Film & Media Culture

Courses & Requirements Faculty & Office Hours Hirschfield Film/Video Series Student Films & Awards Lists, Forms & Guidelines Resources & Tools for Students Study Abroad Junior Year in Hollywood or NYC Contact Us

The Program in Film and Media Culture is dedicated to the study of film and visual media as a vital aspect of a liberal arts education. Our students will study film and visual media as products with intrinsic significance as well as in relation to the cultures that produced them.

Our goals are to provide students with a broad historical and international background in film and visual media; to help students develop a familiarity with the formal properties of film and visual media; to help students develop critical and analytical tools for the study of film and visual media; to encourage students to ask meaningful questions of the film and visual media by seeing them as manifestations of culture in a historical context; and to provide the opportunity for students to produce media works similar to those under study.

Courses offered include introductory and advanced courses in video making, American film genres, courses in various national cinemas including French, Arabic, Chinese, German and Japanese, film history, film theory, digital imaging, introductory and advanced courses in screenwriting and courses on celebrated filmmakers, such as Alfred Hitchcock.

Screening facilities with 35mm, 16mm, and video projection are used nightly for public screenings. A number of classrooms are equipped for the careful study of film and video. Small viewing rooms are also provided for personal study. The Middlebury library contains numerous screenplays as well as a large collection of film and video works in VHS, laserdisk, and DVD formats. Included are six sound effect libraries with 80 individual CD's. Over 4,000 titles are available for classroom screening and individual study.

The Program offers students access to a sophisticated array of video production technology, including a video editing studio with four non-linear computer editing systems featuring Final Cut Pro editing sorfware. Students shoot with Sony Mini DV camcorders and have access to an inventory consisting of wired and wireless microphones, Glidecam camera stabilization systems, lighting kits, and other associated equiment.