Cinema and Media Studies
The Cinema and Media Studies (CAMS) major combines the critical study of film, visual and sound media with digital media production, reflecting a liberal arts philosophy in which critical and creative thinking and making are mutually informing. Curricular emphasis is in three areas: cinema studies and production (film analysis, history, theory and production), visual studies and production (visual theory, digital photography production and history, site-specific media and projection installations) and sound studies and production (sound history, theory, production and design). We avoid thinking of these areas of emphasis as "tracks." The integration of theory and practice is a guiding principal in the formulation of the curriculum. The core curriculum is designed to require students to enroll in courses in two of the three areas of emphasis (cinema-visual-sound studies and production), and students are strongly encouraged to branch out across all three.
Requirements for a Major
Seventy-two credits are required for the major; forty-eight credits in core courses and twenty-four credits in elective courses. We ask students to pursue a common path through a core curriculum while also encouraging them to pursue their interests by choosing electives from a rich array of departmental and extra-departmental course offerings. In the core curriculum, beyond the two introductory courses, majors are required to take one additional 200-level studio production class, two courses in film, photography or art history (one of which must be film history) and two of the 300-level theory seminars (cinema studies seminar, visual studies seminar, sound studies seminar). In addition to the core curriculum, students are required to take four elective courses. In the senior-year comps project, students are asked to synthesize and further their work in the curriculum.
I. Core Courses:
a) Two 100-level Introductory Courses (12 credits):
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b) One 200-level Studio Production Course (6 credits):
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c) Two History Courses (12 credits). One of these courses must be a film history course (either CAMS 210, 211 or 214).
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d) Two of the 300-level Seminars (12 credits).
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e) Integrative Exercise CAMS 400 (6 credits)
Students considering a major in Cinema and Media Studies are strongly encouraged to take CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies and CAMS 111 Digital Foundations by the end of their sophomore year and the two required core history courses (CAMS 210 Film History I, CAMS 211 Film History II, CAMS 214 Film History III, CAMS 243 Film Sound History or Art History 171, 172, 240) and at least one of two required 300-level seminar courses (CAMS 320 Sound History Seminar, CAMS 330 Cinema Studies Seminar or CAMS 350 Visual Studies Seminar) by the end of their junior year. Two 300-level seminar courses are offered every year.
Students interested in cinema studies should consider enrolling in the three-term film history sequence (CAMS 210 Film History I, CAMS 211 Film History II and CAMS 214 Film History III). At least two of these courses are offered every year and it is not necessary to take them in any particular order. CAMS 330 Cinema Studies Seminar, one of the department's required core seminar courses, is typically offered every year. Additional courses focus on film genres and modes (CAMS 186 Film Genres, CAMS 188 Rock 'n' Roll in Cinema, CAMS 224 Classical American Film Comedy, CAMS 225 Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream, CAMS 228 Avant-Garde Film and Video from Dada to the Beats) and national, transnational and global cinemas (CAMS 212 Contemporary Spanish Cinema, CAMS 216 American Cinema of the 1970s, CAMS 218 Contemporary Global Cinemas, CAMS 232 and 234 Cinema Directors, CAMS 236 Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema, CAMS 237 Cinemas and Contexts: Russian Film, and CAMS 239 Cinemas and Contexts: East European Film). CAMS majors are also encouraged to choose courses from a rich array of extra-departmental offerings in film.
Students interested in digital film or television production should start with CAMS 111 Digital Foundations, proceed to 200-level production genre courses such as CAMS 245 The Essay Film, CAMS 270 Nonfiction, CAMS 271 Fiction, CAMS 277 Television Studio Production and CAMS 286 Animation, and expect to execute advanced projects in digital film production in CAMS 370 Advanced Production Workshop, which is offered every spring term and can be taken multiple times.
