I’m excited this Jan term module for an elective that departs from my business administration major: FILM 170, or Fundamentals of Film, my first class ever about movies.
I haven’t taken too many creative classes as electives because I see myself more as an analytical person. However, I do love to watch movies, and this course teaches students how to analyze films and the role of shots, angles, lighting, and sound (just to name a few examples) in the cinematic experience. I am looking forward to this class deepening my movie watching experience so I can learn to appreciate films more.
Each semester Professor Patti McCarthy chooses a theme for the course, so the material is not too generalized. For this semester she chose “The Uncanny,” meaning something that’s strangely familiar and eerie. I am personally a fan of comedy movies and have only watched a few scary movies in my life, so to watch films within this genre is also something new for me and I am very excited for the movies she has chosen. Some of the movies we will be watching are The Shining, Sixth Sense, Dracula, Underworld, Sleepy Hollow, and Silence of the Lambs.
I also enjoy the course work around the films because it is not necessarily right or wrong answers, it is our own interpretation of the videos/movies that we view. We all perceive things differently, so when we all respond to the discussion forums for the assigned video, I like to read what other people think of the movie and find it interesting to see how we view the same video completely differently.
I hope to learn about the different techniques used in the film-making process and use this information when watching movies in the future.
