An Interdepartmental Program in Film, Television and Interactive Media

Last updated: January 22, 2020 at 3:23 PM

The Film, Television and Interactive Media major exemplifies interdepartmental inquiry and multi-cultural exploration. The course of study is not a pre-professional one, but rather a liberal arts field of scholarly inquiry. In the program, the study of Film, Television and Interactive Media offers interdisciplinary insight into motion picture media. Broadly understood to encompass inquiry into the aesthetics, history, and cultural meanings of the moving image, the major has two primary goals: to provide an informed background in motion picture history and to develop a critical appreciation of the cultural meanings of film.

This humanities-driven course of study stresses analysis of film style and content, film history, and the relationships between cinema and culture. The curriculum is designed to provide a broad overview of the history of the moving image, to promote expertise in cinematic style and cultural meaning, to lend theoretical sophistication to an understanding of the moving image, and to ensure some appreciation of the practical and technical side of motion picture production. Students develop an awareness of cinema as a complex narrative form and as an art. They learn the rhetorical and syntactical conventions of moving images and how this language has developed historically. No more than three courses in production can count towards the nine classes required.

Learning Goals

Film, Television, and Interactive Media draws on faculty in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Creative Arts, and Computer Science, to offer liberal arts courses in cinema and television as well as in film production. The major provides a distinctive and innovative setting for the education and training of students in the newer media and of fiction and documentary filmmakers. We empower graduates with deep knowledge of cinematic history and culture, and foster their technical skills and creative abilities in media capture, editing, sound, lighting, directing, cinematography and screenwriting. We prepare students to apply their understanding of conventional film and television to new domains in interactive media, such as movies for mobile devices and games with a strong narrative and visual appeal. In short, we teach majors to understand and respect the creative process and artists to value and learn from scholarship.

Knowledge

Students completing the major in Film, Television and Interactive Media will come away with a strong understanding of:

American and international cultures of the moving image
Film criticism, auteurial cinema, independent film, and the studio system
Appreciation of film as text and narrative
Global, national and regional cinemas
Implications of the new and emerging technologies for the creative process
Economic and business dimensions of the industry

Core Skills

The creative aspects of film production, including screenwriting, editing, interactive media, 3D animation, sound design, and digital media capture, as they relate to film, gaming, and web-delivered visual work
Techniques and the art of production
Ability to provide insightful criticism of film, television, and enriched media

Upon Graduating

A Brandeis student with a Film, Television and Interactive Media major will be prepared to:

Undertake graduate study or a career in the cinematic arts
Work in production
Pursue, as many of our concentrators have done, careers in law, business, entertainment, journalism, and media-based endeavors

How to Become a Major

The program is open to all undergraduates. To declare and design a major or a minor in Film, Television and Interactive Media, a student should first meet with the undergraduate advising head. Together they will select as an adviser a faculty member who seems best suited to that student's area of scholarly or creative interests.

Committee

Alice Kelikian, Chair and Undergraduate Advising Head
(History)

Gannit Ankori
(Fine Arts)

Steven Burg
(Politics)

Tory Fair
(Fine Arts)

Paul Morrison
(English)

Fernando Rosenberg
(Romance Studies)

Affiliated Faculty (contributing to the curriculum, advising and administration of the department or program)
Steven Burg (Politics)
Eric Chasalow (Music)
Matthew Fraleigh (German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature)
Timothy Hickey (Computer Science)
Caren Irr (English)
Alice Kelikian (History)
Paul Morrison (English)

Requirements for the Minor

Students must complete six courses, including:

FILM 100a (Introduction to the Moving Image)
One course in World Cinema (see course list below).
One course in the creative aspects of film production (see course list below).
Three courses selected from the World Cinema, creative aspects of film production, and elective course lists (see below); however only two courses may be from the creative aspects of film production list.
Students may double-count no more than three courses used to fulfill the minor in Film, Television and Interactive Media with another major or minor.

No course with a final grade below C can count toward the minor nor any course graded on a pass/fail basis.

