If you just do the work in this class, you will get an A. There are no midterms and no final. However, it can be a lot depending on your other classes and it is not the most interesting. I feel like I didn't really learn anything in this class since most of it is just common sense. Also, the grading is completely done by TAs so you could get unlucky.

I took the asynchronous version, so all lectures were recorded. However, attendance in the discussions was mandatory and required for 8 of the 10 weeks.

Along with watching and annotating the lectures, you were "required" to watch movies that went along with each lesson. However, I may or may not have watched any of them and I did completely fine. You technically weren't required to watch the lectures either, but you needed to do at least three 100+ word annotations on each lecture and each quiz was almost completely based on it. The annotations and quizzes were assigned twice every week, but luckily you only needed to do a certain number of them.

There were also discussion posts requiring at least 350 words assigned every week but you only needed to do 5 out of 10 of them.

You needed to do one presentation of around 10 minutes which would be done during a discussion section, and you could choose to work on it with another person in the same section if you wanted. The final project also wasn't too bad, but it does take up a big chunk of your grade. I chose to do an paper of at least 1500 words, but I think there was also an option to do a video essay.

Lastly, there were these assignments called creative exercises where you basically plan out your own film based on the content you learned that week. There were options to write them out on paper (like I did) or you could actually make a video.

The grading scheme is obscure like a lot of other GEs:
Discussion posts on Bruin Learn: 50/160 points
Perusall annotations (annotations on the lectures): 20/160 points
Quizzes on each lecture/related material: 18/160 points
Presentation during a discussion section: 10/160 points
Participation during discussion sections: 8/160 points
Creative exercises: 16/160 points
Final project: 30/160 points

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT TO HATE YOUR LIFE. The workload is ridiculous, and you seemingly never get a break. Good luck having time to work on your other classes or have any relaxation in your life whatsoever. The TAs grade harshly and provide no explanation as to why or how to improve. The explanations for the "creative exercises" make no sense whatsoever and there is no rubric or examples to explain anything. I have hated every second of this class. Professor Trice is a nice person, but she needs to do a complete overhaul of this class because it is atrocious.

Quite literally the worst class I've ever taken in my entire college career.
1) Content is boring as hell. Lectures especially (she makes you write 3 substantive, graded comments on the lecture videos) - these are AI graded so you might be able to get away with bsing them.
2) Workload is crazy. Discussion posts every week (300-500 words) about the most boring topics ever conceived. These are graded harshly - the TA's give feedback, but are still overtly harsh in grading. Attending the discussion section, quizzes every week, section presentations, 'creative' assignments, and way more.

i suspect they use a random number generator to decide your grade. No idea why I got marked down on some and got better scores on others.

3) do NOT be FOOLED by the GRADE DISTRIBUTION. That's literally the only reason I took this, and I was severely disappointed. It's not easy to get the A+.

If you like the subject, go ahead. If not, please stay away.

Actually screw this class. I don't know what sort of weird agreement the professor and TAs have, but its wild.

Let's talk about the workload. This is a 5 unit class. That should require 15 total hours of dedication per week. Well this isn't that. I don't know how it is possible, but in a 16 unit schedule, this 5 unit class class takes up 90% of my time. She gives so much busy work, including making you make meaningful annotations on the lectures to get credit for watching them? What the heck?

The lectures are fine, but I get the sense that the professor doesn't know what she is talking about half the time, and just uses the vocabulary for the sake of using it.

And then she has the audacity to quiz you after basically hovering over your shoulder the entire time you watch the lectures. The quizzes include some questions with very debatable answers. Some answers are, in fact, directly contradicted by the lectures and readings.

She also feels the need to have both an in person discussion and an online discussion form. But like, why? That is so repetitive.

Now let's talk about the grading. It is the most arbitrary BS I have ever seen. You will get points taken off at the will of the TAs. Even when you think you've followed the requirements of the assignment to a tee, you will not be getting 100% on that assignment. Some other assignment you just bullshat to get it over with will get 100%.

The TAs will just take off points and then provide absolutely no feedback whatsoever on why you lost points. In fact, they don't provide any feedback at all, positive or negative.

And the professor has this weird obsession with mise en scene. We're in the fifth week, and still can't go a lecture without mentioning it. We started talking about it week one. It's getting a bit tiring.

Honestly, even though I got an A+ in the class, I am unsure if I would take it again. Do not get me wrong, it was an easy A+, but the amount of work for this class is crazy. I fully expected it to be crazy because it is normally a 10 week class and it is condensed to 6 weeks. That being said it is still wildly unreasonable. You are expected to do two discussion posts a week, sometimes 3-4 quizzes in addition to the discussion posts (quizzes about the three movies you are expected to watch), and you also need to respond to two peoples discussions each week. Not to mention the two creative exercises you need to do throughout the 6 weeks, and the 4 responses you need to do in addition to the rest of the work. It is all super easy stuff, but be prepared you need to do everything otherwise you will be screwed lol. I watched all the lectures and I think you need to because some questions were about extremely specific parts of the movies or lecture. Its all easy work, but a lot of busy work. I genuinely thought the content was interesting but if you are looking for a low effort GE, maybe don't take this class. Took so much effort lol.

