This has been one of my favorite classes I've taken here at UCLA. The texts were always interesting and led me to think more deeply about the issues depicted in the films. The discussion post questions helped prepare me for the larger graded assignments. The films themselves encouraged me to think more critically about my experiences that related to the topics of the films. Dr. Greene did a great job in selecting which films to watch and providing us with readings that clarified or deepened our understanding of the films. Overall, I highly recommend this course and Dr. Greene. This class is very doable if you stay up to date with the readings and attend the lectures/discussions. Discussion posts are essential for success in this class.

Dr. Smurda is a great teacher, sometimes I get the feeling she would rather be an engineer than be teaching psychology. Overall, the course was good, I didn't like the structure of the test, they encouraged students to memorize various studies instead of actually understanding the wider topics. Because of this, I feel like my mastery of the course content is pretty low. Her lectures are intense as well because she says so much stuff is always moving pretty fast.

First off, this class is much more difficult than FILM TV 6A.

I felt that the subject matter of this class was boring and uninteresting from the start so this review may be biased. I simply wanted to get a class out of the way for the film minor.

Prof Greene was extremely dry. Her voice is like listening to NPR in slow-mo. She is kind and walks around to meet students. She is extremely fair and says exactly what she means.

However, this class is almost 4 hours and sometimes she would try to fit in double screenings. I felt that the length of the class was the biggest challenge - in terms of staying awake and engaged.

There is a midterm and a supposed "cumulative" final. I say "cumulative" because it primarily focuses on material after the midterm but she says you must know things from before to support your answers. I took the final online due to COVID 19 so it was probably much easier than in the past. However, the exams are short answer questions and straightforward. There are also 2 short essays - the only challenge there is with the word count. The final project was not difficult and I found that it was just meant to engage us further our creativity with the material.

In hindsight, I would not take this class because of its length and material. However, it was not as much of a waste of time as my other classes this quarter.

I took this class as part of the film minor. I had taken multiple previous classes for the film minor that I really enjoyed so I looked forward to this class, despite not really knowing any prior knowledge about the course material. The professor was very dull in lectures which were 4 hours long and provided information via slides with what seemed like hundreds of words on them. She would go through the slides in rapid succession, eliminating any possibility to take thoughtful notes so I stopped taking notes in the class which I had never done in any other class before. I would often lose focus as the material was dragged on often. She would rush through the slides, citing the need for speed as we would "run short on time" although we had 4 hour lectures twice a week. She did very little to set up what to look out for in the film screenings so I would often be lost and confused while watching and rely on section for explanations and required material for the films.
The midterm exam consisted of many essays and lasted 3 hours. It was unnecessarily complex and very comprehensive. However, her midterm review did provide a good guide for what to study for the midterm and most of the information on it was as expected, but the density was not called for. It consisted of term definitions, film analyses, and many essay responses.
The final was supposed to be a similar format but longer and pertaining to the entire class cumulatively but it was disrupted by COVID-19 so it was transformed just into an essay assignment which probably made it easier.
The overall workload for this class is intense and a drastic increase over most other film classes. It consisted of 2 four hour lectures per week with required attendance, required section attendance, many difficult readings per week that need to be unpacked in section to understand, a long 3 hour midterm exam, a cumulative difficult final exam, two "short" essays (3-4 pages) and a longer final project/essay (5-6 pages).
Overall, the information in this class is a bit bland and slow but pretty interesting, but the slow pace and long duration did not make the class very vibrant. The intense workload through a short 10 weeks was often overwhelming and had me questioning whether I wanted to continue the film minor.

I learned a lot from Shelleen. Her class is the best class that I've taken at TFT so far. She really cares about her students and helps them to look at the film industry in a very distinctive way.