This course provides an overview of film studies by focusing on three areas: history of film, production (the basic tools of film-making), and theory (the basic vocabulary of film analysis). Students develop visual literacy through engagement with the primary structures, methods, practitioners, history, ideas, and vocabularies of film studies.
FMS 160: The Media Landscape
This course encourages students to critically assess and shape their personal relationship to the media landscape. Its premise is that we are all, to some extent, uninformed and uncritical consumers of media products, services and effects rather than conscientious and civically engaged users of them. In this spirit, this course is designed to give students a theoretical, as well as practical, experience with issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality as they manifest in mediated artifacts of popular culture. The course is taught from a media studies perspective where students gain skills in critical analysis and media literacy. Concepts of power, privilege, justice, representation, hegemony, consumption and resistance are woven throughout course readings, images, assignments and discussions.
FMS 220: Film and Media Production
This course introduces students to film and media production. The course rotates topics to accommodate various modes of production such as documentary, experimental, and narrative filmmaking. Students view and study film, learn the creative and technical skills associated with the course’s focus, as well as participate in their own film and media productions. Offered annually. Prerequisites: FMS 101 or FMS 160 recommended.