Space is still available in a few Spring Term 2022 Cinema Studies courses! Read the course descriptions for more information, and check classes.uoregon.edu for updates on seat availability of these courses and others in the major.

CINE Majors: Please visit the course list page for the complete list of spring courses and how they satisfy the major.

CINE 198: Wrk Post-Production Workflow (1 credit)
Tuesday, 3/28-5/3, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructor: Kevin May

In this six-week workshop, for both beginners and more experienced editors, we will explore non-linear editing with a focus on Media Management and Workflow. We will examine strategies for media organization and selection, how to efficiently use the tools within the editing software, and methods to efficiently review and refine your work. We will primarily be working in Adobe Premiere, but we will also look at other NLEs such as Final Cut Pro X and Avid Media Composer. By the end of the workshop, with either tutorial media or your own, you will have created and refined a short edit highlighting what you’ve learned in the class. Learn more about CINE 198: Post-Production Workflow.

Note: Because this course has special meeting dates, regular academic deadlines do not apply. Please contact the academic department for more information.

CINE 410: Cinema Careers (4 Credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 10:00-11:20 a.m.
Instructor: TBA

This course bridges the gap between education and employment by helping students identify the various career paths possible with a Cinema Studies degree. Students will learn how to make informed decisions about internships, jobs, and/or graduate school while producing resumes, cover letters, and/or portfolios of their scholarly and creative work.

CINE 410: Cinematography History/Theory (4 Credits)
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor: Michael Aronson

Vittorio Storaro, one of history’s great cinematographers, once defined cinematography as ‘...writing with light in movement. Cinematographers,’ he went on to say, ‘are authors of photography, not directors of photography. We are not merely using technology to tell someone else’s though, because we are also using our own emotion, our culture, and our inner being.’ For Storaro and many others, cinematography is an expressive art. This admittedly romantic definition of cinematography, must be contextualized as it is, after all, an industrial craft, made within a system based on hierarchy, mass-production, and the commercial imperative. Keeping both sides of cinematography in mind, this course will explore the story of cinematography in American cinema, working out how a complex art and craft changed across the decades, from hand-cranked cameras to digital work flows. The course will be a bit of a theory & practice mashup, utilizing both historical research and aesthetic analysis, as well as some low-fi creative exercises and the occasional industry guest speaker on all things camera and lighting.

CINE 425: Topic Directing Actors for the Screen (4 Credits)
Fridays, 11:00 am – 2:20 pm
Instructor: Jan Elkington

This course explores the process of performance and directing actors for camera for narrative production. Through discussions, exercises, scene breakdown, and on-camera presentation of scenes, you will analyze and apply the directorial skills required to communicate effectively with actors and inspire amazing performances. Promotes the process of collaboration by both performers and directors.

CINE 440: Topic: Southeast Asian Cinema >GP >IC (4 credits)
Monday/Wednesday, 12:00-1:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Ari Purnama

This course is a survey of the cinematic arts from film producing countries in Southeast Asia. You will be introduced to the themes, narratives, styles, and popular genres explored by filmmakers in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The course will do so in three ways: Firstly, by showing you a selection of films made within a spectrum of production and distribution context—from the big-budget studio-financed movies to independently produced festival films; secondly, by showcasing the works of women and LGBTQ filmmakers; thirdly, by making you engaged with the scholarly literature produced in the field of Southeast Asian cinema studies. While the course title includes the label "Southeast Asia," we will examine the concept of regional cinema through our discussion of the films and readings with the goal for us to be able to answer the question: Is there such a thing as Southeast Asian cinema? All films will have English subtitles. No specific prior knowledge of cultures, languages, and countries in Southeast Asia or prerequisite is required.

CINE 490: Topic: Global Auteurs (4 credits)
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Instructor:  Ahmad Nadalizadeh

The word “auteur” (French for author) emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s to ascribe to film director’s idiosyncratic vision a creative role of authorship and critique comparable to the expressive autonomy claimed by literary authors. No longer a mere agent among other agents producing a film, film director as auteur was granted a creative agency whose unique view was expressed in the film.

However, auteurism was later on challenged by shifting critical attention to the role of the production conditions, constructivist contexts, and deconstructive intertexts. As we shall see, these alternative theories challenged auteur theory by emphasizing the collective role of various agents in filmmaking, by highlighting the role of the nonhuman elements of genre and language in preconditioning of plots and characters, and by considering films as sites of contradictory expressions which must be determined by the authorial role of spectator rather than director. However, the view of the film director as auteur has thus far survived this critical shift to the spectator, with the director’s name consistently utilized for both commercial and, in particular, art- house cinema. In this course, we will examine these critical debates alongside the films of global auteurs to review the key features of contemporary auteur cinema, but also to explore the ways in which auteur theory reveals the complex relations between aesthetics, politics, and philosophy in film form.

CINE 490: Topic: Transnational Film Genres (4 credits)
Tuesday, 4:00-7:50 p.m.
Instructor:  Dong Hoon Kim

Genres are constantly changing, whether it is to adapt, understand or challenge new social and political environments. Genre films have been important cultural texts that continually mediate complicated relations of power. With all of this in mind, what can we gain by thinking of genre not just in terms of conventions and expectations, but in relation to national context and transnational influences?

Though perceived as "the most American film genre," if we follow the paths of the Western genre starting in the United States, it will lead us to Italy, to Japan, to India, to Mexico, and to East Germany. The recent trend of remaking Asian melodramas, gangster films and horror movies in Hollywood obviously reverses the presumed flow of influence from Hollywood to other national and regional cinemas. This course examines the transnational dissemination of genre films across nations and explores the ways in which genre conventions are constituted, redefined and transformed within these processes of global exchange.

In this course, we will primarily consider westerns and then melodramas that have traditionally been coded as a “female” genre (to the “male” western). In addition to exploring the formal and industrial elements of cinema across nations, the analysis of westerns and melodramas will lead us to interrogate cinematic and cultural constructions of violence, family, gender, sexuality, and territory across seemingly opposed genres.