2023-2024 Course Catalog
Welcome to Virginia Tech! We are excited that you are here planning your time as a Hokie.
Welcome to Virginia Tech! We are excited that you are here planning your time as a Hokie.
Introduction to cinema as a medium for artistic communication. Interpretation and analysis of films to understand designs, ideas and values in artistic and cultural contexts. Basic elements of cinema structure and cinema terminology, phases of cinema production, cinema style of individual directors, creative work of cinematography, production design, and editing, ideological and social meaning in cinema, demographics of visual representation, cinemas economic marketplace. Ethical values and conflicts as found in given films, and ethical reasoning as part of the analysis of cinema.
Introductory filmmaking course. Thematic conception and story construction, writing, producing, directing, cinematography, sound recording, and editing.
Rotating topics in cinema production. Designed for majors in the Department of Theatre and Cinema who have foundational training in areas of cinema production. May be repeated for credit with different course content up to a maximum of nine credit hours.
Intermediate-level fiction film production course. Foundational cinema production skills, dramatic storytelling techniques, intermediate directing, team- based ownership and responsibility, and project management.
Intermediate-level, non-fiction, film production course for students seeking non-fiction documentary film production skills and experience. Emphasizes the application and advancement of foundational skills, the ethics of documentary filmmaking, story development and project management.
Explores race and representations of African American images in film, from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Focuses on the social, political, economic, and historical milieu in which black film emerged and evolved. Examines gender issues in filmmaking. Reviews different genres, including race films, colorblind representations, and black exploitation films, and the appropriation of black representation and black images in film in the United States and elsewhere. Includes methods of film analysis, such as historical, master narrative structure, and archival research.
Close visual and cultural study of classic film genres with emphasis on cinematic styles and narrative conventions which unify the genre and which are found in representative films; exploration of genre films as symbols of American culture and society. Specific thematic content is variable. Course may be repeated with different course content for up to 9 credits.
Close thematic and visual analysis of the films of prominent cinema directors; emphasis on cinematic structure and development and evolution of their work. Specific thematic content is variable. Course may be repeated with different course content for up to 9 credits.
Close visual and cultural study of the avant-garde and experimental tradition in the first half-century of American and European cinemas; emphasis on interrelations of cinema with avant-garde movements in other arts, including literature, music, dance, theatre, painting, and photography
Works of literature and the films into which they have been transformed; emphasis on differences between media.
Aesthetic, economic, social and technological history of world cinema; film theory as it relates to the history of cinema. Junior standing required.
Critical issues in cinema. Aesthetic, social, political, and economic contexts for films that embody or critique assumptions of historical periods. Analysis of ethnocentric and cultural biases in cinema. Identifying issues of identity and equity in films. Theories and ethics of representation. May be repeated 2 times with different content for a maximum of 9 credits.
Close visual and cultural study of underground cinema and culture from the 1940s through the 1970s; emphasizes the interrelations of cinema with countercultural movements in other arts, including literature, music, dance, theatre, painting, and photography; focuses on the post-war avant-garde, the emergence of film societies, the neorealist and new wave cinemas, challenges to censorship laws, and the emergence of cult and midnight movies.
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