Fall Quarter 2022

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

While many Catholics today are well-acquainted with Thomas Aquinas, the most famous theologian of the middle ages, his theology develops the theological method begun a century earlier in the emergence of new “scholastic” and “monastic” theologies in and around the early universities. This course will explore some of the figures and works of the 12th century that inspired and influenced so many later Christian thinkers. Students will read a selection of primary works from Anselm, Hugh of St. Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, and others.

This course is an introduction to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Students will learn techniques for photo enhancement, image compositing, and logo creation through several projects.

As this course engages apparently timeless literary works from the classical tradition, it situates them within specific historical contexts. This approach enables students to come to both a greater appreciation of the enduring power of story, and a recognition of the relationship of works of art with their surrounding culture. Masterworks of pagan antiquity (Homer and/or Virgil) give way to key texts of early Christendom (Augustine, Beowulf, et al) in order to further illuminate the impact of Christian theology and anthropology on artists and thinkers in myriad disciplines.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

This class will help students to develop basic figure drawing skills. Students will study drawing a human body in various shapes and poses in order to create designs for animated characters.

This course outlines fundamental differences among developed and developing countries, starting briefly with broad historical differences and moving on to specific issues such as the protection of property rights, corruption and the effects of political institutions. Particular attention will be given to China’s influence on global markets and its economic ties to the United States. The role of international institutions such as the IMF and World Trade Organization also are discussed. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytical readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets.

This class will address the impact that the use of color has on a visual screen image. The course will cover color theory, its impact on an audience and the use of color grading in a post-production environment. Students will take various projects from an edited sequence into a color grading program and manipulate its appearance to achieve a desired effect.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

As this course engages apparently timeless literary works from the classical tradition, it situates them within specific historical contexts. This approach enables students to come to both a greater appreciation of the enduring power of story, and a recognition of the relationship of works of art with their surrounding culture. Masterworks of pagan antiquity (Homer and/or Virgil) give way to key texts of early Christendom (Augustine, Beowulf, et al) in order to further illuminate the impact of Christian theology and anthropology on artists and thinkers in myriad disciplines.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

This class will help students to develop basic figure drawing skills. Students will study drawing a human body in various shapes and poses in order to create designs for animated characters.

In this course students learn about the basic structures of sound reasoning, focusing largely on classic Aristotelian logic. The course serves to help students think and argue with clarity as well as to effectively analyze arguments of others. The course includes a careful analysis of the operations of the intellect, i.e., understanding, judgment, and reasoning, focusing on their products, i.e., term, proposition, and syllogism.

In this course, students will explore the writings and spiritualities of Catholic saints and doctors who represent what St. John Paul the Great famously termed “the feminine genius. Figures studied may include one or more of the following: Sts. Catherine of Siena, Clare of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Thérèse of Lisieux, Gertrude of Helfta, Edith Stein, Hildegard of Bingen, John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Faustina, Simone Weil, Alice von Hildebrand, and others.

Advanced study in character animation that revolves around 3D CGI character performance.

After providing an overview of the basic principles of the Philosophy of Nature, this course examines the nature of the human being, beginning from the Epic of Gilgamesh, continuing through the Classical period by means of Aristotle, the Middle Ages in St. Thomas Aquinas, the Renaissance via Blaise Pascal, and concluding in the modern period in Nietzsche, Freud and T. S. Eliot. 

In this class students get a “big picture” look at the ingredients of a start-up firm and the process of creating one. The class details those ingredients, discusses the stories (good & bad) of people who have done it, and learn the process by going through it with a self-select team. Students learn: the business planning process, which maps how to move from an idea to an actual enterprise offering an actual product/service/apostolate; How to craft a compelling and clear business story that captures the true essence of your business; and finally acquire inquisitiveness as to how the world of business really works. The class deliverable is a complete Business Plan created by student teams along with a presentation of the plan.

This course consists of rehearsal of scenes from classic and contemporary American playwrights including Miller, Williams, Shepard, Foote and others. 

The purpose of this class is to review current information about companies and business trends, to learn important lessons regarding the products they are selling and the markets they are serving. Students will use real-world and timely experience from a variety of businesses by reading the Wall Street Journal. Students will also become proficient in brief Power Point presentations.

