This is an archived copy of the 2021-22 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.
Overview
The Department of Film & Media offers innovative, interdisciplinary programs leading to a BA in Film and a PhD in Film & Media. It also provides curricular support for the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies for doctoral students in other departments. The department teaches students to think historically, theoretically, and analytically about film and media within the broad context of humanistic studies. Students and faculty engage with all forms of moving-image culture, including film, still photography, television, and digital media. The Department also offers courses in screenwriting, curating, and digital video production.
Undergraduate Program
Film: BA
Graduate Programs
Film & Media: PhD, Designated Emphasis (DE)
Courses
Film and Media
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2022
Rhetorical approach to reading and writing argumentative discourse with a film focus. Close reading of selected texts; written themes developed from class discussion and analysis of rhetorical strategies. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
The Craft of Writing - Film Focus: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing Requirement
Requirements this course satisfies: Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
Intensive argumentative writing stimulated through selected readings, films, and class discussion. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
The Craft of Writing - Film Focus: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Previously passed an R1A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R1A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature and Composition. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English
Requirements this course satisfies: Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2022
This course will focus on the development of film art, technology, and industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Film History & Form: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the development of film art, technology, and industry from the media environments and visual cultures of the late 19th century to the international conversion to synchronized sound cinema in the early 1930s.
Student Learning Outcomes: Acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for the examination of the relationship between film technology and adjacent media practices (photography, the panorama, vaudeville, etc.).
Acquire new informational content about the development of cinematic technologies within the media environment of late 19th-century visual-cultural and popular scientific interest in optical experiments.
Develop the analytic skills necessary to perform socio-historically grounded formal interpretation of film texts.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 1-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 2.5-2.5 hours of discussion, and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2022
This course is intended to introduce undergraduates to the study of a range of media, including photography, film, television, video, and print and digital media. The course will focus on questions of medium "specificity" or the key technological/material, formal and aesthetic features of different media and modes of address and representation that define them. Also considered is the relationship of individual media to time and space, how individual media construct their audiences or spectators, and the kinds of looking or viewing they enable or encourage. The course will discuss the ideological effects of various media, particularly around questions of racial and sexual difference, national identity, capitalism, and power.
Film and Media Theory: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 0-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 0-3 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Fall 2020
The objective of this class is to provide a basic technical foundation for digital video film production while emphasizing the techniques and languages of creative moving image media from traditional story genres to more contemporary experimental forms. Training will move from pre-production-scripting and storyboarding, through production, including image capture, lighting and sound recording, to post-production with non-linear digital editing programs such as Final Cut Pro and editing strategies and aesthetics. The course will consist of lectures/screenings, discussion/critique, visiting artists, and production workshops in which students produce a series of exercises and a final project.
Introduction to Digital Video Production: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Film 25A
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2-4 hours of lecture and 2-4 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 8 weeks - 6-8 hours of lecture and 7-8 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 26
Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
From the beginnings through the conversion to sound up until World War II era. In addition to the development of the silent film, the course will conclude with an examination of the technology of sound conversion and examples of early sound experiments.
The History of Film: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
The sound era from World War II to present time.
The History of Film: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Film and Media 25A
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
This course will focus on topics in the history, theory and aesthetics of sound cinema.
Film Aesthetics: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the signifying strategies of selected cinema movements from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Familiarizes the students with the major technological and aesthetic innovations of the past 80 years which have given rise to the cinema as we know it today.
Student Learning Outcomes: Acquire a conceptual vocabulary to describe and analyze the formal strategies of films and the way they construct meaning.
Develop tools for analyzing the way film texts not only provide entertainment, but also produce cultural meanings and generate modes of experience (for example, of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation) and of social interaction.
Foster students’ awareness of the aesthetic, economic, social and political contexts in which sound cinema developed and the impact which cinema had, in turn, on nations, cultures, and historical events.
Give students a clear sense of some of the major movements in sound cinema (including classical and post-classical Hollywood cinema, documentary, Italian Neo-Realism, the French New Wave, Third Cinema, Political Cinema of the 1960s-‘70s, and film in the era of global multimedia) and how those movements intertwined with critical, theoretical, and popular responses to the medium.
