The Internet has Revolutionized Undergrad Film Classes

Film schools, liberal arts colleges, and universities all over America are building systems by which their students can watch free full movies online.

Having films online is a great way to make the curriculum content available to students. If you missed a school screening in the past you had to track the DVD down and watch it yourself. In a remote college town with only one copy of the film in the library this could be a problem. Increasingly schools are posting the films in their curriculum online.

Although some copy write issues can emerge most film distributors are ok with (or at least don't go after) schools that make movies available to students online. As long as the films are password protected and used exclusively for education purposes problems do not arise.

Watching free new movies online has also made it easier for students to see obscure films. Certain short films which may only be available in rolls of film are being digitized and put online. At the same time school libraries are coming together to create student databases for short films online. That means instead of putting a request in your schools library, having it go to another school and waiting for the roll of film to arrive by mail, all you need to do is log onto your school library's website.

This also makes life easier for professors. They would have to go through the same arduous process if they wanted to get a roll of film to show their class. They would also have to contend with setting up a projector for a screening. With many schools using digital projectors that connect to a professor's laptop any film is a click away.

There are some drawbacks, however. Critics point to the communal nature of film and how that is lost when people watch free full movies online. I don't think that laptop viewing will replace traditional screening but it certainly affects attendance. If you know you can watch a movie online whenever you want, it can be hard to go to sometimes inconveniently scheduled screenings.

In all, the availability of free documentaries online (as well as other films) is a good thing. Research that used to take weeks can be done in one day. Sharing a film with fellow students is a matter of copying and pasting a link into an email. It is a good time to study film (unless you want to find a job after you graduate).

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