A theoretical and practical introduction to the human phenomenon of storytelling, what stories are, their central role in culture from ancient times to the present day, and how storytellers seek and communicate meaning. Particular attention will be paid to the significance of story in the Judeo-Christian tradition and story’s role within the Christian faith. Students will generate numerous story ideas, and with the help of their classmates and the instructor will evaluate those ideas in terms of audience appeal, theme and meaning.

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of pre-production and production, and the roles and responsibilities of all personnel and positions that are essential to its success. Students will become familiarized with the detailed preparation required for the shoot and the interdependence of the script, budget, schedule, and breakdown. Students will also learn how a digital video camera works, the characteristics of lenses, how to record clean sound, and how to use lighting to illuminate and shape an image.

The senior project is a series of courses (up to three) in which students will work either individually or as part of a team and create or contribute to a significant media project that spotlights their area of emphasis. Class I is the pre-production phase. Instructor approval is required to take this class.

This course examines some of the key figures and councils of the early Church. In particular, students learn about the Church’s response to important heresies and key Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the first half of Christian history. Among the important writers studied here are Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Origen, Irenaeus, Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, the Cappadocian fathers, and John Damascene. The course also looks at the significance of the seven ecumenical councils.

Applied Market Research offers students an overview of market research techniques and primary and secondary research strategies informed by a Christian code of conduct. The course is designed to provide them with the principles, vocabulary, tools and practice necessary to identify a market demographic, write a research brief, develop and implement a research study, and analyze the findings.

Students learn to analyze and exploration directorial approaches used in film and television, looking particularly at the creative use of cameras, sound, composition, and communication with those in front of and behind the camera. They explore, from a directorial perspective, the expressive potential of the image within. They learn methodologies, which stimulate visual creativity and positioning the image as the fundamental element of cinematic expression. They engage in exercises in the analysis of script and for purpose of directing actors to obtain the best possible performance.

This course focuses on the anatomy and form, context, and motion of typography as a powerful communication tool across a variety of physical and digital media.

One of the most vital skills any writer can have is the ability to recognize the flaws in one’s own work and fix it before anyone else does. This course will provide students with the opportunity to bring in original scripts for the express purpose of identifying their flaws, magnifying their strengths, and revising their work with a set of editorial skills that will serve them well in their careers as screenwriters.

This course is a survey and analysis of the elements of music and primary musical periods of Western European music history. Students will acquaint themselves with musical terms, major composers and repertoire.

This class revolves around creation and application of realistic and stylized textures and light schemes to produce depth and meaning in 3D computer generated scenes. Students will explore into various texturing techniques, while generating diffuse, specular, bump, and normal maps.

This class will focus on the basic fundamentals of post-production, which includes picture and sound editing, media management, media capture and the various editing techniques available to editors to communicate ideas. The class will cover the history of cinematic editing and the impact it has had on visual storytelling, as well as the various styles of editing that make up the language of cinema. Students will learn and use editing software to edit various projects and assignments.

This course provides a framework to develop greater emotional resilience and lower stress and anxiety through prayer and meditation. Compassion training develops the strength to be with the suffering, the courage to take compassionate action, and the resilience to prevent compassion fatigue. Actors are strongly encouraged to take this class to prepare for the demands of accessing authentic emotions in their work

This course builds on the work completed in Fundamentals of Story Development. Students will at a minimum write the first two acts of a screenplay. They will read classic and modern screenplays. Class time will be dedicated to covering intermediate topics including scene transitions, writing with subtext, visual writing, and further developing skills in scene and dialogue writing and script formatting, and finding solutions to writer's block. Students will critique one another's work in small groups, with instructor supervision and guidance. Considerable time will be required for students to write.

From first reading through to performance, students rehearse and perform a play from a classic or contemporary writer. Students must audition to register for this class. This course may be taken multiple times for credit.

In this course students identify their specialized interest and value within the media industry, and through the creation of a comprehensive career strategy, use specialized knowledge, skills and experience to prepare themselves to be hired by media companies and promote themselves within the media industry. The class will also look at the unique world of freelancing and give students the tools necessary to venture into self-employment.

Students taking this course will learn principles to guide evangelization on social media, which for better or worse has come to serve as the public square or Areopagus of our own era.  Assessments will also be made of contemporary Catholic efforts to evangelize, and students will undertake their own social media projects to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ so as to be heard.

