2026 - Spring

MEDIA STUDIES COURSES

RTF 380               RESEARCH METHODS • SUZANNE SCOTT

This course provides an introduction to key methodological approaches used by media studies scholars. First, we will address the considerations involved in developing and designing research projects, addressing potential ethical and logistical challenges related to conducting different types of research. Second, we will survey several qualitative research methods employed by media studies scholars including historiography, discourse analysis, textual and formal analysis, ethnography, interviewing, and more. Students will be asked to build on our semester-long survey of methodological challenges, concerns, and practices by developing their own research proposals. RTF faculty members will be brought in throughout the semester to discuss their own methodological approaches, and to participate in question-and-answer sessions with students about their experiences and challenges studying media texts, industries, and audiences.

RTF 386    DIGITAL MEDIA INDUSTRIES • BYRON FONG

What makes the media industries so unique and important? How do forces such as globalization, technology, and policy and politics affect the media industries? Is the streaming war over and Netflix peaked? Should TikTok be banned? Why and how did Facebook become Meta, Twitter become X, and HBO become Max? While legacy media adjust to a new landscape, what are the entrepreneurial opportunities and challenges in and outside media organizations? Would you have a fulfilling career in the media industries if you are not a “nepo baby”? What are the pitfalls and the potential of generative artificial intelligence for media industries?

Drawing on literature from media studies, management, communication, and sociology, this course examines the social, political, and economic contexts in which media and culture are produced, distributed, and monetized in the digital age. Special attention is paid to theories and methods to understand digital media and platforms and the implications of disruptive innovations for media production, distribution and consumption. Cases in legacy and new media industries from different countries will be analyzed.  

It is designed to help students achieve the following learning goals upon successful course completion:

Learning Objective 1: Learn key theories and concepts relevant to media and tech industries

Learning Objective 2: Understand the social, economic, and political forces shaping digital media and entertainment industries

Learning Objective 3: Apply key concepts and methods to various challenges, opportunities, and responses in contemporary media and tech industries

RTF 386           SCREEN THEORY • LALITHA GOPALAN

A preliminary description for the course describes it as an exploration of how the screen in its many incarnations has been a source of fascination for both viewers and makers.  We conjure it as a scrim that receives light from a projector, as a liquid-crystal display arranging pixels, as a DCP at our local theater, as large screens promising immersive experiences, small screens that we hold in our hands, and so much more. This remains the starting point for our seminar. Since meditations on the screen continue to be extensive and speculative, including formulations on its relationship to photography, television, new media, and pre-cinematic forms, the course will focus on how projections on the screen long provoked theoreticians to consider expressions of time, space, and movement. The readings in the course will explore the vast dimensions of the screen that continue to enthrall us. 

The course is open to graduate students who are scholars and filmmaker-artists.
 

RTF 386           STREAMING MEDIA • ALISA PERREN

RTF 386C        RACE, CLASS, & GENDER IN AMERICAN TV • MARY BELTRAN

Narrative television is one of the primary popular culture forums through which notions of race, citizenship, class, gender, and sexual orientation have been constructed, validated, and challenged in the United States; this graduate seminar surveys scholarship examining the poetics and politics of this evolution. With a focus on intersectional representation, TV storytellers, and how television has been linked to U.S. sociocultural history, we will survey the seminal scholarship on these topics and areas of theoretical and popular contention. Key areas of focus will include the evolution of popular genres such as sitcoms, debates over equitable representation and television as a public forum for all, self-representation, feminist and anti-racist content, and representation and authorship in the “post-“ and “peak TV” eras. A variety of media studies approaches are taken up in the readings, with emphasis on critical and cultural studies scholarship. Weekly screenings that students will stream on their own time will provide key texts that we will analyze in our discussions.

RTF 398M   MASTERS RESEARCH/WRITING

RTF 398R    MASTERS REPORT - HYBRID/BLENDED

MFA SCREENWRITING COURSES

RTF 380J          FIRST-YEAR SCREENWRITING • TOM WILLETT 

A continuation of the first-year screenwriting class taught in the Fall, this course will focus on the process of revision. As a part of developing an organized strategy for approaching their second drafts, students will also be introduced to the “sequences” method of screenplay structure. All students must have a completed feature-length screenplay ready on the first day of class.

