supplemental learning resources are available to all Carnegie Mellon University students through the university’s LinkedIn Learning portal

Video streaming: The university offers Kanopy, a quality streaming service. At least three times during the semester you will need to watch a film from the following list. Choose one you haven’t seen. Watch it together if you like. You’ll be asked to highlight a scene, a technique, or an aspect of the movie that you found inspiring.
Time-based media film list

Equipment Rentals:
School of Art Media Equipment Center
Hunt Library Multimedia Equipment Rental
CMU Computing Services Equipment Rental

MODULES

Video

This module will explore video as a mode of art practice. Through workshops and creative projects, we will explore various forms of video recording and editing techniques, as well as practical camera operation and lighting principles in both controlled studio environments and in the field. We will touch upon filmic and experimental applications of video production within a studio art context, and as tools to communicate subjective points of view.

Practical Learning Objectives
● Video camera survey: overview of camera types and affordances
● Video camera operation: exposure and aperture, focus, frame rates, recording
formats, light metering controls, in-camera audio recording and microphone inputs
● Studio lighting: three-point and five-point lighting configurations, color temperature,
focus and diffusion, high-key and low-key lighting.
● Video Editing (Adobe Premiere): footage organization (file management),
transcoding and proxy-footage workflows, continuity editing and match cutting,
rhythm, transitions, color grading
● Audio (Adobe Audition): in-camera audio recording, levels and metering, basic audio
editing, cleanup, noise reduction, and effects

Conceptual Learning Objectives
● Storytelling strategies: shot grammar; sequence structure; color and light language;
Mise-en-scène; understanding relationships between story, plot, and narrative.
● Modes of approach: poetic, expository, participatory, observational, reflexive, and
performative.
● Subjectivity: expressing a point of view; exploring meaningful relationships between
author, subject, object, and audience.

Project: Found footage video

Choose a soundtrack among the ones provided. Edit a video for the soundtrack using exclusively footage found on the internet.
– Try to limit your visuals to one particular domain (home movies, world fair news report, etc).
– Your edit should “vibe” with the song; your imagery should be inspired by the mood and texture of the soundtrack; it should respond to the rhythm or dynamics of the song in some way.
– If you are not using the entire track, find an appropriate point in the track to fade out.
– Duration: at least 1 minute.
– Individual assignment.

Screenings – found footage:
Dara Birnbaum – Technology Transformation (1978)
Craig Baldwin – Tribulation 99: Alien anomalies under America (1991) (excerpt)
Matthias Muller Dirk Schaefer – Home Stories (1990)
Martin Arnold – Alone (1998)
Bill Morrison – Decasia (2002) (excerpt)
Takeshi Murata – Monster Movie (2005)
Lyn Elliot – The Boy in the Air (2005)
Chris Beckman – Oops (2011)
Alison Nguyen – Dessert-Disaster (2017)
Peggy Ahwesh -The Falling Sky (2017)
Arthur Jafa – Love is the Message and the Message is Death (2016)

Project: Three Seconds of Wonder

You have two hours to capture a compelling moment on video – or preferably more. Each “moment” should be a continuous shot of about 3 seconds. The 3 seconds can be selected in the editing phase.
– Pay special attention to composition and light.
– Use a tripod if the shot is static, use a gimbal if dynamic
– You can make the moment happen with some kind of performance but don’t rely on acting.
– If filming people in a recognizable way ask for consent first, or permission to use the footage after you take it.
– Duration: at least 10 minutes of raw footage
– Groups of 2

Screenings – filming:
Lumiere Brothers’ First Films (1895-1897)
Dziga Vertov – Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Doug Aitken – Migration (empire) (2008)
Stan Douglas – Monodramas (1991)
Lenka Clayton and James Price – People in Order (2006)
How to with John Wilson s1e1 (2019) (excerpt)
Rawane Nassif – Turtles Are Always Home (2016)

Project: Interdimensional Public Access Television

Shoot a short TV segment in front of the green screen as if it was coming from another dimension or from the future. Composite the background using found or stock footage.
– Use an existing format: newscast, advertisement, cooking show, weather report, etc.
– Plan it and script it beforehand, including props.
– Shoot in portrait mode.
– We are going to edit them together as if we were zapping TV channels so it can be a fragment
– Groups of 3
– Duration: 5 seconds – 1 min