This course teaches students to meet and resolve objections and conflicts that result from written and oral proposals and pitches. Emphasis is on resolving customer obstacles before addressing your own. Topics covered include: Wants vs. Needs, Win-Win Strategies, Best Alternatives to Agreement, Schedule vs. Quality vs. Cost, Progress vs. Perfection. The class progresses through carefully structured, progressively more complex negotiation exercises. Students learn how external and internal negotiation has become a way of life for effective managers in a constantly changing business environment.

A theoretical and practical introduction to the human phenomenon of storytelling, what stories are, their central role in culture from ancient times to the present day, and how storytellers seek and communicate meaning. Particular attention will be paid to the significance of story in the Judeo-Christian tradition and story’s role within the Christian faith. Students will generate numerous story ideas, and with the help of their classmates and the instructor will evaluate those ideas in terms of audience appeal, theme and meaning.

This class will study some of the most important films in American cinema to understand the cultural context in which they were created, the role of the director in the filmmaking process, and the lasting legacy that the various films enjoy.

In this class students get a “big picture” look at the ingredients of a start-up firm and the process of creating one. The class details those ingredients, discusses the stories (good & bad) of people who have done it, and learn the process by going through it with a self-select team. Students learn: the business planning process, which maps how to move from an idea to an actual enterprise offering an actual product/service/apostolate; How to craft a compelling and clear business story that captures the true essence of your business; and finally acquire inquisitiveness as to how the world of business really works. The class deliverable is a complete Business Plan created by student teams along with a presentation of the plan.

This course provides students with a fundamental approach to playing Shakespeare. Particular emphasis will be placed on a rhetorical approach to text and punctuation utilizing Shakespeare's First Folio as the key to unlocking the text in a presentational actor/audience experience.

Exploration of the history of electronic game technology, game genres, major hardware gaming platforms, major software game engines, various game developers, game publisher, and the work of leading exponents of game/animation design to broaden students’ vision, understanding, and appreciation of game art & design evolution.

This class will focus on the basic fundamentals of post-production, which includes picture and sound editing, media management, media capture and the various editing techniques available to editors to communicate ideas. The class will cover the history of cinematic editing and the impact it has had on visual storytelling, as well as the various styles of editing that make up the language of cinema. Students will learn and use editing software to edit various projects and assignments.

In this class students get a “big picture” look at the ingredients of a start-up firm and the process of creating one. The class details those ingredients, discusses the stories (good & bad) of people who have done it, and learn the process by going through it with a self-select team. Students learn: the business planning process, which maps how to move from an idea to an actual enterprise offering an actual product/service/apostolate; How to craft a compelling and clear business story that captures the true essence of your business; and finally acquire inquisitiveness as to how the world of business really works. The class deliverable is a complete Business Plan created by student teams along with a presentation of the plan.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

Creating skeletal structures for humanoid characters. Mastery of a wide range of rigging techniques such as reversed foot lock, wrist control, spline IK, facial controls, and weight painting.

As this course engages apparently timeless literary works from the classical tradition, it situates them within specific historical contexts. This approach enables students to come to both a greater appreciation of the enduring power of story, and a recognition of the relationship of works of art with their surrounding culture. Masterworks of pagan antiquity (Homer and/or Virgil) give way to key texts of early Christendom (Augustine, Beowulf, et al) in order to further illuminate the impact of Christian theology and anthropology on artists and thinkers in myriad disciplines.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

This class is designed to provide students with the opportunity to further their drawing skills. Students will draw architectural structures, landscape and people on location from direct observation.

In this course students learn the human-centered design process, which moves from concrete observations about people to abstract thinking then back to the concrete with tangible solutions that are desirable, feasible, and viable in today's global business environment. 

Students will learn the basics of motion picture production using real-time rendering in Unreal Engine and will leave with a completed project that demonstrates proficiency in both the engine and its application across several stages of production. Additional topics include motion capture and tracking a real world camera. 

This class expands on many of the skills learned in the Fundamentals of Production class. Students will learn intermediate camera and lighting techniques and how to use these specific tools to communicate a story visually. Specific emphasis will be on image composition, lens characteristics, codecs and formats, camera settings, specific lighting styles and instruments, and how the camera and lights complement and support the storytelling experience.

