An Interdepartmental Program in Film, Television and Interactive Media

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

FILM 92a Internship in Film Studies

Usually offered every year.

FILM 98a Independent Study

Usually offered every year.

FILM 98b Independent Study

Yields half-course credit. Usually offered every year.

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.

(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.

FILM 110a Film Production I
[ ca dl oc 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.

FILM 110b Motion Picture Editing
[ dl oc 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 Adobe Premiere Pro. Usually offered every year.

FILM 120a Cinematography
[ ca dl oc ]

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.

FTIM Digital Literacy

FILM 110a Film Production I
[ ca dl oc 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.

FILM 110b Motion Picture Editing
[ dl oc 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 Adobe Premiere Pro. Usually offered every year.

FILM 120a Cinematography
[ ca dl oc ]

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.

IGS 173a Asian Gangsters: Contemporary Crime Cinema
[ djw dl ss ]

Studies contemporary crime films to examine modern Asian society and politics. Drawing upon film theory, cultural studies, historical and sociological research, this class considers the world's largest media market to understand the continent's rapidly changing socio-political milieu. Usually offered every second year.

FTIM Oral Communication

ENG 139b Screenwriting Workshop: Intermediate Screenwriting
[ 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 year.

FILM 110a Film Production I
[ ca dl oc 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.

FILM 110b Motion Picture Editing
[ dl oc 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 Adobe Premiere Pro. Usually offered every year.

FILM 120a Cinematography
[ ca dl oc ]

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.

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.

HISP 192b Latin American Global Film
[ djw hum nw oc ]

May be taught in English or Spanish.

We will study the dynamic between local and global imagination and forces in the production, circulation, and reception of films from and/or about "Latin America." Local productions, traditional topics and genres are now refashioned for international audiences. Some film directors and actors have gained mainstream global visibility; U.S.-based ‘platforms’ finance local productions for international markets. How are all these new and old images and narratives mobilized? What are all these forces and projections doing? Analysis of visual representation and film techniques will be combined with an attention to socio-cultural backgrounds. Usually offered every second year.

FTIM Writing Intensive

ENG 79a Screenwriting Workshop: Beginning Screenplay
[ dl hum 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 year.

ENG 139b Screenwriting Workshop: Intermediate Screenwriting
[ 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 year.

ENG 149a Screenwriting Workshop: Writing the Streaming Series
[ dl hum 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.

Introduces students to the craft of writing for a variety of television programming formats, including episodic, late-night, and public service announcements. Students will read and view examples and create their own works within each genre. Usually offered every year.

ENG 159a Screenwriting Workshop: Variations on the Short Film
[ hum 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.

Introduces writing and producing of short films for independent production. Topics will include introduction to screenwriting, script format, loglines, pitch pages, beat sheets and outlines, short form structure, and the planning involved in pre-production. Usually offered every year.

HISP 193b Topics in Cinema
[ fl hum ]

Open to all students; conducted in Spanish. Course may be repeated for credit. Does not fulfill writing intensive beginning fall 2020.

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.

NEJS 182a Jewish Life in Television, Film, and Fiction
[ hum wi ]

Film and fiction are windows through which we can view transformations in American Jewish life. By depicting religious, socioeconomic, and cultural change over the past half-century, these media both reflect and shape the shifting definitions of the American Jew. Some of the topics covered over the course of the semester include immigrant fiction, the American dream and its discontents, literary multilingualism, ethnic satire and humor, the after-effects of the Holocaust, and the impact of gender on the Jewish experience in America. Usually offered every year.

FTIM Elective Courses

AAPI/WGS 137b Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene
[ deis-us oc ss ]

Examines performances of Asian/American women and how they have changed over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We analyze American film, television, and stage performances to trace the shifting, yet continuous participation of Asian/American women on screen and scene in the United States. Important issues include Orientalism and representation, race and racism, immigration and diasporas, militarism and hypersexualization, yellow face practices then and now, as well as assimilation and resistance. We ask: what have dominant representations of Asian/American been like from the silent film era to the current digital age? How have the figures of the lotus blossom, the dragon lady, the trafficked woman, the geisha, the war bride, the military prostitute, the orphan, among other problematic tropes emerged to represent Asian/American women? How has the changing political, social, and cultural position of Asian/Americans shaped their participation in media production, as well as their media representations in the United States broadly speaking? Students will leave this course with a strong understanding of how media and culture shapes the racial and sexual formation of Asian Americans, as well as how to interact with that media and culture beyond just consumption but instead towards analysis and critique too. Usually offered every second year.

