Course Instructor: Dr Robert Hyland - hylandr@queensu.ca
In Summary:
Introduction to tools and methods of visual and aural analysis and to historical and social methods, with examples primarily from the history of cinema and other moving-image media to 1970.
Course Highlights: 
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We are constantly bombarded with images, text and video. This course will build the foundations of media literacy - a fundamental skill for negotiating the media-saturated world in which we live.
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Students will look at the history and development of moving pictures to understand and appreciate how we got to this point.
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Explore how influential filmmakers from around the world have advanced the techniques of editing, framing and storytelling.
Course Information
In this course, films will be analyzed as a primarily visual medium. The cinematic image has the power to move and the power to provoke emotions. Historically, cinema has also reflected the worldviews and outlooks of different generations. The visual image can be a statement on life and can also precipitate changes in social and political ideologies. But how has cinema evolved to transmit messages through image based means? By looking at significant films from different periods of cinema and global history and by reading thoughts and arguments about how cinema can most effectively create and control meaning, students will learn how cinema itself is a form of language, and students will learn how to critique and write about important elements of the poetics of cinema.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will learn a history of cinema, but will also learn the language of cinema, develop how to detail cinematic moments in writing, how to express historical contextual detail and apply that contextual knowledge to an argument on theoretical issues of cinema.
Experiential and Active Learning Opportunities:
Examples of previous EAL opportunities for this course include a visit to the 'Bond in Motion' exhibition at the London Film Museum, a study of Japanese Anime, and submitting video shorts* to at the Crossing the Screen International Film Festival in Eastbourne. * Students from Bader College won the prize for best student short with Dragoon - a film about inclusion and diversity.
Prerequisites and Exclusions:
Prerequisite None.
Course applicable to the following Majors/Medials/Minors:
COFI (core)*FILM104 + BADR100 / FILM (core)* FILM104 + BADR100 / STSC (core) *FILM104 + BADR100
