Film Studies

Humanities | Minor

Put your artistic vision to work

The Film Studies minor gives you a framework for appreciating, analyzing, and creating video and film, a framework that you can use to explore and to succeed in a number of different professional areas or to prepare yourself for graduate school.You'll graduate with an ability to approach film production and film analysis from a number of angles.

You will begin the minor by taking a course in creating professional-grade videos by learning and working with the Adobe Premiere Pro, the gold standard video editing software used by filmmakers, TV editors, You Tubers, videographers, and professional film editors. In the other early courses, you will be exploring the process of adapting literary sources to film, such as creating focus through theme, meaning, and developing powerful storyboards.

At the intermediate and advanced levels, you will be exploring the history of film and film genre (such as film noir, musicals, documentaries, science fiction, and romantic dramas among other genres) and creating blog reviews of the iconic films in each of these genres. Also, you will be widening your focus from the United States by exploring ground-breaking films from around the globe while using various powerful critical lenses relating to film theory, politics, gender, history, sexuality, class, race, culture, and identity.

Internships and professional experience

The Film Studies minor encourages you to be part of a community of film lovers in the classroom, on campus, and in the Milwaukee area, such as belonging to a student film club or attending and working with the annual Milwaukee Film Festival. A minor in Film Studies prepares you for a variety of internships in film production, marketing, and social media as well as working with the Milwaukee Film Festival. Film Studies students have interned at a variety of jobs, including as an assistant at 371 Productions (a media company based in Milwaukee), as a video marketer for a city theater group, and as part of the Milwaukee Film Festival production team. These are just some of the examples that will be available to you, as well as internships in traditional and new media.

Apply