RTF 380M         *ADVANCED SCREENWRITING II  • TOM WILLETT

This course fulfills the second year/second semester writing requirement for all MFA screenwriters.  In this advanced screenwriting workshop, students write either a feature-length screenplay or an original television pilot (30 or 60 minute).  With instructor’s permission, students may also write TV specs. Students will continue their exploration of the craft of screenwriting, while finishing polished, professional work that can serve as a calling-card.

*This course fulfills the second year, first semester writing requirement for all MFA screenwriting majors. Other qualified students will be admitted as space permits, by instructor permission.

RTF 380N/347C       ADAPTATION FOR FILM AND TELEVISION  • MAYA PEREZ

This course will explore the opportunities and challenges of adapting stories from one medium to another for the screen. Through case studies of successful adaptations, students will examine techniques for transforming novels, short stories, articles, video games, plays, and even real-life events into compelling screenplays. Students will write several adaptation treatments from assigned source materials and engage in weekly discussions of each other's work.

RTF 380N        DEVELOPMENT FOR SCREENWRITERS • MAYA PEREZ

What does the career of a professional screenwriter involve? Through lectures and conversations with a series of guest speakers, students will get answers to this question and more. This is an advanced course in which we will cover “generals” and staffing meetings, screenplay competitions and fellowships, pitches, one-pagers, navigating a TV writers' room, production company/studio/network notes, networking, and building a community in pursuit of a professional screenwriting career.

RTF 380N        TELEVISION PILOTS • KATHERINE CRAFT

Each student will create a new original television show (30- or 60-minute, network or cable) from the ground up: establishing the setting and world, inventing the characters and relationships, and designing the engine and conflicts necessary to propel a show through multiple seasons. Students will then distill all of this work into a single showpiece episode - a pilot - that demonstrates the artistic and commercial potential of the new show. We’ll also look at a range of produced pilots and discuss what makes them work.

RTF 385K      HISTORY OF FILM (FOR 1st YEAR MFA STUDENTS) • CASEY WALKER

This course is a survey of international film history for graduate students. It is required of all RTF MFA students in screenwriting. Covering the development of the medium from Thomas Edison to the present, the history of cinema will be approached from various perspectives (as a technology, an industry, an entertainment medium, and a mode of personal and national expression, as a language). Particular attention will be given to the evolution of film’s formal elements. Several assignments are designed to acquaint students with how film styles have evolved, how film style operates as a language, and how research in film history is conducted.

MFA PRODUCTION COURSES

RTF 388F/340D        PRODUCTION DESIGN BASICS • ADRIANA SERRANO

Understand the role of production design and how the creation and selection of sets, locations and environments contribute to the visual language of film. Explore fundamental elements of story, production, critical analysis, and the collaborative process of film making from the design perspective.

RTF 388F/344M        POST PRODUCTION TECHNQUES • DANIEL STUYCK

This course involves intensive hands-on work in digital color grading. It is designed to familiarize students with the entire digital image-making process, whether you are a director or a cinematographer who wants to understand how picture finishing works, to more advanced students who wish to specialize in post production or color correction.

RTF 388P / 343C        ACTING FOR FILMMAKERS • ANDREW SHEA

This workshop explores the key elements of basic acting technique through active engagement in a variety of exercises and assignments: improvisation, monologue and scene study, observation, and emotional preparation.  The goal is to develop a deep understanding of the job of the actor: to live life truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

RTF 388P       ADVANCED DIRECTING • YA'KE SMITH

This course is designed to bring together advanced directing students and Austin-based actors in an environment that will foster mutual growth and understanding of the director/actor dynamic in the filmmaking process. Each student will direct or co-direct a Dogme-style film. Each director or directing team will cast two actors who will play the leading roles in the film and who will participate in our in-class workshops during the middle part of the semester. We will adhere to a production code that is a modified version of the Dogme 95 Vow of Cinematic Chastity. The goal will be to create collaborative, performance-based works that emphasize simplicity and ingenuity in image and sound choices.