Introduce students to the theoretical frameworks that have shaped thinking about the cinema.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for FILM 30 after completing FILM 25B. A deficient grade in FILM 30 may be removed by taking FILM 25B.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will focus on introductory topics related to the field of digital media studies.
Digital Media Studies: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the ways in which digital media first developed and have come to shape our engagement with contemporary culture, with a particular focus on aesthetics, form, and politics.
Student Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify, analyze, and describe themes in contemporary media and digital culture.
2. Acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for the examination of digital media technology and to understand the advantages and limits of that approach.
3. Understand the influence of digital media technologies on contemporary culture, including digital software, hardware, platforms, and interfaces.
4. Develop the research tools for advanced undergraduate writing on film and media in the area studied in the course
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester. Enrollment limits are set by the faculty, but the suggested limit is 25.
Freshman/Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered. Final Exam To be decided by the instructor when the class is offered.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2021
This course will focus on the industrial, technological, and aesthetic history of television.
Television Studies: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines how technological developments, industrial structures and practices, and cultural contexts determine the form and content of televisual texts.
Student Learning Outcomes: Acquire conceptual vocabulary necessary for examining the mutual influence of media practices and cultural values.
Acquire new informational content about the major phases of television history with emphasis on how changes in industrial practice influence form and style.
Develop the analytic skills necessary to produce historically-grounded readings of televisual texts that demonstrate critical insights into the relationship between cultural context, narrative, and aesthetics.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2016 Second 6 Week Session
An introduction to film art and film technique for students who are interested in exploring the history and aesthetics of cinema but do not intend to major in film. The course traces the development of world cinema from the first films of the 1890s to the 1970s, drawing on examples from American, European, Asian, and Third World cinema.
Introduction to Film for Nonmajors: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 3 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2006
Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.
Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: At discretion of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring:
5 weeks - 3-6 hours of seminar per week
10 weeks - 1.5-3 hours of seminar per week
15 weeks - 1-2 hours of seminar per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 2.5-5 hours of seminar per week
8 weeks - 1.5-3.5 hours of seminar and 2-4 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Fall 2021, Spring 2004
The objective of this class is to provide a basic technical foundation for digital media production while emphasizing the techniques and languages of creative moving image media from traditional story genres to more contemporary experimental forms. Training will move from pre-production scripting to production -- including image capture, lighting and sound recording -- to post-production with non-linear digital applications.
Introduction to Moving Image Production: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 8 hours of lecture and 8 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Supervised research by lower division students.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Restricted to freshmen and sophomores; consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of directed group study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Summer 2015 10 Week Session, Summer 2015 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2014
The study, from an historical perspective, of major theorists of film.
History of Film Theory: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 25A or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3-4 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 2-4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course considers how the American detective is represented in fiction, fil, and popular culture. We will examine how representations of the American detective are affected by diverse historican and socio-cultural factors, including the ideology of American individualism, paradigms of investigation and ordered knowledge, and competing discourses of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. After a brief consideration of early American detectives and detectives in the classic American hardboiled tradition, we will focus on many detectives from traditionally understudied groups, including female detectives, African American detectives, Chicana detectives, Asian American detectives, Native American detectives, and gay and lesbian detectives. This course may be used as an elective in the American Studies major.
The American Detective in Fiction, Film, and Television: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 8 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Dresner
Also listed as: AMERSTD C115
The American Detective in Fiction, Film, and Television: Read Less [-]
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
This course will focus on topics in documentary cinema, television, video, photography, and/or new media.
Documentary Forms: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the ways in which documentary impulses and forms are present in various media -photography, film, video, new media.
Student Learning Outcomes: Acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for the examination of documentary forms in different media.
Acquire new informational content about the media being studied, with an emphasis on the role and reason that the documentary impulse has in different media and art.
Develop the analytic skills necessary to interpret in a socio-historical and formal context the documentary forms in art and media objects.
