Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• COM FT 529: Gangster Films
  The course first looks at the foundations of the gangster film, as established in the early 1930s and as modified in the later 1930s due to the Production Code. The course then traces the additional development of the genre as various industrial and sociocultural changes impacted it. The gangster films screened represent periods that reflect deprivation, nostalgia, postwar anxiety and psychology, racism, modernism, and other cultural issues. We build a deep sense of the genre’s fascination with violence, the American Dream, family, loyalty (and betrayal). We will also explore many gangster films produced in other countries, from Europe to Asia to South America, and how they reflect the gangster’s mythological position in these new cultural contexts. We will also look at the role of particular directors, actors, writers and producers (and real gangsters) in the genre’s rich history. A background in film/TV analysis, as taught in Understanding Film (FT250) and in other film/TV studies-oriented courses, will be essential. Effective Spring 2027, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• COM FT 530: Nollywood/Bollywood
  This course explores how Indian, West African, and North African filmmakers have responded to their countries' colonial histories. Examining a range of films, including musicals, dramas, and action films, this course attends to politics, aesthetics, and cultural and industrial history.
• COM FT 531: Feminist TV Studies
  Undergrad Pre-req FT 303 The men who crafted television--mostly broadcasting and advertising executives--rooted it firmly within the domestic realm. That is one reason why television is branded a feminized medium. What, then, of the women who circulate around and within it' How are they feminized' How have television texts represented women' How has the television industry conceptualized female viewers and female-oriented programming' In what genres have women dominated' How have race and class intersected with gender on television' Feminist Television Studies is a discussion-driven seminar designed to introduce students to the various ways in which television institutions have located and defined women and femininity. Using feminist television scholarship and its multiple methodologies, we will analyze specific television programs, time periods, and genres and formulate arguments about the complicated relationship between women and television.
• COM FT 533: Producing the Social Purpose Short
  Film is both an art and one of the most powerful communication tools available. In this class, students will produce impactful narrative fiction short films that challenge thought, inspire conversation, and engage meaningfully with the pressing issues of the day. Graduate MFA writer/directors are chosen based on scripts developed in FT 720 Writing the Social Purpose Short. Undergraduate and graduate students who did not take FT 720 may apply to the class as producers, cinematographers, editors, sound designers, ADs, or production designers. The class will form production teams dedicated to the creation of exceptional short films for festival submission. Students will gain hands-on production experience, as well as high level instruction in directing, producing, and narrative technique.
• COM FT 534: Critical TV Industry Studies
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (COMFT303) - Whether you want to work in the television industry or focus your research on it, your connection to it will be incomplete without a critical interrogation of its history and processes. TV industry studies is a scholarly reading and discussion-driven seminar that conceptualizes the U.S. television industry as a complex site of negotiation between producers and audiences, labor and management, creativity and commerce, and government and corporations. Whereas other television studies courses might privilege the intricacies at work within specific programs or genres, this class asks students to locate those programs within the broader context of a capitalist media system.
• COM FT 535: Film Analysis
  Focuses on a particular director (Godard, Hitchcock, Altman, Losey, Bergman, etc.), period, or style (film noir, suspense), and studies how meaning is structured and perceived in the screen image. Includes viewing and analysis of narrative strategies in selected films.
• COM FT 536: Film Theory and Criticism
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Undergraduate pre-req: FT250 - An introduction to classical and contemporary film and media theory. Topics include montage theory, realism, structuralism, post-structuralism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and cultural studies. The course includes screenings of films that have contributed to critical debate and those that challenge theoretical presuppositions.
• COM FT 537: Developing the Short-Form Web Series
  Undergrad Prereq: COM FT310; FT512 or FT522 recommended. - Because streaming services and web distribution are not restricted by traditional television show parameters (30-minute or one hour), the short-form web series has become a viable entry point for emerging filmmakers and television showrunners. The primary objective of this course is to develop a concept and write the “bible” for a short-form series, specifically a serialized show with episodes from 5 to 12 minutes long, designed for streaming platforms or for the Web. The bible will include at least the pilot episode. These concepts and scripts must be limited in scope so that they can be produced with a small budget or with the resources available through the University. The hope is that the pilot (and maybe another episode or two) developed in this course can be produced in the department’s Production II or Production III courses.
• COM FT 538: City in Film
  This course explores the relationship between the moving image and urban spaces in the 20th and early 21st century. We initially focus on a subgenre of avant-garde film and experimental media, the city film, which includes the European "City Symphonies" of the 1920s and numerous examples of experimental shorts made about the city in the big metropolises of the West. We continue into the post-World War II era with films rendering the impact of the war on European cities through the stylistic paradigms of realism and expressionism. The second half of the course focuses on narrative features and experimental (often digital) documentaries portraying life in cities around the globe.
• COM FT 541: TV Genres
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (COMFT303) - This class uses fan studies and genre studies approaches to critically analyze the ways that fan practices have shaped and been shaped by the television industry as well as how fans have used their position to influence the norms of television. We will focus on genres with extremely active and integral fandoms and how they are similar or distinct: science fiction/fantasy, melodrama/soap operas, and sports.