Requirements for the Major

Students must complete nine courses, including:

FILM 100a (Introduction to the Moving Image)
One course in World Cinema (see course list below).
One course in the creative aspects of film production (see course list below).
Six courses selected from the World Cinema, creative aspects of film production, and elective course lists (see below); however only two courses may be from the creative aspects of film production list. One semester of FILM 92 may be taken for credit towards the major.
Foundational Literacies: As part of completing the Film, Television and Interactive Media major, students must:
- Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing one of the following: ENG 79a, ENG 139b, ENG 149a, HISP 193b, HIST 131a, and HIST 170a.
- Fulfill the oral communication requirement by successfully completing one of the following: ENG 79a or GER 103a.
- Fulfill the digital literacy requirement by successfully completing one of the following: FILM 110a, FILM 110b, FILM 120a, HIST 170a, COSI 155b, or COSI 164a.
Candidates for departmental honor considerations must satisfactorily complete FILM 99d (Senior Thesis) under the supervision of a member of the executive committee and may count two semesters towards the required courses for the major.
Students may double-count no more than four courses used to fulfill the major in Film, Television and Interactive Media with another major or minor.
No course with a final grade below C can count toward the major nor any course graded on a pass/fail basis. Courses cross-listed in Creative Writing, which are credit/non-credit courses, may be counted towards the major.

Courses of Instruction

Expand All

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

FILM 92a Internship in Film Studies
Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 98a Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 98b Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 99d Senior Thesis
Students who are candidates for degrees with honors in Film, Television and Interactive Media must register for this full-year course. Usually offered every year.
Staff

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

FILM 100a Introduction to the Moving Image
[ hum ]
An interdisciplinary course surveying the history of moving image media from 1895 to the present, from the earliest silent cinema to the age of streaming media. Open to all undergraduates as an elective, it is the introductory course for the major and minor in film, television and interactive media. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 110a Film Production I
[ ca dl ss ]
Preference given to Film,Television and Interactive Media majors and minors.
An introduction to the basic principles and techniques of fictional narrative motion picture production. Each student will produce three short films. The films will emphasize dramatic development and creative storytelling through image composition, camera movement, editing, and sound. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 110b Motion Picture Editing
[ dl ss ]
Preference given to film, television and interactive media majors and minors.
Students will develop visual literacy through a study of the editor's role in cinematic storytelling. The course provides an overview of the craft's history and theory and offers practical training in editing digital video with Final Cut Pro. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FILM 114a Genre Films in Cinema and Television
[ hum ]
Explores the analytical framework for understanding genre film. From Steven Spielberg's Jaws to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Tim Story's Barbershop, genre films break box office records and have lasting cultural significance in cinema. Usually offered every third year.
Alice Kelikian

FILM 120a Cinematography
[ ca dl ]
Gives students the ability learn lighting, media capture techniques, camera and subject movement choreography in both analog and digital formats. They will gain knowledge of axis and frames, dynamic editing points and creating a motion picture as an essay tapestry. Usually offered every year.
Daniel Mooney

FILM 130b Film Production II
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: FILM 110a.
In this advanced filmmaking class, students will work on fictional narrative and nonfiction motion picture production techniques. Films made for this class will go through all stages of the filmmaking process: preproduction and planning, production, and post-production. Usually offered every year.
Daniel Mooney

Film, Television and Interactive Media Electives

The following courses are approved for the program. Not all are given in any one year. Please consult the Schedule of Classes each semester.

AMST 35a Hollywood and American Culture
[ ss ]
This is an interdisciplinary course in Hollywood cinema and American culture that aims to do justice to both arenas. Students will learn the terms of filmic grammar, the meanings of visual style, and the contexts of Hollywood cinema from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to last weekend's top box office grosser. They will also master the major economic, social, and political realities that make up the American experience of the dominant medium of our time, the moving image, as purveyed by Hollywood. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 36b Television and American Culture
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 130b in prior years.
An interdisciplinary course with three main lines of discussion and investigation: an aesthetic inquiry into the meaning of television style and genre; a historical consideration of the medium and its role in American life; and a technological study of televisual communication. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 116b Race and American Cinema
[ hum ]
From its earliest beginnings, the history of American cinema has been inextricably--and controversially--tied to the racial politics of the United States. This course explores how images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans, and Latino/as are reflected on the screen, as well as the ways that minorities in the entertainment industry have responded to often limiting representations. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 129a From American Movie Musicals to Music Videos
[ ss ]
Examines the spectacle of song and dance in movie musicals and music videos, beginning with the earliest talking pictures in the late 1920's and continuing to the present. Particular emphasis will be on technological change, race, gender and the commodification of culture, among other topics. Usually offered every second year.
James Mandrell

AMST 136a Planet Hollywood: American Cinema in Global Perspective
[ hum ss ]
Examines the global reach of Hollywood cinema as an art, business, and purveyor of American values, tracking how Hollywood has absorbed foreign influences and how other nations have adapted and resisted the Hollywood juggernaut. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

ANTH 26a Communication and Media
[ dl ss ]
An exploration of human communication and mass media from a cross-cultural perspective. Examines communication codes based on language and visual signs. The global impact of revolutions in media technology, including theories of cultural imperialism and indigenous uses of media is discussed. Usually offered every second year.
Janet McIntosh

