Film

First Year

Second Year

Film History I
This course aims to grant the student the necessary knowledge in terms of the evolution of the cinematic form from its origins through to the late 1960’s. Participants will study the mechanisms of the fundamental resources of expression of cinema (film narrative, mise en scéne, montage, the body of the actor, etc.) through the analysis of the authors and their paradigmatic works.

Film Language and Visual Perspective I
This course is formulated as a first approach to the narrative and cinematographic art. The students will analyze films making use of linguistics and expressive and communicative rules.

Ethics and Aesthetics of the Image
This course examines film as a way of moral position, an ideology about reality. Students will analyze how far artistic forms are from aesthetic values in essential movies from film history.

Script I: Fundamentals
For the duration of this course the students will close in on the necessary concepts to begin writing a film. They will learn the key concepts that will lead them to understand the different functions of a screenplay.

Visual Composition
This course aims to put in practice all the necessary elements that must be taken into account at the time of creating a visual composition. The elements that define form, color, size and depth of film, angles, illumination etc.

Editing I: POV
This course aims to develop reflection on the editing process. The students will learn the practical aspects as well as the professional process, so they can begin to see the various possibilities of montage.

Sound Language and Technical Training
This course aims to develop critical listening, both in practice and in concept. The students will learn how to use sound as an expressive resource of cinematic language.

Film Fundamentals
This course focuses on the basics of storytelling using sound and image. The students will gain key references that will help them develop their own points of view. Through a series of practical exercises, they will develop the confidence and skills needed to begin their career in film.

Short Films (3 Mins)
This workshop aims to stimulate students’ creative process, initially through the analysis of short films. Students will then be divided into groups and film every day. At the end of each day the material will be viewed and assessed collectively to improve montage structures and finishing techniques.

Analog Practice: 8MM
This course offers a practice with S8 mm film cameras. The students will learn the process of analog filming, developing the material, scanning and editing both manually and digitally with the possibility of intervention. They will watch key references films to gain insight into structures for their shorts films.

Film History II
This course seeks to impart on the students the knowledge of modern cinematography beginning from 1968 and the initial manifestation of postmodernism. It will cover the essential tendencies of cinema in the decades of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s with some additional contemporary works. They will study the modernity in politics, post- colonial cinema, women in film, the growth of authorship, art in European cinema, and the matters of race and protest in punk cinema, counterculture and queer cinema as well as the post- documentary.

Film Analysis: Fiction and the Postmodern
This class aims to give the students some of the tools needed to create an in-depth analysis of the cinematographic form. They will be introduced to analytical models of semiotics and structural methods, up until postmodernism and the analysis of film as a national allegory. They will explore themes such as the representation in terms of race, Julio García Espinosa’s theory of imperfect cinema, and a detailed approximation on the methods of post-film analysis.

Script II: Treatment
This course aims to teach the students the function of a movie treatment, and then write one for their stories. They will analyze the causality, storyline and key points of their stories, by exploring different points of view and writing core scenes.

Experimental Cinema: Filming, Reveal, Process and Experimentation
This course focuses on the references of the different approaches of experimentation in film. The students will then be given the chance to work with these forms themselves. They will film their own short films and study the developing process.

Narrative Structures
This course seeks to establish the artistic connections between cinema and dramatic, scenic, and narrative thinking. The students will learn the techniques, procedures and discursive strategies of the narrative art as a basis for their future writings and for them to be adept in the artistic construction of the characters.

Hero’s Journey
This course will introduce students to the Hero’s Journey paradigm as described by Joseph Campbell and used by Jung. They will study the ancient mythological foundations of the stories we continue to tell on the screen and give them an understanding of the dramatic structure shared by myths and movies.

Project Development I
This course focuses on the creation of a project starting from the idea until its realization. The students will learn how to deal with not only creative problems but also practical and financially complex situations.

Mise en Scéne and Directing Actors
This course focuses on how to direct actors in cinema and television, both in theory and in practice. The students will earn a deeper understanding of the direction of actors through all parts of filmmaking: from the screenplay to the editing stage, including casting, rehearsals, and filming.

Assistant Directing / Script
This course aims to distinguish between the specific areas of each member of the directing team. The students will be able to execute each of their responsibilities, design the documents that allow for organization in a film production, coordinate the functions of the technical team, and develop good communication with each team member.

Photography I: Film / Digital
This course focuses on developing the essential skills for the understanding of the camera. The students will not only learn the theoretical concepts, but also the practical solutions to common problems, using their creativity.

Editing II: Styles
This course focuses on the aesthetic aspect of editing. It is designed to help students to learn, in both theory and practice, to have confidence in their solutions, and to acquire the skills necessary for editing and for creating their own method.

Sound Design
This course aims for students to understand the process of Sound Design through practice. They will go through all the different areas and processes, like sound editing, effects, ambient, foleys and music, until they finish with a final mix in 5.1.

Self-Referential Cinema
This course seeks to explore by way of the student the ways in which the cinematic narrative takes from their own personal experiences. They will earn a conceptual approach as well as a practical one in which the forms of expression of the filmmaker will be drawn on to their full potential.

Animation I: Techniques
This course seeks to create a strong foundation in animation. The students will learn the necessary skills for developing animated projects. They will additionally learn the history of animation and how it relates film and visual arts.

