Cinema and Media Studies combines the critical study of film and media with hands-on media production. Our facilities include state-of-the-art equipment and resources. Students learn about animation, studio production and writing for the screen. Our courses examine everything from national cinema to Bergman and Hitchcock. From film noir to American independents, television to digital culture.
Requirements for the Cinema and Media Studies Major
Seventy-two credits are required for the major: forty-eight credits in core courses and twenty-four credits in elective courses. In the core curriculum, students are required to enroll in CAMS 110 and CAMS 111, two 200-level production courses (one of which must be CAMS 270 or CAMS 271), two 200-level film history courses (one of which must be CAMS 210, CAMS 211 or CAMS 214) and one 300-level theory seminar (CAMS 320, CAMS 330, CAMS 340). In addition to the core curriculum, students are required to enroll in four elective courses, choosing from courses taught departmentally as well as extra-departmentally, with a limit of two courses taught extra-departmentally counting towards elective credit for the major. In the senior-year comps project, students are asked to develop projects furthering their work in the curriculum.
Two 100-level Introductory Courses (12 credits):
Two 200-level Production Courses (12 credits) one of which must be CAMS 270 or CAMS 271:
- CAMS 222: Collaborative Narrative Filmmaking · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 245: The Essay Film · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 264: Story Development Workshop · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 265: Sound Design
- CAMS 270: Nonfiction
- CAMS 271: Fiction
- CAMS 272: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Narrative Short Film Production
- CAMS 273: Digital Editing Workshop · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 277: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: In the Writers’ Room
- CAMS 278: Writing for Television · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 279: Screenwriting · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 280: Advanced Screenwriting · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 288: Experimental Film & Video Production · not offered in 2024-25
Two 200-level Film History Courses (12 credits) one of which must be CAMS 210, CAMS 211 or CAMS 214.
- CAMS 210: Film History I
- CAMS 211: Film History II · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 214: Film History III
- CAMS 215: American Television History · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 246: Documentary Studies · not offered in 2024-25
One 300-level Seminar (6 credits).
- CAMS 320: Sound Studies Seminar · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 330: Cinema Studies Seminar
- CAMS 340: Television Studies Seminar · not offered in 2024-25
Four Elective Courses (24 credits). Credit for elective courses may be obtained by enrolling in any departmental or approved extra-departmental courses with the following stipulations:
a) Any CAMS course not fulfilling a core requirement can serve as an elective course for the CAMS major.
- CAMS 100: Rock ‘n’ Roll in Cinema
- CAMS 175: Studio Filmmaking · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 177: Television Studio Production · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 186: Film Genres
- CAMS 187: Cult Television and Fan Cultures
- CAMS 210: Film History I
- CAMS 211: Film History II · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 212: Contemporary Spanish Cinema
- CAMS 214: Film History III
- CAMS 215: American Television History · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 216: American Cinema of the 1970s · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 218: Contemporary Global Cinemas · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 219: African Cinema: A Quest for Identity and Self-Definition · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 222: Collaborative Narrative Filmmaking · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 225: Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 228: Avant-Garde and Experimental Cinema · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 229: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Experimental Los Angeles
- CAMS 230: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Iconic Los Angeles
- CAMS 231: Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: Korean Cinema · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 233: Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: K-Drama · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 236: Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema
- CAMS 240: Adaptation · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 245: The Essay Film · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 246: Documentary Studies · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 252: Media Archaeology: History and Theory of New Media · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 254: Cinematic Spectacle · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 257: Video Games and Identity · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 258: Feminist and Queer Film Theory
- CAMS 264: Story Development Workshop · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 265: Sound Design
- CAMS 270: Nonfiction
- CAMS 271: Fiction
- CAMS 272: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Narrative Short Film Production
- CAMS 273: Digital Editing Workshop · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 277: CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: In the Writers’ Room
- CAMS 278: Writing for Television · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 279: Screenwriting · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 280: Advanced Screenwriting · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 288: Experimental Film & Video Production · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 320: Sound Studies Seminar · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 330: Cinema Studies Seminar
- CAMS 340: Television Studies Seminar · not offered in 2024-25
- CAMS 370: Advanced Production Workshop I
- CAMS 371: Advanced Production Workshop II
b) A maximum of 12 credits in extra-departmental elective courses can count toward fulfillment of elective credit for the major.