Screenings – compositing:
George Melies – L’homme orchestre (1900)
Hermine Freed – Art Herstory (1974)
Peter Campus – Three Transitions (1973)
Nam June Paik – Global Groove (1973) (excerpt)
Zbigniew Rybczynski – Tango (1981)
Michel Gondry – The Chemical Brothers – Let Forever Be (1999)
Marco Brambilla – Evolution (Megaplex) (2009)
Nation Estate – Larissa Sansour (2013)
Sondra Perry – Lineage for a Multiple-Monitor Workstation: Number One (excerpt) (2015)
Rashaad Newsome – Knot (2014) (excerpt)
Shana Moulton – the mountain where everything is upside down (2013)

Sound

This module will focus on different forms of sound recording and editing. Through a series of workshops engaging field and studio recording practices, we will examine the relationship between sound and image, place and presence. Informed by practices of “deep listening” (Pauline Oliveros), we will work together to become attuned to the aural elements of our environments and the media we consume. As we work, we will consider the materiality of sonic frequencies, how sound and silence have their own associations and vocabularies, and how audio can be used as a tool to create vivid sensory experiences for audiences/ viewers.

Practical Learning Objectives

• Recorders and Microphones: An overview of the recorder (levels, channels, etc.) and the types of microphones/ manners of mic’ing sounds and subjects (onboard, shotgun, contact, omnidirectional, lavalier, etc.)
  Field Recording: How to record environments & isolated sounds in the field. We will explore the relationship between sound and environment (not only how to record in the field, but considering using the field as a place to record!)
• Foley: Using your body and objects to create sounds (that relate to images – or not!)
• Studio Recording: An introduction to the basics of studio production including how to use the CFA sound booth to record VoiceOver and foley. We will also discuss how to create ideal DIY recording environments in your home/ studio.
• Sound editing: Working in Adobe Audition, we will learn about waveforms and audio clean-up techniques. We will experiment with effects (i.e. modulation, filters, compression, distortion, equalization) and panning to work our sounds like clay as we accentuate or alter the samples’ textures and resonance.

Conceptual Learning Objectives

• Listening: We will focus on listening techniques that develop our vocabularies around sound so that we can respond to what we hear, feel, and experience in the classroom with precision that allows dialogues around recorded audio to flourish and expand our understanding of sound’s relationship to the body.
• Accumulation, Indexing, and Appropriation: We will become collectors of sound, collecting, sampling, and organizing archives/ libraries of audio for current and future projects.
• Storytelling through Sound: Is your use of sound narrative, expository, literal, non-narrative, poetic, experimental, linguistic/ non-linguistic? How does the form assist your storytelling/ art-making approach?
• Creating sonic environments/ textures/ moods. We will discuss the affect of sound, the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, and the many ways of crafting a relationship between sound and image.

Project: Sound Safari

Create a library of 10-15 sound effects by recording different locations around campus. Back in the classroom you will edit your recordings down to the individual sounds, label them, and clean them up using equalization, audio compression (not data compression), and normalization.
– Find at least one sound for each of the following categories: buzz, hum, beep, rustle, creak, murmur, whirr, clatter.
– Capture some sounds that are characteristic of that location.
– Try to capture them in the wild, as opposed to creating the noises.
– Points off for wind/mic contact, so USE YOUR HEADPHONES!
– Possible locations: CFA, Schenley Park, Hunt Library, the pond @ Schenley, Doherty Hall machine shops, the cut, CUC, Peace Garden, etc.
– Groups of 2 – depending on equipment availability.

Playlist – Listening/recording
Stephen Vitiello – World Trade Center Recordings: Winds After Hurricane Floyd (1999/2002)
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller – Forest (for a thousand years) (2012)
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller – Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012)
Jana Winderen – Ultrafield (2013)
Jana Winderen – The Wanderer (2016)
Christina Kubisch – Electrical Walks (2003-)
Christine Sun Kuim – Game of Skill 2.0 (2015)
Paul Pfeiffer – Red Green Blue (2022)
Raven Chacon – Storm Pattern (2021)
Raven Chacon – Aviary (2024)

TED Talk Bernie Krause: The voice of the natural world

Project: Foley

In preparation for the next project, you will record 10-15 sound effects in the recording booth using a variety of props and noise makers you supply. You will clean, label and share all the sound effects.
– If you use messy materials, you must protect studio equipment and surfaces.
– Groups of 3