Film Language II
This course is dedicated to the study and analysis of the character in fiction. The students will revisit a theoretical paradigm in terms of its main character and analyze the diverse modalities of film. They will then make a short film that will put in practice the concepts they’ve developed.

Contemporary Film Theory
This course covers the most notable tendencies of contemporary cinema, specially the trends and authors of the last two decades. The students will learn how these authors best express the formal and conceptual evolution of the cinematic art.

Script III: Scenes and Sequence
This course aims to give the students the necessary tools to do their story’s breakdown, while exploring core scenes. They will learn to understand and manage the causality of their stories, discarding all that is non-essential, to give way to an easier writing process.

Project Development II
This course aims to use the practical knowledge the students have been given on the first course to develop their own projects. They will have assistance and tutoring from various instructors and analyze their projects from a production standpoint. Their projects can then
move on to the next stage as rewritten scripts, and students can begin the search for public and private funding.

Editing III: How to face the Images
This course offers to see film editing as a way to develop a creative writing through images. The students will be taken through a guided conversation, both through theory and practice, about the experience of the editing room, the understanding of images and the way we confront them.

Mise en Scéne and Directing Actors II
This course focuses on the exploration of the stories through the actors. The students will choose scenes from their scripts and both direct and act to then modify their writing and understand the stories they are telling.

Film and Visual Arts: Expanded Cinema
This course is aimed at both film and visual arts students. They will divide themselves in groups, watch references, and engage in discussions about the work of different key authors. Using mood boards and storyboards they will explore their field and play with the possible scenarios for creation.

Appropriation and Archive Footage
This course aims to introduce the students to the experience of working with found footage. They will edit a short film using footage both given to them, or chosen by them, after understanding particular concepts of editing, appropriation and storytelling.

Ethnographic Fiction: Truth and The Narrative
This course focuses on the question of the representation of others. The students will work with first-person cinema, understand their privileged position in relation with the otherness and questioning the way they look at it.

Expanded Cinema: Film And Visual Arts
This workshop is designed for both film and visual arts students. They will divide themselves into groups, watch reference films, and engage in discussions about the work of various important directors. Using mood boards and storyboards, they will explore their campus and play with the possible scenarios for film creation

Documentary / Interpreting the subject’s viewpoint
This course seeks to grant the student the ability to turn their work from paper to the screen. They will study techniques of narration and later the mechanisms of nonfiction cinema. They will analyze films, schools of thinking, movements, and authors that are essential for the understanding of the documentary genre.

Semiotics
This course focuses on the study of five movies created under different paradigms to consciously understand the story, the plot, the structure, the important narrative elements, the symbols and the main ideology. The students will then write a series of essays.

Animation II: Techniques And Concepts
Focusing on the laws of physics as a fundamental aspect of the articulation of movement of an object, this course treats the laws of physics as a creative resource.

Script IV: Dialogue
This course works on stories that are being developed, in order to be able to explore the dynamics inside some core scenes through dialogue. The students will learn to explore the nature and conflict of their characters.

Genre and Staging
This course aims to examine genre through time, both its limitations and its adaptations. Students will be able to learn the defining characteristics of each genre and work within these limitations and expand them in the future.

Technical Screenplay
This course focuses on the concept of découpage and its relation with the idea of the film. The students will learn to preview and communicate the script and the idea, the style and the form of the film, its narrative, its tone and the passage adaptation from a literary script to a technical script with the concept of sequences and shots.

Filming Landscape or On How to build the Eye
This course will explore the concept of the landscape. The student will be question their own gaze and notions of representation.

Sound Mixing
This course aims to develop an experience with sound while mixing a movie with the students. During this exercise the students will learn about theory on aesthetics and the origins of sound, and they will understand the way sound can modify and contribute to various aspects of filmmaking.

Workflow and Process: Colorization and Image Processing
This course focuses on studying color through the construction of the image, aiming at developing the professional abilities of those who work on it. Starting with the conception of color in pre-production, to color grading in post-production using Assimilate Scratch, the students will earn an understanding of workflow.

The actor in front of the Camera
This course seeks to explain directing actors from the standpoint of figurative cinema, and abstractive one. The students will create a sequence with the actor, and take them through various states of the soul.

Production Design
This course will introduce the students to the main roles and functions developed in the art department in different production formats, as well as the narrative and expressive functions of art direction through the design of characters and spaces.

Thesis Project
The students’ final project, with tutor assistance, will have a duration of 15 to 20 minutes. Directed toward the written or filmed essay hybrid structure, it will have free format and theme.
Animation
Experimental film
Video art
Documentary
Documentary with found footage
Expanded cinema
Interdisciplinary, with academic orientation

Admissions

Admission to CHAVÓN requires high school graduation with a satisfactory grade-point average, the presentation of a portfolio,*  and an interview. For detailed information about admissions procedures, click here.

*Applicants to the program in Fashion Marketing and Communications are not required to present a portfolio but must complete the CHAVÓN Challenge.

Information for International Students

International students are a welcomed to the CHAVÓN community and significantly add to its rich, artistically and intellectually diverse dialogue and culture. If you live outside the Dominican Republic, we encourage you to apply or to contact us, as we will always be available to assist you in the application process and to answer questions regarding such things as dormitories or other living accommodations, travel arrangements, visas, or any other questions you may have.