- AMST 260: Sexuality in American Film since 1945 · not offered in 2024-25
- AMST 269: Woodstock Nation
- ARTH 171: History of Photography · not offered in 2024-25
- ARTH 172: Modern Art: 1890-1945
- ARTH 240: Art Since 1945
- ARTH 241: Contemporary Art for Artists · not offered in 2024-25
- ARTS 339: Advanced Photography
- CCST 245: Meaning and Power: Introduction to Analytical Approaches in the Humanities
- CHIN 239: Digital China: Media, Culture, and Society · not offered in 2024-25
- CHIN 240: Chinese Cinema in Translation
- CHIN 250: Chinese Popular Culture in Translation · not offered in 2024-25
- CHIN 348: Advanced Chinese: The Mass Media
- ENGL 245: Bollywood Nation
- ENGL 247: The American West · not offered in 2024-25
- ENGL 248: Visions of California · not offered in 2024-25
- ENGL 288: California Program: The Literature of California · not offered in 2024-25
- ENGL 362: Narrative Theory · not offered in 2024-25
- FREN 236: Francophone Cinema and the African Experience
- GERM 156: Introduction to German Cinema: Film, Nature, and Nation · not offered in 2024-25
- GWSS 398: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Popular Culture
- JAPN 231: Tradition and Modernity: Japanese Cinema in Translation · not offered in 2024-25
- JAPN 254: World of Japanese Manga in Translation · not offered in 2024-25
- MUSC 115: Listening to the Movies · not offered in 2024-25
- MUSC 123: The American Film Musical · not offered in 2024-25
- POSC 204: Media and Electoral Politics: 2024 United States Election
- POSC 214: Visual Representations of Political Thought and Action · not offered in 2024-25
- POSC 220: Politics and Political History in Film · not offered in 2024-25
- SPAN 244: Spain Today: Recent Changes through Narrative and Film · not offered in 2024-25
- SPAN 356: The Political and Cultural History of the Cuban Revolution · not offered in 2024-25
- THEA 320: Live Performance and Digital Media · not offered in 2024-25
Integrative Exercise CAMS 400 (6 credits)
Students proposing production projects for comps are strongly encouraged to apply to enroll in CAMS 370 Production Workshop I during the fall term of their senior year and are expected to enroll in CAMS 371 Production Workshop II and CAMS 400 during the winter term of their senior year. Students proposing writing projects for comps have the option to enroll in CAMS 400 in the fall or winter terms of their senior year.
Students considering a major in Cinema and Media Studies are encouraged to take CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies and CAMS 111 Digital Foundations by the end of their sophomore year and at least one 200-level film history course (CAMS 210 Film History I, CAMS 211 Film History II, or CAMS 214 Film History III), one 200-level production course (CAMS 270 Nonfiction or CAMS 271 Fiction), and the 300-level theory seminar (CAMS 320 Sound Studies Seminar or CAMS 330 Cinema Studies Seminar or CAMS 340 Television Studies Seminar) by the end of their junior year.
Cinema and Media Studies Courses
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CAMS 100 Rock ‘n’ Roll in Cinema
This course is designed to explore the intersection between rock music and cinema. Taking a historical view of the evolution of the "rock film," this class examines the impact of rock music on the structural and formal aspects of narrative, documentary, and experimental films and videos. The scope of the class will run from the earliest rock films of the mid-1950s through contemporary examples in ten weekly subunits.
- Fall 2024
- 6
- AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1 IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies
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Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
- Jay Beck 🏫 👤
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CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies
This course introduces students to the basic terms, concepts and methods used in cinema studies and helps build critical skills for analyzing films, technologies, industries, styles and genres, narrative strategies and ideologies. Students will develop skills in critical viewing and careful writing via assignments such as a short response essay, a plot segmentation, a shot breakdown, and various narrative and stylistic analysis papers. Classroom discussion focuses on applying critical concepts to a wide range of films. Requirements include two screenings per week.
