You show up to lecture and learn about how movies are made and different types of critical lenses to apply to watching movies. You write an essay or two, watch a movie or two every week, and skim through a very simple textbook. Occasionally, you're hit with some odd texts, but Professor Trice's lectures are the most helpful and comprehensive I think I will ever encounter at this school. Her slides are digestible, her engagement is impeccable, and she frequently gets students to participate just to clarify that we're all on the same page. The subject matter is fairly easy and fun, and if movies and art interest you at all, I think you're in for a treat. It's UCLA after all -- as a film major, I can attest to the quality of the program, and this intro class is just a tiny peak into what the rest of us are going to be spending our time grinding out. I hope I don't sound pretentious calling it all "easy," as there was a very very large amount of shit that I learned about for the first time in this class. Lots of techniques, terms, and movies I'd never even heard about came from here, and many of those movies or styles are now some I can call my favorites. Take this class for the GE if it interests you, and film majors, don't worry too much about it! It's not hard nor boring.

I honestly could not recommend this class to anybody.

The quizzes are basically trivia about the films and lectures. For example, one of the questions was regarding what item a character was implied to have previously bought in one scene, which is an incredibly insignificant and specific plot detail. I quote from the quiz, "In In the Mood for Love, which object does Mr. Chow ask Mr. Chan to purchase abroad?" Other questions include what specific camera angles were used in specific scenes, which I didn't appreciate opening the movie to find with a time limit. The quizzes also repeatedly ask what specific movie that the professor used as an example to make a small point. TIP: when you're taking notes, and she mentions the name of a movie, write down the name of that movie next to whatever point she was making.

She also does Q+As with cinematographers and directors, and the test questions require you to remember what they said. I personally do not care why a cinematographer I have never heard of got interested in filmmaking. One of the questions on a quiz is, and I'm not joking, " George Huang said he grew up in a very traditional Chinese household. What did his parents do for him on his 9th birthday that influenced him toward going into the film business?" The answer is, drum roll please, they took him to see Star Wars. By the way, these Q+As are usually 40+ minutes each.

Many of the quizzes also are worded so poorly that they actually have multiple answers that could hypothetically be correct. It doesn't help that Professor Trice is so bad at explaining things that often, when I pull up the lectures and look through the specific portions where she talks about the question (the quizzes are open note), I still have trouble figuring out what the answer is. For example: one of the questions was asking whether Melodrama borrows from realism or not, and what she said about it in the lecture was, "Melodrama appears borrows from realism, but realism serves the melodramatic passion and action." (The answer is yes by the way). And occasionally, she'll just say a sentence that has absolutely no meaning in context. She words things so pretentiously that I'm pretty sure she often has no clue what she's saying.

The workload is insane. I took 2 other courses this summer, which were GEOG 4 and LS30A, and I would estimate that this course took up 80% of my time, even though I outsourced a LOT of the notetaking to other people. The workload includes watching all of the movies (12 total plus short films), watching all of the lectures and taking notes(~20 total), doing all of the readings (I think 10-15 total) and taking notes, doing all of the quizzes (24 total, 30 mins each), doing all of the discussion forums (11 total plus two responses to classmates), and doing the 2 creative exercises. A lot of people dropped the class within the first 3 weeks.

The discussion board's implementation was offensively terrible. The grading is basically completely random, and the TAs give no feedback, other than being passive-aggressive. They like to center otherwise flawless answers around a 10/12 or 11/12 grading-wise for basically no reason, which according to a poll, a huge portion of the class also believes.
For example, I got marked a 10.5/12 and got marked off for "answer could have been more connected to the prompt". The discussion prompt is this, "Option 1: Briefly explain how the assigned episode of Westworld is an example of a post-classical or “complex” narrative. In your answer, utilize specific examples from the episode and refer to class lecture materials and readings. How does it use narrative satellites and kernels? How does it employ the “operational aesthetic?” Then, describe what you think of this trend in TV storytelling (i.e., the narrative as a complex “puzzle” to be solved/revealed by viewers). Is this a natural step forward in storytelling, given the technologies we have at hand (social media, streaming)? Or, is this technique limiting? Are there types of stories that don’t lend themselves to this kind of approach?" As you can see, there are like 12 questions in here. The word limit is 300-500 words. When I disputed this, the TA told me that even though I answered every question well, my answers could have been more fleshed out, even though my response was over 700 words already. Multiple times, I got marked off in the "evidence" category of the rubric for "lacking in specificity," even though I always provide quotes and even time stamps as evidence.