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.

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.

AMST 131b News on Screen
[ ss ]

An interdisciplinary course exploring how journalistic practice is mediated by moving image--cinematic, televisual, and digital. The historical survey will span material from the late-nineteenth-century "actualities" of Thomas Edison and the Lumiere Brothers to the viral environment of the World Wide Web, a rich tradition that includes newsreels, expeditionary films, screen magazines, combat reports, government information films, news broadcasts, live telecasts, television documentaries, amateur video, and the myriad blogs, vlogs, and webcasts of the digital age. Usually offered every second year.

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.

ANTH 26a Communication and Media
[ dl ss ]

A wide-ranging exploration of the human communicative capacity, starting with verbal and visual communicative modalities and culminating in the study of communication through mass and social media. Usually offered every second year.

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.

ANTH 130b Visuality and Culture
[ dl ss ]

Introduces students to the study of visual, aural, and artistic media through an ethnographic lens. Course combines written and creative assignments to understand how culture shapes how we make meaning out of images and develop media literacy. Topics include ethnographic/documentary film, advertising, popular culture, viral videos and special effects, photography, art worlds, and the technological development of scientific images. Usually offered every second year.

CLAS 157a Ancient Egypt on the Silver Screen
[ djw hum ]

Explores the relationship between Egyptian history and archaeology from the silent film era to the modern period. Topics include colonial archaeology, the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, modern Egyptian archaeology, race, and ethnicity in telling the story of Egypt's antiquity. Characters and periods examined include the Pyramid Builders of Giza, Joseph, Moses and the Exodus, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and Cleopatra. Discussions will also examine how archaeological discoveries impacted design, costumes, and Egypt's power. All films and readings are in English or with English subtitles. Usually offered every third year.

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.

ENG 20b Literary Games
[ deis-us dl hum oc ]

Course includes a mandatory lab and yields 6 credits.

Addresses a long durée history of the games through the lens of transmedia. This then is the start pointing to examine how transmedia theory may help unpack issues in what I call 'literary games' from the medieval chess board, dice game, to digital multi-player video games now. Within a discussion of transmedia we will address the various theories about narrative and play that have animated discussions about games from the Middle Ages to contemporary media. This class will also center race, gender, sexuality, disability, class in thinking through the issues of transmedia and the gaming cultures that have most recently been in the political mainstream news in relation to far-right politics. Usually offered every third year.

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.

ENG 30b American Film Auteurs of the 1970s
[ deis-us hum ]

Interrogates idea of cinematic style. Examines works by directors such as Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Bob Fosse, Roman Polanski, and Martin Scorsese. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 41a Critical Digital Humanities Methods and Applications
[ deis-us dl hum ]

Introduces critical digital humanities methods and applications. Considers both theory and praxis, the issues of open and accessible scholarship and work, and the centrality of collaboration. We will investigate power relations, inclusivity, and the ethics of social justice. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 43b Medieval Play: Drama, LARP, and Video Games
[ djw hum oc ]

Works with a selection of medieval mystery plays, medieval-themed video games and participatory live-action role play to explore: play structures and design; alternative-world creation by way of immersion; the significance of gender, race, disability, and sexuality in performance. Usually offered every third year.

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.

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.

ENG 62a Documentary: Techniques and Controversies
[ hum ]

An introduction to documentary, covering major works of nonfiction prose and film. Focuses on the variety of documentary techniques in both media and controversies surrounding efforts to represent the real. Usually offered every third year.

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.

ENG 128a Race and US Cinema
[ deis-us hum ]

Explores the central role film plays in the construction and policing of racialized identities in the US. We will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on the Black/white binarism. The course is structured as a survey. US cinema originates in the white depiction of Blacks or in the white deployment of blackface, and racialized bodies continue to serve as a ubiquitous (if frequently unacknowledged) source of fascination and anxiety in contemporary cinema. We will begin with early 'whitewashing' films and D.W. Griffith's foundational epic, The Birth of a Nation, and conclude with new queer Black cinema and contemporary Black filmmakers. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 143a The History of Mediascapes and Critical Maker Culture
[ deis-us dl hum oc ]

Class has a required lab component and yields six semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.