- Winter 2025, Spring 2025
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
- Jay Beck 🏫 👤 · Carol Donelan 🏫 👤
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CAMS 111 Intro to Cinema & Media Production
This class introduces students to the full range of production tools and forms, building both the technical and conceptual skills needed to continue at more advanced levels. We will explore the aesthetics and mechanics of shooting digital video, the role of sound and how to record and mix it, field and studio production, lighting, and editing with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Course work will include individual and group production projects, readings, and writing. This is an essential foundation for anyone interested in moving-image production and learning the specifics of CAMS' studios, cameras, and lighting equipment.
- Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
- Catherine Licata 🏫 👤 · Cecilia Cornejo 🏫 👤 · Laska Jimsen 🏫 👤
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CAMS 175 Studio Filmmaking
This course will explore the techniques and formal filmmaking strategies that can be employed when working on a soundstage, as well as a grounding in the historical uses of studio filmmaking. Topics will include lighting, set design, blocking/performance, and cinematography with an eye towards how these tools can be deployed in a controlled environment. Students will gain an understanding of the technical and creative tools at their disposal in a studio setting, as well as the ways these tools may be applied for a broader filmmaking practice.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 177 Television Studio Production
In this hands-on studio television production course, students learn professional studio methods and techniques for creating both fiction and nonfiction television programs. Concepts include lighting and set design, blocking actors, directing cameras, composition, switching, sound recording and scripting. Students work in teams to produce four assignments, crewing for each other’s productions in front of and behind the camera, in the control room, and in post-production.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 186 Film Genres
In this course we survey four or more Hollywood film genres, including but not limited to the Western, musical, horror film, comedy, and science-fiction film. What criteria are used to place a film in a particular genre? What role do audiences and studios play in the creation and definition of film genres? Where do genres come from? How do genres change over time? What roles do genres play in the viewing experience? What are hybrid genres and subgenres? What can genres teach us about society? Assignments aim to develop skills in critical analysis, research and writing.
- Spring 2025
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
- Carol Donelan 🏫 👤
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CAMS 187 Cult Television and Fan Cultures
This course focuses on the history, production, and consumption of cult television. The beginning of the seminar will be focused on critically examining a number of theoretical approaches to the study of genre and fandom. Building on these approaches, the remainder of the course will focus on cult television case studies from the last eight decades. We will draw on recent scholarship to explore how cult television functions textually, industrially, and culturally. Additionally, we will study fan communities on the Internet and consider how fansites, webisodes, and sites like YouTube and Netflix transform television genres.
- Spring 2025
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
- Candace Moore 🏫 👤
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CAMS 210 Film History I
This course surveys the first half-century of cinema history, focusing on film structure and style as well as transformations in technology, industry and society. Topics include series photography, the nickelodeon boom, local movie-going, Italian super-spectacles, early African American cinema, women film pioneers, abstraction and surrealism, German Expressionism, Soviet silent cinema, Chaplin and Keaton, the advent of sound and color technologies, the Production Code, the American Studio System, Britain and early Hitchcock, Popular Front cinema in France, and early Japanese cinema. Assignments aim to develop skills in close analysis and working with primary sources in researching and writing film history.
- Fall 2024
- 6
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
- Carol Donelan 🏫 👤
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CAMS 211 Film History II
This course charts the continued rise and development of cinema 1948-1968, focusing on monuments of world cinema and their industrial, cultural, aesthetic and political contexts. Topics include postwar Hollywood, melodrama, authorship, film style, labor strikes, runaway production, censorship, communist paranoia and the blacklist, film noir, Italian neorealism, widescreen aesthetics, the French New Wave, art cinema, Fellini, Bergman, the Polish School, the Czech New Wave, Japanese and Indian cinema, political filmmaking in the Third World, and the New Hollywood Cinema. Requirements include class attendance and participation, readings, evening film screenings, and various written assignments and exams.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 212 Contemporary Spanish Cinema
This course serves as a historical and critical survey of Spanish cinema from the early 1970s to the present. Topics of study will include the redefinition of Spanish identity in the post-Franco era, the rewriting of national history through cinema, cinematic representations of gender and sexuality, emergent genres, regional cinemas and identities, stars and transnational film projects, and new Spanish auteurs from the 1980s to the present.
