A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

Melika Bass

Associate Professor

Bio

Education: BA, 1997, Earlham College. MFA, 2007, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions/Screenings: BAMcinemaFest, Brooklyn; International Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany (solo showcase); BFI London Film Festival; Torino Film Festival, Italy; Kino der Kunst, Munich; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (solo exhibition); Film Society of Lincoln Center, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; LA Film Forum; CPH Dox Festival, Denmark. Awards: Artadia Award; Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film; International Jury Special Mention Award, Oberhausen Film Festival; 3 Art Fellowships, Illinois Arts Council; Experimental Film Prize, Athens International Film Festival; 2021 United States Artist Nominee in Film.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This is a Production Laboratory class for students interested in working with the ideas and techniques of directing performers for the camera. We will consider issues of scripting, pre-production, rehearsing, shooting, and editing performances. The course requires active participation in 3 roles -- as a director, performer, and camera operator -- as these constitute the primary collaborative relationships of a director. The main objective of this class is to get students to consider various methods of directing performers that both explore and elaborate on traditional theatrical schools of directing. Through hands-on experience, readings, critique and screenings, students will begin to carve out their own style of working.

Class Number

1579

Credits

3

Description

This course is a production class designed for students interested in alternative modes of narrative production in film and Video. Through workshops on writing, acting, and directing, students learn to work with actors, dialogue, and alternative narrative structures. Students apply the concepts covered in class to their selected projects, from production through editing. Throughout the course, a wide range of narrative films utilizing experimental modes of production are screened. Technical issues are covered in cinematography workshops, but it is assumed that students have a solid technical grounding in their medium of choice. Though the body of this class focuses on film and video production, the class is also appropriate for students working in performance and sound.

Class Number

2231

Credits

3

Description

Through screenings, lectures, and readings, this course will provide students with an introduction to key filmmakers and films of contemporary international art house cinema. In particular, this class will explore feature-length fiction films that revolve --thematically or structurally--around the idea of the psychological fugue state (a form of amnesia), and/or the fugal musical structure of theme-repetition-variation. Films will be screened and discussed in their relation to national cinemas, cultural histories, genre, and primarily, film form. Through their critical writing, students will explore the ways those films and filmmakers utilize formal elements of cinema, narrative, characterization, thematic elements, and ideological perspectives, and demonstrate how those elements are used both for aesthetic purposes and to create meaning within a film

Class Number

2237

Credits

3

Description

This course is for students who have a sustained interest in using video technology as part of their art making. Participants work on a project-oriented basis that include individual critiques, special class meetings, practicums, and equipment workshops. Students should be both self-directed and interested in developing a support system for producing each other's work.

Class Number

2311

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1123

Credits

3 - 6

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1693

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1294

Credits

3 - 6