ANTH 130a Filming Culture: Ethnographic and Documentary Filmmaking
[ djw dl nw ss ]
Introduces the history, theory and production of ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. This course traces how ethnographic and culturally-inflected filmmakers have sought to depict cultural difference, social organization, and lived experiences. Students will learn the basics of non-fiction film production. Usually offered every second year.
Patricia Alvarez Astacio

CAST 170a Documenting the Immigrant Experience
[ ss ]
Investigates documentary film as a genre, and explores the potential of the medium for engaging students with immigrant communities in Waltham through hands-on production experiences. Through the process of exchanging narratives with community members, students generate raw material for a film documentary. Usually offered every year.
Azlin Perdomo

COML/ENG 70b Environmental Film, Environmental Justice
[ djw hum ]
Examines films that address nature, environmental crisis, and green activism. Asks how world cinema can best advance the goals of social and environmental justice. Includes films by major directors and festival award winners. Usually offered every third year.
Caren Irr

ENG 27b Classic Hollywood Cinema
[ hum ]
A critical examination of the history of mainstream U.S. cinema from the 1930s to the present. Focuses on major developments in film content and form, the rise and fall of the studio and star system, the changing nature of spectatorship, and the social context of film production and reception. Usually offered every second year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 50b American Independent Film
[ hum ]
Explores non-studio filmmaking in the United States. Defines an indie aesthetic and alternative methods of financing, producing, and distributing films. Special attention given to adaptations of major film genres, such as noir thrillers, domestic comedy, and horror. Usually offered every third year.
Caren Irr

ENG 61b Philosophical Approaches to Film Theory
[ hum ]
Studies a philosophical approach to film theory, examining both what philosophy has to say about film and what effects the existence and experience of film can have on philosophical thinking about reality, perception, judgment, and other minds. Usually offered every third year.
William Flesch

ENG 70a The Birth of the Movies: From Silent Film to Hollywood
[ hum ]
Explores the birth of moving pictures, from Edison and Lumiere's experiments to "Birth of a Nation" and "The Jazz Singer". Traces film's roots in the photographic experiments, visual spectacles and magical lanterns of late nineteenth-century France, England, and America, and its relationship to the era's literary experiments. Filmmakers include: Georges Melies, Abel Ganz, Sergei Eisentein, D W Griffiths, Charlie Chaplin. Usually offered every third year.
John Plotz

ENG 147a Film Noir
[ hum ]
A study of classics of the genre (The Killers, The Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil) as well as more recent variations (Chinatown, Bladerunner). Readings include source fiction (Hemingway, Hammett) and essays in criticism and theory. Usually offered every third year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 177a Hitchcock's Movies
[ hum ]
A study of thirteen films covering the whole trajectory of Hitchcock's career, as well as interviews and critical responses. Usually offered every second year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 180b Romantic Comedy / Matrimonial Tragedy
[ hum ]
A genre study of romantic comedy, from early to recent cinema. How does its narrative machinery work and what social functions does it serve? An exploration of comedic pleasure as strategy for fashioning gender identities, sexualities, marriages, and anti-marriages. Usually offered every third year.
David Sherman

FA 8a Introduction to Video Art
[ ca ]
Studio fee: $75 per semester.
Explores producing moving images as fine art. While a basic overview of Adobe Premiere software is offered, emphasis is on conceptual framework and cultivating methodologies that best suit ideas. Students will experiment with materials, modes of production (performance, experimental documentation, appropriation, non-linear narrative), and exhibition (video monitors, projection, theatrical, installation, Internet) in order to consider the effect of these decisions on generating meaning and to better communicate one's statement through the genre. Usually offered every year.
Lauren Woods

NEJS 181a Jews on Screen: From "Cohen’s Fire Sale" to the Coen Brothers
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Survey course focusing on moving images of Jews and Jewish life in fiction and factual films. Includes early Russian and American silents, home movies of European Jews, Yiddish feature films, Israeli cinema, independent films, and Hollywood classics. Usually offered every second year.
Sharon Rivo

NEJS 181b Film and the Holocaust
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Examines the medium of film, propaganda, documentary, and narrative fiction relevant to the history of the Holocaust. The use of film to shape, justify, document, interpret, and imagine the Holocaust. Beginning with the films produced by the Third Reich, the course includes films produced immediately after the events, as well as contemporary feature films. The focus will be how the film medium, as a medium, works to (re)present meaning(s). Usually offered every second year.
Sharon Rivo