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CAMS 214 Film History III
This course is designed to introduce students to recent film history, 1970-present, and the multiple permutations of cinema around the globe. The course charts the development of national cinemas since the 1970s while considering the effects of media consolidation and digital convergence. Moreover, the course examines how global cinemas have reacted to and dealt with the formal influence and economic domination of Hollywood on international audiences. Class lectures, screenings, and discussions will consider how cinema has changed from a primarily national phenomenon to a transnational form in the twenty-first century.
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CAMS 215 American Television History
This course offers a historical survey of American television from the late 1940s to today, focusing on early television and the classical network era. Taking a cultural approach to the subject, this course examines shifts in television portrayals, genres, narrative structures, and aesthetics in relation to social and cultural trends as well as changing industrial practices. Reading television programs from the past eight decades critically, we interrogate various representations of consumerism, class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, lifestyle, and nation in the smaller screen while also tracing issues surrounding broadcasting policy, censorship, sponsorship, business, and programming.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 216 American Cinema of the 1970s
American cinema from 1967-1979 saw the reconfiguration of outdated modes of representation in the wake of the Hollywood studio system and an alignment of new aesthetic forms with radical political and social perspectives. This course examines the film industry’s identity crisis through the cultural, stylistic, and technological changes that accompanied the era. The course seeks to demonstrate that these changes in cinematic practices reflected an agenda of revitalizing American cinema as a site for social commentary and cultural change.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 218 Contemporary Global Cinemas
This course is designed as a critical study of global filmmakers and the issues surrounding cinema and its circulation in the twenty-first century. The class will emphasize the close reading of films to study different cultural discourses, cinematic styles, genres, and reception. It will look at national, transnational, and diasporic-exilic cinema to consider how films express both cultural forms and contexts. Aesthetic, social, political, and industrial issues also will be examined each week to provide different approaches for cinematic analysis.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 219 African Cinema: A Quest for Identity and Self-Definition
Born as a response to the colonial gaze and discourse, African cinema has been a deliberate effort to affirm and express an African personality and consciousness. Focusing on the film production from West and Southern Africa since the early fifties, this course will entail a discussion of major themes such as colonialism, nationalism and independence, and the analysis of African symbolisms, world-views, and their links to narrative techniques. In this overview, particular attention will be given to the films of Ousmane Sembène, Souleymane Cissé, Mweze Ngangura, Zola Maseko, Oliver Schmitz, Abderrahmane Sissako and many others.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 222 Collaborative Narrative Filmmaking
Narrative films are the product of many specialized artists working in concert toward a shared artistic vision. In this course, students will explore the essential crew roles on narrative films and choose an area in which they would like to specialize during the making of a collaborative project. Through the term, we will move through film development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution with each student taking on a specific role in a group project. The term culminates in the exhibition of films that were made over the previous 10 weeks.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 225 Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream
After Americans grasped the enormity of the Depression and World War II, the glossy fantasies of 1930s cinema seemed hollow indeed. During the 1940s, the movies, our true national pastime, took a nosedive into pessimism. The result? A collection of exceptional films populated with tough guys and dangerous women lurking in the shadows of nasty urban landscapes. This course focuses on classic American noir as well as neo-noir from a variety of perspectives, including mode and genre, visual style and narrative structure, postwar culture and politics, and race, gender, and sexuality. Requirements include two screenings per week and several short papers.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 228 Avant-Garde and Experimental Cinema
This course examines the history and theory of avant-garde and experimental cinema practices from the 1920s to the present, focusing upon radical innovations in style and technique. The course places particular emphasis on the social and historical contexts that have shaped alternative and underground film movements. Attention will be paid not only to the influence of parallel modern art movements, but the ways in which filmmakers have challenged conventional means of production, exhibition, and distribution. Topics include city symphonies, abstraction, found footage, seriality, Surrealism, psychedelia, experimental documentaries, video art, essay films, feminist critiques, and the transition from analogue to digital. Requirements include class attendance and participation, readings, evening film screenings, and various written assignments.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 229 CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Experimental Los Angeles
Los Angeles is well known as the center of the film and television industry. This course will explore the lesser-know experimental and avant-garde cinematic histories and current practices in Los Angeles through readings and screenings. Site visits will include filmmaker and media artist studios, archives, and film festivals. Students will reflect on their experiences with course materials through short writings and creative projects.