Students interested in visual studies, including new media, digital photography and graphic design, are encouraged to enroll in courses such as CAMS 282 Graphic Design: Type + Image + Message, CAMS 283 Site-Specific Media: Out and About, CAMS 284 Digital Photography Workshop and CAMS 350 Visual Studies Seminar. Students pursuing work in these media may also consider enrolling in ARTS 141 Experimental Photography, ARTS 238 Photography I, and ARTS 339 Advanced Photo: Digital Imaging as well as related courses in film (CAMS 228 Avant-Garde Film and Video from Dada to Beats) and contemporary art history (ARTH 171 History of Photography, ARTH 172 Modern Art 1890-1945, ARTH 240 Art Since 1945 and ARTH 286 Legacies of the Avant-Garde). Advanced projects in new media, digital photography and graphic design may be produced in CAMS 370 Advanced Production Workshop, which can be taken multiple times.
Students interested in sound studies, including sound design and audio production, can explore sound-image relationships and produce audio projects in courses such as MUSC 115 Music and Film, CAMS 188 Rock 'n' Roll Cinema, CAMS 242 Sound and Music in New Media, CAMS 243 Film Sound History, CAMS 265 Sound Design, CAMS 275 Audio Workshop and CAMS 320 Sound Studies Seminar. Advanced projects in audio may be produced in CAMS 370 Advanced Production Workshop, which is offered every spring term and can be taken multiple times.
II. Elective Courses
Twenty-four credits in elective courses are required for the Cinema and Media Studies major. Credit may be obtained by enrolling in departmental and approved extra-departmental courses with the following stipulations:
a) Any CAMS course not fulfilling a core requirement can serve as an elective course for the CAMS major.
b) A maximum of 18 credits in elective CAMS production courses count toward the major.
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c) A maximum of 12 credits in extra-departmental elective courses count toward the major. Extra-departmental elective courses approved for the CAMS major are listed on the Registrar's Web site (Schedule of Classes/Enroll page) each term.
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Cinema and Media Studies Courses
CAMS 100 Looking at Animals From Eadweard Muybridge's groundbreaking proto-cinematic 1887 portfolio, Animal Locomotion, to the prevalence of cats in contemporary YouTube videos, animals have played an important role in moving images. This course explores representations of animals in cinema and the arts more broadly, drawing on rich interdisciplinary sources. Popular media such as Bambi and Discovery Channel's Shark Week shape our understanding of wildlife and distinctions between what it means to be animal and what it means to be human. We will learn to watch media critically, asking questions about production, distribution, and audience, while exploring perspectives in lesser-known and experimental works. 6 credits; WR1, AI; Fall; Laska Jimsen
CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies This course introduces students to the basic terms, concepts and methods used in cinema studies and helps build critical skills for analyzing films, technologies, industries, styles and genres, narrative strategies and ideologies. Students will develop skills in critical viewing and careful writing via assignments such as a short response essay, a plot segmentation, a shot breakdown, and various narrative and stylistic analysis papers. Classroom discussion focuses on applying critical concepts to a wide range of films. Requirements include two evening film screenings per week. Extra time. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Fall, Winter; Jay S Beck, Carol Donelan
CAMS 111 Digital Foundations This class introduces students to the full range of production tools and forms, building both the technical and conceptual skills needed to continue at more advanced levels. We will explore the aesthetics and mechanics of shooting digital video, the role of sound and how to record and mix it, field and studio production, lighting, and editing with Final Cut Pro. Course work will include individual and group production projects, readings, and writing. This is an essential foundation for anyone interested in moving-image production and learning the specifics of CAMS' studios, cameras, and lighting equipment. 6 credits; ARP; Fall, Winter, Spring; John Schott, Rini Y Keagy, Laska Jimsen, Cecilia M Cornejo, Paul Hager
CAMS 186 Film Genres In this course we survey four or more Hollywood film genres, including but not limited to the Western, musical, horror film, comedy, and science-fiction film. What criteria are used to place a film in a particular genre? What role do audiences and studios play in the creation and definition of film genres? Where do genres come from? How do genres change over time? What roles do genres play in the viewing experience? What are hybrid genres and subgenres? What can genres teach us about society? Assignments aim to develop skills in critical analysis, research and writing. 