THA 155a Icons of Masculinity
[ ca ]
Using icons from movies, fiction, theater, and television who represent manhood, this course explores how American men have defined and performed their masculinity. Various archetypes, including the cowboy, the gangster, the rogue cop, the athlete, the buddy, the lover, and Woody Allen are examined. Usually offered every second year.
Arthur Holmberg

Electives: Courses in World Cinema

AAAS 102a African Cinema
[ nw ss ]
Explores the foundation and development of African cinema in the context of African history, culture and politics. Examines issues of social change, gender, class, tradition, and modernization through various African cinematic genres. Usually offered every second year.
Salah Hassan

CHIN 130b China on Film: The Changes of Chinese Culture
[ hum nw ]
Taught in English. All films viewed have English subtitles.
Focuses on the enormous changes under way in Chinese society, politics, and culture. Helps students to identify and understand these fundamental transformations through a representative, exciting selection of readings and films. Usually offered every second spring.
Staff

ENG 20a Bollywood: Popular Film, Genre, and Society
[ hum nw ]
An introduction to popular Hindi cinema through a survey of the most important Bollywood films from the 1950s until today. Topics include melodrama, song and dance, love and sex, stardom, nationalism, religion, diasporic migration, and globalization. Usually offered every third year.
Ulka Anjaria

ENG 170a The Globalization of Nollywood
[ hum nw ]
Introduces students to Nigeria's film industry, one of the world's largest. It focuses on both the form and the content of Nollywood films. Examines how Nollywood films project local, national, and regional issues onto global screens. Usually offered every third year.
Emilie Diouf

FA 175a Moving Images: Israeli Video Art in Context
[ ca ]
Studies Israeli video artists who have become world renowned for their innovative contributions to the genre. In this course, we will view, analyze, and interpret Israeli video art, tracing its historical and 'genealogical' trajectory, thematic foci, formal concerns, iconographical sources and the diverse regional, political, and art historical contexts within which it is being produced and exhibited. Usually offered every second year.
Gannit Ankori

FREN 141b Introduction to French Cinema: un certain regard
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Introduces students to the major trends in French cinema since the forties (New Wave, "cinema du Look," feminist cinema, cartoons, "comédie à la française," beur cinema, etc.) Students will learn the critical vocabulary necessary to describe the formal aspects of film and to analyze films from a variety of theoretical approaches. Films will also be viewed as cultural products influenced by their social, political contexts and their modes of production and diffusion ("l'exception française.") Usually offered every third year.
Martine Voiret

GER 103a German Culture Through Film
[ fl hum oc ]
Prerequisite: GER 30a.
Approaches an understanding of contemporary German culture through film by focusing on one of the most fascinating and turbulent of national cinemas. Landmark films from the 1920s to the present and pertinent essays, articles and studies will provide a historical perspective on decisive social and cultural phenomena. Major themes include Vergangenheitsbewältigung, multi-ethnic societies, terrorism, life in the GDR, and cultural trends at the beginning of the 21st century. Students learn also about the technical side of filmmaking and produce their own short film under professional guidance. Usually offered every second year.
Kathrin Seidl

HBRW 170a Take I: Hebrew through Israeli Cinema
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: Any 40-level Hebrew course or permission of the instructor.
An advanced culture course that focuses on the various aspects of Israeli society as they are portrayed in Israeli films and television. In addition to viewing films, the students will be asked to read Hebrew background materials, to participate in class discussions, and to write in Hebrew about the films. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

HISP 162b New Latin American Cinema: From Revolution to the Market
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Studies and compares two pivotal periods of film production, both of which were considered "new waves" of Latin American cinema. On the one hand, the new cinemas of the 1960s and 1970s, which accompanied moments of radical change and movements of revolutionary insurrection. On the other hand, the film boom of the 1990s and 2000s, in which aesthetic experimentation intersected with new realities of neoliberal policies and market globalization. Usually offered every second year.
Fernando Rosenberg

HISP 192b Latin American Global Film
[ hum nw ]
May be taught in English or Spanish.
Studies films that re-imagine Latin America’s place in the world, focusing on how images are produced and consumed transnationally. ‘Traditional’ topics like cultural identity are refashioned for international consumption, and local issues are dramatized as already crisscrossed by global flows of which the films themselves partake. Close analysis of visual representation and film techniques will be complemented in each case by a study of historical and cultural background. Usually offered every second year.
Fernando Rosenberg

HISP 193b Topics in Cinema
[ hum wi ]
Open to all students; conducted in English. Course may be repeated for credit.
Topics vary from year to year but might include consideration of a specific director, an outline of the history of a national cinema, a particular moment in film history, or Hollywood cinema in Spanish. Usually offered every second year.
James Mandrell or Fernando Rosenberg

