Academics

Fall 2023

FILM-ST 231 – Film & TV Production Concepts
Instructor: Kevin Anderson
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tu & Th 11:30 am-12:45 pm
This class provides an overview of film and television production principles and processes from script to screen and also prepares students for later hands-on production courses. We will explore both the art and craft of film and digital motion picture production, including the roles and functions of the major creative and technical personnel in the scripting, pre-production, production, and post-production phases. Technical aspects such as digital vs. analog media, lighting and color, cinematography, production design, editing concepts, sound recording, and storytelling and script-writing will be covered.  In addition, students are given three options for producing a creative project for the course. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: I,V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A (can count as elective for the one allowed 200 level course)

FILM-ST 330 – Film Auteurs
Instructor: Daniel Pope
Credist: 4 
GenED: N/A
Meeting:Tuesday 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Discussion: Thursday 11:00 am-12:15 pm
This class will focus on Bong Joon-ho and Alfonso Cuaron. This course will aim to highlight their cinematic models, distinctive style and recurrent themes, within the theoretical framework of the "auteur theory," thus offering students an introductory and comprehensive view of perhaps the most central concept in film studies.  
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G
    
FILM-ST 350 – Italian Film
Instructor: Andrea Malaguti
Credits: 4
GenED: AT
Meeting: Tu & Th 75 4:00 pm-5:15 pm
Course taught in English. Re-examines Italian neo-realism and the filmmakers? project of social reconstruction after Fascism. How Italian film produces meanings and pleasures through semiotics and psychoanalysis, so as to understand the specific features of Italian cinema, its cultural politics, and the Italian contribution to filmmaking and formal aesthetics. Course taught in English. (Gen. Ed. AT)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N

FILM-ST 375 – Film Writing & Crit/New Media
Instructor: Daniel Pope
Credits: 3
GenED: AT
Meeting: Mon & Wed 1:00 pm-2:15 pm
Film and screen media touch nearly every corner of popular, professional and intellectual culture, and new varieties of film writing are flourishing along with it. In addition to the force of the research essay and the art of the film review, there is now the dynamism of new media, videographic essays, podcasts, blogs, and other engagements with film. This course is designed to teach advanced film and media analysis and writing skills for academic, professional, and public audiences. We dedicate our time to workshops of student writing and to analytical engagements with films, film criticism, and film theory. We study films from an array of genres, periods in film history, international cinemas, and underrepresented voices, and we challenge familiar modes of engaging film. The core work of this course is in discovering original, compelling insights into film and media and expressing those discoveries
effectively in written text and in various forms of new media. This course satisfies the Junior Year Writing requirement for the Film Studies major in BDIC.
Film Studies Major Through BDIC Category: JYW, E
UMass Amherst Undergraduate Certificate Categories: II, V

FILM-ST 384 – Iberian Cinemas
Instructor: Celia Sainz Delgado
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu 4:00 pm-6:30pm
This class offers a survey of the film productions of the Spanish state. Through a selection of over 20 films, this class will follow  the evolution of Spanish society and culture from dictatorship to democracy. It will address the development of Spanish cinema with an emphasis on different cinematic genres and film schools (for instance Basque cinema or Catalan cinema), and auteurs (Bu'uel, Saura, Luna, Almodovar, Coixet, Bollain, etc.). It will concentrate on topics such as the representation of Fascism, immigration, gender relations, gender-based violence, and national identity, and it will tackle the use of film techniques through close readings of specific film sequences. Films will be shown in their original versions (in Spanish, Catalan, Euskera, Galician or English) with English subtitles.
 

