Katie Jefferis
Courses I’ve Taught & Designed
Norris Mini Course
Northwestern University
A six week-long introductory screenwriting course, covering dramatic structure, character development, and visual storytelling. Students write short scripts as their final projects. Presented for undergraduate, graduate, and the general public.
An advanced screenwriting course that examines how contemporary filmmakers enliven conventional storytelling techniques to express distinctly fresh-feeling films. An emphasis is put on analyzing stories from women, queer, and BIPOC filmmakers to understand how diverse visionaries experiment with narrative structure, character development, cinematography, and genre.
An introductory film studies course surveying the historical development of film, innovations in film production, and the evolution of film language. Topics include: narrative structure, genre, mise-en-scène, character and point of view, performance, cinematography, editing, sound, and more. Reference films include primarily international and American independent titles.
An introductory course examining the development of international cinematic traditions outside of Hollywood and the US. Focused on post-World War II innovations in film production, distribution, and exhibition that allowed national concerns to become on-going international discussions and shaped cinema’s role as a distinctly modern dialogic art form.
An advanced study of female authorship in film. What role do terms like the “Heroine’s Journey” or the “Female Gaze” play in helping us, as students and practitioners, structure our goals in writing scripts, conceptualizing films, and our leadership on set? Reference films include films by female-identifying directors, writers, producers, editors, and cinematographers.