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“The authors have stunningly codified an elusive process media educators must attempt to articulate every day in every classroom. This practical, illuminating, and inspiring book will become a foundation text in film schools around the world.” — William McDonald, Head of Production, UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media

This website area is designed to aid educators who might like to use Creative Filmmaking in their teaching as a supplemental text in production courses, or as the core text for courses in creativity and idea origination.

The Supplemental Text section provides suggestions for incorporating Creative Filmmaking into nearly any course in a production curriculum. The book’s low cost, accessible writing, compact length, and many “limberings” designed to take five minutes or less, make it an ideal addition to any course that has a creative element. The focus on aspects of creativity that cut across so many different filmmaking roles makes Creative Filmmaking broadly applicable and adaptable, and its clear, powerful concepts are likely to enrich whatever content you are already teaching.

The Syllabus for a Course section provides a complete downloadable syllabus and week-by-week class plans for a course focused on enhancing creativity. Organized for a fifteen week term, this outline uses “limberings” and “workouts” from the book as well as additional creative assignments and activities. We have taught it as a two unit undergraduate course for USC Cinema-Television majors but it can be adapted for all ages and institutions. The only equipment requirements for the students are simple still-photo cameras and easily available art materials.

The concepts of Creative Filmmaking can also be used in orientation for new students, faculty development workshops, and in free-standing seminars. If you are a teacher and want to describe your experiences using the book, or share your own creative filmmaking exercises with others through this site, please email your contributions to creativefilm@annenberg.edu. Periodically, a selection of new exercises will be posted in the For Teachers: Additional Ideas section. Your contributions are welcome and appreciated, but due to the large volume of messages, you will not receive a reply.

“Creative Filmmaking is entirely fresh and different, and welcomed. It has caused me to reconsider the content of a documentary course I have been conducting for NYU undergraduates for three decades.” — George Stoney, filmmaker and Paulette Goddard Professor of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts