The list below offers a representative sample of the courses you can expect in the study of film and media arts at DePauw. From theoretical foundations to practical experiences, these courses provide a full range of educational opportunities at various levels of mastery. For more information about current course offerings or registration details, please consult the Office of the Registrar.
An introduction to the critical study of moving image media that focuses on textual analysis. The course emphasizes the development of cinema as an art form and cultural force and its relation to subsequent audiovisual media, such as television, video, or web series.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
100A: Intro to Film and Media Arts
Professor: Seth Friedman
100B: Intro to Film and Media Arts
Professor: Dahee Yun
100A: Intro to Film and Media Arts
Professor: J. Nichols-Pethick
100B: Introduction to Film and Media Arts
Professor: Victoria Wiet
An on-campus course offered during the Winter or May term. May be offered for .5 course credits or as a co-curricular (0 credit). Counts toward satisfying the Extended Studies requirement.
Variable
184A: Smartphone Filmmaking: Culture and Practice
Professor: Jordan Sjol
Course Time: 2:00-5:00pm MTRF
Fees: There will be no course fee. Students must have their own video-capable smart phone to participate in this class. Some students may choose to purchase some equipment related to course filmmaking activities, but doing so is not required.
Prerequisites: Students do need to bring their own video-capable phone.
Since the digital revolution, filmmaking equipment has continuously become smaller and cheaper. Most of us carry extremely capable video cameras with us every day, a situation unimaginable even a few decades ago. In professional filmmaking, there has been some experimentation with these new tools. Within the broader culture, video-making and video-sharing have exploded. In this course, we will consider the promises and limitations of smartphone filmmaking. Students in this course will combine critical and creative approaches. We will watch and analyze a few examples of feature films made on iPhone (e.g. Tangerine, High Flying Bird), and we'll consider the rise of short-form online video. In tandem, we will experiment with our own phones. Every student will make and workshop a series of short exercise films focused on different aspects of the possibilities of smartphone filmmaking.
This course provides an introduction to camerawork, sound recording, lighting and editing in digital filmmaking, with short units on short film screenwriting and working with actors. Prior experience in film production not required.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
195A: Intro/Digital Film Production
Professor: Dahee Yun
A seminar focused on a theme related to Film and/or other Media. Open only to first-year students.
1 course
197A: FYS:The Western Film: History, Mythology, and Ideology
Professor: Jordan Sjol
Offers production and writing for the screen topics in film, television, or new media, designed to accommodate students with varying levels of experience. Students will learn techniques fundamental to a specific storytelling medium and explore their own artistic aesthetic in the context of other such expressions (models), while developing the ability to effectively comment on the work of their peers. Skills will be taught from the ground up to allow students across disciplines to engage, so no previous experience is required. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
205A: Tps:Genre Writing for the Screen in the Brief
Professor: Jordan Sjol
This course introduces students to the elements of podcasting from two intertwined perspectives: craft and culture. On the craft side, students learn how to develop, create, and distribute a podcast from scratch. On the culture side, students are introduced to critical and theoretical approaches to podcasting as a cultural form.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
215A: Podcasting: Craft and Culture
Professor: J. Nichols-Pethick
Introduces students to the study of race and ethnicity within film, television, and/or new media. Through textual analysis, class discussion, and writing assignments, students will critically engage with film and/or other media through the lens of representation. Courses might focus on the representation of racial and ethnic difference, racism within film and media industries, or both. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities-or-Privilege, Power And Diversity
1 course
An introduction to the basic concepts and processes of television production. Emphasis is placed on the creation and analysis of ideas communicated through the medium of television, including aesthetic, ethical and technical influences on message construction. Students learn studio and field production: basic scripting, lighting, audio, camera/picturization, editing, directing, etc. Televisual literacy is developed, and assignments apply the critical skills needed to interpret and analyze visual imagery and television programming. (Cross-listed with COMM 236)
1 course
Introduces students to the study of filmmaking traditions (and counter-traditions) within a national, geographic, cultural, or linguistic context through textual analysis, class discussion, and writing assignments. Some topics center on a national cinema tradition situated within a particular cultural, political, and/or historical context. Others examine the ways in which cinema transcends national boundaries and/or explore narrative and/or aesthetic strategies that reference more than one community, national, or cultural tradition. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities-or-Global Learning
1 course
This course guides students to create a unique form of digital storytelling through documenting their everyday lives, as they respond and speak to their surroundings as well as social and personal issues through image and sound. In this course, students explore new ways to communicate with the world and investigate their own themes and interests as artists and creators. The semester will end with an exhibition that showcases student work. No previous experience in production is required.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
Introduces students to the critical study of film, television, and/or new media through the lens of a specific concept, issue in film or media cultures and traditions, or scholarly trend. Topics might focus on a single medium or take a comparative approach. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
1 course
241A: Tps:Film & Culture
Professor: Seth Friedman
241A: Tps:Ecological Thinking through Film and Media
Professor: Dahee Yun
An introductory production course that explores the magical possibilities of animation through various processes, encouraging students to broaden their artistic perspectives and visualize their stories. Students will experiment with diverse mediums such as claymation, collage/cut paper, direct drawing, and stop motion to expand their creative practice, and will be able to apply their animation work to various forms of media arts and film. No previous experience in production is required.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
245A: Experimental Animation (Production)
Professor: Dahee Yun
This introductory film course is a survey of contemporary films from across the globe. Students will be exposed to a diverse array of culturally distinct and unique aesthetic expressions and will be encouraged to engage perspective(s) apart from their own while discussing topics including, but not limited to, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, class, and sexual orientation.
Arts and Humanities-or-Global Learning
1 course
250A: Global Cinema:Holocaust and Exile on Film
Professor: Inge Aures
Films and images can have a powerful impact and shape the viewers' perspective of past (and current) events. This also holds true for films about the Holocaust--be they based on real or fictional events. In this course we will analyze a wide variety of films that center on life under the Nazis, the horrors of the concentration camps, resistance to the Nazis, the life of exiles who fled Nazi Germany, and how Germany and the Germans dealt with the legacy of the Holocaust. What do these films want to accomplish? What filmic devices do the filmmakers employ? What is the films' relation to reality? Can we rely on these images as a "truthful" depiction of the past? Are these "accurate" portrayals of life at that time, or do these films create a new reality? How do these films appeal to our emotions? What role does "art" play in these films? Does a filmmaker who produces a film about the Holocaust have a different responsibility than a filmmaker who chooses a different topic? Can the films help us to better understand this horrific period in German history or do they trivialize the experience of the victims?
Reading African American cinema as a pivotal archive in African American cultural production, this course explores the diverse black aesthetic traditions that African American film has and continues to develop, explore, and shape. Specifically, the course will track how films produced, written, and/or directed by African Americans are situated in larger debates about the politics of race and representation.
Arts and Humanities-or-Privilege, Power And Diversity
1 course
260A: African American Cinema
Professor: Karin Wimbley
Introduces students to the study of gender and sexuality within film, television, and/or new media. Topics could include courses that engage queer theory, feminist theory, and/or masculinities studies in their application to film, television, and/or new media. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities-or-Privilege, Power And Diversity
1 course
This course seeks to broaden students' perspective of various societies and social issues through exploring documentary film history and cultures, and to investigate what's involved in the process of rendering 'the world out there' through image and sound. Students will examine diverse international documentary films which illustrate different styles and aesthetics while discussing gender, race, environment, and ethical issues.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
Introduces students to key moments and movements in film and/or media history. Topics could focus on one medium or multiple media. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities
Provides students who already have an introductory background in the critical study of film and media studies with the most salient classic and contemporary theories in the field. Prerequisite: FLME 100.
FLME 100
1 course
310A: Film and Media Theory
Professor: Jordan Sjol
A topics course that explores particular forms and genres in writing for the screen. Topics may include television writing, web series writing, writing across genres, adaptation, or writing the short film script. Students will analyze genre-specific models, learn genre-specific terminology, formatting, structure, and practices, and produce their own original scripts through a scaffolded workshop process. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or ENG 149 or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit with a different topic. (Cross-listed with ENG 343 and COMM 319.)
FLME 195 or ENG 149 or permission of instructor
1 course
311A: Tps:Writing for Stage, Screen & TV
Professor: Ronald Dye
Offers students the opportunity to delve deeply into a specific area within the critical study of film, television, and/or new media, and to develop research skills necessary for original scholarly inquiry. Topics may range across different critical, theoretical, and historical concerns. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
321A: AdvTps:Global Media
Professor: Seth Friedman
321B: AdvTps:Global Media
Professor: Seth Friedman
321C: AdvTps:Horror and Speculative Films from the Black Diaspora
Professor: Karin Wimbley
This course explores horror and speculative films emerging from black filmmaking traditions across the globe. Specifically, we will track how Black filmmakers use horror and speculative films to explore the lived experiences of African and African-descended people, critique systems of wealth and power, ponder the meaning of life and death, and complicate static notions of what it means to be black in the world. Course films include (but are not limited to) Mati Diop's Atlantics (Senegal, 2019), Mbithi Masya's Kati Kati (Kenya/Germany, 2016), Jean Luc Herbulot's Saloum (Senegal, 2021), Nia DaCosta, Candyman (US, 2021), and Jordan Peele's Get Out (US, 2017).