FILM-ST 391SF – International SciFi Cinema
Instructor: Chris Couch 
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tuesday 7:00 pm-10:00 pm
This course provides an introduction to science fiction cinema from the end of the nineteenth century to today. Beginning with the experiments of the Melies Brothers and the importance of German Expressionist films like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the course considers technological prognostication from Destination Moon to 2001: A Space Odyssey, adventure and science fiction in films like Forbidden Planet and Star Wars, and the dystopian imagination from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to District 9. The course will also highlight the roles of women writers and directors from Thea von Harbou to Kathryn Bigelow, and technological cinematic advances from matte painting and process shots to CGI. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G

FILM-ST 411 – 16mm Filmmaking and Technology
Instructor: David Bendiksen 
Credist: 3 
GenED: N/A
Meeting:Tuesday 1:00 pm-3:45 pm
This course is an introductory workshop in 16mm single-camera filmmaking, linear editing, and film projection intended for students interested in pursuing further creative production and coursework in film, especially toward completion of the Major or Certificate in Film Studies. Because the skills utilized in analog filmmaking can build upon but are in part discrete from those learned in video production, most students will have prior experience with photography or videography, though this is not strictly required. Creative work is complemented by a rigorous selection of readings and screenings. Exploration of technological possibilities to broaden student creativity will be emphasized, and the development of personal vision and style will be stressed.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: 
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: 
    
FILM-ST 446 – Film Documentary
Instructor: Bruce Geisler 
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tuesday 2:30 pm-4:30 pm
Discussion: Tuesday 4:45 pm-5:35 pm

We will view, analyze, and discuss films by modern documentary masters such as Michael Moore ("Sicko"), Chris Paine, ("Revenge of the Electric Car"), Seth Gordon ("The King of Kong - A Fistful of Quarters"), Pamela Yates ("Granito") and many  others to further the understanding of the documentary craft and art from a filmmaker's perspective.  Students will also do preproduction (research and treatment) for their own short documentary, along with shorter hands-on exercises in writing narration, interview  techniques, etc. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G

FILM-ST 490M – Cinema and Mind
Instructor: Barry Spence 
Credits:: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Thursday 4:00 pm-7:30 pm
Cinema can both explore and enact the nature and operations of the human mind. It can imagine and present the possibilities of the mind, and it enables us to visualize many of the mysteries of the mind. This relationship between cinema and the mind is the subject and focus of this course. We will look at the ways cinema represents various mental states and operations of the mind, whether those having to do with sensuality, memory, visions, dreams, states of emotional extremity, the repression of trauma, etc., and we will spend an equal amount of time exploring how cinema, through its many stylistic strategies, performs acts and processes akin to those of the mind. There will be significant attention paid to the formal and stylistic aspects of the medium. To complement this analytical dimension of the course, we will read and study works of film theory and philosophy that explore the relationship between cinema and mind. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: T

FILM-ST 493L – Experimental Film and Video
Instructor: Kevin Anderson
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Thursday 2:30 pm-5:30 pm
This course explores the genre of Experimental Film and Video with a critical eye toward the history and current articulations of this form of production in both feature film and short form movies; videos. The course begins with an introduction to the genre, then explores Experimental Film; Video according to three different categories: Experimentation with Narrative, Experimentation with Structure; Form, and Experimentation with the line between Fact and Fiction. Students will emerge from this course with a solid foundation in the history and theory of experimental film; video as evidenced by writing projects, research papers, and student-produced experimental media projects. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G

FILM-ST 550 – Arthouse Cinema
Instructor: Barry Spence 
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Wednesday 4:00 pm-7:30 pm
This seminar will examine the cultural phenomenon of the "art film" during the first three decades of the postwar period (1950s, 60s, 70s). The nature and characteristics of, as well as the relationships connecting and distinguishing, modernist cinema, art cinema, and avant-garde film during this vital period in film history will be one of the course's concerns. We will examine the notion of the auteur and consider its usefulness for thinking about this multiform, innovative cinema. What is the relationship between cinematic modernism and the core principles and representational strategies of modern art?  Does modern cinema, as Gilles Deleuze suggests, function as a mental substitute for the lost connection between the individual and the world? Can it restore our belief in the world? The course will pay particular attention to distinctive stylistic attributes but will also look at dominant patterns of narrative form as well as persistent thematic concerns. Most weeks we will watch and analyze two films. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: H2