Develop the research tools for advanced undergraduate writing on film and media in the area studied in the course.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 1-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 2.5-2.5 hours of discussion, and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
A survey of the history, theory, and practice of the documentary film (including video). How have the forms and ethics of the documentary changed since the beginning of cinema? A range of practices and strategies will be covered: cinema verite, direct cinema, narrational documentary, autobiography, investigative documentary, and recent fictional styles that combine the essayistic with the observational. The course moves between classic works of the genre as well as highly experimental works that critique traditional approaches. Throughout, the emphasis will be on the formal analysis of the films focusing on their narrative structures and the ways in which they make meaning.
Documentary: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 25A
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 0-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 0-2.5 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture, 0-2 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2019, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session
This course is a survey of the history and aesthetics of the international film Avant-Garde from the 1920s to the present. The course explores the development of a range of experimental film forms and practices, situating them in relation to the larger artistic, social, and intellectual contexts in which they arise. We look at the ways artists have not only created new film languages in order to express their unique ideas and vision, but also how they inverted alternative modes of production, distribution, and exhibition for their work. We examine the major formal modes of Avant-Garde cinema, moving between historical and current developments.
History of Avant-Garde Film: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 25A
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 0-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 0-2.5 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Fall 2021
This course is a survey of the history and aesthetics of experimental and alternative media forms and practices situating them in relation to the larger art historical, social and intellectual contexts from which they arise.
Experimental and Alternative Media Art: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: The course explores the international development of artist made, experimental and avant-garde film, electronic or new media practices. It looks at the ways artists have invented new formal languages in order to express their unique ideas and vision, and also how they have created alternative modes of production, distribution, and exhibition for their work. The course examines major movements in experimental and alternative media that exist outside of the constraints of industrial and mass media forms, as it at once critiques and expands dominant forms of media.
To broaden student awareness & understanding of the history of experimental & alternative film & media practices that exist outside of the dominant film industry, including fine art practices that have emerged from the visual & sonic arts rather than the dominant literary & dramatic forms. To study underground & marginal communities that have been under or unrepresented by the dominant film & media industries. The course will also look beyond the artwork itself to explore the kinds of creative sub-cultures communities that this approach to art making has produced.
While emphasis on medium and technology may vary from year to year, depending on the instructor, conceptually, the course will always focus on film and media art as a form of personal and creative expression with a philosophical position that emphasizes process and invention over product and professional mastery.
Student Learning Outcomes: Acquire a conceptual and aesthetic vocabulary necessary for the recognition and interpretation of experimental and alternative media practices in different media forms and technologies and to understand why experimental approaches to media practices have influenced, the dominant film and media world, the art world and academic film and media studies.
Acquire new informational content about the national/regional/global media landscape in question; with an emphasis on the role experimental film and media products play in the evolution of film and media language and form.
Develop the analytic skills necessary to interpret in a socio-historical and aesthetic context the art and media objects belonging to that area and learn about the cultural contexts in which those media practices are located.
Develop the research tools for advanced undergraduate writing on film and media in the area studied in the course.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture, 1-1 hours of discussion, and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture, 2.5-2.5 hours of discussion, and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternate method of final assessment during regularly scheduled final exam group (e.g., presentation, final project, etc.).
Terms offered: Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session
This course examines contemporary scholarship and films about the migrant or immigrant experience in the US. The first half of the course investigates the complex geographies and temporalities of migrant transit and dwelling. Course texts describe the anthropology and cultural geography of border, city, and workplace; course films map them as sites of frustrated mobility, fractured identity, and fascinating connection. The second half of the course explores the many forms of between-ness experienced by immigrants through intergenerational or transnational family conflicts; those displaced by war, the slave trade, or the Holocaust; and those confronting the relationship between personal and geopolitical histories of displacement.
Be/longings: Cinema and the Immigrant Experience in America: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Declared film major or consent of instructor
Requirements this course satisfies: Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 12 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Instructor: West
Be/longings: Cinema and the Immigrant Experience in America: Read Less [-]
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
This course will focus on topics in national, transnational, and global cinema, television, photography, and/or new media.
