H48.2062 Sem 2 Credits
Instructor(s): Linda Mills
H48.2062.001 (Graduate)
Wednesdays, 4 :00 – 5:50pm
2 points
Advocacy, outside and inside the courtrooms, increasingly depends not simply upon argument or protest, but upon supporting images. As such, documentary filmmaking has become one of the most powerful tools for advocates to convey their messages.
Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko), Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp), and Andrew Jarecki (Capturing the Friedmans) are but a few documentary filmmakers who have effectively sparked debate through confrontation, vérité footage, and filmmaking techniques that are deliberately designed to change the course of a nation's dialogue, and even affect the ultimate outcome of how a case is decided or an issue is resolved. From health care to sexual abuse, organized religion to the Holocaust, documentary filmmaking is now a force with which to be reckoned.
Visual literacy is crucial to advocates of all stripes, including lawyers, and this course takes up that challenge by addressing in detail the development of documentary filmmaking, the skills and tools, as well as the critical apprehension necessary to make use of the extraordinary opportunities that this new media proffer.
This course will help activists of all persuasions (artists, law students, and others) locate themselves in this powerful art form: when is it effective to use film in advocacy? When is it counterproductive? What can we learn from the methods that filmmakers use to influence the public?
Student assignments will include shooting and editing a short film, preparing a film treatment, or writing a paper on a selected topic within the syllabus.