- Spring 2025
- 3
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Acceptance into the Carleton OCS CAMS Production in Los Angeles program.
- Laska Jimsen 🏫 👤 · Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 230 CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Iconic Los Angeles
This course explores the second largest city in the United States through its relationship to cinema history. In its complexities and contradictions, romantic notions of “Tinsel Town” coexist with the realities of a multicultural metropolis. Readings, screenings, and field trips will contextualize Los Angeles as a place where the built environment and natural world collide, as well as the center of the American entertainment industry. Short writings will give students the necessary opportunity to reflect and synthesize their experiences.
- Spring 2025
- 3
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with a grade of C- or better AND acceptance into the Carleton OCS CAMS Production – Los Angeles Program.
- Laska Jimsen 🏫 👤 · Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 231 Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: Korean Cinema
In recent decades, Korean cinema has emerged from the shadow of Japanese and Hong Kong cinema to become a globally significant and influential force. In this class students will study the history and aesthetics of Korean cinema, its global circulation, and its place in the imagining, representation and critique of Korean identity.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 3
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Film, Literature and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul program.
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CAMS 233 Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: K-Drama
The mass appeal of Korean television dramas, or K-Drama, now radiates well beyond the borders of the Korean peninsula. Korean dramas are among the most popular offerings on streaming networks around the world. In this class students will learn about the history, social contexts and major genres of these forms of popular culture and the interplay of their popularity in Korea and beyond.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 3
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Film, Literature and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul program.
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CAMS 236 Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema
This course will introduce students to the global kaleidoscope that is Israeli society today. Since the 1980s the Israeli public has increasingly engaged with its multicultural character, particularly through films and documentaries that broaden national conversation. Our approach to exploring the emerging reflection of Israel's diversity in its cinema will be thematic. We will study films that foreground religious-secular, Israeli-Palestinian, gender, sexual orientation, and family dynamics, as well as Western-Middle Eastern Jewish relations, foreign workers or refugees in Israel, army and society, and Holocaust memory. With critical insights from the professor's interviews with several directors and Israeli film scholars. Conducted in English, all films subtitled. Evening film screenings.
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CAMS 236F Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema – FLAC Hebrew Trailer
This course is a supplement in Hebrew for CAMS 236, Israeli Society in Israeli Cinema. Open to students currently in Hebrew 103 or higher, we will watch particular film clips from class without subtitles and discuss them in Hebrew. We will also read and discuss some critical reviews not available in English, and a sample of scholarly writing in Hebrew on Israeli film and social history.
- Winter 2025
- 2
- No Exploration
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): HEBR 102 – Elementary Modern Hebrew with a grade of C- or better.