FILM-ST 590LU – Lusophone Film Festival
Instructor: Patricia Martinho Ferreira
Credit: 1
GenED: N/A
Meeting: September 25,26,27,28  6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
This course is designed as an introduction to Brazilian, Portuguese and Lusophone African cinemas and cultures. The selected films will afford students an opportunity to engage with film theory and criticism, and to examine a variety of topics such as the formation of national identity, gender and family dynamics, social inequalities, rural vs. urban societies, migration, civic agency, race relations, and major political and historical events that have impacted the contemporary societies of the Portuguese-speaking world (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and S’o Tome e Principe). Class will be conducted in English. The films will be shown in the original language with subtitles.
Portuguese Majors have the choice to complete their assignments in Portuguese.
Students can take this course multiple times because content varies. This is a one credit course.

FILM-ST 692SS – The Sociology of Film
Instructor: Jeremi Marek Szaniawski
Credit: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Monday 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
A survey of film and media studies texts of Marxist, neo- and post-Marxist inspiration: the writings of SM Eisenstein, Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, the Frankfurt School (esp. Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer), Ernst Bloch, Roland Barthes, Raymond Williams, Fredric Jameson, Jacques Ranciere, Paul Coates, Lynn Spigel, John MacKay, Michael Cramer. Films under scrutiny will include early Soviet cinema, classical Hollywood genre films (High Noon and Johnny Guitar), European New Wave films (from France, Poland, the Soviet Union), New Hollywood popular fare (e.g. Jaws and The Godfather), as well as more recent productions. After looking at case studies discussed in the reading, we will apply a sociological and/or Marxist grid of interpretation to contemporary films from the US, Russia, Poland, South Korea, and others.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: T

Chinese 136 – Intro to Chinese Cinema 
Instructor: Enhua Zhang
Credits: 3
Meeting: TuTh75, 10:00am – 11:15am
Chinese cinema, broadly defined to include films from Hong Kong and Taiwan, from its inception at the turn of the century to the present. Explores Chinese film as an art form, an instrument of political propaganda, and a medium of mass entertainment. No background required, although some knowledge of modern Chinese history is helpful. Conducted in English.

COMP-LIT  391SF - S-International Science Fiction Cinema
Instructor: Chris Couch 
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tuesday 7:00 pm-10:00 pm
This course provides an introduction to science fiction cinema from the end of the nineteenth century to today. Beginning with the experiments of the Melies Brothers and the importance of German Expressionist films like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the course considers technological prognostication from Destination Moon to 2001: A Space Odyssey, adventure and science fiction in films like Forbidden Planet and Star Wars, and the dystopian imagination from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to District 9. The course will also highlight the roles of women writers and directors from Thea von Harbou to Kathryn Bigelow, and technological cinematic advances from matte painting and process shots to CGI. 
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G

JOURNAL 339 – Video Content Creation
Instructor: Kyle Greeley
Credits: 4
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tu & Th 2:30pm-4:30 pm
This course offers an introduction to visual storytelling, writing for video, videography, and editing. Students will create videos that will help build their portfolio for whatever their journalistic goals might be. Students will learn to shoot professional-quality video, how to write for the ear, and how to edit with professional software. Students will also produce multimedia stories to expand on their video pieces.
Prerequisite: JOURNAL 300. This course meets the multimedia/visual requirement of the journalism major.

COMM  140 - Introduction to Film Studies
Instructor: Brendan McCauley
Credit: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: TuTh 2:30PM - 3:45PM
This course offers an introduction to the study of film as a distinct medium. It introduces the ways in which film style, form, and genre contribute to the meaning and the experience of movies. Topics include film as an industrial commodity, narrative and non-narrative form, aspects of style (e.g. composition, cinematography, editing, and sound), and the role of film as a cultural practice. Examples are drawn from new and classic films, from Hollywood and from around the world. This course is intended to serve as a basis for film studies courses you might take in the future.

