Film & Media Studies

This course presents the different theories of cinema that have emerged since 1945. It involves tracing the history of a field where theories, critiques, and practices have constantly influenced each other. Doing film studies does not only mean choosing cinema as an object, but also knowing the history of thought on cinema, in order to be able to grasp contemporary debates on the practice of moving images. This course explores the history of cinema theories of André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Pier Paolo Passolini, Gilles Deleuze, Christian Metz, and Raymond Bellour as well as more recent cinema theories such as feminist perspectives applied to cinema (Laura Mulvey), figural studies (Nicole Brenez),  perspectives interested in the transition to digital (Àngel Quintana), and new practices of images (Jean-Louis Comolli). The course presents film theories through a study of founding texts and a comparison with film extracts. It discusses these theoretical texts with regard to extracts, in order to exercise and refine their analytical skills with the specific notions and concepts of cinema theory.

This course examines Japanese culture, language, and way of thinking through current Japanese pop culture (movies, manga, and music) to gain a deeper understanding of “Modern Japan.”  Each class will divide international students and local students in pairs so they can discuss topics in Japanese and English effectively.

Prerequisite: International students must have completed at least one semester of college-level Japanese to enroll in this course. Japanese students should be able to express themselves in clear Japanese or English, ideally those interested in Japanese language teaching.

The course looks at world cinema's origins and some of its more celebrated manifestations from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, paying particular attention to the circulation of world cinema in the era of globalization. As world cinema is marketed and consumed as a hybrid form, a fusion of the national and the international, the local and the global, students consider how, for example, China's Fifth Generation and the New Iranian cinemas of the 1980s and 1990s explored ethnically specific cultures in ways that made them (and their makers) exportable and desirable abroad. 

This course surveys the history of British cinema across six decades, from the medium's origins in the 1890s to the end of the 1950s. Students will examine a wide variety of British films and genres from this period and learn to identify major trends and moments in the history of British film production, distribution, and exhibition, while investigating the ties between British cinema and Empire history. It encourages students to read such history within the broader context of the cultural debates and institutions (such as the British Film Institute) that have helped define British national cinema in this period. 

This course examines the complex articulation between cinema and country of origin in a historical perspective. It questions to what extent these country-specific categories (e.g. Italian cinema, French cinema, German cinema) not only express national specificities but also construct them. It does so in particular from the stereotypes conveyed or constructed by the films of a given period or even a given gender; stereotypes that other films can, on the contrary, attach to or have fun deconstructing. The course uses examples from French, Italian, American, and German films.

This course examines the use of digital editing for film and video projects. It covers the use of software programs such as Adobe Creative Suite to explain how to edit video files into a project and how moving images can be transformed over time in combination with text, masks, filters, effects and sound. Students will learn how to edit and master in Adobe Premiere Pro through an intensive series of tutorials film/video screenings and practical studio workshops. This will culminate in the production of a studio project.

This course explores television programming in relation to its production and cultural contexts, initially by comparing the vision and practice of early British television (in the so-called Golden Age of the 1950s/60s) with the present complexities of the international television industry and contemporary consumer culture. Students also consider how commissioning decisions are made, and how notions of "quality" and expectations of public service shift in an increasingly plural environment that includes non-broadcast provision of television programming. Lectures and seminars are supplemented by screenings of a range of programs that may be seen to reflect the broader contextual changes of industry, markets, and the public sphere. Students deepen their understanding of practical creative decision making at various levels of the broadcasting industry by researching broadcaster requirements and working on commercially viable group TV program proposals to be presented/submitted at the end of the course.

This course explores the ways in which Singapore films constitute a national cinema by considering the history and development of local film production as well as closely examining how individual films perform and engage the notion of a Singapore identity. Through a group creative project, students are challenged to make their own Singapore film that involves the practical application of critical ideas and enables students to participate in the ways that a national cinema performs and functions. The films studied may involve mature content and have varied film ratings.