- CAMS 236
- Stacy Beckwith 🏫 👤
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CAMS 240 Adaptation
Film adaptations of pre-existing texts (from songs to novels) have been around almost as long as cinema itself, and the percent of film adaptations continues to grow. (Of the top two-thousand movies over the last twenty years fifty-one percent were adaptations.) In this course we will take a chronological journey through the history of film adaptations in a variety of film cultures, considering along the way the processes involved in translating narratives from words to visual media, and how the cinematic has come to shape the literary (reverse adaptation). Discussions and assignments will aim at both analysis and practice.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 245 The Essay Film
This course explores a hybrid cinematic genre whose critical and creative energies spring from the collision of traditionally separated spheres: documentary and fiction, text and image, private and public, reason and intuition. We focus on the intersection where creative practice and intellectual inquiry meet through theoretical readings, film screenings, and the fulfillment of various production exercises aimed at the production of original film work. Screenings include works by Carmen Castillo, Chris Marker, Ignacio Agüero, Jem Cohen, Agnés Varda, Harun Farocki, Jonas Mekas, and other filmmakers who have explored this hybrid form.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 246 Documentary Studies
This course explores the relevance and influence of documentary films by closely examining the aesthetic concerns and ethical implications inherent in these productions. We study these works both as artistic undertakings and as documents produced within a specific time, culture, and ideology. Central to our understanding of the form are issues of technology, methodology, and ethics, which are examined thematically as well as chronologically. The course offers an overview of the major historical movements in documentary film along more recent works; it combines screenings, readings, and discussions with the goal of preparing students to both understand and analyze documentary films.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 252 Media Archaeology: History and Theory of New Media
This course offers a historical survey of developments in media technology from the nineteenth century to the present day. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which moving images, video games, computers, tape recorders, videocassettes, photography, the internet, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence have been instrumental in shaping human interaction and augmenting the senses. Individual units will examine how the origins of our contemporary media culture can be traced back to earlier—often obsolete—formats and technologies. Weekly screenings will demonstrate how filmmakers have grappled with the cultural and social impacts of emerging technologies. Requirements include attendance and participation, readings, and various written assignments.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 254 Cinematic Spectacle
This course traces developments in film technology from the nineteenth century to the present-day information age. Individual units will consider the ways in which technical and aesthetic innovations have further bolstered cinema’s status as a medium of mass entertainment. Particular attention will be given to immersive formats that have inaugurated seismic shifts in cinematic storytelling. Topics will include special effects, CinemaScope, Cinerama, Technicolor, World’s Fairs, theme parks, 3-D cinema, the emergence of the Hollywood blockbuster, IMAX, expanded cinema, digital cinematography, and computer-generated imagery. Requirements include attendance and participation, weekly screenings, readings, and various written assignments.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 257 Video Games and Identity
As video games have emerged as a dominant cultural form, they have become deeply intertwined with broader cultural debates around identity. By analyzing a variety of specific games as well as the industry that creates them and the communities who play them, we will think through topics such as liberal multiculturalism, neoliberal capitalism, feminism, queerness, ethical design, the military-entertainment complex, GamerGate, and discourses of political correctness. This course will avoid categorizing games as having “positive” or “negative” social effects and will instead focus on how video games function as a window into issues of identity in U.S. culture.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 258 Feminist and Queer Film Theory
The focus of this course is on spectatorship—feminist, lesbian, queer, transgender. The seminar interrogates arguments about representation and the viewer’s relationship to the moving image in terms of identification, desire, masquerade, fantasy, power, time, and embodied experience. The course first explores the founding essays of psychoanalytic feminist film theory, putting these ideas into dialogue with mainstream cinema. Second, we consider the aesthetic, narrative, and theoretical interventions posed by feminist filmmakers working in contradistinction to Hollywood. Third, “queering” contemporary media, we survey challenges and revisions to feminist film theory presented by considerations of race and ethnicity, transgender experience, and queerness.
- Winter 2025
- 6
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
- Candace Moore 🏫 👤
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CAMS 264 Story Development Workshop
This course explores the creative practice of developing stories for narrative films. Students will draw inspiration from a variety of sources that are personal, cultural, or observational, and in doing so, develop confidence in their own artistic practice and perspective. We will learn the fundamentals of dramatic tools, use these tools to make screen ideas evolve, consider audience reception, and practice giving and receiving constructive critique. By the end of term, students will have generated ideas for future production projects that reflect their thematic concerns, and have a fully developed outline for a project that may be realized in an upper level production course.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 265 Sound Design
This course examines the theories and techniques of sound design for film and video. Students will learn the basics of audio recording, sound editing and multi-track sound design specifically for the moving image. The goal of the course is a greater understanding of the practices and concepts associated with soundtrack development through projects using recording equipment and the digital audio workstation for editing and mixing.
- Spring 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with grade of C- or better.