Global Media: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the ways in which shared cultural discourses, institutions, histories, and modes of production are negotiated through various media practices within and between individual cities, nations, regions, and/or global networks.
Student Learning Outcomes: 1) Acquire new informational content about the national/regional/global media landscape in question, with an emphasis on the role media products play in articulating cultural affinities and differences.
2) Acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for the examination of media practices organized in large cultural categories and to understand the advantages and limits of that approach.
3) Develop the analytic skills necessary to interpret in a socio-historical and formal context the art and media objects belonging to that area and learn about the cultural contexts in which those media practices are located.
4) Develop the research tools for advanced undergraduate writing on film and media in the area studied in the course.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2022, Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session
This course will focus on the history, theory, and experience of old and new media technologies.
Media Technologies: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Examines the emergence and implementation of media technologies, the discourses surrounding them, their use by media institutions and/or artists, and the forms, styles, aesthetics, modes of address, and experiences they afford. Analyzes the histories of media technologies, their theorization by practitioners and scholars, and the various methodologies that have been used to understand their development, use, standardization, modification, and/or obsolescence.
Student Learning Outcomes: 1) Acquire new informational content about the technology in question, with an emphasis on the role technology plays in shaping media content, form, and aesthetics.
2) Acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for the examination of the production, exhibition, and/or display technologies and formats and an understanding of the advantages and limits of that approach.
3) Develop the analytic skills necessary to interpret in a socio-historical and formal context the art and media objects created with the help of specific technologies and their appeal.
4) Develop the research tools for advanced undergraduate writing on film and media technologies studied in the course.
5) Acquire an understanding of media transition and technological change within specific historical contexts.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
This course will focus on the cinema of a particular nation or region.
National Cinema: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Declared film major or consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
Selected topics in the study of film.
Special Topics in Film: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Declared film major or consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 9-9 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 140
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2022
The study of films as categorized either by industry-identified genres (westerns, horror films, musicals, film noir, etc.) or broader interpretive modes (melodrama, realism, fantasy, etc.).
Special Topics in Film Genre: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
The study of films from the perspective of directorial style, theme, or filmmaking career.
Auteur Theory: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction. Students may enroll in multiple sections of this course within the same semester.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session
Students are introduced to the basic concepts, terms and principles of producing so that they can effectively and efficiently develop their own project proposal and financial strategy. Unit topics include creating a “pitch” proposal/package, methods of fundraising/financing, legal and ethical issues, managing the production cycle, and securing distribution. This class will use a variety of case studies based on Bay Area films. Through these case studies the class will explore a range of projects and cover the diverse strategies used to produce them. Each week the class will focus on specific project-types. One or more guest speakers (filmmakers and/or industry experts) will hold a Q&A with the instructor and students.
Pitch to Production: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Instructor: Kopell
Terms offered: Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session
The practice of entertainment law in the United States lies at the intersection of a number of legal disciplines, among them Constitutional law, tort law, copyright law, and trademark law, and applies those disciplines to the world of entertainment. This course will introduce you to basic principles of those disciplines and their use in entertainment law. The goal of the course is to equip practitioners in film and media with an understanding of entertainment law sufficient to recognize legal issues that may arise in their practice so as to either avoid problems or find their solutions.
Entertainment Law: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Gutterriez
Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session
This course is designed to acquaint film majors with a variety of professions in and around the Bay Area that are open to those wishing to pursue careers in film and media. A series of ten guest lecturers drawn from these professions will guide students through the opportunities and work experiences available in such fields as studio and independent film production, documentary production for film and television, film curating and archiving, programming film festivals, creating media content for art museums, and designing educational online content. This will be followed by question-and-answer sessions that give students a chance to interact directly with the speakers and explore specific areas of inquiry.
Film & Media Professions: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Instructor: Jones
Terms offered: Summer 2018 8 Week Session
We explore the use and abuse of sound and its relation to image in cinema. With emphasis on how sound influences our emotional
reactions, we analyze dialogue, music and effects from the perspectives of the writer, the director, and the audience, looking at the
factors that guide and constrain the creative process, as well as how changes in presentation have affected audience response.
