Bay Area Cinema & Filmmaking

Film, animation and alternative film and video has been a stalwart of Bay Area culture from Muybridge to Silent Film and from Pixar to the Prelinger Archive. In this course we will explore the history of the moving image and it’s cultural impact in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as create our own imaginative responses to the ideas and concepts in the course. Students will get a chance to study films, technologies, philosophies and ideas related to the manipulation of time as well as create their own art, videos and visual journal entries. Topics will include a wide variety of cinematic genres and motion picture technologies. Students will learn interdisciplinary skills related to their own independent filmmaking in tandem with film and cultural studies. Students will be expected to make connections with larger social, political and cultural forces and be interested in independently creating artworks, visual journal entries and film and animation.

Online meetings with the whole class will take place every other week to discuss projects and share presentations. Students will sometimes be paired together or in small groups during our online meeting time or may occasionally arrange their own meeting times for collaborative activities and projects.

During our 4-5 face-to-face sessions we may be meeting filmmakers, exploring museums, cinemas, archives, film festivals and places of cinematic industry in the prolific bay area arts culture. Tea and discussion will follow. Students will need access to a digital still camera and be able to upload images to the web. Students will need to have some knowledge of video editing and have access to basic video editing software, a digital video camera/tripod combination and will need access to basic art supplies.

*Some supplies will be provided.

About the Instructor

Ian Arenas – Lick-Wilmerding High School
Ian teaches Visual Art, Film History and Video Production at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, and has been an arts educator since 2010. Before joining LWHS, Ian was the Department Chair of Art and Director of the STEM Initiative at YULA High School in Beverly Hills. Outside of the classroom, Ian loves playing and coaching soccer. He earned his MFA in Art from CalArts, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and is an interdisciplinary artist who is interested in ideas of labor, work, worth, use-value, and inefficiency.