About the Program

Film Studies at Whittier College is an interdisciplinary minor emphasizing the analysis of film as an artistic form and a key media component in the multiple expressions of contemporary life.

The minor encourages students to expand their understanding of the medium as form, content, and construct. In other words, students investigate the methods, meanings, and larger historical and cultural frames from which the form, content, and construct emerge. Students will have opportunities to experience practical aspects of film production, but this minor emphasizes the history of film's narrative structures, its role as a medium of cultural expression, and the theories, methodologies and criticisms within film studies.

Students who minor in film studies will benefit in a variety of ways from familiarity the vocabulary of film, its technology, its history, its forms, and its meanings. Courses in the minor are culled form various disciplinary homes, emphasizing films many facets. Students who fulfill this minor will be primed for further study in graduate programs and prepared for entry level positions in the field.

The goals for students within the film studies minor are:

  • Acquisition of cinema fundamentals including narration, aesthetics, and interpretation.
  • Experimentation with the critical tools necessary through the analysis of films within the broader context of a liberal arts education.
  • Articulation, via critical writing and analysis, of film as a mode of expressive communication in both historical and cultural contexts.
  • Demonstration of practical film application via screenwriting, acting for the camera, or video production.