Harrington, John  

During this entire quarter all I could think about was how this professor reminded me of that small little dog that runs through the back of scene 23 in The Incredibles by Pixar. Seriously, if you look it up you will only be able to see it...

Great class, not so great a teacher. He knows his stuff but thinks he's the last authority on it. His ego makes the class annoying at times. He would ask for student's interpretations of films and then tell them that they were wrong and his interp. is right. If possible take Keesey for this class.

I got a C+. The class is awesome, but it's a TON of work. My grade really just suffered because I let my major courses take precidence. Harrington's a good guy, just too demanding for a course that's a GE for most everyone. Try to get Keesey, but it's worth taking Harrington if you can't.

Harrington will never cover all of the material that he intends to. So just be aware of that near the end of the quarter. If it doesn't hurt your ego too much, just go along with his opinions, they may be silly, false or redundent, but it's what he wants to hear. Get on your film as soon as possible. I can't stress that enough. You WILL run out of time. You WILL have to reshoot scenes. You WILL be begging the technicians to allow you to work late in the editing room. As far as the weekly quiz, be sure to glance through the little book and read the film review as well as the interesting factoids - they come up sometimes on the quizes.

The best part of this class was watching the movies. In class the movies are gone over in detail, extrapolating often ridiculous reasons for the directors choice of lighting, camera angle, sound and so forth. In reality much of the class is based on Harrington's opinions. He acts as if he wants to hear what you have to say but if you have a different idea then he does he will make you feel stupid and inadequate. His workload is extremely demanding and requires way to much time. The film project is fun but it is also a ton of work so get started on it as soon as you can. I would recommend this class only if you truly appreciate film and are willing to work your ass off for the entire quarter non-stop.

All in all he's a good guy. One of the few. 4 weeks into the quarter I hated David Lynch (the director), but by the end I actually had an appreciation for the guy. That says a lot about the way the class was taught. He does have some ego and you can tell he thinks he's the shit, but he's always friendly face to face. Take this class with friends who aren't fuck ups. Making your movie will take lots of time, get going ASAP. My group members were morons, so I had to do the whole thing myself and it took forever. It was still fun in the end and watching everyone's films is a good time. TAKE this class with either HARRINGTON of KEESEY.