Performing arts teacher Ted Walch rewrote his cinema studies textbook entitled “Cinstuds” over the summer.
Walch has been teaching Cinema Studies for 25 years and created his own guidebook for his class in 2000. Last year, Walch asked the curriculum development committee for a grant to revise the textbook.
Cinema studies student Javi Arango ’16 helped Walch reshape the content of the textbook for two and a half months over the summer. Henry Erdman, a movie poster designer, created the cover and layout of the textbook.
“I am crazy about the look of this book,” Walch said. “We now have a 208 page beautiful book and when we sent it to UCLA, the person in charge there called me and said we think this is far too good looking to print, as I used to print it in the three ring binder so we are going to print it as a book.”
The first part of the book includes 10 chapters that have to do with various aspects of film such as “the sound of silence,” which shows how movies use silence to make their point, Walch said.
The second half is a complete list of the 24 movies the students will view throughout the class, a summary of research Walch completed and a day-to-day breakdown of what they will be doing in class each day.
Throughout the textbook, Walch cites secondary sources such as Russian filmmaker Serge Eisenstein.
UCLA finished printing the textbook last week and Walch introduced it in the Cinema Studies class on Monday.
“At the moment the printing is exclusively for the people taking the course and the people who helped put together the book, like [Arango] and some of the young people who helped me on my research,” Walch said. “I want to live with this book for two or three years, I know there are still some things I would like to tweak, maybe in a major way.”