10 (Mostly Free) Online Courses Into Film(making)
Here at FilmInquiry, we love to read about movies, write about movies, and to learn more about movies every day! If you too would like to learn more about movies, we suggest you check out the following list. We’ve listed ten courses (on different types of platforms) about filmmaking, film history and everything else film.
If you’ve found other courses elsewhere on the web, please feel free to share them in the comments!
1. Marriage and Movies
Platform: Coursera
Offered by Wesleyan University
Start of course: April 21, 2014 (five weeks)
Free – Go there
The topic of marriage in the movies has always provided a fascinating reflection of changing social attitudes, shifting morals and gender roles. We will explore how films have defined marriage, identified seven core problems, and varied its three narrative components — a couple, their problems, their situation — from decade to decade from the silent to the modern era.
This course spans five weeks, in which they’ll discuss ten films. If analysis of cultural representations in film is something you’re interested in, this is something for you!
2. Introduction to Digital Sound Design
Platform: Coursera
Offered by Emory University
Start of Course: July 21, 2014 (six weeks)
Free – Go there
Sounds and music are embedded in almost every aspect of daily life. This course will provide an overview of the fundamental principles of sound and the factors that determine our audio perception. It will also explore techniques of recording, mixing, processing, synthesis, sampling, analysis, and editing of digital audio..
If you’d like to learn more about sound design, this may be interesting for you. It’s an introductory course, so it’s not just focused on sound for film, but they touch on that too.
3. Online Film Courses Offered by MIT
Platform: Online course
Offered by MIT
Free – Go there
Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a great wealth of courses in their MIT Open Courseware program. If you click on the link above you’ll be directed to the overview of all film courses they have available, among which the following amazingly interesting courses:
4. Screenwriting & Script Breakdown
Platform: iTunes – Podcast
Offered by Pepperdine University
Free – Go there
This podcast of three episodes was released in 2008.
5. Acting
Platform: iTunes – Podcast
Offered by National Theatre
Free – Go there
Acting requires a wide range of skill, from the ability to control your voice to adopting physical attributes. A stage actor will often be required to research a period of history or particular topic to bring a character to life. This collection aims to give an insight into what it is like to be an actor at the National Theatre. Featuring Simon Russell Beale, Zoë Wanamaker, Lesley Manville, Rory Kinnear, Fiona Shaw, Ben Whishaw and Roger Allam.
This podcast exists out of 20 episodes and was released in 2012.
6. Filmmaker’s Master Class with Milos Forman
Platform: E-seminar
Offered by Columbia University
Free – Go there
This is an extensive seminar that covers many fields of filmmaking, looks like a Powerpoint presentation guided with video.
7. Pixar: The math behind the movies
Platform: TED-Ed video
Offered by TED-Ed, Pixar, presented by Tony DeRose
Free – Go there
The folks at Pixar are widely known as some of the world’s best storytellers and animators. They are perhaps less recognized as some of the most innovative math whizzes around. Pixar Research Lead Tony DeRose delves into the math behind the animations, explaining how arithmetic, trigonometry and geometry help bring Woody and the rest of your favorite characters to life.
8. The New School’s Film & Media YouTube Channel
Platform: Youtube, filmed seminar panels
Offered by The New School
Free – Go there
The mission of the School of Media studies is the analysis and understanding of mediated communication and the realization of students’ creative visions in film, video, audio, and multi-media forms. Our currriculum integrates media history, theory, research, and management with production.
A few examples of the videos:
9. FilmMakerIQ
Platform: Blog articles and courses
Offered by FilmMakerIQ – a group of filmmakers
Free – Go there
FilmmakerIQ.com is a group of filmmakers born in this new media wave but never forgetting the past. We use the tools we have available to us today to tell stories our forefathers never dreamed possible.
No discussion on how to make films is truly complete without understanding why film works – no camera or special effects can save an uninteresting story. But those things do matter. Both are essential to filmmaking and both essential to our purpose at FilmmakerIQ.
A few examples of their articles and courses (often with videos):
- The History of Hollywood Censorship and the Ratings System
- The Origins and Techniques of Film Noir
- Color as an Intrinsic Filmmaking Tool
10. Online Feature Screenwriting Course at the New York Film Academy
Platform: Online course
Offered by NYFA
Start of Course: July 7, 2014 and October 6, 2014
$4500 – Go there
Do you have the ideas but lack the experience as a screenwriter to get them in screenplay form? Would expert instruction and feedback help shape your idea into a marketable screenplay? Now, you can receive professional instruction and feedback from an award winning screenwriter while you learn to write an original screenplay of 90-120 pages on your personal computer and on your own time schedule.
This course is equivalent to the eight-week screenwriting workshop that is available on-campus at the New York Film Academy. It is offered online over a nine-month period with online sessions once a week.
The tuition is a bit steep, especially compared to the rest of the courses listed here, but if you’re serious about getting into screenwriting, doing this course would be very valuable.
Are you going to take any of these courses? Which sounds especially interesting to you?
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