This class was fairly easy. Even though it was a summer course and people complained about the workload, at the end of the day, it was a summer class that went by super fast. Of course the workload would be a lot because you have to fit 10 weeks work of lessons and lectures into 6 weeks. The professor did give a lot of work, however, it was doable and manageable if you started early and not last minute. The discussion forums were pretty straightforward and the tests were easy. The good thing about this class when I took it for the summer was that there was no midterm or final. Overall, the class was easy and not difficult. It you know how to manage your time and not procrastinate last minute, this could be one of the easiest classes you can take.

This was honestly a really fun class. I am a rising 4th year engineering student, and I am very glad I took this class over the summer. The professor really cares about the subject, so it's not quite an "easy A", but it's doable. I work 9a-6p M-F, and this is the only summer class I took, so I completed the assignments primarily on the weekends and evenings. I recommend watching the films on 1.5-2x speed during meals! The syllabus does state that this class is about 25 hours per week, as it's condensed into 6 weeks, and it's a 5 credit course, but I found them to be very enjoyable and doable hours-- more fun than most of my engineering classes lol.
Keep in mind that quizzes do reference the textbook and required readings, as well as the lectures and films of course. The textbook was helpful. The films were actually really cool-- I hadn't heard of any of them (except Westworld ofc) but I liked most of them. Especially "In the Air", that one was really cool.
There were quite a few writing assignments, but they were each interesting-- I'm definitely a fast writer and reader. I recommend actually reading the full prompt for each assignment. The professor provides a long syllabus with rubrics and prompts for every assignment, which in my opinion was a super helpful resource. You can make them fun, too! One of the discussion posts asks you to pick a film with an action scene and describe how it works-- this is your chance to tell a captive audience about your favorite film for 500 words! I would do that even if not for a grade! As my friends well know hahaha
All in all, this was a very cool class. And I've noticed that I see movies differently now-- I like being able to analyze all that went into them. If you enjoy writing, and if you enjoy watching movies, (and if you want a break from engineering classes lol), this is the class for you.

TLDR: this class is EASY to get an A in. As long as you watch all the videos and do the work, you can get an A. You just have to be okay with doing a LOT of work each week. And the professor is super lazy, which makes the large workload extra annoying.

The concepts in the course aren't hard to grasp, and the quizzes aren't terribly difficult. Kyle Borowski is an amazing TA and grades pretty easy. BUT. For a beginner-level GE... compared to a lot of other classes I've taken (including film classes and even compared to STEM courses)... this courseload was VERY heavy and took up most of my week's work. I spent more time on this class than my 2 STEM upper-division classes combined. Also, I took it asynch so we watched lecture videos, but Professor Trice just used pre-recorded lecture videos from years past that were outdated and provided incorrect information about the course. The lectures and quizzes referenced films that students may have watched for the course in past years but were omitted from the course this year. The course videos were sometimes out of order as well. This felt very lazy on the instructor's part and made me as a student feel like she did not give a **** about her current students at all because she had done the work prior and just reuses them sloppily. It's not like she's had to record any new ones, so at least put them in order or edit out parts where you talk about a movie we didn't watch?? Dumb. Plus her TAs are doing all the grading and she makes it so that people can't email her so I have no clue what she is actually doing for the course.

Note: I took this class asynchronously, with David Maquiling listed as the actual professor.

However all the lectures were recorded by Prof. Trice, with David and TAs handling administrative tasks. Plus Bruinwalk is having trouble adding new profs so...

I loved this class! It is a little time-consuming due to the movies you have to watch in addition to the ~1.5 hours of lecture per week, but if you enjoy film I think the class is very fun and educational.

It was structured as follows: 2 online quizzes each week (one following each lecture), and 1-2 discussion posts per week, including 2 replies to classmate's posts. There were also 2 creative exercises and 1 final project, but as someone who genuinely is interested in the creation of film I found they were not too time consuming and very fun/encouraged creativity.

I loved Prof. Trice as a lecturer, the high-quality recording paired with visuals were very engaging and it was the easiest time I ever had paying attention to online lectures. She is a little disorganized, but it was easy enough for me to follow along. Her style might not be for everyone though.

It's evident she put a lot of time in preparing the lectures, and she often summarizes the readings so you're not completely lost if you didn't do them.

Highly recommend if you enjoy film/filmmaking!

I would recommend taking this class! It's very interesting and the workload is manageable.