The professor responded to concerns about grading by students by just brushing them off. She "conducted an audit" of the TA's grading by ensuring that the average score is the same across TAs. But as people in the GroupMe have expressed, this is because the TAs are grading equally random. My TA sent an announcement (because she was clearly getting a lot of complaints) basically saying that if you want to score high, you have to make your responses extremely above average and more than answer the prompt. Disregarding the fact that this is a nuts expectation for a lower division class with an already extremely high workload, this is also a complete lie. My discussion posts have varied in quality largely because of time constraints, and how much time I put into a discussion post, as well as how "insightful" it was, has had literally zero correlation with the grade I have received. Literally nobody in the class actually knows how to consistently get an A in the discussion section.

Also, one of the movies, called "Never Forever" by Gina Kim, is easily the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Finally, the professor is blatantly neomarxist and incessantly infuses that ideology into the course material. This is very hard to put up with if you don't also follow her personal ideology.

Here are some tips if for some reason you want to or need to take this class:
-For her lectures, and especially the Q&As, click on "show transcript." Then, you can use ctrl+f to search for specific phrases to get to a part of the lecture that the quiz is asking about. Only use this as a last resort and don't abuse it though, because you have a time limit and it won't always work. Also because you need some of the knowledge from the lectures to be able to write your discussion posts. But it is very helpful as a last resort - for example, when a quiz question is "when making her point which movie did professor Trice reference" or something, you can individually ctrl+f the name of each movie until one comes up.
-Divide up the notetaking among several people, at least four but ideally 8 or 10. One person doing all of the notetaking and learning all of the material just isn't realistic, especially not in a six-week-long course.
-If you're wise with what you choose to answer in the discussions, you don't actually technically need to watch all of the movies.
-The TAs and the discussion prompts ask for you to give your opinion based on the knowledge that you have gathered from learning the course material. Don't think that doing all of that will get you an A. Meaning, spend a maximum of 2 hours on each discussion post.
-Make sure that you get 100s on the quizzes. They will balance out the 10-11s out of 12 that you will constantly be getting on your discussion forums, and will give you a good shot at actually getting an A.
-Set the speed of the lectures to 2x and pause when you need to take notes so you don't waste your time. For the Q&As, if you're skimming them, set it to 3x using a browser extension such as Video Speed Controller.
-The workload each week actually somewhat varies. Don't think that the workload at weeks 1 and 2 are the standard for the course - on the week of Fourth of July, she gave us 4/3 the amount of work as usual (later 5/3), which screwed me up because I made the foolish mistake of thinking that I was allowed to actually have a life outside of this class on Independence Day. So during the weekend, check the workload for the upcoming week before you make plans.

1. The class does have a high workload (being a 5 unit class). You will have to watch 2-3 films for a week adding up to 5 hours and watch the recorded lectures for another 2 hours, then read the textbook, complete quiz + discussion forum post and for two weeks, write creative exercise responses. However, note that the class will not be as intense during regular quarters with 10 instead of 6 weeks. Having taken two other film classes (French 41, German 59), I think the workload is not out-of-line. You do have to consider what other classes you are taking though because this course does require a good amount of time.
2. As others have mentioned, the textbook reading can be long. However, you should be smart about doing that. You should skim any sections that dive deep into the history, and read more carefully about the film techniques. Both types will show up on the quiz, the first type you can pinpoint by using the search function, but the second type you will need to understand well and utilize in your reading responses (discussion forum and creative exercises)
3. The discussion forum posts require 300-500 words. I often found that introducing two pieces of evidence (from reading or film), elaborating their significance and relevance to the prompt will almost surely get me to the middle to high-end of this range. I advise that you go beyond the bare word minimum, and incorporate the terminologies introduced in that week. As for grading harshness, there may be some small variance between TAs. Prof. Trice said that the range between discussion forum grades is 0.6 in one of her emails.
4. Choose your creative exercise prompts and timing wisely. For summer, we had to complete two from five total prompts, each due at the end of the week (Wk 2-6). I obviously do not advise choosing week 6 if you are taking other summer classes as you will have to write an essay during exam week. As for content, choose the ones that you know you can excel at (both quality and time consumption wise). If you are already familiar with composition in drawing, choosing the prompt of storyboarding may be a lot more easy/fun + short explanations than writing a long essay. Also for some week's topic you are given different angles to approach it and some take shorter time than others. For example on sound, you could either listen to some provided clips and write about how sound enhances the visual aspects OR you could find a clip of your own, resound it and explain your reasons.
5. Do the course eval. It gives you 1 point bonus in the *final grade*

If there's one thing I could say, it is that I REGRET TAKING THIS CLASS. I took it because it looked like an easy A elective with a bunch of A+/A's, however, this is the most time-consuming, horribly laid out class ever. The TAs give out random grades on the discussion posts without absolute reasoning... You could write the most perfect post ever, but if that TA is having a bad day they will probably give you a 10 or 11 out of 12, which is a B- or A-, just because they felt like it. When confronting the professor about the TAs, she let the class know that the distribution is correct and that it is fair... it really isn't! This is a beginner class and it should be engaging and exciting, not super overwhelming. Just do yourself a favor and choose another elective.