COMM  231 - Film and Television Production Concepts
Instructor: Kevin Anderson
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tu & Th 11:30 am-12:45 pm
This class provides an overview of film and television production principles and processes from script to screen and also prepares students for later hands-on production courses. We will explore both the art and craft of film and digital motion picture production, including the roles and functions of the major creative and technical personnel in the scripting, pre-production, production, and post-production phases. Technical aspects such as digital vs. analog media, lighting and color, cinematography, production design, editing concepts, sound recording, and storytelling and script-writing will be covered.  In addition, students are given three options for producing a creative project for the course. 

COMM  331 - Program Process in TV
Instructor:  Brendan McCauley
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: We 10:10AM - 11:00AM
Discussion(s): Mo 1:30PM - 4:30PM, We 1:25PM - 4:25PM, Fr 10:00AM - 1:05PM, Mo 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Prerequisite: COMM 231
During the first six weeks basic concepts and techniques are introduced in lecture. Students then break up into lab groups where, under the supervision of their lab instructor, they produce a short program which puts the concept of the week to work. The second half of the course consists of a narrative film project and a production in the Communication Department television studio.

COMM  340 - History Of Film I
Instructor:  Brendan McCauley
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: MoWe 2:30PM - 3:45PM
Discussion(s): Mo 1:30PM - 4:30PM, We 1:25PM - 4:25PM, Fr 10:00AM - 1:05PM, Mo 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Lecture, lab (screening), discussion.  A survey of key events and representative films that mark the history of motion pictures in the United States and other countries to 1950.  In addition to identifying and providing access to major works, the course is designed to facilitate the study of the various influences (industrial, technological, aesthetic, social, cultural, and political) that have shaped the evolution of the medium to the advent of television.

COMM  444 - Film Styles & Genres
Instructor:  Shawn Shimpach
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Mo 1:25PM - 2:15PM
Discussion: Mo 2:30PM - 5:15PM
Why do we put certain films into categories?  What constitutes a film genre, how do we recognize it, and what do we do with it?  This course examines these questions and more by considering a specific genre over the course of the semester.  We will learn to think of genre as a way of comparing and contrasting different films.  Genre will also be thought of as a way of creating expectations and measuring experience and meaning. The power of film genre is that it allows us to understand film as a text and film as a social practice at the very same time.

COMM  445 - Screenwriting
Instructor:  Bruce Geisler
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: TuTh 11:30AM - 12:45PM
An examination of the art, craft, and business of screenwriting from theoretical and practical perspectives.  Topics include screenplay format and structure, story, plot and character development, dialog and scene description, visual storytelling, pace and rhythm, analysis of professional and student scripts and films.

COMM  446 - Film Documentary
Instructor:  Bruce Geisler
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Tu 2:30PM - 4:30PM
Discussion: Tu 4:45PM - 5:35PM
We will view, analyze, and discuss films from the recent past and present from a filmmaker’s perspective, along with some limited hands-on work in pre-production techniques.  Students will view, analyze, and critique works from modern documentary masters such as Betsy West & Julie Cohen ("RBG"), Michael Moore ("Where to Invade Next"), Questlove ("Summer of Soul"), Robert Kenner ("Food Inc."), and others to further their understanding of the documentarian's art and craft.

COMM  447 - Advanced Documentary Production
Instructor:  Robbie Leppzer
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Th 3:00PM - 6:00PM
This course is a workshop-style class in digital film production, in which we will take a deep dive into advanced techniques and aesthetics of cinematography, lighting, sound recording and editing.  Through hands-on exercises and production of two short films, students will develop a solid practice in the technical skills needed to create visually and aurally compelling moving images and sound. Students will learn how to manage and organize large amounts of raw footage, edit sequences and create engaging story structures using Adobe Premiere.