6 credits; LA, WR2; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 188 Rock 'n' Roll in Cinema This course is designed to explore the intersection between rock music and cinema. Taking a historical view of the evolution of the "rock film," this class examines the impact of rock music on the structural and formal aspects of narrative, documentary, and experimental films and videos. The scope of the class will run from the earliest rock films of the mid-1950s through contemporary examples in ten weekly subunits. 6 credits; LA, IDS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 210 Film History I This course surveys the first half-century of cinema history, focusing on film structure and style as well as transformations in technology, industry and society. Topics include series photography, the nickelodeon boom, local movie-going, Italian super-spectacles, early African American cinema, women film pioneers, abstraction and surrealism, German Expressionism, Soviet silent cinema, Chaplin and Keaton, the advent of sound and color technologies, the Production Code, the American Studio System, Britain and early Hitchcock, Popular Front cinema in France, and early Japanese cinema. Assignments aim to develop skills in close analysis and working with primary sources in researching and writing film history. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 211 Film History II This course charts the continued rise and development of cinema 1948-1968, focusing on monuments of world cinema and their industrial, cultural, aesthetic and political contexts. Topics include postwar Hollywood, melodrama, authorship, film style, labor strikes, runaway production, censorship, communist paranoia and the blacklist, film noir, Italian neorealism, widescreen aesthetics, the French New Wave, art cinema, Fellini, Bergman, the Polish School, the Czech New Wave, Japanese and Indian cinema, political filmmaking in the Third World, and the New Hollywood Cinema. Requirements include class attendance and participation, readings, evening film screenings, and various written assignments and exams. 6 credits; LA, IS; Fall; Carol Donelan
CAMS 212 Contemporary Spanish Cinema This course serves as a historical and critical survey of Spanish cinema from the early 1970s to the present. Topics of study will include the redefinition of Spanish identity in the post-Franco era, the rewriting of national history through cinema, cinematic representations of gender and sexuality, emergent genres, regional cinemas and identities, stars and transnational film projects, and the emergence of new Spanish auteurs from the 1980s to the present. 6 credits; LA, IS; Spring; Jay S Beck
CAMS 214 Film History III This course is designed to introduce students to film history, 1970-present, and the multiple permutations of cinema around the globe. The course charts the development of the New American cinema since the mid-1970s while examining the effects of media consolidation and convergence. Moreover, the course seeks to examine how global cinemas have reacted to and dealt with the formal influence and economic domination of Hollywood film making on international audiences. Class lectures, screenings, and discussions will consider how cinema has changed from a primarily national phenomenon to a transnational form of communication in the twenty-first century. 6 credits; LA, IS; Winter; Jay S Beck
CAMS 216 American Cinema of the 1970s American cinema from 1967-1979 saw the reconfiguration of outdated modes of representation in the wake of the Hollywood studio system and an alignment of new aesthetic forms with radical political and social perspectives. This course examines the film industry's identity crisis through the cultural, stylistic, and technological changes that accompanied the era. The course seeks to demonstrate that these changes in cinematic practices reflected an agenda of revitalizing American cinema as a site for social commentary and cultural change. 6 credits; IDS, LA; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 218 Contemporary Global Cinemas This course is designed as a critical study of global filmmakers and the issues surrounding cinema and its circulation in the twenty-first century. The class will emphasize the close reading of films to study different cultural discourses, cinematic styles, genres, and reception. It will look at national, transnational, and diasporic-exilic cinema to consider how films express both cultural forms and contexts. Aesthetic, social, political, and industrial issues also will be examined each week to provide different approaches for cinematic analysis. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 225 Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream After Americans grasped the enormity of the Depression and World War II, the glossy fantasies of 1930s cinema seemed hollow indeed. During the 1940s, the movies, our true national pastime, took a nosedive into pessimism. The result? A collection of exceptional films chocked full of tough guys and bad women lurking in the shadows of nasty urban landscapes. This course focuses on classical and neo-noir from a variety of perspectives, including genre and mode, visual style and narrative structure, postwar culture and politics, and gender and race. 6 credits; LA, IDS; Spring; Carol Donelan