The actual work was very easy, but the workload was a little over the top and it was incredibly annoying and difficult to track how many assignments you needed to do. There were literally like 10 categories of assignments and they were all really involved, and then it would be like: do 8/10 of this assignment, 15/21 of this assignment, etc etc. Some of the films were really good, some were painfully boring. Completely doable for anybody, but deadass don't take this class just "for fun," only take it if you really are interested in film and want to add the minor. Grading was hella harsh too, despite my class getting a new TA in the last three weeks of the quarter. Prof Trice is also incredibly rude over email, shes kind of strange and also isn't really focused on teaching "intro to film/tv," shes interested in teaching much more niche sociopolitical topics related to film....one week she makes you watch an interview with a director of one of the films you watch and another week an interview with a UCLA film alum...Both are painfully awkward to watch because of how strangely she interviews and interacts with him.

Overall, its fine. If you love film, you'll get through this class. If you don't care that much, you're gonna be pissed you're putting this much work into a GE.

I loved this class and thought the content was super interesting. The workload was not too bad especially taking it over summer and this class got me interested in becoming a FTV minor.

The concepts in of itself ae not too complicated in this class, so you don't really have to love film or know anything about it. It is asynchronous, so you can do most of the work on your own time besides the discussion sections, which basically were just a presentation each time on the topic of the week (you only have to do it once). Lecture times were pretty inconsistent, and so would workload, like some weeks you would have like two readings and one movie, another time you would have like three movies and a lot of reading, so it varies, but because she posts everything at once after the 2nd week you can sort of chip away at it on your own time. Quizzes are not too bad, they're just about stuff she says in lecture but sometimes they have really niche questions, and they're not worth a lot of points overall. Big points are the discussions, the projects, and the final paper. Those can be kind of hard because they're sort of dependent on your ability to care about what you are learning about instead of just ingesting it, and also dependent sort of on who is grading. Professor Trice herself never interacted with us, but she was clearly pretty well versed in all this stuff. Sometimes it can feel just like busy work, but I wouldn't say any of it is incredibly mentally taxing, so it isn't the worst GE in my opinion.

This class was extremely tough. Do NOT be fooled by the old grade distributions from 2020 and the years prior. I consider myself a decent student, and getting an A in Fall 2023 was a lot of work and dedication. I'm all for hard classes with a big workload, but the problem is the material itself wasn't the hard part, it was the assignments surrounding the material. The weekly quizzes ask the most random and specific questions about the hour's worth of recorded lecture material, like "How did Professor Trice describe this one random director that had nothing to do with the actual lesson?" Thankfully, the quizzes are 10 questions with a 30-minute time limit, which allows you to go back to the lectures and search for the oddly specific answers. But still, it's unnecessary, stressful, and feels like a waste of time searching through an hour of recorded lectures trying to find the exact moment the professor gives the answer. You know, that's how I can best describe the class, a waste of time. The material itself is fine, but the class feels like it was deliberately created to be harder than it needs to be, forcing the student to dedicate a ton of time to taking notes about pointless details and constantly checking canvas to ensure they aren't missing one of the random 8+ assignments due a week. Overall, I would not recommend this class unless you have no other choice.

Professor Trice honestly has fairly minimal involvement in the class (i took it online), but when she does need to aid students with something she is very clear and resourceful for whatever you need. I think the easiness of the class highly depends on your TA and how easy/difficult they grade. From my experience, my TA was great and made the class very interesting and fairly easy (Mr. Guha was mine), so I definitely would recommend taking this class. If you have the option to take it online I would highly recommend it since it makes your life so much easier and your schedule gets a lot more free. Take this class if you want an easy GE!

This was not an easy ge. Workload was crazy for a ge, but it wasn't that difficult, just a whole alot of busywork. I wouldn't recommend this class unless you have a burning passion for film. I thought the lectures were pretty cool, but some lectures were pretty boring. If you only want an easy ge, do not take this specific class. I don't know about the other teachers, but for this course, you have to do a weekly discussion post (300-500) words that are graded moderately. Quizzes after each lecture, a presentation, two projects ~longerish essays, and a final project (6-7 page essay). However, a good thing about this class is the flexibility due to the self-paced nature of the course (if you are taking it online). If you have some bit of time, you can knock off a huge chunk of the course. Overall, I don't recommend, this class was harder than my stem classes lol.