- Jay Beck 🏫 👤
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CAMS 270 Nonfiction
This course addresses nonfiction media as both art form and historical practice by exploring the expressive, rhetorical, and political possibilities of nonfiction production. A focus on relationships between form and content and between makers, subjects, and viewers will inform our approach. Throughout the course we will pay special attention to the ethical concerns that arise from making media about others’ lives. We will engage with diverse modes of nonfiction production including essayistic, experimental, and participatory forms and create community videos in partnership with Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement and local organizations. The class culminates in the production of a significant independent nonfiction media project.
- Fall 2024
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with grade of C- or better.
- Laska Jimsen 🏫 👤
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CAMS 271 Fiction
Through a series of exercises, students will explore the fundamentals of making narrative films. Areas of focus in this course include visual storytelling and cinematography, working with actors, and story structure. Through readings, screenings, and writing exercises, we will analyze how mood, tone, and themes are constructed through formal techniques. Course work includes individual and group exercise, and culminates in individual short narrative projects.
- Winter 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations AND One additional CAMS course NOT including CAMS 111 with a grade of C- or better.
- Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 272 CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: Narrative Short Film Production
Narrative films are the product of many artists working in concert toward a shared artistic vision. In this course, students will explore the essential crew roles on narrative films and choose an area in which they would like to specialize during the making of a collaborative project in Los Angeles. In addition to a focus on story and directing actors, specialized equipment and craft labs will expand students' technical skills. Through the term, students will learn the ins-and-outs of filmmaking in Los Angeles while moving through production of a narrative short film, with each student taking on a specific crew position in a collaborative project.
- Spring 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Acceptance into the Carleton OCS CAMS Production in Los Angeles program.
- Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 273 Digital Editing Workshop
This course introduces students to the art of motion picture editing by combining theoretical and aesthetic study with hands-on work using the non-linear digital video editing software Adobe Premiere. We explore graphic, temporal, spatial, rhythmic and aural relationships in a variety of moving image forms including classical narrative continuity and documentary storytelling. Underscoring the strong links between concept, direction, shooting, and editing, this course examines the close ties between production and post-production. Through editing assignments and class critique, students develop expressive techniques and proficiency in basic video and sound editing and post-production workflow.
Not offered in 2024-25
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CAMS 277 CAMS Production in Los Angeles Program: In the Writers’ Room
In this course, students will explore the art and craft of writing for television as they learn, from writers' room insiders, how TV series are conceived and created. We'll break the writing process into a series of manageable steps, from pilot premise to polishing. Topics will include: story structure, character development, tone, stakes, theme, and more. In-class conversations with working, award-winning television writers, as well as visits to sets and show tapings, will complement the classroom curriculum.
- Spring 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with a grade of C- or better AND acceptance into the Carleton OCS CAMS Production – Los Angeles Program.
- Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 278 Writing for Television
TV is a very specific, time-driven medium. Using examples from scripts and DVDs, students will learn how to write for an existing TV show, keeping in mind character consistency, pacing, tone, and compelling storylines. Students will also get a taste of what it’s like to be part of a writing staff as the class itself creates an episode from scratch. Topics such as creating the TV pilot, marketing, agents, managers, and more will be discussed. Finally, general storytelling tools such as creating better dialogue, developing fully-rounded characters, making scene work more exciting, etc., will also be addressed.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 110 – Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies OR CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 279 Screenwriting
This course teaches students the fundamentals of screenwriting. Topics include understanding film structure, writing solid dialogue, creating dimensional characters, and establishing dramatic situations. Art, craft, theory, form, content, concept, genre, narrative strategies and storytelling tools are discussed. Students turn in weekly assignments, starting with short scenes and problems and then moving on to character work, synopses, outlines, pitches and more. The goal is for each student to write a 15 to 25 page script for a short film by the end of the term.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
-
Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 110 – Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies OR CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 280 Advanced Screenwriting
