about the film studies program
at connecticut college
about the film studies program | ||
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philosophy | major | minor | facilities | faculty & courses | ||
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We live in a world filled with constructed images. All of us encounter a steady stream of moving pictures delivering messages blatant and subtle, that solicit us, elicit our emotions, play key roles in framing our perceptions of the world. In order to truly understand our culture — even perhaps to understand ourselves — we need to understand how filmic representations work, and work on us. Thus, at Connecticut College we believe Film Studies should be framed firmly within the traditions and goals of the Liberal Arts. We take Film Studies to be a vital area of intellectual inquiry, valuable to a wide range of students, not merely vocational training rather for would-be media professionals. Our goal is to cultivate a true moving picture literacy, to educate students in the language of film and its uses. Our method is to integrate theory with practice, combining film scholarship with creative work in film production. Students in our program engage in critical and historical analyses of the moving image in many forms, including not only the classic Hollywood cinema, but also other national cinemas, documentary, avant garde and experimental film, and television. Production classes are also an important part of our curriculum. However, these are designed not as mere technical training, but as courses in applied semiotics, active-learning experiences in how the stylistic devices of film are used in the construction of meaning. As such, our production curriculum is designed to give each student a maximum of opportunities to act as an author of a creative project. In comparison to large film schools, where students are formed into large production crews, and devote a great deal of time to perfecting craft in the service of someone else's creative vision, here students work individually or in pairs, and focus on the conceptual aspects of writing and directing. We do not believe that either film scholarship or filmmaking should be conceived as narrow specializations. We see Film Studies as an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor and encourage students to combine their interests in film with other areas of inquiry available at the College. In keeping with this philosophy, faculty offering Film Studies courses generally combine a knowledge of film with expertise in at least one other field. We frame film study within an interdisciplinary perspective because we believe films should contain ideas about the world, reflections on the human experience. While we might argue that you can't really know the contemporary world without understanding something about film practice, we are even more firmly convinced that you can't know film without understanding something about the larger world reflected on the screen. A liberal arts education encourages students to explore new intellectual terrain, develop critical thinking skills, cultivate their minds and grow as human beings. Our Film Studies offerings are limited by choice. We want our students to be engaged with life, not locked away inside the theater or the editing room. We make no claim to offer a film education in the sort of depth a student would experience in a conservatory-style film program. Instead, by placing film study within a larger context, we aim to give film scholars deeper reasons to care about the films they study, and give filmmakers ideas of what to make films about. In short, we want our graduates to have something to say. | ||
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More information on the Connecticut College Student-Designed Interdisciplinary Major program. | ||
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The formal minor in Film Studies allows students with traditional majors in other fields to add a limited film component to their studies, without the requirements of integrating film with their major field or completing a integrative 'capstone' project involving film, as in an SDIM. The minor in Film Studies consists of at least five courses in addition to FLM101 (or equivalent). Four of these must be at the 200 level or above, including one course that addresses primarily questions of theory and criticism in film or a related art form (e.g., Film Studies 311, English 304, Philosophy 215, RussianStudies 285, 288). One course may be selected from the group of film-related courses listed below. A maximum of two courses taken at other institutions may becounted toward the minor.
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Our production courses are taught entirely with portable digital video equipment. (We use the term 'film' not to designate a particular technology, but a particular category of creative practice.) Students in production courses at Connecticut College have access time to sophisticated technology ranking with any program in the country. We have six camera kits, including Sony PD100a three-chip DVCAM camcorders, Sennheiser microphones, and Bogen tripods. We also have four Lowell light kits available for check-out. Our editing lab is accessible 24 hours a day, and includes four DVCAM non-linear editing workstations, based on Macintosh G3 computers and Final Cut Pro software. A key feature of the lab is that students do not share limited space on the computers' hard drives. Instead, all students issued their own individual, high-capacity, removable hard drive that can be moved from station to station. These facilities are limited to students currently enrolled in production classes or approved independent projects, and are not shared with the general campus population. In addition to the facilities specifically supporting the Film curriculum, the College offers additional video production facilities for the general campus community, under the auspices of Media Services and the Advanced Technology Laboratory (ATL), both located in Shain Library. Available equipment includes Canon one-chip DV camcorders, PC and Mac-based computer graphics stations, and a Pinnacle Systems real-time non-linear editing system with both analog and digital output. Other departments maintain labs to support their course offerings, including 3D animation workstations at the Center for Art and Technology, and a computer music studio in the Music Department. Film students interested in these art forms may include the appropriate courses in their program of study. | ||
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philosophy | major | minor | facilities | faculty & courses | ||
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