Introduction To Film And Media Studies (FMST 01) Syllabus

Introduction To Film And Media Studies course description: The invention of cinema at the end of the 19th century and the rapid developments of digital technologies most noticeable in our increased use of social networking tools on mini-screens mark a period in which communications technology shaped and shape our world and moving images evolved from the photographic to the digital. This course explores the specificity, history, and function of media forms, focusing on the language of cinema and the critical repertoire of film/media theories. As an art, a text, a technology, a commercial product, a psychological experience, and a social practice, cinema presents fascinating contradictions for study. This lecture/discussion course, intended as a general introduction and as the first credit towards a minor or a major in Film and Media Studies, has two basic goals. First, it will develop skills in film analysis. You will become fluent in the vocabulary of film form and learn to construct an argument about what a film\u27s sounds and images mean and how it structures and achieves its meanings. Second, it will provide an introduction to the theories, methods, and concerns of film and media studies as a discipline, preparing you for further work in the field. The course will emphasize specific aspects of film style and narrative form through analysis of scenes from the films screened each week and from a range of outside examples. Each week will introduce historical, cultural and theoretical topics relevant to the films shown while focusing on the films\u27 self-reflexivity of their medium, and considering the politics of image-making from the postwar period to today

The Cosmological Liveliness of Terril Calder\u27s The Lodge: Animating Our Relations and Unsettling Our Cinematic Spaces

I first saw Métis artist Terril Calder\u27s 2014 stop-frame feature, The Lodge, an independently made, relatively small- budget film, at its premiere at the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts festival, held annually in Toronto, Canada. The feature-length animation played to a full house at the Light-box Theater downtown. Many were there to attend the five-day festival, which is dedicated to Indigenous media made by and for Indigenous people. Others were there because as members of Toronto\u27s general public they wanted to catch a movie during a night out in the city. Since then The Lodge has shown at various other independent venues. It isn\u27t what you might think of as commercial fare. Its audiences are not huge. However, for those who do view The Lodge, the film presents a creative space to rethink our sense of boundaries in a number of ways: boundaries between human/nonhuman, white/Indigenous, male/female, spectator/film-object. In this essay, I argue that the film is thus an invitation to question the naturalness of hegemonic identity assumptions that demarcate such boundaries. I interviewed Calder (via Skype and subsequent email correspondence) soon after I saw the film, and I situate a close textual analysis of the film within the context of her intent and the burgeoning scholarly dialogue between Indigenous studies and ecocritical studies. The scholarly dialogue, as Joni Adamson and I write in the introduction to our recent anthology, Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (2016), argues for clear sighted understandings of multi-faceted human/more-than-human relationships that exist outside of binaries imposed by Western notions of progress . Similarly, Steven Loft, coeditor of Coded Territories: Tracing Indigenous Pathways in New Media Art, writes of an Indigenous media cosmology that is replete with life and spirit, inclusive of beings, thought, prophecy, and the underlying connectedness of all things and that is not predicated on Western foundations of thought (xvi). Calder extends such Indigenous worldviews of connectedness to cinema and animation in particular

Assessing Creative Media's Social Impact

Examines case studies of documentary film as a means of outreach and community engagement in the age of social media. Offers a model for assessing impact based on quality and ability to enhance awareness, engagement, and social movement and effect change

How are film endings shaped by their socio-historical context? Part 2

This article explores the aspect of filmic narratolgy that has been neglected for a long time in cinema and media studies: endings. Richard Neupert's The End - Narration and Closure in the Cinema (1995), a rare work on this topic, is examined, and its theory tested on Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), a film that does not easily fit Neupert's framework. This film has raised controversial views about whether it has an open or a closed ending. Trying to shade light on this debate Picnic at Hanging Rock is examined a second time by proposing a new model that relates the ending to the context the film was made in

MDOCS Poster-2016-02-25, ExploreMore

Exploremore: Media & Film Studies and MDOCS Thu February 25 MFS @ 5-6pm, TISCH 301 MDOCS @ 6-7pm, TISCH 301 Interested in a Media & Film Studies minor? Curious about documentary work and media production? Meet faculty & students in both programs to learn more

MDOCS Poster-2016-02-16, Ethics Bowl

The Ethics Bowl is soon to be a required seminar for students taking MDOCS and Media & Film Studies production courses. This training session tackled issues facing today\u27s non-fiction storytellers. The session included lectures by faculty members Scott Mulligan, Beck Krefting (Media & Film Studies), and Jordana Dym (MDOCS) providing tips followed by an activity in which attendees grappled with a real-world cases to discuss solutions. This event was hosted by Media & Film Studies and MDOCS

Indigenous Film Festivals as Eco-Testimonial Encounter: The 2011 Native Film + Video Festival

In struggles for political and cultural recognition many Indigenous groups employ visual media to make their concerns heard. Amongst these various channels for media activism are Indigenous film festivals which, in the words of festival coordinator Amalia Cόrdova, work to convey ‘a sense of solidarity with Indigenous struggles’. Cόrdova’s essay on Indigenous film festivals appears in the collection Film Festivals and Activism (2012). In the introduction to the collection co-editor Leshu Torchin writes about activist festivals as testimonial encounters or fields of witnessing where the films offer testimony and the audiences serve as witnessing publics, ‘viewers [who] take responsibility for what they have seen and become ready to respond’. To better understand how Indigenous film festivals embody these activist imperatives as eco-activism I consider the case of the 2011 Native American Film and Video Festival (NAFVF) with its special eco-themed focus Mother Earth in Crisis. In my analysis of NAFVF I consider both the testimonies of the films and the festival context in which they are placed; by doing so I add to the growing scholarship in ecocinema studies which within the last ten years has become a legitimate and crucial aspect of ecocriticism’s purview – though surprisingly, with little attention devoted to film festivals. Through this analysis, by articulating what I term the oblique testimony, I argue that Indigenous film festivals are often strongly reflective of the environmental concerns and hopes of Native peoples and suggest ecological engagements that place them in the terrain of environmental film festivals. [excerpt