Playlist – Making noise
Luigi Russolo – Risveglio di una Città per intonarumori (1913)
John Cage – Water walk (1959)
Delia Derbyshire – Reel-to-Reel Beat Matching clip
Hip Hop Evolution – S1E1 – (excerpt 22’45)
Camille Norment – Lull – So Ro (2016)
Nikita Gale – HOT WORLD, 2019
Kevin-Beasley – A view of a landscape 2018

Project: Un Chien Andalou Sonified

Given a one minute section of Un Chien Andalou, add a foley track that matches and enhances the visuals.
– It’s a surrealist movie, the soundtrack can be surreal as well!
– You can use up to 5 sound clips that you did not record.
– You cannot use pre-recorded music, but you can have musical elements such as rhythms, tones and short cues.
– Individual

Animation

The etymology of the term animation evokes the breath of life. In this unit, you will explore the principles of animation as frameworks for meaningful movement and personal expression. This module will primarily focus on various methods of creating animated sequences. Through a series of workshops engaging with frame-based animation practices, we will examine the relationship between time, drawn and photographed sequences, and sound, to gain the ability to generate the illusion of liveness. Through a technical and historical overview of animation methods, technologies, software, and artists, we will gain a grounding in the basics of implementing the principles of animation with the intent of creating our own digital animation projects.

Practical Learning Objectives

• 12 Principles of Animation: An overview of each principle with examples, including Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Staging, Straight Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose, Follow Through and Overlapping Action, Ease In, Ease Out, Arcs, Secondary Action, Timing, Exaggeration, Solid Drawing, and Appeal.
• Frame-Based Animation: How to create a workflow for making image sequences with a drawing tablet and Photoshop timeline, as well as with simple stop motion techniques. Topics of Rhythm, Plasticity, Transformation, Animism, and Character movement will be discussed.

Conceptual Learning Objectives

• Movement and Timing: We will discuss Animation’s inherent ability to simulate movement to create the illusion of liveness, while focusing on the impact that speed and duration have on our perception of the implied meaning of movements carried out over time.
• Storytelling through The Illusion of Liveness: Is your use of animation narrative, expository, literal, non-narrative, poetic, experimental, linguistic/ non-linguistic? How does the form assist your storytelling/ art-making approach?

Project: Rotoscoped Muybridge

Rotoscope a sequence of images from a Muybridge plate, adding a personal style, texture, or character.
– You can use a digital tool like Procreate or physical media (stop motion).
– You can completely alter the subject as long as you keep the motion patterns recognizable.

Screening – rotoscoping
Richard Linklater – Waking Life (2001)
Orgesticulanismus – Mathieu Labaye (2008)
Marina Zurkow – Poster Children (2007)
Joseph Pierce – A Family Portrait (2010)
Naomi Uman – Removed (1999)
DARK MIXER Hirotoshi Iwasaki (2014)

Project: Organic machine

Create a short animated loop that incorporates at least 3 of Disney’s principles of animation. The theme is organic machine.
– Start from real life references (actual mechanism, lifeforms, scientific imagery, or documentation of the Machine of Rhythm exercise done in class) and abstract them
– use a limited color palette, no more than 4 colors.
– format: square
– duration: 3-5 seconds

Screening – abstraction, loops, organic forms
Heider Simmel – Attribution of causality – Empathy (1944)
Norman McLaren – Dots (1940)
Max Hattler – Collision (2011)
Light Forms by Malcolm Sutherland (2010)
Land by Masanobu Hiraoka (2013)
Extrapolate – johan rijpma (2016)
Bloody Dairy – Min Liu (2015)
Socialist Circle – Pansak Bas (2014)
Atsushi Wada – The Mechanism of Spring (2010)

Screening
Egg – Martina Scarpelli (2020)
Slug Life – Sophie Koko Gate (2019)
Ordinary Life – Yoriko MIZUSHIRI (2025)

Final Project: Essay Film

Assignment: using any combination of techniques you learned this semester, create an experimental video piece centered around a text. The narrative can be a monologue, a manifesto, a diary entry, an essay, a poem, original or not. The text can be delivered through voice over or words on screen – avoid acting unless you are working with trained actors.

