Students in the Film and Media program at Franklin & Marshall College develop skills in media analysis, historical research, and theoretical application. Our students also make creative work in a range of modes and media from storytelling with digital video to experimental forms on film. The program propels its majors and minors to engage social, cultural, and political questions and to harness cameras and screens in order to reconsider and deconstruct existing structures and norms. 

Our program deliberately combines scholarly work with creative practice as a whole and within many individual classes. It is the philosophy of our program that if a student wishes to study moving images from a scholarly perspective, they are best served by also developing practical and professional knowledge of the field. Likewise, students interested in filmmaking are much more equipped for creative careers if they gain a broad historical and theoretical understanding of motion pictures. Practice informs scholarship. Scholarship informs practice. 

All students who major or minor in Film and Media become familiar with a range of global film movements, genres, histories, and styles. They do scholarly research into theoretical questions about how moving images function and consider the social, ethical, and political implications of films and media. Students also develop a creative practice that understands and activates concepts and techniques from the realms of fiction, nonfiction, and alternative media forms.  

Students in the program have access to professional production equipment: Sony, Canon, and Black Magic video cameras; a collaborative video editing lab; a sound studio; an advanced video editing studio; 16mm film production workflow including an optical printer, Steenbeck film editor, film processing lab, and film-to-digital scanner. The program also boasts a beautiful state-of-the-art cinema. 

The Film and Media program is designed to be flexible and interdisciplinary. Situated in the Winter Visual Arts Center, majors and minors routinely interact and collaborate with their peers throughout the building. Specifically, Film and Media students work side-by-side with Photography students in the Film + Photo Lab. The program also has a longstanding connection to the Theatre and Dance department, which encourages collaborations with performing arts students through cross-listed courses and extracurricular projects. We encourage students in our program to explore their interests across the college and to create interdisciplinary film and media connections, including visual anthropology, creative writing for film and media, cinema and politics, critical media and race studies, the business of film, the psychology of cinema, and gender and sexuality studies with a media emphasis.

The Film and  Media program is part of the Art, Art History, and Film Department at Franklin & Marshall College.