Examples are shown from foreign and domestic feature, documentary and animated films.
Understanding Film Sound: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Berger
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
The course explores the art and craft of writing a feature-length, narrative screenplay. Participants present three story ideas to the class, develop one concept into a detailed treatment, and write the first act of the script in professional screenplay form. The focus is on rewriting, with regular presentations of outlines and scripts to fellow writers. The emphasis is on story structure, character development, and screenplay form.
Introduction to Screenwriting: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 180A
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2018
The course explores the art and craft of writing a feature-length narrative screenplay. Participants begin with a detailed outline of a narrative script and a portion of the script in proper form and develop it into a completed screenplay. The focus is on rewriting, with regular presentations of scenes to fellow writers. Participants also write short scripts and explore alternative story structure. The emphasis is on characterization, scene structure, visual story telling, dialogue, and creating a unified script. The class culminates with reading of completed scripts.
Screenwriting: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 180B
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2019
This course explores the art and craft of creating, developing and writing both a spec script (a script written for an existing series) and a pilot script (a script based on original material). In addition, the class will study 21st century serial TV construction by analyzing anthologies, procedurals, long narratives and serial melodrama. We’ll also consider how various platforms of delivery enrich viewer engagement and can shape content.
TV Writing: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Kopell
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
This class focuses on practices and techniques of non-fiction digital filmmaking. The class examines important techniques of non-fiction film, such as research and writing for non-fiction, the observational camera, filming in public, the interview, voiceover, working with archival film and other documents, as well as editing techniques - working to find form and structure for non-fiction materials. This class also explores the different modes of the documentary genre including observational, ethnographic, biographic/historical, agit/prop and activist forms, as well as more expanded approaches essay, poetic, autobiography, and archival forms.
Documentary and Nonfiction Film Production: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of workshop and 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Instructor: Skoller
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2019
Continues the exploration of film and media production techniques in camera, sound, lighting, and editing. Drawing on previous study of narrative, documentary, avant-garde film and video, students gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between the visual and aural elements of moving-image and sound through hands-on experimentation.
Intermediate Moving Image Production: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Film 85 or by permission of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 6 hours of studio per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 15 hours of studio per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2015
This advanced studio course is designed for students who have mastered basic and intermediate production skills and concepts involved in digital production and are interested in developing more complex creative projects that investigate critical, theoretical issues in media production. Students must have taken FILM 185 or equivalent.
Advanced Moving Image Production: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Students must have taken Film 185 or equivalent, or gain instructor permission
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 6 hours of studio per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 15 hours of studio per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 187A
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session
This course investigates special topics in, and special technologies of, media production: e.g., experimental film, documentary film, digital special effects, etc. This is a hands-on studio course designed for students who have mastered the basics of media production and are ready to pursue more specialized film or video production.
Special Topics in Media Production: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Film 26 or by permission of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 6 hours of studio per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 15 hours of studio per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021
This course focuses on practices and techniques of non-fiction film and media. The course examines important techniques of non-fiction media production, such as research and writing for non-fiction; the observational camera; filming in public; the interview; voiceover; working with archival images and other documents; as well as editing techniques. The aim of the course is to help students find form and structure for their non-fiction materials.
Documentary and Non-fiction Media Production: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 8 hours of lecture and 8 hours of laboratory per week
8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
Intensive study of topics in film and moving-image media.
Capstone Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Senior standing; completion of all lower division requirements and two out of three of the upper division requirements; GPA of 3.4 or better in the major
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Film and Media 105
Terms offered: Spring 2022
This course serves to instruct undergraduate Film & Media majors as well as students in other Humanities and Social Sciences departments in intermediate writing about moving images. Students will learn to craft sequence analyses (close readings of a single sequence), analytical essays (close readings of an entire film) and critical essays (close readings that use a piece of scholarship as critical framework or lens). Students will read texts about film writing, texts about academic writing, and film scholarship and criticism that model the forms of analysis they are learning to practice.