CAMS 228 Avant-Garde Film & Video from Dada to the Beats This class charts avant-garde film, photography and design from Salvador Dali's surrealist cinema in the 1920s to the flowering of Beat culture in the 1950s. Key monuments are read against the progression of the art historical styles and "-isms" that informed them. We will take an extended look at Beat Culture in the 1950s as a context for the emergence of the American avant-garde. Expect to view rare original prints at the Walker Art Center and make your own experimental film. 6 credits; LA; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 232 Cinema Directors: Tarkovsky This course addresses the legacy of Russian film director and cult figure Andrei Tarkovsky, his contribution to the revival of Russian cinema and film theory, and his influence on other filmmakers--in Russia and around the world. Readings will focus on Tarkovsky's own writing about film and art. Close analysis of the films (Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Mirror, Stalker, Nostalghia, Sacrifice) will be supplemented by consideration of Tarkovsky's sources--from Leonardo DaVinci to his own father, poet Arsenii Tarkovsky. 3 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 234 Cinema Directors: Sokurov Mentored by Tarkovsky, influenced by the German Expressionists Dovzhenko and Bresson, but essentially self-made as a director, Aleksandr Sokurov delights and perplexes viewers with cinematic canvases of exceptional beauty and emotion. He also offers us a media sandbox for analyzing everything from screenplay writing to sound production, from painting to photography, and theories of visuality in-between. Of Sokurov's fifty-seven films (documentary and fiction) made over thirty years and already influencing younger directors around the world we will focus on those grouped around his "power" cycle. In-class analyses, short writing assignments. No knowledge of Russian language or Russian studies required. 3 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 236 Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema This course will introduce students to the global kaleidoscope that is Israeli society today. Since the 1980s the Israeli public has increasingly engaged with its multicultural character, particularly through films and documentaries that broaden national conversation. Our approach to exploring the emerging reflection of Israel’s diversity in its cinema will be thematic. We will study films that foreground religious-secular, Israeli-Palestinian, gender, sexual orientation, and family dynamics, as well as Western-Middle Eastern Jewish relations, foreign workers or refugees in Israel, army and society, and Holocaust memory. With critical insights from the professor’s interviews with several directors and Israeli film scholars. Conducted in English, all films subtitled. Evening film screenings. 6 credits; LA, IS; Spring; Stacy N Beckwith
CAMS 236F Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema - FLAC Hebrew Trailer This course is a supplement in Hebrew for CAMS 236, Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema. Open to students currently in Hebrew 103 or higher, we will watch particular film clips from class without subtitles and discuss them in Hebrew. We will also read and discuss some critical reviews not available in English, and a sample of scholarly writing in Hebrew on Israeli film and social history. Prerequisite: Hebrew 102; Concurrent registration in Cinema and Media Studies 236. 2 credits; NE; Spring; Stacy N Beckwith
CAMS 237 Russian and Soviet Film in Context This course examines major achievements of the Russian and Soviet cinematic tradition, highlighting how the outstanding formal and thematic features of the films emerge from the cultural battles and social transformations of their particular time and place. Emphasis is on the late imperial, early Soviet, Stalinist and Thaw periods; topics include pre-revolutionary melodrama, “montage” cinema, socialist realism and musical comedy for the “masses.” Supplemental readings include contemporaneous theory as well as secondary scholarship focusing on contextualization and interpretation. Course goals include the acquisition of cultural knowledge, enhanced awareness of film form, and the development of independent analytic and interpretive skills. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 239 Cinemas and Contexts: East European Film This course surveys the "other cinemas" of Europe: of Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Romania, the states of the former Yugoslavia, and Turkey, from WWII through the present day. Directors include Bilge Ceylan, Chytilová, Forman, Holland, Jancsó, Kaurismäki, Kieslowski, Kovács, Kusturica, Loznitsa, Makavejev, Menzel, Muratova, Nemec, Polanski, Svankmajer, Szabó, Tarr, Wajda. Brief lectures and readings place the films in national and political context, discussions focus on analyzing the eclectic cinematic strategies and diversity of styles--from Hollywood, Western Europe, Soviet and auteur--these filmmakers have employed in their anthological masterpieces of the cinematic canon. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 242 Sound and Music in TV and New Media This course covers the theory and production of sound and music in radio, electronic soundscapes, electroacoustic music, and film and video. The course will focus on the aesthetics, theory and practice of sound in these media. Students will create sound artworks in a laboratory component, using Logic Pro and other sound engineering software. Students will produce several audio projects, including a podcast of a radio show, an electronic musique concrete or sound art piece, and a musical accompaniment to a short film or video using pre-existing music. Music reading and/or knowledge of musical recording software helpful but not required. 6 credits; ARP; Fall; Ronald Rodman
