Teaching an Introductory Cinema Class to Production-Oriented Students

The Film and Video Department at Columbia College (Chicago), where I teach, has a very strong production-oriented curriculum. We offer state-of-the-art technology in courses such as Film Production (16mm and digital post), Nonlinear Editing (Adobe Premiere and Avid), and Sound Design (Pro-Tools). Many students come to our school expecting to become producers, directors, editors, gaffers, sound engineers, or animators. Although our department's main focus is production, we want our students to be well versed in film history, aesthetics, and criticism. Hence, our challenge is to create an environment that links the theoretical with the practical. ¹ This article focuses on how we try to accomplish this in our introductory critical studies course, the Aesthetics of Cinema.

The class is designed to introduce the basic principles of and perspectives on film and video art and to present concepts of "film language." One of the primary goals of the course is to provide students with a broad perspective on the conceptual tools they need to create or appreciate media. This class is designed to guide and encourage students to watch films not only as spectators but also as developing artists.

Our approach to teaching this course is to speak directly to the students as developing filmmakers or craftspeople. Assigned papers and quizzes ask students not only to analyze filmmaking techniques but also to think about how they might apply those techniques to their own creative work. For example, the final paper requires students to pick a movie that has been an artistic and/or professional inspiration to them. They then perform a formal analysis of the film's cinematography, editing, or sound in which they demonstrate how that element functions in a pattern to portray a character, tell the story, create a mood, or explore an issue. Once they have identified this pattern, they are asked to discuss how they might incorporate a similar structural design into their own filmmaking endeavors. Another example is the essay question which asks students to classify the conventions associated with the various modes of filmmaking practice: narrative, documentary, experimental, and mixed modes. They then discuss which mode they want to explore in their own films.

We start the class by discussing why we tell stories and explore why the students chose the medium of film to tell their tales. Personal vision and character-driven stories are the cornerstones of our department. The Aesthetics of Cinema course is therefore the conceptual cornerstone for future production classes.

We continually point out connections between this course and the other departmental offerings. For instance, in the class session on mise-en-scène, the instructor might briefly discuss a course such as Image Design, in which students devote their attention to specific issues in composition. Likewise, the introductory class module on editing can lead to an overview of the courses in the editing concentration.

We have also structured our Aesthetics of Cinema class to correspond with Idea Development, another course taken early in our core curriculum. Idea Development is a creative workshop in which students generate a number of viable concepts and story ideas that they can use in their production classes.

The link between these two courses is particularly evident when genre is covered in Aesthetics of Cinema. During the same week, the topic in the Idea Development class is "Myth and Legends: Retold." In the Idea Development course, students are asked to select a fable, myth, legend, folk tale, or parable and use it as the basis of a narrative treatment, updating it for a modern audience. The students' understanding of genre should be deepened by reworking the tale in the Idea Development class and by experiencing the varied approaches their classmates bring to their treatments. The instructors of both courses make reference to the related work the students are doing in the other class.

Another topic that is covered in both courses is the notion of "personal vision." We do not...