Intermediate Film Writing: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: To cultivate a community of practice in which writers focus on process rather than product and view peers and instructors (including faculty visitors) as colleagues involved in a shared intellectual conversation
To provide instruction in the vocabulary and skills needed to write three common essay types
Student Learning Outcomes: Correctly and effectively deploy the vocabulary of film form
Present and interpret evidence from a film text (descriptive analysis)
Understand, recognize, and perform the basic functions of academic writing (explain the arguments of previous scholarly work, apply them to a new object of analysis, extend them by making an argument about what their insights about this new object of analysis add to the scholarly conversation
Write a persuasive sequence analysis, analytical essay, and critical essay
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Completion of R1A and R1B or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2021
This course serves to instruct undergraduate Film majors in advanced film and media studies analysis, research, and writing. A variety of forms of writing will be undertaken, including film analysis, research scholarship, essay argumentation, film reviewing and criticism, and film festival programming notes. (F)
Advanced Film Writing: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Spring 2016
Students in the honors program are to take H195 for a letter grade to complete a senior honors thesis. Although the production of a film may be part of the preparation of the thesis and the film submitted as a documentation or example, it is expected that the thesis will be a substantial piece of writing of film criticism or film history.
Film Honors Thesis: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Senior standing with a 3.3 GPA on all University work and a 3.5 GPA in courses in the major
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of independent study per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 1-5 hours of independent study per week
8 weeks - 1-5 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2014, Fall 2013
Students will learn about film bibliography and research materials. Interns will get a thorough orientation to the Pacific Film Archive library through introductory lectures and training sessions. Then, for three hours per week, they will help organize materials for inclusion in the clippings files. Interns will gain experience in library organization and film bibliography, as well as a broad knowledge of the kinds of film reviews and criticism found in a variety of sources.
Field Study at the Pacific Film Archive: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor; film majors only
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of fieldwork per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 5 hours of fieldwork per week
8 weeks - 4 hours of fieldwork per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Summer 2021, Summer 2019 10 Week Session, Fall 2018
The supervised field program may include experience in a broad range of pre- and post-production film and video production related activities. The student will develop the field experience and its relationship to academic training with a member of the faculty on the Film Advisory Committee. Faculty sponsor and student will establish individual meeting times and academic requirements for acceptable completion of the course. Commitment to at least nine hours of field work per week.
Field Studies for Majors: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor; film majors only
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Summer: 8 weeks - 5.5-16.5 hours of internship per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2014, Fall 2013
Experience "behind-the-scenes" at the Pacific Film Archive! Interns will learn about film curating through creating a program of works by UC Berkeley students to present at PFA the following spring semester. Students will solicit films and videos, preview them, and make a final selection as a group. Students will write short analyses of local film exhibition programs and will do projects related to PFA's ongoing exhibition program.
Film Curating Internship: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Declared film study or art practice major, junior standing (60-unit minimum), and consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of fieldwork and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2018, Spring 2018
Group studies of selected topics which vary from year to year. Field shall not coincide with that of any regular course and shall be specific enough to allow students to write an essay based on the study.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 25A or equivalent and consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of directed group study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
Reading and conference with the instructor in a field that shall not coincide with that of any regular course and shall be specific enough to enable the student to write an essay based upon his/her study.
Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 25A or equivalent and consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of independent study per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 1-5 hours of independent study per week
8 weeks - 1-4 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates: Read Less [-]
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
This seminar will examine both traditional and recent critical approaches to a systematic and historical study of film. Although we will emphasize contemporary structuralist-semiotic, psychoanalytical, and socio-critical methods, we will also study the classical debates in film theory about representation, filmic vs. literary signification, sexual difference, and the social function of images in modernism and postmodernism. Illustrations will be taken from film history from 1910 to 1980.
Graduate Film Theory Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
The theoretical and methodological issues raised by the recent practice of film history are the focus of this seminar. Intended primarily for first-year film studies graduate students and other students interested in starting work on film history, the seminar provides both a theoretical overview of film historiography and an introduction to the practice of historically oriented film research. The first part of the course uses both overtly historiographic readings and film history examples to raise historical questions of technology, institution-formation, exhibition, cultural history, and spectatorship.
