Cinema

Professor Lang
Associate Professor Cook, Walsh
Assistant Professors Bermudez

The Cinema program, which is housed in the School of Communication , offers both a major and a minor.

The Cinema major provides students with a comprehensive understanding of film as art and a thorough grounding in the vocabulary, methodology, and bibliography of cinema. A broad foundation in film theory, history and analysis is complemented by a more in-depth examination of films from particular genres, themes, directors, and nations. The program combines a humanities approach to film studies with a variety of options in filmmaking and television production.

Those interested in production learn the principles of filmmaking. Students produce and direct their own short films, working through the stages of pre-production, production, and post-production. Filmmaking courses explore a variety of genres including documentary, narrative and experimental films, and animation.

Students receive guidance from faculty that are accomplished filmmakers whose work has been shown at competitive film festivals. Our production courses are small, usually 10 to 16 students, so each student has ample access to filmmaking equipment. New students can start taking courses in cinema right away. First year students can register for CIN 150 - Introduction to Film their very first semester, and then in the spring may enroll in the first production course, CIN 230 - Introduction to Filmmaking , or a film studies course.

Students shoot their films on HD cameras and edit their work in the department’s editing lab that is available 24 hours a day for those in advanced filmmaking courses. Our editing facility consists of several Macintosh, computer-based, nonlinear HD editing workstations with the latest version of Final Cut Pro as well as 16mm editing equipment, including a Steenbeck flatbed editing table. Students in filmmaking have access to: 16mm film synch and non-synch Bolex and Éclair camera kits; Canon A1 HD (high definition) digital video cameras; Canon T3i HD DSLR cameras and lens kits; professional lighting packages; audio recording equipment with a wide variety of microphones; a professional dolly; and a digital optical printer that can be used for transferring film to video. Production courses are also offered in the Kent McCray Television Studio, with three digital Hitachi cameras and state-of-the-art equipment in separate video and audio control rooms.

Student films are featured in well attended screenings at the University at the end of each term, and some are shown at recognized festivals. Student films produced in cinema courses shown in previous screenings can be viewed at vimeo.com/hartfordcinema. The Cinema Department has a website that is dedicated to showcasing the work of faculty and students that can be viewed at hartfordcinema.org. The Cinema program provides a solid foundation for a variety of careers in film and media, as well as graduate programs in film studies and production.

Facilities include a classroom for projection of 16 mm film, DVD, and Bluray. Filmmaking classes are small and intensive. Students can start making their own films as early as their first year. Graduates are prepared for graduate school or for entry-level employment in the media industries.

Many of the advanced courses in the Department of Cinema have a variable-topic format which means that the specific topic for the class varies by semester. Therefore, a student can repeat such courses for credit. This approach to curriculum provides students with a greater variety in both film studies and filmmaking courses. Some topics offered in recent years include the following courses:

CIN 311 Film Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra and Gus Van Sant, Stanley Kubrick, Bernardo Bertolucci, the Coen Brothers, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Josef von Sternberg, Otto Preminger, Douglas Sirk
CIN 312 National Cinemas: Arab, German, British, French, African, Indian, Israeli
CIN 313 Film Genres: Comedy, Western, Genre and Gender, Road Movies, Horror, Science Fiction, Crime Movies
CIN 314 Studies in Film: Alternative Cinema, Film and Dream, Orientalism in Film, “Reel” Nature, City in Film, The Death Drive
CIN 330 Topics in Filmmaking: Experimental Filmmaking, Creating Video Games, Sound Design, Biography

New versions of these film studies and filmmaking courses are created regularly so that the offerings are timely, innovative and diverse.

The University enjoyed a close relationship with movie great Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), whose career spanned seven decades, a record 12 Oscar nominations, and four Oscar awards. Hepburn donated to the University both her girlhood home (now part of the campus) and her personal library of copies of her own films. The Hepburn estate has promised a future gift of one of her Oscar statuettes to the University.

Programs

Undergraduate Major

Cinema, B.A.

Minor

Cinema Minor