To consider how to decolonize book history and “maker culture,” the class examines colonial erasure, colonial knowledge production, race, gender, disability, neurodiversity, sexuality in making an alternative book history that includes khipu, girdle books, wampum, pamphlets, zines, and wearable media technology. Usually offered every third year.

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.

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.

FA 8a Introduction to Video Art
[ ca dl ]

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 semester.

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.

NEJS 182a Jewish Life in Television, Film, and Fiction
[ hum wi ]

Film and fiction are windows through which we can view transformations in American Jewish life. By depicting religious, socioeconomic, and cultural change over the past half-century, these media both reflect and shape the shifting definitions of the American Jew. Some of the topics covered over the course of the semester include immigrant fiction, the American dream and its discontents, literary multilingualism, ethnic satire and humor, the after-effects of the Holocaust, and the impact of gender on the Jewish experience in America. Usually offered every year.

THA 155a Icons of Masculinity: Media Images of Men
[ 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.

FTIM Courses in World Cinema

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.

ENG 20a Bollywood: Popular Film, Genre, and Society
[ djw 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.

ENG 170a Nigerian Movies in the World
[ 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.

FREN 141b Introduction to French and Francophone 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 and Francophone cinema from the postwar period to the present. The course will include a discussion of major works of cinema from a variety of genres, including comedy, documentary, social realism, historical drama, and autobiography. Each work will be studied through formal analysis, different theoretical lenses, and in the context of major historical and artistic turning points. Topics of discussion will include student protest movements, class struggle, and decolonization, as well as the issues of pressing concern today, such as immigration and social, political, and environmental inequality. Usually offered every third year.

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.

HBRW 170a Take I: Israeli Cinema and American Culture
[ deis-us djw fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: Any 40-level Hebrew course or permission of the instructor.

Introduces students to various aspects of Israeli society as portrayed in Israeli films and television. In addition to viewing films, students will be asked to read Hebrew background materials, to participate in class discussions, and to write review and criticism about the films. The course prepares students to deepen their analytical skills in order to gain broader understanding and intercultural knowledge as well as transform their personal and global thinking. Usually offered every second year.

HISP 192b Latin American Global Film
[ djw hum nw oc ]

May be taught in English or Spanish.

We will study the dynamic between local and global imagination and forces in the production, circulation, and reception of films from and/or about "Latin America." Local productions, traditional topics and genres are now refashioned for international audiences. Some film directors and actors have gained mainstream global visibility; U.S.-based ‘platforms’ finance local productions for international markets. How are all these new and old images and narratives mobilized? What are all these forces and projections doing? Analysis of visual representation and film techniques will be combined with an attention to socio-cultural backgrounds. Usually offered every second year.

HISP 193b Topics in Cinema
[ fl hum ]

Open to all students; conducted in Spanish. Course may be repeated for credit. Does not fulfill writing intensive beginning fall 2020.

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.

IGS 173a Asian Gangsters: Contemporary Crime Cinema
[ djw dl ss ]

Studies contemporary crime films to examine modern Asian society and politics. Drawing upon film theory, cultural studies, historical and sociological research, this class considers the world's largest media market to understand the continent's rapidly changing socio-political milieu. Usually offered every second year.

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.

NEJS 182a Jewish Life in Television, Film, and Fiction
[ hum wi ]

Film and fiction are windows through which we can view transformations in American Jewish life. By depicting religious, socioeconomic, and cultural change over the past half-century, these media both reflect and shape the shifting definitions of the American Jew. Some of the topics covered over the course of the semester include immigrant fiction, the American dream and its discontents, literary multilingualism, ethnic satire and humor, the after-effects of the Holocaust, and the impact of gender on the Jewish experience in America. Usually offered every year.

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.

RECS 152a Russian Science Fiction Literature and Film
[ hum ]

Open to all students. Conducted in English. Readings in English.

Examines the Russian science fiction tradition in the context of philosophical, historical, and political developments, with attention to topics such as futurism, science and technology, the perfectibility of humanity, the nature of time, the proximity of the unknown, and otherness. Usually offered every third year.

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.

FTIM Creative Aspects of Film Production