Graduate Film Historiography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
A seminar introducing Film Studies graduate students to the field, the profession, and the faculty practicing film studies. Envisioned as a way for new students to learn what is expected of them and for more advanced students to pass through the all-important last years of their training in an atmosphere of helpful camaraderie. Introduces students to the intellectual and physical resources of the Berkeley campus as well as the Bay Area. By the end of the semester students should gain an understanding of the expectations of their performance in graduate school, have identified the major goals on the way towards getting a Ph.D., and, depending on where they are in their studies, have begun to achieve those goals.
Film Studies Proseminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
Terms offered: Fall 2010
A compact seminar features a distinguished, short-term visitor with expertise in Film and Media. During the stay, the visitor meets intensively with graduate students, who then continue to work on research topics for the remainder of the semester. The seminar meets eight times one hundred and twenty minutes, not including screening time, and a substantial (twenty-five page) research paper is required at the end of the semester.
Compact Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 4 weeks - 4 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2011, Fall 2006
An introduction to the theory, history, and practice of film curating taught by Pacific Film Archive curators. What do curators do? How do they decide what to show? What is the role of film archives and film exhibition in the field of film and moving image study? Using the Pacific Film Archive and its programmers as a laboratory, students will go behind-the-scenes of the Archive's curatorial, print traffic, publicity, and editorial departments and learn how to program by doing. The course will culminate in a proposal for a comprehensive film series.
Film Curating: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar and 1-4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Spring 2007
Students will develop and present a film series for presentation at the Pacific Film Archive. Possibly refining a series proposed in 220. PFA curators will have final approval of the series topic and the film/video selection. Students will locate and book all films, write program notes, do outreach, and introduce programs. Guest speakers will include local press, writers, and artists. Local film and videomakers will trace the history of a work from production through exhibition.
Film Curating Part 2: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 220
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2013, Spring 2013, Spring 2012
Intensive study of the basic elements of film and digital video production and post-production. Graduate students will develop a working knowledge of film and video making through hands-on production experience that will enable them to film and edit their own productions. They will also acquire training to teach basic video and film production classes. The uses of specific technologies and formats will be discussed in relation to aesthetic and theoretical questions. Training includes pre-production-scripting and storyboarding, production elements including image capture, and post-production strategies and aesthetics for non-linear digital editing programs. The course will also introduce problems of how to format video/films for exhibition and approaches to distribution, exhibition, and funding. Classes will consist of technical lectures and hands-on workshops, creative exercises, seminar-style discussion and critique, film screenings, assigned readings, and visiting artists and speakers.
Graduate Production Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing and consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 3-5 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
Selected topics in the study of film.
Graduate Topics in Film: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Fall 2021, Fall 2017
Designed to allow students to do research in areas not covered by other courses. Requires regular discussions with the instructor and a final written report.
Special Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Graduate standing
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of independent study per week
Summer:
3 weeks - 5-20 hours of independent study per week
6 weeks - 2.5-10 hours of independent study per week
8 weeks - 2-7.5 hours of independent study per week
10 weeks - 1.5-6 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Terms offered: Fall 2021, Summer 2021, Fall 2020
Open to graduate students who have passed their Ph.D. qualifying examinations.
Directed Research: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-12 hours of independent study per week
Summer: 8 weeks - 1.5-22.5 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021
This course serves as introductory training for first-time R&C GSIs who are interested in incorporating moving-image materials and instructional strategies into their teaching repertoire.
Teaching Reading and Composition through Film & Media: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: This course exposes students to current research on teaching student writing, encourages discussion of strategies and practices for R&C courses using both readings and moving-image media in the instructional content, and creates a structured space for current GSIs to workshop and troubleshoot issues from teaching in progress during the semester’s instruction.