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ ss wi ]
Takes a critical look as how Hitler's Europe has been represented and misrepresented since its time by documentary and entertainment films of different countries beginning with Germany itself. Movies, individual reports, discussions, and a littler reading. Usually offered every second year.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 170a Italian Films, Italian Histories
[ dl ss wi ]
Explores the relationship between Italian history and Italian film from unification to 1975. Topics include socialism, fascism, the deportation of Jews, the Resistance, the Mafia, and the emergence of an American-style star fixation in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.
Alice Kelikian

JAPN 135a Screening National Images: Japanese Film and Anime in Global Context
[ hum nw ]
All films and readings are in English.
An introduction to some major directors and works of postwar Japanese film and anime with special attention to such issues as genre, medium, adaptation, narrative, and the circulation of national images in the global setting. Usually offered every third year.
Matthew Fraleigh

NEJS 182a Jewish Life in Television, Film, and Fiction
[ hum ]
Film and fiction are windows through which we can view transformations in American Jewish life. This course concentrates on cinematic and literary depictions of religious, socioeconomic, and cultural change over the past half-century. It does this through films and fiction, which reflect and help to shape shifting definitions of the American Jew. Usually offered every second year.
Rachel Greenblatt

RECS 150a Russian and Soviet Cinema
[ hum ]
Open to all students. Conducted in English. Readings in English.
Examines the Russian/Soviet cinematic tradition from the silent era to today, with special attention to cultural context and visual elements. Film masterpieces directed by Bauer, Eisenstein, Vertov, Parajanov, Tarkovsky, Mikhalkov, and others. Weekly screenings. Usually offered every second year.
David Powelstock

SAS 130a Film and Fiction of Crisis
[ hum nw ]
Examines novels and films as a response to some pivotal crisis in South Asia: Independence and Partition, Communal Riots, Insurgency and Terrorism. We will read and analyze texts from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka in an effort to examine how these moments of crisis have affected literary and cinematic form while also paying close attention to how they contest or support the narrative of the unified nation. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Singh

SAS 150b Love, Sex, and Country: Films from India
[ djw hum nw ]
A study of Hindi films made in India since 1947 with a few notable exceptions from regional film, as well as some recent films made in English. Students will read Hindi films as texts/narratives of the nation to probe the occurrence of cultural, religious, historical, political, and social themes. Usually offered every third year.
Harleen Singh

Electives: Courses in Creative Aspects of Film Production

COSI 155b Computer Graphics
[ dl sn ]
Prerequisite: COSI 12b.
An introduction to the art of displaying computer-generated images and to the design of graphical user interfaces. Topics include graphic primitives; representations of curves, surfaces, and solids; and the mathematics of two- and three-dimensional transformations. Usually offered every third year.
Timothy Hickey

COSI 164a Introduction to 3-D Animation
[ dl sn ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took COSI 65a in prior years.
Covers the fundamental concepts of 3-D animation and teaches both the theory underlying 3-D animation as well as the skills needed to create 3-D movies. Students demonstrate their understanding of the concepts by creating several short animated movies. Usually offered every third year.
Timothy Hickey

ENG 79a Screenwriting Workshop: Beginning Screenplay
[ dl hum oc wi ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Enrollment is by instructor permission after the submission of a manuscript sample. Please refer to the schedule of classes for submission information. May be repeated for credit.
Fundamentals of screenwriting: structure, plot, conflict, character, and dialogue. Students read screenwriting theory, scripts, analyze files, and produce an outline and the first act of an original screenplay. Usually offered every third year.
Marc Weinberg

ENG 139b Screenwriting Workshop: Intermediate Screenwriting
[ dl hum oc wi ]
Prerequisites: ENG 79a. Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Enrollment is by instructor permission after the submission of a manuscript sample. Please refer to the schedule of classes for submission information. May be repeated for credit.
In this writing-intensive course, students build on screenwriting basics and delve more deeply into the creative process. Participants read and critique each other's work, study screenplays and view films, and submit original written material on a biweekly basis. At the conclusion of the course each student will have completed the first draft of a screenplay (100-120 pages). Usually offered every second year.
Marc Weinberg

THA 125a Acting for the Camera
[ ca ]
A process-based acting class. Emphasis is on developing the actor's ability to work honestly and creatively in front of the camera. All work is videotaped. Students regularly review their performances in order to advance their critical understanding of the work. Usually offered two consecutive years with a third-year hiatus.
Staff

University Bulletin (2019-2020)