CTAN 200g: The Rise of Digital Hollywood

Section 17960R, 4-Units

Spring 2024

This course satisfies the university's general education requirement GE-A, The Arts.

Course Description:

This course covers an overview of the birth and evolution of computer graphics. Computer graphic imaging, or CGI, has become central to how we experience media today, and in the last thirty years we have seen a revolution in media even greater than the advent of sound in 1927.

You will study the complexities of the computer technology that transformed Hollywood in the early 1990s, and how they were the result of decades of development by scientists, engineers, movie visual effects artists, the military, games makers, entrepreneurs, academia and experimental filmmakers.

Course Goals:

Students will:

• • gain a working knowledge of the major issues and people that led to the development of computer graphics and digital cinema.
  • understand how the broader context of world events and specific movements in art and film came to influence the development of digital cinema.
  • develop their critical thinking skills, conduct research and will have the opportunity to express their own impressions in a variety of forms. (Visual, digital and written.)
  • increase their understanding of becoming a lifelong supporter or participant in the arts from regular interaction with the instructor and discussion of his and his colleagues’ extensive anecdotal history in the animation and visual effects industry.
    

    
    

For information regarding d-clearance for Spring 2024 electives in Animation, please visit:

https://cinema.usc.edu/studentaffairs/animation.cfm

About the Faculty: Tom Sito