Course Description

Music Industry 188: Special Courses in Music Industry, MSC IND 188

COURSE TITLE: Music Industry 188: The Reel Beatles

Seminar, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Special topics in music industry for undergraduate students taught on experimental or temporary basis. May be repeated for credit with topic change. Letter grading.

Key Information

Credit: 4 quarter units / 2.67 semester units credit
UC Los Angeles, Music Industry

Course Credit:

Upon successful completion, all online courses offered through cross-enrollment provide UC unit credit. Some courses are approved for GE, major preparation and/or, major credit or can be used as a substitute for a course at your campus.

If "unit credit" is listed by your campus, consult your department, academic adviser or Student Affairs division to inquire about the petition process for more than unit credit for the course.

UC Berkeley:
Unit Credit

UC Davis:
General Education: AH

UC Irvine:
Unit Credit

UC Los Angeles:
Major Requirement: Upper Division for Music Industry Majors

UC Merced:
Unit Credit (see your Academic Advisor)

UC Riverside:
General Education: Elective units

UC San Diego:
General Education: Revelle - Fine Arts; TMC 1 course toward upper division disciplinary breadth if noncontiguous to major; Muir: 1 course in a Fine Arts theme in "Music"

UC San Francisco:
Unit Credit

UC Santa Barbara:
Unit Credit

UC Santa Cruz:
Unit Credit

More About The Course

“The Reel Beatles” is a course designed to tell students the story of the Beatles through visual media. This ten-class journey compresses the 80+ years of their lives and the enormous impact they had on the world.

Through their most impactful television performances, the movies they made as a group, their promotional videos, their landmark broadcast moments, the documentaries they made while still together, the television interviews they did after the group broke up, the dozens of films made about them and using their music made since 1970, and the official multi-part documentary history of the group they did together....that will make up the greatest portion of the homework for the course.

While this course comes from the Herb Alpert School of Music and will appeal to Music History/Musicology majors and Music Industry minors, it is designed for anybody who loves music, loves studying revolutionary forces in cultural history and the kind of once-in-a-century phenomenon that resonates forever. This course, by telling the visual presentation of music through visual media, will also show how those subjects all came together in the story of the Beatles as they changed the course of the 20th century.

The course consists of pre-recorded lectures, but primarily online screenings, listening to music, and written assignments.

Relevant Website

Course Creator

D.A. Leaf

David Leaf is a Peabody and WGAW award-winning writer, director and producer best known for his work in feature documentary, live event specials and a series of highly-regarded pop culture profiles and retrospectives. For more information about Professor Leaf, visit his website, www.leafprod.com. Since 2010, Leaf has been teaching undergraduate courses at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in documentary (“Docs That Rock, Docs That Matter”) songwriting (“SONGWRITERS ON SONGWRITING: Killer Hooks, Essential Songs & Songwriters of the Rock Era”) and has served as the intern supervisor for the Music Industry minor.


Professor Leaf ‘s Beatles-related work includes writing and producing the Beatles' documentary, “You Can’t Do That: The Making of ‘A Hard Day’s Night,” co-writing/producing/directing the feature documentary, “The U.S. Vs. John Lennon” as well as writing the Beatles' chapter for Capitol Records 50th anniversary book. Leaf also interviewed Paul McCartney for the liner notes of the Q Magazine award-winning reissue of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, and McCartney appeared in Leaf’s documentary feature, “BEAUTIFUL DREAMER: Brian Wilson & The Story of SMiLE.” Most recently, Leaf hosted the Beatles' edition of “The Rock Godz Must Be Crazy” at McCabes in Santa Monica and wrote an essay for the UK press on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles “White Album.”

David Leaf is a Peabody and WGAW award-winning writer, director and producer best known for his work in feature documentary, live event specials and a series of highly-regarded pop culture profiles and retrospectives. For more information about Professor Leaf, visit his website,  www.leafprod.com . Since 2010, Leaf has been teaching undergraduate courses at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of ...

David Leaf is a Peabody and WGAW award-winning writer, director and producer best known for his work in feature documentary, live event specials and a series of highly-regarded pop culture profiles and retrospectives. For more information about Professor Leaf, visit his website, www.leafprod.com. Since 2010, Leaf has been teaching undergraduate courses at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in documentary (“Docs That Rock, Docs That Matter”) songwriting (“SONGWRITERS ON SONGWRITING: Killer Hooks, Essential Songs & Songwriters of the Rock Era”) and has served as the intern supervisor for the Music Industry minor.


Professor Leaf ‘s Beatles-related work includes writing and producing the Beatles' documentary, “You Can’t Do That: The Making of ‘A Hard Day’s Night,” co-writing/producing/directing the feature documentary, “The U.S. Vs. John Lennon” as well as writing the Beatles' chapter for Capitol Records 50th anniversary book. Leaf also interviewed Paul McCartney for the liner notes of the Q Magazine award-winning reissue of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, and McCartney appeared in Leaf’s documentary feature, “BEAUTIFUL DREAMER: Brian Wilson & The Story of SMiLE.” Most recently, Leaf hosted the Beatles' edition of “The Rock Godz Must Be Crazy” at McCabes in Santa Monica and wrote an essay for the UK press on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles “White Album.”


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