• COM FT 542: Advanced Screenwriting
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (COMFT412) - Graduate Prerequisites: (COMFT713) - The student will write a first-draft screenplay and two sets of revisions. In addition to participating in weekly discussions on aspects of screenwriting that are tailored to student needs, each student will complete and revise a full length motion-picture screenplay. 4cr.
• COM FT 543: Television Situational Comedy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (COMFT303) - The American television situation comedy has been an enormously popular and powerful art form. This course traces the growth of the sitcom genre from the beginnings in the early 1950's up to the present time and analyzes how American life has been influenced by it. We look at how sitcoms affected popular perception of working class, race, ethnicity, idealized family life and then the growth of different family structures, fantasy and war. We study how sitcoms initially portrayed women and then the emerging changes in response to the feminist movement. We analyze Norman Lear's series which talked about the real things Americans were saying but in the privacy of their homes and the revolution that his series created. Finally we examine anti-family satire and take a close look at contemporary single life, both straight and gay.
• COM FT 544: Documentary Production
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: COM FT353 - Graduate Prerequisites: COM FT707 or COM CO722 - This course is designed to develop skills necessary for producing long-form documentaries. There is an emphasis on exploring new, more engaging forms of storytelling and a broad range of stylistic approaches. It covers the entire process: finding a topic, developing a story structure, conceiving a style, shooting, editing, and post-production. Students develop their own ideas and form small groups to produce them.
• COM FT 546: New German Cinema
  This course surveys German cinema from the post-World War II period to the present. We will use the concept of national cinema as a way of investigating the relationship between films and various constructs of "the nation" through specific time periods, including the 1950s period of West German economic reconstruction, the 1960s and 70s rebellion of West German "New Wave" filmmakers against Papa's Kino (Daddy's cinema), the development of film in East Germany during the same period, the impact of German reunification on the film industry, and the cinema of a reunified Germany in relation to transnationalism and globalization. Subject areas include Germany's Nazi past and the Holocaust, capitalism vs. East German communism, art cinema vs. commercial cinema, the relationship to the U.S., feminist and queer cinema, and multiculturalism. Directors include Helmut K'utner, Alexander Kluge, Werner Herzog, R. W. Fassbinder, Ulrike Ottinger, Werner Schroeter, Helke Sander, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Margarete von Trotta, Wolfgang Petersen, Valeska Griesebach, Angela Schanelec, and Christian Petzold.
• COM FT 547: Avant Garde Cinema
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (COMFT250) - A survey of global avant-garde film and experimental media from the 1920s to the present. We will explore film, video, and digital video as mediums of unadulterated artistic expression resulting in daring, experimental forms and controversial contents. The course covers 1920s and early 30s high modernist cinema of "isms" (Dadaism, Surrealism, Impressionism), Transatlantic and international currents after World War Two including trance film, underground film, structuralism, and "psychedelic expanded cinema of split and multiscreen films (Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Michael Snow, Peter Kubelka, Rudy Burckhardt), 1970s video art including feminist and gay/lesbian filmmakers, X-rated Europeans (Kren and the Vienna Secessionists) and international "trash" cinema auteurs, the digital video avant-garde, masters of found footage cinema, queer digital media, recent transnational trends. Disclaimer: Some of the films shown in this course contain sexually explicit and graphic bodily acts.
• COM FT 548: The Art and Activism of Music Videos
  re-requisites: Undergrad - COM FT353; Graduate: COM FT707. This course explores music videos as cultural, political, and artistic forms of expression. Students examine how music videos shape and reflect activism and identity across the world. Through analysis, creative production, and experimentation with AI video tools, students learn to interpret and produce videos that communicate ideas with impact. The semester includes three creative projects—a short found-media/AI prototype and a full original music-video production in collaboration with musicians. Working in small groups, students will develop a video from the ground up, starting with one of the most important creative decisions: choosing the right song. Along the way, students learn how to write a treatment, storyboard their ideas, develop a visual style, shoot and edit digital video, keep images and lyrics in sync, and think about how music videos are shared and experienced by audiences. By the end of the course, students will have a strong understanding of how music videos are made and a completed project that shows their skills in concept development, cinematography, editing, and visual storytelling—a finished piece they can include in their portfolio. The course also represents the opportunity to work with musicians and artists.
• COM FT 551: Special Topics in Television Studies
  Prerequisite: COMFT 303 - Topics vary per semester. FT551 can fulfill the Undergraduate Additional Studies requirement.
• COM FT 552: Special Topics
  Relevant topics in Film and Television. Course information and descriptions sent out in the FTV newsletter. Email filmtv@bu.edu for more information.
• COM FT 553: Special Topics in Media Studies
  Topics vary per semester.
• COM FT 554: Special Topics in International Studies
  Topics vary per semester. FT554 can fulfill the Undergraduate Additional Studies requirement. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Creativity/Innovation, Digital/Multimedia Expression. Effective Summer 2025, this course carries no Hub requirements.