COMM  493L - S-Experimental Film and Video
Instructor: Kevin Anderson
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: Th 2:30PM - 5:30PM
This course explores the genre of Experimental Film and Video with a critical eye toward the history and current articulations of this form of production in both feature film and short form movies and videos. The course begins with an introduction to the genre, then explores Experimental Film; video according to three different categories: Experimentation with Narrative, Experimentation with Structure/Form, and Experimentation with the line between Fact and Fiction. Students will emerge from this course with a solid foundation in the history  and theory of experimental film/video as evidenced by writing projects, research papers, and student-produced experimental media projects.

COMM  494BI - Countercultural Films
Instructor: Bruce Geisler
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: We 2:30PM - 4:30PM
Discussion: We 4:45PM - 5:45PM
An exploration of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 70s and later, hosted by someone who was there and lived to tell the tale. Through the medium of documentary and fiction films, we will delve into the musical, sexual, artistic, political and spiritual upheavals that rocked America and Europe back then and that continue to reverberate today. This course satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Comm majors.

ITALIAN  350 - Italian Film
Instructor: Andrea Malaguti
Credits: 4
GenED: AT
Meeting: Tu & Th 75 4:00 pm-5:15 pm
Course taught in English. Re-examines Italian neo-realism and the filmmakers? project of social reconstruction after Fascism. How Italian film produces meanings and pleasures through semiotics and psychoanalysis, so as to understand the specific features of Italian cinema, its cultural politics, and the Italian contribution to filmmaking and formal aesthetics. Course taught in English. (Gen. Ed. AT)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N

GERMAN  270 - From The Grimms To Disney
Instructor: Sara Jackson
Credits: 4
GenED: AL DG
Meeting: MoWe 2:30PM - 3:45PM
This course focuses on selected fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (Hansel & Gretel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Iron Hans) and Hans Christian Andersen (Little Sea Maid, The Red Shoes), locating them in the 19th-century German or Danish culture of their origins and then examining how they became transformed into perennial favorites of U.S. popular culture through their adaptations by Disney (feature animation films), Broadway (musicals), or bestselling self-help books (Iron John, Women Who Run With the Wolves).  As a point of comparison, this course will also introduce popular fairy-tale films of the former East Germany (GDR) from the UMass DEFA archives & library, which present the same stories as popular fare in a Cold War communinist cultural context.  Conducted in English.  (Gen. Ed. ALDG).

ART  230 - Image Capturing
Instructor: Ruthie Baker
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: MoWe 1:25PM - 4:10PM
Introduction to photographic tools and methods. The balance between self-inquiry and the importance of process and materials as vehicles of meaning. Theory explored through class critiques and slide presentations. Photography examined and discussed both from a personal point of view and in its wider cultural context.

ART  275 - Digital Imaging
Instructor: Amanda Boggs
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: TuTh 4:00PM - 6:45PM 
This course explores the creative possibilities of digital image creation and manipulation.  Through demonstrations, creative technical assignments, students explore the digital workflow in independent projects involving sustained inquiry into self selected theme.

ART  290STA - Introduction to Computer Animation
Instructor: Hallie Bahn
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: MoWe 4:40PM - 7:25PM
Through short, hand-drawn 2D animation projects, students are introduced to primary animation skills such as timing & spacing, the 12 Principles of Animation, believable acting, and various professional workflows. Students gain experience working in a variety of animation and video editing programs and practice all parts of the animation pipeline, including pre-production, post-production & project management.

ART  396U - IS-Animation
Instructor: Staff
Credits: 1-6
GenED: N/A
Meeting: TBA

ART  490STA - Advanced Animation Seminar
Instructor: Hallie Bahn
Credits: 3
GenED: N/A
Meeting: MoWe 1:25PM - 4:10PM
In this advanced seminar, students develop a semester-long individual or group project in close conjunction with faculty guidance. Students may work in any animated medium. Individual projects evolve through a detailed and continuous process of research, reading, presentation, and peer critique. Emphasis is placed on narrative, personal voice, and producing festival-ready films. This course is typically taken in senior year and is only open to students who have completed introductory and intermediate courses in animation. BFA students who are pursuing a BFA thesis project in animation are encouraged to take this course in preparation for pursuing their capstone project.