Film & Media Studies Course Descriptions

Explores various topics in Film Studies or Media Studies. When taught as Introduction to Film, this course fulfills a core requirement of the Film Studies major and minor

Examines mass media (photography, film, music, news reporting, radio, TV, video games) through a variety of approaches in the humanities and social sciences. This course is required for the minor in Media Studies.

General aesthetic introductions to film as a narrative form, with selected readings in criticism and critical theory. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills area IV.B. of the General Education Requirements. When taught as a WR course, it fulfills the postfreshman writing requirement of the GER.

Prerequisite: FILM 270. This course looks at the nature and development of major institutions of American broadcasting and electronic media in order to ascertain the structure, function, and social significance of television programming in American society. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Examines American screen entertainment history, specifically the key trends, individuals, institutions and technologies that have shaped these different forms them from the 19th century through the present day. Students perform practical experiments in industrial analysis.

American and European cinema from its origins in nineteenth-century technological experimentation through the early years of sound and the outbreak of war in Europe. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills Area IV-B of the General Education Requirements.

World cinema, including Asian and Eastern European, from World War II and the advent of the modern sound film to the present. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills area IV.B. of the General Education Requirements.

Prerequisite: FILM 270 or consent of instructor. Individual topics on film study focusing on a specific period (e.g., primitive era, transition to sound, post-World War II) or national movement (e.g., Italian neorealism, the nouvelle vague, das neue Kino, Latin American militant cinema). Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. This course takes a serious, analytic approach to what are popularly known as "cartoons", exploring the historical trajectory of the medium, the evolution of aesthetic practices, and the range of technologies utilized in early and contemporary animation. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: FILM 270. Introduction to the basic concepts that dominated what is known as "classical theory" in the work of Vachel Lindsay, Hugo Munsterberg, Béla Balázs, Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, Rudolf Arnheim, Siegfried Kracauer, and André Bazin. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills the postfreshman year writing requirement of the GER.

Prerequisite: Film 270. An extension of FILM 381 into the structuralist and post-structuralist era, beginning with the work of Christian Metz and extending through that of Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270; 3.0 GPA. This course introduces students to basic technical digital video filmmaking skills (camera operation, lighting, sound recording, non-linear editing) and to interview techniques through weekly exercises and study of major, creative documentaries. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: FILM 385; 3.0 GPA. This course will build on FILM 385/Art History 207, Documentary Filmmaking I. It will extend the students' knowledge of the field of documentary media production through the screening and criticism of film and video documentaries. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: FILM 385 and 386; 3.0 GPA. This course builds upon FILM 385 and 386 by deepening student knowledge of documentary mediamaking techniques. Students will complete a broadcast-quality television documentary while studying outstanding documentary films. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. The structural dynamics of the studio system as both a film style and mode of production, with special emphasis on the development of narrative form. Weekly out-of-class-screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. An intensive, in-depth study of the work of a recognized major figure in world cinema in the class of Griffith, Eisenstein, Dreyer, Ford, Renoir, Welles, Ophuls, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Buñuel, Antonioni, or Hitchcock, Scorcese. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. History and theory of one or more major Hollywood genres' the Western, the gangster film, the musical, the horror film, film noir, and science fiction and their international analogues (e.g., the American Western and the Japanese chambara film). Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. Close study of the development of a specific national or regional Western cinema (e.g. European, Eastern European) in terms of its aesthetic, theoretical, and sociopolitical dimensions. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. Close study of the development of a specific national or regional non-Western cinema (e.g., Japanese, Indian, Chinese, African, Middle Eastern) in terms of its aesthetic, theoretical, and sociopolitical dimensions. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills area V.C. of the General Education Requirements.

Variable credit; only four hours may count toward fulfillment of the major or minor. Permission of a film studies faculty member required in advance. This project course can involve an internship or film production. Internships require a minimum of ten hours of work per week, a journal, and an eight-page paper. Film production projects require a minimum of ten hours of work per week, the submission of production notes, and a final product. Students must be film studies majors or minors and should be close to completing the course of study in film.

Prerequisite: Film 270. A writing-intensive course in critical aesthetics for upper-level undergraduates, with a focus on the critical assumptions underlying various methodologies. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. A writing-intensive course in the construction and formatting of screenplays for upper-level undergraduates, which also broaches various aspects of preproduction planning. Weekly out-of-class screenings required. This course fulfills the postfreshman writing requirement of the General Education Requirements.

Prerequisite: Film 270 or consent of the instructor. Narrative and experimental films analyzed in historical perspective with regard to how societal norms and film language affect the representation of women and how women have used the medium for self-representation. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270. An historical/theoretical survey of the experimental avantgarde as an alternative to mainstream narrative, with an emphasis on its wide variety of forms. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Prerequisite: Film 270, 371-372. A seminar in film historiography for upper-level undergraduates that involves extensive reading and some primary research. Weekly out-of-class screenings required.

Students work with their peers and learn from established creative professionals to obtain critical perspectives on, and practical experience in, generating media content using technologies, techniques and models used by the media industries.

Prerequisite: Admission to the Honors Program and approval of adviser. Open to students writing honors theses. This course fulfills the postfreshman year writing requirement.

A supervised project in an area of study to be determined by the instructor and student in the semester preceding the independent study. Requires faculty approval prior to registration. Only four credit hours can be applied toward fulfillment of the requirement of the major.