Foundation Program

The Foundation Program provides a unified and dynamic experience designed to build a durable framework for all areas of study in Visual Arts. This program is founded upon intensive lecture, studio, and lab investigation of techniques, methods, and concepts.

The curriculum broadens and expands a student’s formal creative design vocabulary, while introducing new ways of thinking about images, time, space, and audience. This program encourages students to think analytically and to use their imagination to develop an awareness of the role of artists in our culture.

Students with a major in Visual Arts and a studio concentration (Animation, Cinematic Arts, Graphic Design, Photography, Print Media) are required to take the following courses:

Cinematic Arts Concentration

The Cinematic Arts concentration provides students with the conceptual framework, historical context and technical skills necessary for the production of narrative, documentary or experimental projects in a fine arts environment. In this concentration, cinema is treated as an artistic medium; ideas are considered as important as technique. A study of film/video history, criticism and theory in tandem with a range of digital production and postproduction tools forms the foundation for personal creative student work.

For B.A. students

with a concentration in Cinematic Arts, the following are required in addition to the visual arts core courses:

• ART 305 - Moving Images I (3.00)
• ART 315 - Moving Images II (3.00)
• ART 324 - History of Film: Origins to 1965 (3.00)
• ART 325 - History of Film and Video: 1965 to Present (3.00)
• ART 342 - Film/Video Theory and Criticism (3.00)
• ART 346 - Moving Images III: HD Cinema (3.00)
• ART 347 - Writing for Media Arts (3.00)
• ART 435 - Topics in Film/Video (3.00)