An introduction to the fundamentals of screenwriting, in theory and in practice. Students will explore story, character, dialogue, and structure as relates to writing for film; learn the screenplay format; and participate in writing workshop and discussion. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or ENG 149 or permission of instructor. (Cross-listed with ENG 342)
FLME 195 or ENG 149 or permission of instructor
1 course
322A: Screenwriting
Professor: Jordan Sjol
An advanced topics course that engages students in specific aspects or modes of digital film production. Courses may focus on honing such skills as digital film editing, cinematography, or directing for the camera or in creating content within a particular storytelling medium. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit with a different topic.
FLME 195 or permission of instructor
1 course
This course examines the operations and logics of contemporary media industries, primarily in a U.S. context but understanding that media industries are increasingly intertwined on a global scale. The course will pay particular attention to the historical structure and regulations of media industries, and their impacts on creative work.
Arts and Humanities
1 course
An intensive production course in which students work with various short filmmaking modes which can include narrative, documentary, experimental, and/or animation. Students learn the overall filmmaking process from pre-production to post-production, including scriptwriting, sound design, cinematography, and editing. The main goal of the course is to learn cooperation and deliver individuals' unique perspectives and ideas on the screen through image and sound. Students will participate in short team projects with specific topics and make their own final film based on their interests in themes and formats. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or permission of instructor.
Arts and Humanities
FLME 195 or permission of instructor
1 course
A production course to explore various techniques and styles in documentary filmmaking. This course aims to help students practice ethical approaches to filmmaking and understand themselves, their community, and the world more deeply. Students will practice working with non-professional actors and develop the aesthetics of visual storytelling in the documentary filmmaking process. Collaboration is encouraged, and every student will participate in at least two short documentary projects. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or permission of instructor.
Arts and Humanities
FLME 195 or permission of instructor
1 course
365A: Documentary Filmmaking (Production)
Professor: Dahee Yun
In this production course students and professor collectively explore possible definitions, methods, approaches, production models, interventions, histories, and potential futures of feminist filmmaking. Experimentation, formal innovation, DIY activism, and collaboration will be encouraged. Ultimately, this class is an invitation for students to consider new conditions of possibility for making the culture they want to live in, and to discover and develop their unique voice through a fresh process of creation. Prerequisite: FLME 195 or permission of instructor.
Arts and Humanities
FLME 195 or permission of instructor
1 course
Independent project under tutorial supervision designed for juniors and seniors wishing to work in depth on a particular aspect of film and/or other media.
1/4-1/2-1 course
420A: Ind Study:Color Grading
Professor: Dahee Yun
The two-semester Senior Capstone Experience is the culmination of the Film and Media Arts major in which students create a final project of significant length and complexity, spanning fall and spring semester of their senior year. Whether the final project is a scholarly thesis paper of significant length and scope or a creative/production-oriented venture (such as a feature-length screenplay, short film, or other moving-image media project), the capstone project requires extensive planning, organization, and dedication, along with the ability to meet deadlines and work closely with a faculty advisor/instructor. To this end, the Film and Media Arts Senior Project Prep (FLME 429) is a .25-credit fall prelude to the Film and Media arts Senior Seminar (FLME 430), in which students submit project proposals for approval, and then complete additional preparatory work, including research, outlining, and/or preliminary pre-production. This provides a solid base from which to begin the second, full (1) credit semester seminar.
1/4 course
429A: Senior Capstone Project Prep
Professor: Jordan Sjol
This course is the culmination of FLME 429. In this seminar-style course, students are immersed in the progressive filmmaking phases of pre-production/production/post-production (if making a short film or other moving-image media project), or intensive writing and revision (if creating a feature-length screenplay, teleplay or scholarly paper). At the year's end, students present their work to an audience. Prerequisite: FLME 429.
FLME 429
1 course
430A: SeniorCapstoneProjectSeminar
Professor: Jordan Sjol,
J. Nichols-Pethick
Leveraging the resources of the Creative School, the film and media arts major at DePauw is an interdisciplinary program that integrates the expertise of multiple departments to develop the knowledge and skills needed to excel in a rapidly changing world.