CAMS 243 Film Sound History Although cinema is an audio-visual medium, there has long been a tendency to privilege the visual component of film over the elements of film sound. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, this course will focus on the technological, cultural, and theoretical histories of film sound throughout the twentieth century. We will examine the transition to sound in United States and European cinema, radio's role in the development of sound aesthetics, standardized and alternative sound practices, the role and use of music in cinema, and the complex effects of contemporary sound technologies on the medium and experience of film. 6 credits; LA; Winter; Jay S Beck
CAMS 245 The Essay Film This course—part studies, part production—explores a permeable form of filmmaking that borrows freely from documentary, experimental, and fictional modes of production in order to reveal the maker’s own voice. We work at the intersection of praxis, theory, and experimentation to interrogate the genre’s boundaries as we explore, develop, and gain a deeper understanding of our own creative process. Through a series of brief visual, aural, and written explorations, students work on two short video essays: one on the topic of walking, the other on a subject of their choice. The course is comprised of theoretical readings, weekly screenings, walking assignments, visits with artists, and critiques. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111. 6 credits; ARP; Spring; Cecilia M Cornejo
CAMS 265 Sound Design This course examines the theories and techniques of sound design for film and video. Students will learn the basics of audio recording, sound editing and multi-track sound design specifically for the moving image. The goal of the course is a greater understanding of the practices and concepts associated with soundtrack development through projects using recording equipment and the digital audio workstation for editing and mixing. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111 or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 270 Nonfiction This course addresses nonfiction media as both art form and historical practice by exploring the expressive, rhetorical, and political possibilities of nonfiction production. A focus on relationships between form and content and between makers, subjects, and viewers will inform our approach. Throughout the course we will pay special attention to the ethical concerns that arise from making media our of others' lives. Whether you want to produce social documentary, experimental nonfiction, or a media-based comps project, this class will give you the tools you will need. The class culminates in the production of a significant nonfiction media project. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111 or instructor consent. 6 credits; ARP; Fall; Laska Jimsen
CAMS 271 Fiction Through a series of exercises students will explore the fundamentals of making fictional media, including framing, staging, camera movement, working with actors, traditional 3-act structure, and alternative approaches. Through course readings, screenings, and writing exercises, we will analyze how mood, tone, and themes are constructed through formal techniques. Group and individual exercises will develop diverse strategies for narrative construction and cinematic storytelling. The course will culminate in individual short fiction projects. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111 and one additional Cinema and Media Studies course, or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP; Winter; Laska Jimsen
CAMS 273 Digital Editing Workshop This course introduces students to the art of motion picture editing by combining theoretical and aesthetic study with hands-on creative practice on non-linear digital video editing systems. We explore graphic, temporal, spatial, rhythmic and aural relationships in a variety of moving image forms ranging from classical narrative continuity and documentary storytelling to experimental expressionism. Underscoring the strong links between concept, direction, shooting, and editing, this course examines the close ties between production and post-production. Through class critique and the production of short montage exercises and editing assignments, students develop expressive techniques and proficiency in basic video and sound editing and post-production workflow. 6 credits; ARP; Winter; Rini Y Keagy
