Professor
Steven Anderson
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Winter 2022 - This is kind of a late review, but I'll say everything that I still remember. First of all - don't take this course if you can't handle violent content. I don't understand why, but as we progressed more to the end the screenings just get worse, some of them I couldn't even stand staying there to watch. He did not give any kind of content warning, and I highly doubt this guy's film taste. What he called a "bad movie" is often what I found interesting, but the gross ones were often being praised - I guess it depends on personal opinions, but I would at least appreciate some warnings. I'm here to learn about film and techs, not to get nightmares when I'm already lacking sleep. The professor took attendance either at the start or in the middle of the lecture, and I kind of regret that I didn't leave before the screening starts. Most of them were 90s sci-fi B movies, and the ideas were fairly obsolete. As an Asian, the part that I hated the most is the Asian hate shown in the screenings. I could write a long paper about it but that's for another day. In order to show us the screenings, the lecture part was often rushed or even skipped. The lecture part was full of videos that are too "avant-garde" for me to understand, plus he didn't explain the content. It's just like he's making a youtube playlist of what he thinks is interesting and showing them in class. I tried to take notes when the course starts but eventually just gave up - the materials were too abstract for me to write down. There are interesting topics such as AI, digital surveillance, and such, but all he did was show videos and let you think on your own. If you like that kind of teaching style, then this class is for you. Assignments included essays, which had nothing to do with the screenings, meaning you can write the papers without going to the lecture and watching the stuff at all. We don't talk about the screenings at the discussion either, because most of the time was taken for graded student lead discussions. Everyone needs to prepare a group presentation and discuss the weekly readings for a section of the discussion, which I think is a clever way for the TA to get away with preparing their own materials. As he said, most of the students taking this class are just to scratch a film major or minor requirement off their list. So give yourself a break and don't put too much effort into this class and get emotional damage as I did. Disclaimer: I'm writing this only because I don't like Mr. Anderson's teaching style, not because I hate him personally. He's a chill guy who is willing to listen to you during breaks and put on subtitles when I said I need them. But I definitely will not take his class again if possible.
Winter 2022 - This is kind of a late review, but I'll say everything that I still remember. First of all - don't take this course if you can't handle violent content. I don't understand why, but as we progressed more to the end the screenings just get worse, some of them I couldn't even stand staying there to watch. He did not give any kind of content warning, and I highly doubt this guy's film taste. What he called a "bad movie" is often what I found interesting, but the gross ones were often being praised - I guess it depends on personal opinions, but I would at least appreciate some warnings. I'm here to learn about film and techs, not to get nightmares when I'm already lacking sleep. The professor took attendance either at the start or in the middle of the lecture, and I kind of regret that I didn't leave before the screening starts. Most of them were 90s sci-fi B movies, and the ideas were fairly obsolete. As an Asian, the part that I hated the most is the Asian hate shown in the screenings. I could write a long paper about it but that's for another day. In order to show us the screenings, the lecture part was often rushed or even skipped. The lecture part was full of videos that are too "avant-garde" for me to understand, plus he didn't explain the content. It's just like he's making a youtube playlist of what he thinks is interesting and showing them in class. I tried to take notes when the course starts but eventually just gave up - the materials were too abstract for me to write down. There are interesting topics such as AI, digital surveillance, and such, but all he did was show videos and let you think on your own. If you like that kind of teaching style, then this class is for you. Assignments included essays, which had nothing to do with the screenings, meaning you can write the papers without going to the lecture and watching the stuff at all. We don't talk about the screenings at the discussion either, because most of the time was taken for graded student lead discussions. Everyone needs to prepare a group presentation and discuss the weekly readings for a section of the discussion, which I think is a clever way for the TA to get away with preparing their own materials. As he said, most of the students taking this class are just to scratch a film major or minor requirement off their list. So give yourself a break and don't put too much effort into this class and get emotional damage as I did. Disclaimer: I'm writing this only because I don't like Mr. Anderson's teaching style, not because I hate him personally. He's a chill guy who is willing to listen to you during breaks and put on subtitles when I said I need them. But I definitely will not take his class again if possible.
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Spring 2023 - The class says it's about "Interactive Multimedia Authoring" which is kind of vague, but specifically the 'Interactive Multimedia' refers to virtual reality. It was a super chill class at Melnitz with lots of interesting equipment that were readily available to us like 360 cameras and vr headsets. Not many students when I took it so it was pretty close-knit and easy to reach the professor. Lectures came with highly informative slides I'd actually take notes on out of intrigue and later on we'd take turns fiddling with cameras, filming 360 videos then learning how to edit it on Adobe Premiere Pro, or watching documentaries / short art films through the vr headsets. V enjoyable! Anderson is knowledgeable in some aspects of technology (the history of VR) and not so much in others (how to turn the projector on). He brought on a cool vr artist to class once, and he's really laidback about tardiness or if you can't make class due to an emergency. He even let me take it easy for our final project and I made a proof of concept for a video game idea using VR, and that was good for an A. Would recommend!
Spring 2023 - The class says it's about "Interactive Multimedia Authoring" which is kind of vague, but specifically the 'Interactive Multimedia' refers to virtual reality. It was a super chill class at Melnitz with lots of interesting equipment that were readily available to us like 360 cameras and vr headsets. Not many students when I took it so it was pretty close-knit and easy to reach the professor. Lectures came with highly informative slides I'd actually take notes on out of intrigue and later on we'd take turns fiddling with cameras, filming 360 videos then learning how to edit it on Adobe Premiere Pro, or watching documentaries / short art films through the vr headsets. V enjoyable! Anderson is knowledgeable in some aspects of technology (the history of VR) and not so much in others (how to turn the projector on). He brought on a cool vr artist to class once, and he's really laidback about tardiness or if you can't make class due to an emergency. He even let me take it easy for our final project and I made a proof of concept for a video game idea using VR, and that was good for an A. Would recommend!
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