The Visual Arts program is continually increasing its equipment and resources for the film and video production courses. I’ve been here for sixteen years and have seen major changes and improvements in our ability to provide students with pretty much everything they need to make really good films (well, besides ideas for the films, which is what they bring and what makes it all worthwhile).
It’s a challenge to deal with constantly-changing technology but our tech support staff is remarkable in the amount of time and energy they put into upgrading our systems, getting new cameras, mikes, lights, editing software, whatever we need to make the courses as good as possible.
We used to teach with a straightforward 1-2-3 plan (Intro, Intermediate, Advanced) and we still offer Intro but we also offer courses focusing on documentary and narrative so that students can direct themselves into their area of interest.
And although some students just take one course out of curiosity, others keep coming back for more, and then opt to do a Certificate or to enter Program Two so that they can spend their junior and senior years concentrating on film production. It’s great to see the progress they make in their understanding of both the technical and the aesthetic issues in film and I’m really impressed with the quality of the senior thesis videos year after year.
We’re currently in the process of widening the film history/cinema studies side of things, bringing in new faculty and new courses, and this is also exciting for me. Students who want to make films should have the chance to also see lots of great films and talk about them with a teacher and other students, and these courses are a chance to do that and are an important complement to the production courses.
It isn’t always easy for an undergrad to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives; my own experience taught me that, since I didn’t start making films until I was 24. But to have the chance to try out one’s interests, skills and talent while an undergrad is a boon, and we do as much as we can to give those students a real sense of what goes into making a good film, while also giving the one-time students good guidance in trying out their own skills and making that one special film they’ve maybe been dreaming about.