Screenings:
Martha Rosler – Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)
Martine Syms – Notes on Gesture (2015)
Jorgen Leth – The Perfect Human (1967)
Jorge Furtado – Island of Flowers (1989)
Matt McCormik – the subconscious art of graffiti removal (2001)
Penny Lane – The Voyagers (2010)
Everynone – Words (2011)
The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets – Adam and Zack Khalil Ojibway (2018)
The Midnight Gospel Ep2. Officers and Wolves (2020) (or ep3)
Forensic Architecture – Triple-Chaser (2019)
Hito Steyerl – How not to be seen (2013)

GRADING

Qualitative feedback during in-class critiques is the most important form of evaluation, but we live in a quantified society so grades need to happen. You will be evaluated on both technical and conceptual execution. Here’s a handy checklist:

> What did you intend to achieve with the work? Was it successful in your own terms?
> Did the class “get it”? Did it spark an interesting conversation during critique?
> Did the project demonstrate an understanding of the medium, its history and the contemporary practices associated to it?
> Did you do original research, looked for references beyond what you’ve seen in class?
> Did the project demonstrate a mastery of the techniques and tools employed?
> Was the project’s form suited to its concept and vice versa?
> Was it formulaic and derivative? Did you take risks?

Final grade composition

Found footage video 10%
Three Seconds of Wonder 5%
Interdimensional Public Access Television 5%
Sound Safari 5%
Foley 5%
Un Chien Andalou Sonified 10%
Rotoscoped Muybridge 10%
Organic machine (loop) 5%
Essay film 20%
Participation, films and readings 25%

POLICIES

I’ll ask you to read and sign a short contract. We will discuss it and amend it on the first day of class.

* Absences:
I will inform the professor and my teammate of my absences via email at least one hour before class.
I’m entitled to a total of 4 absences over the course of the semester.
This class doesn’t differentiate between justified and unjustified absences.
I am not required to give my professor any justification nor explanation for my absences.
I am aware that more than 4 absences will cause a drop of one letter grade and may trigger a check from my academic advisor, the university’s health services, or disability resources.
I am responsible to catch up with the class, and to look into the material that I have missed.
I understand my assessment method may different if I miss a critique or a discussion.
I will not expect any online or hybrid accommodation if I’m not able to attend class.

* COVID 19
I will comply with CMU and the CDC coronavirus policies regarding isolation and quarantine.
I understand absences due to COVID may have to be validated by the university.

* Tardiness
Arriving over 15 minutes after the scheduled start time will count as absence.

* Participation
I will engage actively in discussions and critiques.
I expect the professor to adopt a variety of critique formats to account for different personality types.

* Net addiction
I value face-to-face interaction, so I commit to not use phones and computers during lectures, critiques, and discussions, ie. any time somebody is presenting to the class, except for taking notes.

* Communications
I will use the class Discord to keep up with asynchronous communications, announcements, and questions that could be of general interest.
To keep a proper record, I will use the CMU email for personal communication with the professor.
I will never DM the professor through Discord or other social media.

*Assignments
I will negotiate late assignment submissions with the professor at least 24 hours before the deadline.
I understand it will have to be justified and will not be automatically granted.
I will be present and I will participate to critiques even if I don’t have my assignment.

*Office hours
I am entitled to a one-to-one meeting with the professor for feedback and general check-in every semester.

*Plagiarism and “collaborations”
I acknowledge that the concept of plagiarism is somewhat elusive in digital media as we working with open source tools and libraries, remixing and building upon the work of a multitude of people.
I will credit all the work and components that I use according to the licenses applied to them.
I will not outsource the class work to other people nor plagiarize assignments and exercises from my classmates.

*Generative AI
I will not use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in the creation of the assigned projects, unless previously negotiated with the professor, or when they are embedded in the assigned tools (e.g. AI for upscaling or stabilizing video).
I’m aware that any unauthorized use of text, video, and sound generated by AI may be considered plagiarism and treated as such.
I will transparently account for authorized uses of AI, citing all the tools and processes.
When using generative AI for research, text editing and manipulation, I will assume all responsibility for inaccuracies, biases and hallucinations, and take extra care to verify the output.

*Community agreements
These statement apply to both student and instructors: We will speak from our own experiences (make ‘I’ statements).
We will respect differences; we’re all privileged in some ways.
We agree to critique ideas, not people.
We will not assume the identity of others, nor ask individuals to speak for their perceived social group.
We will hold this as a brave space, where we take risks, be vulnerable and hold each accountable with love and respect.
We agree to have only ‘one mic’: we will listen respectfully without interrupting.
We agree to practice active listening: when someone is speaking, we will listen without also thinking about how we are going to respond/rebut.
We may share what we learn but will keep others’ stories and personal experiences in confidence.
We will ‘move up, move up’: those who tend to speak a lot will ‘move up’ their listening; those who tend to hold back and listen will ‘move up’ their speaking.