RTF 388P / 343        CINEMA LABORATORY • DEBORAH EVE LEWIS

In Cinema Laboratory, you will make ten (or more) short films – some during class and some outside of class – with the emphasis being on making, taking risks, and exploring the cinematic form on an elemental level. Cinema Laboratory’s practice of consistent moviemaking aims to create a space and time where filmmaking efforts are not expensive and precious, but intuitive, brief, engaging, and challenging in a fast-paced workshop setting. Motivated, hard-working, curious, and highly creative students are sought to participate.

Cinema Laboratory seeks self-driven RTF graduate students, upper-level RTF undergraduates (especially those in their last semester at UT), photojournalism students, and students from the School of Architecture, Theater and Dance, and the Art School. The teaching assistant will work with students from non-RTF departments to learn RTF protocol and basic editing, camera, and sound work; however, a basic understanding of shooting and editing video is required.
Please contact the instructor with any questions regarding Cinema Laboratory: deb.lewis@utexas.edu.   

RTF 389P        PRODUCING SHORT FILMS • TBD

Short films are often seen as an excellent calling card for first time filmmakers. But it’s much more than just a way to practice your craft or make something that is shorter or cheaper than a feature film. Though the principles and steps involved to produce a short film is no different than producing a feature film, it is also a unique discipline of its own. How do you tell an interesting and compelling story in a short film? How do you translate a minimum budget into maximum quality on screen?

This course will examine all fundamental aspects of development, pre-production, production, and distribution of producing a short film. Students will practice the step-by-step processes of physical production such as script breakdown, scheduling, budgeting, location scouting, crew hiring, working with cast and crew, etc. Using weekly lectures, homework assignments, course readings and class workshops to reinforce each class topic, students will put together a final production binder for a short film.

RTF 390E       AUDIO FOR PICTURE: PRODUCTION & POST-PRODUCTION • KOREY PEREIRA

Required for first year MFA production students. Open to a limited number of students from other disciplines.
An intensive introduction to audio for picture, from writing to production and post. The course integrates with the 881KB assignment and is designed to prepare first-year MFA students to make good decisions about audio with a base of knowledge and practice. By the end of the course you will have an entry-level working knowledge of various microphones and their usage; the Sound Devices 633 mixer/recorder; wireless lav systems, techniques of production recording, sound editing and basic mixing; the use of Pro Tools for editing and recording Foley and ADR; and a broader appreciation of audio in storytelling for screens.

RTF 488M       PRE-THESIS FILM: POST PRODUCTION  • ILIANA SOSA

RTF 488M       THESIS PRODUCTION 

This course is designed to aid students in the planning, production and completion of "short project" film/video projects required as partial fulfillment of the MFA degree; Students involved in pre-production must complete a story synopsis, treatment and/or shooting script (if the latter is already under way), plus a production budget and date for production start and completion; a student must have script, production plan, budget, and equipment list approved by his/her MFA committee before shooting can begin; and each project in post-production must have a budget and picture delivery date set by the student producer's MFA committee and course instructor.

RTF 681KB      PRINCIPLES OF FILM AND TV PRODUCTION • MIGUEL ALVAREZ

This course is an intensive workshop in narrative directing and film production. Its goal is to develop the ability and self-confidence to translate, from the page to the screen, the narrative and corresponding visual/aural structures of a scene or short film. The course explores the role of the director in narrative filmmaking and the director’s storytelling and aesthetic responsibilities. For the final project, each student will direct and edit an original, non-dialogue short film, under six minutes in length. In addition, each student will fill a number of crew positions on other students’ projects. Readings, exercises, screenings and other assignments throughout the semester are designed to sharpen the directors’ narrative and visual awareness.

SPECIALTY COURSES

RTF 196           PORTFOLIO IN MEDIA PRODUCTION

RTF 384I          INTERNSHIP IN MEDIA INDUSTRIES

RTF 388C         RESEARCH PROBLEMS: DOCTORAL EXAM PREP   

RTF 388D         RESEARCH PROBLEM IN SPEC FIELD OF RTF   

RTF 388E          RESEARCH PROBLEM IN SPEC FIELD OF RTF 

RTF 388S         RESEARCH PROBLEM IN SPEC FIELD OF RTF: PRODUCTION

RTF 398R         MASTER'S REPORT

RTF 698A         THESIS

RTF 698B         THESIS

RTF 399W        DISSERTATION

RTF 699W        DISSERTATION

RTF 999W        DISSERTATION