12 Weeks
Level 1
3-Credit Tuition
$1,545Non-Credit Tuition
$1,290As a composer or musician in the film and television industries, it's essential to be able to communicate effectively with directors, producers, and others involved in the production of these media. The Language of Film and TV course is designed to give you a thorough understanding of film and television and, specifically, how they make meaning beyond their stories and characters.
The course guides you through the history of film and television and the crucial concepts about the language they use to reach their audiences - a language that includes camera, frame composition, lighting, production design, acting-styles, editing, dialogue, plot, genre, themes, sound, and point of view. You'll learn about mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing, so that you are well versed in the design and visual elements of film and television.
The course begins with an overview of the origins of cinema, exploring the contributions of Edison, the Lumière brothers, and Méliès, and then moves through the silent era into sound and the studio system, examining the role of narrative, acting, and sound and how they evolved. It then explores the emergence of television and how it became a part of everyday life.
You'll also learn about documentary, experimental, and animated film, and examine how digital technology is changing film, television, and media today. Throughout the course, you will screen and analyze such films as The Great Train Robbery, It, The Crowd, Bringing Up Baby, Double Indemnity, North by Northwest, Citizen Kane, Singin' in the Rain, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and others. You will also choose films from the American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Movies list and other sources for analysis. Television series include I Love Lucy and currently airing series.
The goal of the course is to provide you with the skills to interpret and analyze film and television, including their historical, stylistic, and narrative contexts, in order to better prepare you for working in these industries.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Identify and define terms associated with the film and television industry
- Understand the historical development of film and television and the cultural contexts in which they evolved
- Explain how film and television make visual and narrative meaning through a language that includes camera, frame composition, lighting, production design, acting-styles, editing, dialogue, plot, genre, themes, sound, and point of view
- Interpret and analyze film and television, with emphasis on the cultural contexts of filmmaking, television production, and film and television meaning
- Better communicate with directors and producers in the media industries
Syllabus
Lesson 1: Classical Hollywood Cinema
- The Eye & the I of Cinema
- Classical Hollywood Cinema
- Film Narrative
- Film Style
- Terms for Film & Television Analysis
Lesson 2: Early Cinema: From Muybridge to The Great Train Robbery
- Photography into Moving Image: Muybridge and Early Image Toys
- The Beginnings of Cinema: Reality, Artifice, & Spectacle: Edison, Lumière, Méliès
- Edison: Entertainment
- Lumiere Brothers and The Cinematographe: Actualites
- Melies: The "Magic" of Illusion
- Narrative and Style Together: The Great Train Robbery
Lesson 3: Silent Film
- The Language of Film Develops
- Narrative and Conventions: Genre
- It and The Crowd
- Music in the Silent Era
Lesson 4: Coming of Sound in Film in the 1930-40s
- Narrative and Acting in Sound Film
- Genre Iconography
- Life Cycle of a Genre, Including Television
- The Studio System
Lesson 5: Film Sound
- Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sound
- The Sound Mix
- The Elements of a Score
- Sound and Image Make Meaning
Lesson 6: Network Television
- Origins of Television Culture: I Love Lucy
- Television Genres
- Economics of Production
- Television in Everyday Life
Lesson 7: Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Film and Television
- Beyond Classical Hollywood Cinema
- Documentary
- Experimental/Avant-Garde
- Animation
- Influences on Mainstream Film and Television
Lesson 8: Mise-en-Scene: What Is in the Shot
- Setting
- Costume and Make-Up
- Lighting
- Performance and Movement (Acting, Blocking, Staging)
Lesson 9: Cinematography: Photographic Qualities of the Shot
- The Look of an Image
- Framing
- Scale/Proximity
- Camera Movement
- How the Camera "Speaks" the Language of Film
Lesson 10: Editing
- Continuity Editing: Invisible Style
- The Development of Editing
- Montage—Editing as Art
- Editing in Television
Lesson 11: Television in the Cable and Internet Eras
- Television Genres
- Spectatorship in the Cable and Internet Era
- What Stays the Same: The Sitcom Today
Lesson 12: The Digital Era
- The Digital Revolution
- From CGI to Whole Sets, Worlds, Digital Performers
- Transmedia
- Digital Television: Aesthetics and Narratives
Requirements
Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements
Prerequisite Courses, Knowledge, and/or Skills
This course does not have any prerequisites.
