Degrees and Requirements
Film Minor
The film minor will allow students across the university to learn the basic essentials in film and choose among some electives. Students pursuing a minor in film will acquire skills that ensure they are familiar with visual storytelling, cinematography, sound design, lighting, and editing. Students will learn video, sound, and editing skills that are applicable to a number of majors and career options induci.ng design, photography, business, marketing, and communications. Students who complete the minor will be able to create short video and sound pieces for any work and artistic environment.
REQUIREMENTS: To successfully complete the Film Minor, 18 credits in the following coursework is required:
- 12 credits as listed under “Minor Requirements”
- 6 credits Minor Electives
Summary of Requirements
Film Minor Electives: 6 credits: Choose 2
FILM2010INTERNATIONAL FILM HISTORY
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
In this course we analyze film style across a selection of international films from diverse regional, national and local contexts. We connect the threads of world cinema, asking students to compare and contrast a work from one time and place to any number of its geographically distant offspring. Major international films encourage us to reconsider what cinema is and how new ideas, feelings, and worlds come into being. As such, we study and analyze films from India, Canada, Sweden, Nigeria, South Korea, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, China and more. We compare and contrast styles along the way. We also explore broader questions about the usefulness of working in a globally-identifiable film style.
FILM2015FILM THEORY AND ANALYSIS
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
This course provides an introductory overview to film theory and methods of film analysis. We explore the interaction between a film’s subject and style to reach an informed analysis of cinematic aesthetics. We explore how cinema functions as a medium, art form and practice, institution, and how cinema signifies (e.g. communicates, produces meanings, and constructs itself as a language). There are a range of critical methods for the study of media texts: realism, formalism, auteur theory, theories of spectatorship and reception, feminism, queer theory, Marxist film theory, cultural studies, postcolonialism, among many others. Through analysis and examination of major areas of film theory and criticism, this course helps students become informed, critically engaged readers/viewers of global media texts and practices. Preg: FILM1025
FILM2020FILMMAKING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
In this course, we will explore how filmmakers across time and place have chosen to create films for social change. We will link to this and discuss as part of the Mission of La Roche University. Documentary films, immersive virtual and augmented reality, participatory filmmaking, installation films, and other creative media experiences will be explored and analyzed in this context - with special consideration of their strategic communication campaigns and in recent eras an online presence. The class will also explore important concepts relative to these products such as advocacy, bias and manipulation. Students will work in teams to create a film proposal for a documentary that advocates for positive social change, and identify relevant film festivals for submission.
FILM2040DIGITAL CONENT CREATION
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
This course prepares students to utilize the tools of storytelling and visual structure to create digital content across media platforms. Looking for and creating an audience, using creative and quality means of expression, using social media for promotion, monetizing content, and evaluating products will be covered as part of the class. Students will explore different social media platforms, and analyze how to produce content for them, and pivot to new emerging mediums. Students will create a complementary platform of social media, including Instagram and a YouTube Channel as part of the class experience. Students will develop skills in media production, behavioral studies, and digital storytelling so they can develop engaging digital content for a range of platforms.
FILM2050INTRODUCTION TO SOUND
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
PREREQUISITE: FILM1020 In this course, students learn audio skills in order to create and capture audio for film and the visual image. Students will additionally learn sound theory, and are introduced to sound characteristics, microphone types and usage, basic acoustical principles, basic sound design objectives. Class focuses on the elements of sound: dialog, voice-over, sound effects and music and their impact on the visual image. Through industry standard location and studio recording techniques, students are responsible for acquiring, editing, enhancing, processing, mixing, and synchronizing sound for production and post-production sound.
Film Minor Requirements: 12 credits
FILM1020FILM PRODUCTION I
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
This introductory production class gives students the foundation for creating films. We will cover the basic use of a digital camera (Sony a6000), camera exposure for filmmaking along with the basics of camera shots, angles, and movement. Additionally, the course covers introductory levels of filmmaking for lights (3-point lighting set-ups, C-stands, clamps, flags, cutters, color temperature/gels),sound (portable recording; single & double system recording), and editing (Adobe Premiere Pro, including titles and basic effects and color tools). Students will learn chroma keying/green screen production and lighting for green screen. In the class, we create short films to demonstrate how these basic filmmaking tools are used to tell stories, influence emotions and connect to people through sound and images. Students will draw upon their experiences in Intro to Film & Visual Storytelling to craft a short individual film project (2-3 minutes). They will also work in small groups to produce a short film of any type (3-5 minutes).
FILM1025FILM AND VISUAL STORYTELLING
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
The course provides a basic introduction to the world of film, including a brief history and the technology and tools that have made film possible. The course though is focused primarily on film as the arrangement of images into something we call a story. Together we examine the process of telling stories with moving images - that is how to craft a story in relation to composition, color, sound, and editing. We explore two main film genres, narrative and documentary, and discuss how storytelling is fundamental to them. For narrative film we examine dramatic storytelling aspects such as mise-en-scène, concept, character, theme, plot, and dialog. In documentary film we explore how filmmakers can incorporate strong, often character-driven stories that also have a beginning, middle and end. We look at how they can raise issues with much at stake, offer rising tensions, and still utilize a narrative arc that keeps viewers actively engaged. We look also at experimental/avant-garde films, that is non-narrative forms of filmmaking, which focus on movement, rhythm, and composition, because ideas and techniques from this genre have and continue to influence story-based filmmaking.
FILM2030FILM PRODUCTION II
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
In this course students learn more in-depth aspects of digital camera operations, including using an advanced digital camera (Sony a7iii) and learning how to produce specialty camera movements with training on a DJI-Ronin S. Students are also introduced to more advanced levels of lighting (light meters, Flex-Fill, Bounce Boards, high-key and low-key lighting), sync sound (with lavalier, camera mounted, and shotgun microphones), basics of sound design and audio mixing (in Adobe Audition), and more advanced digital editing (e.g., special effects, color correcting). Students will work in groups to create a short documentary (5-8 minutes) focused on an issue related to positive social change (applying what they learned in the previous semester in Filmmaking for Social Change). Students will also draw upon all technical skills from Film Production I for films produced this semester. Some hours will be required of students to join productions in the Film Production IV course (offered same semester). Prereq: FILM1020
FILM2045INTRO TO SCREENWRITING
Credits (Min/Max): 3/3
This course is designed to introduce basic screenplay structure and formatting and prepare students to thoughtfully embark on their own writing practice. Students will read, view, and discuss examples of great screenwriting from contemporary and classic films. This course will also touch on the basics of character development and plot structure and is appropriate for writers of various levels. An original full length screenplay will be completed by the end of the semester, in addition to other writing exercises and assignments.