Student Learning Outcomes: 2. be able to create and evaluate the effectiveness of lesson plans and assignments that employ active learning strategies (e.g., discussion, collaborative problem solving, applied practice) in the study of moving-image media materials;
3. know the standards of ethical conduct by which they and their students must abide and how to provide a welcoming and respectful learning environment for a diverse student body;
4. know general and field-specific University policies and resources for teaching film and media composition courses on the Berkeley campus, such as those pertaining to students with disabilities, students in distress, student athletes, sexual harassment, academic integrity, and instructional technology;
5. know how to assess student learning and grade student work fairly, consistently, and efficiently, with special attention to the structural and cultural differences in preparation that present barriers to learning effective writing;
6. be able to use feedback and assessment tools such as mid-semester evaluations to improve teaching;
7. be able to reflect upon teaching and learning and explain why they make the choices they do as teachers in their field;
8. know how to effectively communicate and collaborate with members of a teaching team (e.g., faculty instructor, head GSI, co-instructors, fellow GSIs, Readers, course support staff).
Upon completion of the course, GSIs should:
1. know effective practices, current directions, and resources for engaging students in writing about film and media;
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Current or upcoming first-time appointment as GSI
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Professional course for teachers or prospective teachers
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
Teaching Reading and Composition through Film & Media: Read Less [-]
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2019, Fall 2018
Individual study in consultation with faculty director as preparation for degree examinations.
Individual Study for Doctoral Students: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-6 hours of independent study per week
Summer: 8 weeks - 1.5-11 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Film and Media/Graduate examination preparation
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
Faculty and Instructors
Faculty
Weihong Bao, Associate Professor. Film theory and history, media archaeology, critical theory, visual and performance culture, Chinese language cinema, transnational genre cinema, comparative media history and theory.
Research Profile
Rizvana Bradley, Assistant Professor. Film theory, critical theory, aesthetics of postcoloniality and the black diaspora, gender and sexuality studies, contemporary art, art history and visual culture.
Natalia Brizuela, Professor. Photography, film, contemporary art, critical theory and aesthetics of Spanish America and Brazil .
Research Profile
Mary Ann Doane, Professor. Feminist theory, semiotics, cinema, media, cultural theory, archaeology of media technology, poststructuralism.
Research Profile
Jacob Gaboury, Associate Professor. Digital media, visual culture, media archaeology, queer theory, 20th century histories of technology and computation, computer graphics, and the intersection of contemporary art and technology .
Anton Kaes, Professor. Film studies, modern literature, literary and cultural theory, cinema, interdisciplinary and comparative aspects of Weimar culture, contemporary literature and film, literary theory, theory of cultural studies, film history, film theory, history of cinema.
Research Profile
Anne Nesbet, Professor. Culture, film studies, Slavic languages, early Soviet culture, Sergei Eisenstein, silent film, Soviet film, GDR history, children's literature and Stalinism, the Soviet Union, American minority movements.
Research Profile
Nicolás Pereda, Assistant Professor. Film production, hybrid cinema, alternative fictions, slow cinema.
Mark Sandberg, Professor. Silent film, late nineteenth-century visual culture, theater history, comedy, Scandinavian design, serial television, film historiography, Scandinavian film history, Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian literature, Nordic literary history.
Research Profile
Miryam Sas, Professor. Comparative literature, 20th century avant-gardes, Japanese literature, film, theater and dance, contemporary art, critical theory, gender theory.
Research Profile
Jeffrey A. Skoller, Associate Professor. Film history, theory and practice of documentary, avant-garde film, film as art, activist media, Third Cinema , film/video production.
Research Profile
Kristen Whissel, Professor. Cinema and technological change, computer-generated images and contemporary cinema, digital visual effects, the history and theory of special effects, cinema in transition, American film history, silent American cinema, modernity and early cinema .
Research Profile
Damon R. Young, Associate Professor. Digital media, global art cinema (with a focus on French and francophone), gender and sexuality studies, critical theory.
Lecturers
Emily Carpenter, Continuing Lecturer.
J. Mira Kopell, Continuing Lecturer.
Contact Information
Department of Film and Media
7408 Dwinelle Hall
Phone: 510-642-1415
Fax: 510-642-8881