The Major
The FAMS major is dedicated to the critical study and production of moving image media. Over the course of their work in the major students learn the art of an integrated, critical and creative practice.
Learn MoreOften referred to as “FAMS,” the Film and Media Studies program is open to students at all levels of experience. In both critical studies and production courses, students explore how audio-visual media enables us to have a rich understanding of the histories and contemporary cultures that shape us and the world we live in.
The FAMS major is dedicated to the critical study and production of moving image media. Over the course of their work in the major students learn the art of an integrated, critical and creative practice.
Learn MoreEach semester, our students create original films, videos and research projects.
Learn MoreOur Black Box Studio classroom is designed to provide students with space for film and video production, as well as moving-image installations.
Our events feature established and burgeoning filmmakers, critical historians and theorists, and writers and producers in film, television, video and new media.
Learn MoreTogether, Amherst’s arts programs foster a lively environment for the multidisciplinary study, creation and presentation of the arts.
Learn MoreThis course is designed to introduce students to historical research methods that take into account film’s aspects as an aesthetic, technological, and industrial form.
This introductory course begins with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit.
What beauty standards are imposed on women in Bollywood? Do women directors make more feminist films? This course focuses on Bollywood cinema and its local and global offshoots to think about questions of gender, sexuality and agency.
Meghan McDonough is currently directing and editing a documentary short about the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP), an archive of over 800 oral histories recorded over 25 years by Houston native Arden Eversmeyer. The OLOHP, which is now housed within Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection, features life stories of lesbians born in the early part of the 20th century, a mostly invisible population that is also rapidly disappearing.
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