Textbook(s)
- Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film (7th Edition) by Richard Barsam and Dave Monahan (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021)
- Bringing Up Baby by Gerald Mast (Rutgers University Press, 1988)
- I Love Lucy by Lori Landay (Wayne State University Press, 2010)
Media and Subscriptions
- You must have access to the following films, as well as the equipment necessary to play movies on chosen media (e.g. DVD player, if necessary):
- Week 1: One of the following films:
- Scarface (1932)
- Golddiggers of 1933 (1933)
- Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
- A Star Is Born (1937)
- Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Rebecca (1940)
- Double Indemnity (1941)
- Casablanca (1942)
- Mildred Pierce (1945)
- Week 2: None needed; resources provided
- Week 3: It (1927), and one of the following films:
- The General (1926)
- Metropolis (1927)
- Sunrise (1927)
- City Lights (1931)
- Nosferatu (1922)
- The Gold Rush (1925)
- La passion et la mort de Jeanne d'Arc [The Passion of Joan of Arc] (1928)
- Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (1920)
- Bronenosets "Potyomkin" [The Battleship Potemkin] (1925)
- Greed (1924)
- Die Büchse der Pandora [Pandora's Box] (1929)
- Wings (1927)
- The Wind (1928)
- Napoléon (1927)
- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
- Intolerance (1916)
- Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
- The Big Parade (1925)
- Safety Last (1923)
- The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
- Broken Blossoms (1919)
- The Kid (1921)
- Foolish Wives (1922)
- Les vampires (1915-16)
- The Son of the Sheik (1926)
- Week 4: Bringing Up Baby (1938)
- Week 5: Citizen Kane (1941)
- Week 6: At least two episodes of the television show, I Love Lucy (1951-1957)
- Week 7: None needed-resources provided
- Week 8: Rear Window (1954)
- Week 9: Breathless (1960)
- Week 10: The Graduate (1967)
- Week 11: None needed; resources provided
- Week 12: None needed; resources provided
- Week 1: One of the following films:
Software
Student Deals
After enrolling, be sure to check out our Student Deals page for various offers on software, hardware, and more. Please contact support@online.berklee.edu with any questions.
General Course Requirements
Below are the minimum requirements to access the course environment and participate in Live Classes. Please make sure to also check the Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements section above, and ensure your computer meets or exceeds the minimum system requirements for all software needed for your course.
Mac Users
PC Users
All Users
- Latest version of Google Chrome
- Zoom meeting software
- Webcam
- Speakers or headphones
- External or internal microphone
- Broadband Internet connection
Instructors
Author
Lori Landay is a professor of cultural studies at Berklee College of Music and an interdisciplinary scholar and new media artist exploring the making of visual meaning in twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture. She is the author of two books, I Love Lucy and Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture, in addition to articles on topics such as virtual worlds, digital narrative, silent film, and television culture. Her creative work includes animation, graphic design, creative documentary, machinima, interactive virtual art installations, and music video.
Landay has been awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Professional Education Division at Berklee, a Newbury Comics Faculty Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Enduring Questions Grant. She has consulted on and appeared in Finding Lucy, an American Masters documentary airing nationally on PBS and internationally, in addition to serving as the Information Technology Officer for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies from 2002–2005. Landay holds a bachelor's degree from Colby College, which included a year abroad at the University of York in England, master's degrees in American Studies and English from Boston College and Indiana University, respectively, and a doctoral degree in English and American Studies from Indiana University. Read Less
Instructor
Joey Newman is an Emmy®-nominated, third generation film and television composer of the famed Hollywood musical Newman dynasty. Joey’s grandfather is famed composer and conductor Lionel Newman, and his great uncle is Alfred Newman, both of whom are part of the very definition of movie music. Film composing runs in the Newman family, with Joey’s cousins Randy, Thomas and David – all successful composers in their own right. And, Joey’s father, Joe Frank Carollo, played bass and sang in the famed 1970’s rock group “Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds”.
Joey began serious composition studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, earning his Bachelor of Music degree. He returned to his hometown of Los Angeles where he began his career working in television with Emmy®-winning composer W.G. “Snuffy” Walden, co-composing the final seasons of Once and Again, starring Sela Ward, and Providence, starring Melina Kanakaredes. Joey also provided orchestrations for Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing as well as a number of other primetime dramas and sitcoms.
Joey has composed the music to award-winning feature films, numerous television series, video games and provided arrangements for recording artists like Rufus Wainwright and Broadway composers Marcy & Zina and Cinco Paul. For 5 years, Joey composed the orchestral score to NCsoft’s LINEAGE, one of the biggest online role- playing games in history. For 9 seasons, Joey composed the score for the hit ABC comedy The Middle, starring Patricia Heaton, and 6 seasons for TLC’s docu-reality series Little People, Big World, for which his underscore was nominated for a Primetime Emmy® Award. Joey’s music was more recently heard on the CBS drama All Rise, starring Simone Missick, and the Disney+ comedy Diary Of A Future President, starring Tess Romero and Selenis Leyva. Film credits include the multiple award-winning drama Any Day Now (starring Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt) and the upcoming Two Eyes (starring Kate Bornstein and Joshua Leonard). As a conductor and orchestrator, Joey has worked across the media spectrum including orchestrating for his cousin Randy and conducting alongside Michael Tilson Thomas and John Williams. Read Less
Instructor
Dr. Sujay Pandit's work focuses on the interplay between media, architecture, human rights, and philosophy. He is also keenly interested in film and design. Before his time at Berklee College, Sujay was a graphic designer and multimedia specialist for several media outlets including Scientific American, Art:21, the NYU Afghan Digital Library, and various corporations and non-profit/educational institutions. Dr. Pandit has also taught at Emerson College, New York University, Fordham University, and The School of Visual Arts in NYC.
What's Next?
When taken for credit, The Language of Film and TV can be applied towards the completion of these related programs:
Related Certificate Programs
Related Degree Majors
Related Music Career Roles
Employers look for skills learned in this course, when hiring for the following music career roles:
Questions?
Contact our Academic Advisors by phone at 1-866-BERKLEE (U.S.), 1-617-747-2146 (INT'L), or by email at advisors@online.berklee.edu.
