Film & Media Studies

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The student is expected to understand the functions and processes of transformations within the media industries and the innovations connected to new digital technologies applied to creative industries.

The digital revolution has fundamentally reshaped our world, transforming how we create, distribute, and consume everything from news and entertainment to social connections. This course is an in-depth exploration of the economic principles and models that govern this new landscape. The course is focused on two of the most important media industries, music and video. Each of them is introduced and analyzed in the value chain, all the relevant typologies of players, and how the technological evolution and the changes in consumer habits are influencing the markets’ dynamics and their structure.

This course explores various facets of modern Japanese society and culture, including family, education, gender, work, and life cycle through readings and (feature) films. The course considers the relationship between cinema and society, critically analyzing a body of film texts from the contexts of their production and reception, and considers what one can -- and how one can -- learn about any society through its feature films. Each semester focuses on different themes. 

Media management is a basic course in the School of Journalism. Through the study and discussion of this course, students will understand that media not only concerns content production, but also is an important commercial organization that needs to continuously generate profits to maintain the large-scale operation of the media. Media organizations are complex systems that require effective internal and external management as well as the establishment of a sound profit model. In today's Internet era, media organizations are undergoing a huge transformation, and the course needs to keep pace with the times and adapt to the changes of the era.

This course presents a history of music in film by examining the development of key trends and significant composers from the "silent" era to the present day. It considers the place of music, and the soundtrack more generally, in the film production process and in terms of the relationship between composer and director. A focus on Hollywood, with its proclivity for bespoke orchestral scores, are supplemented by investigating a range of other styles (e.g. pop, jazz, electronica) and international (primarily European) examples. It provides an overview of the field while alighting upon case studies, for which fundamental theoretical concepts are introduced. Major mainstream film composers are featured alongside more experimental recent practitioners and composers better known for their work in the concert hall.

The audio-visual essay (or video essay or videographic criticism of videographic film and moving image studies) is a prominent 21st Century methodology and form of pedagogy and research in film and media studies. With its roots in a variety of moving image practices, from video installation to fan vids, the audio-visual essay has emerged to occupy a range of forms (supercuts, desktop documentaries, deformative, poetic, explanatory, to name a few) and is produced by a range of practitioners in differing contexts. This course explores this variety while foregrounding what the audio-visual essay offers the film and media scholar, in both theory and practice. Students engage with key audio-visual essays and scholarship in the field as well as creating their own audio-visual work in a series of practice-based workshops. No prior experience with video editing or video essay making is necessary.

This course explores Italian cinema and the evolution of Italy’s film industry through the critical analysis of key genre categories and filmmaking modes (neorealism, auteur cinema, comedy, spaghetti western, the thriller, political film, migration cinema). These genre categories are represented by a series of films that span from the post-war period to today. Students are introduced to the critical concepts that underpin film analysis, while also developing a strong understanding of genre theory. Through close readings of individual films the course explores how genre categories and conventions can be used to discuss issues of social change and progress throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. In particular, it examines questions of national identity, gender representation and the reception of popular genres.

This course explores how creative advertising can be engaging, exhilarating, and even world changing. Combining conceptual thinking with practical approaches, students will focus on developing the creative dimensions for advertising campaigns related to contemporary problems ranging from low product awareness through to public social issues. Students will engage imaginatively with client briefs and develop advertising concepts all the while exploring the history of creative theory and practice, as well as the storytelling, art direction, copywriting, and pitching aspects of creative advertising.

The course follows the emergence of the modern media environment from the middle of the 19th century up to the 1940s. The thematic focus is on the interwoven development of various media, nations, and nationalisms. For example, telegraphy's infrastructures, the changes in the late 19th century press, how the newspaper staff were transformed from litterateurs to journalists, advertising and consumption in mass society, how sound media such as the radio, the telephone and the phonograph were developed from public to private listening, early film and media, and propaganda during the two world wars are examined.

The role of media in shaping everyday life is paramount, and understanding it requires consideration of historical, political, economic, and other factors. This course explores the various ways people consume media content in their daily lives, seeking to understand the influence of media on society and culture. It also provides a historical perspective on how media became a crucial component of the human condition. 

This course examines the basics of making music for film and animation. Aspects of the function and crafting of music in film and animation including film scoring and the music dramatic narrative will be explored.