This course enables focused study of a specific author, era, or literary movement. Focus will be on significant literary texts with additional attention to critical literature, historical context, and cultural influence as needed. Repeatable for credit with different topics.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

As this course engages apparently timeless literary works from the classical tradition, it situates them within specific historical contexts. This approach enables students to come to both a greater appreciation of the enduring power of story, and a recognition of the relationship of works of art with their surrounding culture. Masterworks of pagan antiquity (Homer and/or Virgil) give way to key texts of early Christendom (Augustine, Beowulf, et al) in order to further illuminate the impact of Christian theology and anthropology on artists and thinkers in myriad disciplines.

Recent popes have emphasized the necessity of personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This course considers how such an encounter can be fostered within a university community, and how such discipleship might be lived in an ongoing way. It therefore doubles as an introduction to university community and to Catholic theological study, connecting faith principles with lived experience so as to bolster faith and support vocational discernment.

Advanced Distribution and Marketing Strategies is a forward-looking, upper-level course that prepares students with a knowledge of historic and existing strategies for the marketing and distribution of media products in particular as a way to understand the marketing and distribution of all products more generally. The course prepares students to appreciate the rapidly developing opportunities presented by new media, and to devise new marketing and distribution strategies which take advantage of those opportunities.

In this course students learn about the basic structures of sound reasoning, focusing largely on classic Aristotelian logic. The course serves to help students think and argue with clarity as well as to effectively analyze arguments of others. The course includes a careful analysis of the operations of the intellect, i.e., understanding, judgment, and reasoning, focusing on their products, i.e., term, proposition, and syllogism.

This course will explore numerous topics within bioethics and will focus primarily on life issues, healthcare ethics, and biomedical technologies. It will provide students with an understanding of the ethical principles, theories, concepts, and values underlying bioethics. It will also explore Catholic teachings on bioethical issues and the rationale behind these teachings. Topics will include the dignity of the human person, cloning, abortion, euthanasia, palliative care, NFP, contraception, IVF, physician-assisted suicide, sex reassignment surgery, medical research, and the right to health care.

After providing an overview of the basic principles of the Philosophy of Nature, this course examines the nature of the human being, beginning from the Epic of Gilgamesh, continuing through the Classical period by means of Aristotle, the Middle Ages in St. Thomas Aquinas, the Renaissance via Blaise Pascal, and concluding in the modern period in Nietzsche, Freud and T. S. Eliot. 

Introduction to the elements and principles of design, composition design, color theory, color psychology, and basic typography. Practical guidance in color mixing and the visual impact of specific color combinations to support traditional and digital design work.

Using techniques learned in previous courses, students will design, prototype, and produce a complete portfolio-ready short game.

This course is a continuation of THEO100. Whereas THEO100 focuses largely on the Gospels, this course takes a closer look at the major figures and events of the Old Testament. After a discussion of the literary and historical issues relating to biblical study, students learn the basic structure of the story of salvation history, surveying the books of the Old Testament. Special attention is given to the way the Old Testament books relate to those in the New Testament. As in THEO100 students also focus on how Scripture study relates to the life of prayer.

Students will gain a better understanding of contemporary theology through studying the works of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).

In today’s world there is a need for strategic thinking and business vision based on a different paradigm. Competition is not only between products and services, but also between business models. Students will learn about innovation-driven business strategies and methodologies to develop business designs to successfully compete in the new economy.

This course explores the craft of filmmaking through an in-depth analysis of the work and career of director Christopher Nolan. Students study Nolan's distinct visual style, use of theme,

Students will participate in a small group providing musical scores and sound effects for movies, television and video games. Analysis of scoring techniques and practicum will be explored.

In today’s world there is a need for strategic thinking and business vision based on a different paradigm. Competition is not only between products and services, but also between business models. Students will learn about innovation-driven business strategies and methodologies to develop business designs to successfully compete in the new economy.

This course teaches the principles of project management that are commonly used to plan and measure projects in industry. It presents the project management mind-set, tools, and skills for successfully defining, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and reporting a project. Topics covered include: the project life cycle, fundamental PM processes, development of the project plan, interpersonal management skills, and managing changes during project execution. Case studies are from technology and media applications.

This course provides students an opportunity to design and create props, set pieces, and custom wardrobe for film, television, & theatre. Students utilize various tools and technologies to fabricate their designs, including wood working, 3D printing, basic circuitry, foam, and textiles.

This course concentrates on the understanding of how light works, how to manipulate it, and how to use light and its supporting instruments to light in a way that will communicate emotion and help establish the visual character of a film. Students work with various types and styles of lighting instruments, stands, grip equipment and light modifiers as they light a variety of scenes.