Topic: Advanced Writing for Television. This is an intensive writing practicum for motivated students to complete a well-structured original television pilot. The course will explore dramatic structure, character motivation and action, and the complex interplay between plot and character. Students will refine their tools for television writing as they develop and revise their pilot’s logline, tone, stakes, theme, and more. Over ten weeks students will move from concept to outline and then to a full draft of their original pilot. Weekly feedback provides students with an honest evaluation of their material in a dynamic and supportive environment.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
-
Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 264 – Story Development Workshop or CAMS 278 – Writing for Television or CAMS 279 – Screenwriting with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 288 Experimental Film & Video Production
Experimental Film & Video Production is a process-based production course focused on the conceptual and technical concerns of experimental film, video and other time-based arts. We will explore the personal, cultural, political, and formal/aesthetic aspects of experimental media through readings, writings, screenings and the production of experimental media projects. Key course concerns include medium specificity and relationships between sound and image, form and content, and theory and practice. We will consider “experimental” as a working practice rather than a genre–a way of testing hypotheses and a process of discovery.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
-
Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations AND One additional CAMS course NOT including CAMS 111 with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 320 Sound Studies Seminar
This course presents the broader field of Sound Studies, its debates and issues. Drawing on a diverse set of interdisciplinary perspectives, the seminar explores the range of academic work on sound to examine the relationship between sound and listening, sound and perception, sound and memory, and sound and modern thought. Topics addressed include but are not limited to sound technologies and industries, acoustic perception, sound and image relations, sound in media, philosophies of listening, sound semiotics, speech and communication, voice and subject formation, sound art, the social history of noise, and hearing cultures.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 110 – Intro to Cinema and Media Studies with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 330 Cinema Studies Seminar
The purpose of this seminar is guide students in developing and consolidating their conceptual understanding of theories central to the field of cinema studies. Emphasis is on close reading and discussion of classical and contemporary theories ranging from Eisenstein, Kracauer, Balazs, Bazin and Barthes to theories of authorship, genre and ideology and trends in contemporary theory influenced by psychoanalysis, phenomenology and cognitive studies.
- Fall 2024
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 110 – Intro to Cinema and Media Studies with a grade of C- or better.
- Carol Donelan 🏫 👤
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CAMS 340 Television Studies Seminar
This seminar aims to develop students into savvy critical theorists of television, knowledgeable about the field, and capable of challenging previous scholarship to invent new paradigms. The first half of the course surveys texts foundational to television studies while the second half focuses primarily on television theory and criticism produced over the last two decades. Television Studies covers a spectrum of approaches to thinking and writing critically about television, including: semiotics; ideological critique; cultural studies; genre and narrative theories; audience studies; production studies; and scholarship positioning post-network television within the contexts of media convergence and digital media.
Not offered in 2024-25
- 6
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
-
Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 110 – Intro to Cinema and Media Studies with a grade of C- or better.
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CAMS 370 Advanced Production Workshop I
In this course, students will develop a concept and complete pre-production for their CAMS production comps. Students will draw inspiration from a variety of sources that are personal, cultural, and observational, and in doing so, develop confidence in their own artistic practice and perspective. We will refine technical and formal strategies, consider audience reception, and practice giving and receiving constructive critique. Prior to registering for the course, students must submit a project proposal to the instructor. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the proposal. Note: This course is intended to prepare students for a Comps production project in winter term and it is the first in a two part sequence with CAMS 371. If you have any questions about enrolling in this course, please email the instructor.
- Fall 2024
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 111 – Digital Foundations AND either CAMS 270 – Nonfiction or CAMS 271 – Fiction with a grade of C- or better.
- Laska Jimsen 🏫 👤
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CAMS 371 Advanced Production Workshop II
Advanced Production Workshop II is taken in conjunction with CAMS 400 for students completing production comps. Production projects are inherently collaborative; this course supports collaboration through workshops, crewing, and informed critique. This course is the second in the advanced production workshop sequence with a focus on production and post-production. Please contact instructor for further information.
- Winter 2025
- 6
- ARP, Arts Practice
-
Student has completed any of the following course(s): CAMS 370 – Production Workshop I with a grade of C- or better.
- Catherine Licata 🏫 👤
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CAMS 400 Integrative Exercise