Film & Media Studies

This course provides an introduction to script writing including an understanding of the process and challenges involved in finding creative ideas and developing them, as well as developing story structure, acts, plot points, and character arcs. It discusses traditions in the schools of scriptwriting and the scriptwriter's toolbox. Students learn how to analyze professional scripts and how to pitch ideas. Students are expected to have completed previous coursework in film/media studies.

In this course students will study the aesthetic and political aims of South Korean cinema since 1960. By analyzing individual films, considering historical contexts, and reading texts in film theory, we will attempt to understand how cinema proposes new ways of being and relating to others within the context of a rapidly globalizing Korea. Filmmakers to be discussed may include Kim Ki-young, Im Kwon-taek, Park Kwang-su, Hong Sang-soo, Bong Joon-ho, Jeong Jae-eun, Park Chan-wook, and others. Issues to be covered include: the ethics of neoliberal capitalism, the spectacle of cinematic violence, morality and film genre, and the critique of melodrama. Assessment: Quiz(20%), Midterm (30%), Final(50%)

This course provides a general overview of the history of cinema and the various perspectives through which it can be seen. Spanning from the 1890s to the 2000s, the course covers a wide variety of eras by focusing on specific films that each represent the time in which they were filmed.

This course introduces contemporary film and television criticism through lectures, film screenings, and discussion.

The course discusses the role of cultural policy in the age of platform giants and how the digital media ecology of major platforms creates inter-dependencies with other platforms, established cultural institutions, legacy media, public service institutions, digital creators, and users. The course begins with a discussion on the platform society and how the notion of digital cultural politics relates to cultural, media, and communication policy, as well as the internet and cultural industries. It lays the foundations from the perspective of dominant platforms and platform providers, with a specific focus on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube. The second part of the course looks at the inter-dependencies that these platforms generate between themselves and cultural institutions, analyzing cultural institution’s use of platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The third part of the course focuses on data politics, user rights ethics, and discrimination. The final part of the course is composed of a day-long workshop where students work on themes and topics of their own choice as part of their final project. This course is taken in conjunction with the course Cultural Policy – Theory, Method & Analysis (HMKK03611U), a compulsory but non-credit-bearing course that provides students with adequate tools to conduct research within the field of cultural policy, with an emphasis on the relationship between theoretical framework, methodological design, and analysis.