CAMS 275 Audio Workshop The Audio Workshop introduces students to essential skills in audio storytelling and drama. Students will produce projects in three essential genres: reportorial projects (suitable for news or research reporting), personal narratives (along the lines of This American Life), and new audio drama (fiction recorded in our sound booth with actors). Along with essential technical skills, students will engage critical historical and esthetic issues in audio, along with directorial skills like interviewing and directing voice talent. 6 credits; ARP; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 277 Television Studio Production In this hands-on studio television production course, held in the fully-outfitted Weitz Center studios, students learn professional studio methods and techniques for creating both fiction and nonfiction television programs. Concepts include lighting and set design, blocking actors, directing cameras, composition, switching, sound recording and scripting. Students work in teams to produce four assignments, crewing for each other's productions in front of and behind the camera, in the control room, and in post-production. 6 credits; ARP; Winter; Paul Hager
CAMS 278 Writing for Television TV is a very specific, time-driven medium. Using examples from scripts and DVDs, students will learn how to write for an existing TV show, keeping in mind character consistency, pacing, tone, and compelling storylines. Students will also get a taste of what it's like to be part of a writing staff as the class itself creates an episode from scratch. Topics such as creating the TV pilot, marketing, agents, managers, and more will be discussed. Finally, general storytelling tools such as creating better dialogue, developing fully-rounded characters, making scene work more exciting, etc., will also be addressed. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 or 111 or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP, WR2; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 279 Screenwriting This course teaches students the fundamentals of screenwriting. Topics include understanding film structure, writing solid dialogue, creating dimensional characters, and establishing dramatic situations. Art, craft, theory, form, content, concept, genre, narrative strategies and storytelling tools are discussed. Students turn in weekly assignments, starting with short scenes and problems and then moving on to character work, synopses, outlines, pitches and more. The goal is for each student to write a 15 to 25 page script for a short film by the end of the term. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 or 111 or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP; Fall; Michael Elyanow
CAMS 283 Site-Specific Media: Out and About Video and photography are coming off the screen, out of the gallery, finding their way into the world through site-specific, installation-style projects. We will take visual projects out of the studio using projection and print techniques that speak and respond to particular locations. Imagine a multi-track movie playing on ten laptops in the Arb; or a film projected on the side of a mobile home with viewers in folding chairs. We will explore VJ software and produce live multi-track visuals to accompany a band performance at the end of the class. This class should be attractive to videographers, musicians, photographers, dancers and others with a speculative, experimental bent. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 and 111 or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP; Spring; John Schott, Austin P Mason
CAMS 284 Digital Photography Workshop This edition of the workshop will focus on photographic portraiture. Students will begin reading on the history and theory of portraiture and representation in photography, art, and cinema. With this grounding, they will undertake multiple creative portrait assignments in a wide variety of styles, including street styles, studio set-ups and lighting, editorial/fashion, documentary portraiture, and conceptual projects. This class will take advantage of the CAMS studios in The Weitz Center for Creativity. Prerequisite: Students should have their own digital camera; software is provided. 6 credits; ARP; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 286 Animation Animation will explore both traditional, handmade animation and computer-based animation software. The course will emphasize skills in observation, perception, and technique using both old and new technologies. Exercises will build skills in creating believable and cinematic locomotion, gesture, and characters in diverse media including drawing by hand on cards, software-based animation, and stop-motion. The final project gives students the opportunity to develop more advanced skills in one, or a combination, of the techniques covered in class to create a self-directed animation project. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111 and one Cinema and Media Studies 200-level studio production course or instructor permission. 6 credits; ARP; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 295F Cinema in Chile and Argentina-FLAC This course is an ancillary reading/discussion-based trailer for Cinema and Media Studies 295; the FLAC section will be a Spanish-language addition to the English-language course. Cinema and Media Studies 295 will provide the set of background knowledge that students taking the trailer will use to discuss Spanish-language texts. Prerequisite: Spanish 204; concurrent registration in Cinema and Media Studies 295. 