Los Angeles Valley College Library: OER: Open Educational Resources: Cinema

Textbooks

Film Appreciation by Yelizaveta Moss & Candice Wilson (2020): Affordable Learning Georgia.

Film Appreciation is an open educational resource which was developed with funding from an Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grant. It is dedicated to the remarkable faculty and students of the Communication, Media, and Journalism department at the University of North Georgia. Thank you for inspiring us to take on this project.

Exploring Movie Construction & Production: What’s so exciting about movies? by John Reich (2017): Open SUNY.

Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema by Russell Leigh Sharman (2020): University of Arkansas.

A free and open-source introduction to the art and science of moving pictures, offering in-depth exploration of how cinema communicates, and what, exactly, it is trying to say.

Media Studies 101 (2014): BCcampus.

Media Studies 101 is the open educational resource for media studies studies in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacifica. We have constructed this text so it can be read in a number of ways. You may wish to follow the structured order of 'chapters' like you would in a traditional printed textbook. Each section builds on and refers back to previous sections to build up your knowledge and skills. Alternatively, you may want to go straight to the section you are interested in -- links will help guide you back to definitions and key ideas if you need to refresh your knowledge or understand a new concept.

Studying Film with André Bazin by Blandine Joret (2019): Amsterdam University Press.

The impact of French film critic André Bazin (1918-1958) on the development of film studies, though generally acknowledged, remains contested. Studying Film with André Bazin offers an entirely original interpretation of major concepts from Bazin’s legacy, such as auteur theory, realism, film language and the influence of film on other arts (poetry and painting in particular). By examining mostly unknown and uncollected texts, Blandine Joret explains Bazin’s methodology and adopts it in a contemporary reading, linking his ideas to major philosophical and scientific frameworks as well as more recent media practices such as advertising, CGI, 3D cinema and Virtual Reality. In tune with 21st-century concerns in media culture and film studies, this book addresses a wide readership of film scholars, students and cinephiles.

The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960–2000 by Christian B. Long (2017): Intellect.

The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960-2000 combines digital cartography with close readings of representative films to write a history of twentieth century Hollywood narrative cinema at the intersection of the geographies of narrative location, production, consumption and taste in the post-classical era, before the rise of digital cinema. This text reorients and redraws the boundaries of film history both literally and figuratively by cataloguing films’ narrative locations on digital maps to examine where Hollywood locates its narratives over time.

Courses

The Film Experience (MIT OpenCourseWare)
This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers and westerns, and European and Japanese art cinema. It explores the work of Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa. Through comparative reading of films from different eras and countries, students develop the skills to turn their in-depth analyses into interpretations and explore theoretical issues related to spectatorship.
Getting Your Film Off The Ground (Coursera/Michigan State University)
This course is an introduction to many of the possibilities that exist to fund your film, market it, and create an audience for it. It will give you a sense of possible options and avenues to explore and it will start you on the process of making your film dreams a reality. The course covers the grant researching and writing process for fiction films and documentaries, strategies for developing impactful film websites, best social media practices for filmmakers, and how to approach crowdfunding and seeking investors. Through these experiences you will be prepared to seek funding for your film and to build your own audience through digital spaces.
Hollywood: History, Industry, Art (edX, University of Pennsylvania)
In this course you will learn about Hollywood and how it came to be the global powerhouse of today. We will discuss the complex Hollywood industry and how business and politics translate into the art of film, TV, and new media. This course will chronicle Hollywood’s growth and global reach since the 1920s.
Introduction to Screenwriting (FutureLearn/University of East Anglia)
This online course explores the key concepts and fundamental principles involved in the process of screenwriting. The University of East Anglia’s School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing have built this course with instructors and recent alumni from their famed course in Creative Writing.
Understanding Memory: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies (Coursera/Wesleyan University)
Welcome to Understanding Memory. Someone once said that memory is fascinating because sometimes we forget what we want to remember, sometimes we remember what we want to forget, and sometimes we remember events that never happened or never happened the way we remember them. I want to show you how memory works, why it sometimes fails, and what we can do to enhance it.