2 credits; NE; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 295 Cinema in Chile and Argentina: Representing and Reimagining Identity Through an examination of fiction and documentary films, this course offers a broad historical and cultural overview of Chile and Argentina. The course examines significant political events, cultural developments, and cinema movements including the rise and decline of the politically-engaged New Latin American Cinema movement of the late 1960s, the cinematic diaspora of the 1970s and 1980s, the cultural and artistic responses after the return to democracy, the commercial consolidation of each country's film industry and cultural production in the 1990s, and recent attempts to create a local audiovisual language with an international appeal. This course is part of an off-campus winter break program involving two linked courses in fall and winter terms. Students who take Cinema and Media Studies 295 must also enroll in Cinema and Media Studies 296 in the winter term. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 296 required winter term. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 296 Cinema and Cultural Change in Chile and Argentina This course is the second part of a two-term sequence beginning with Cinema and Media Studies 295. In order to bring the students into contact with the cultural and social discourses examined in Cinema and Media Studies 295, this course begins with a study trip to Santiago and Buenos Aires during the first two weeks in December. Our time will be spent visiting filmmakers, producers, scholars, and cultural organizations that shape filmmaking practices and cultural production. The course meets once early in winter term and then involves individual meetings with the faculty during the first five weeks. The course then meets regularly during the second half of winter term, when students formally present their projects followed by a group discussion. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 295. 6 credits; LA, IS; Not offered 2015-16
CAMS 320 Sound Studies Seminar This course presents the broader field of Sound Studies, its debates and issues. Drawing on a diverse set of interdisciplinary perspectives, the seminar explores the range of academic work on sound to examine the relationship between sound and listening, sound and perception, sound and memory, and sound and modern thought. Topics addressed include but are not limited to sound technologies and industries, acoustic perception, sound and image relations, sound in media, philosophies of listening, sound semiotics, speech and communication, voice and subject formation, sound art, the social history of noise, and hearing cultures. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 or instructor permission. 6 credits; LA; Spring; Jay S Beck
CAMS 330 Cinema Studies Seminar The purpose of this seminar is guide students in developing and consolidating their conceptual understanding of theories central to the field of cinema studies. Emphasis is on close reading and discussion of classical and contemporary theories ranging from Eisenstein, Kracauer, Balazs, Bazin and Barthes to theories of authorship, genre and ideology and trends in contemporary theory influenced by psychoanalysis, phenomenology and cognitive studies. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 or instructor permission. 6 credits; LA; Winter; Carol Donelan
CAMS 350 Visual Studies Seminar Images abound: contemporary life increasingly is defined by the pervasiveness of visual images which inform, entertain, document, manipulate, and socialize us. This seminar explores a wide range of critical issues and methods--both historical and contemporary--that will provide students a theoretical and critical command of contemporary visual experience. Our primary focus will be the photographic image as the foundational logic not only of photochemical and digital photography, but of cinema, the web and emerging forms such as virtual reality and computational digital imagery. This seminar offers essential critical tools for students of film, photography and contemporary media. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 110 or instructor permission. 6 credits; LA; Fall; John Schott
CAMS 370 Advanced Production Workshop Working in a variety of genres and technical formats, students design, test, and execute an in-depth, individual media project during the course of the term. Students are expected to work at advanced technical and conceptual levels to expand specific skills and aesthetics. Weekly class critiques will help students develop formal approaches, audio and visual language, and work flows specific to their projects. As students enter the production and post-production phases, further critiques will help them shape their material for the greatest, most precise expression. Students may enroll in this course multiple times. Prior to registering for the course, students must submit a project proposal to the instructor. Please contact instructor for further information. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the proposal. Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 111, and either Cinema and Media Studies 270 or 271 or instructor consent. 6 credits; ARP; Spring; Laska Jimsen, Rini Y Keagy
CAMS 400 Integrative Exercise 6 credits; S/NC; Fall, Winter; Carol Donelan, John Schott, Jay S Beck, Laska Jimsen, Rini Y Keagy, Paul Hager, Roger K Bechtel