The Filmmaking & Moving Image Arts program views the upcoming fall semester as an opportunity for students to embrace the college’s ethos of deep learning by focusing on pre-production, animation or screenwriting as preparation for on-the-ground film production in the spring and into the next few years.
We intend for our classes to provide everyone, students and faculty alike, with new visual information and thoughtful, intelligent challenges. Classes for fall semester have been designed to help students build a strong scaffolding for their production work down the road. To this end we are offering a variety of options in theory and practice, screenwriting, producing, storyboarding, animation, and documentary planning and research.
Filmmaking & Moving Image Arts’ production spaces, labs and equipment will be available to students on campus and those who live locally - within the structures and guidelines set by the College and by each professor. Students working online will be guided individually in establishing production protocol within their specific environments. All efforts will be made to accommodate online students’ technical needs.
We are planning to hold hybrid FYS classes with the potential for in-person meetings for other classes where possible. Any face-to-face meetings will follow the requirements of social distancing and participants will be required to wear a mask at all times. Our students who will be on campus or have access to campus will also have the ability to reserve equipment and schedule time in our labs and the soundstage for individual work or for working in small groups with approved social distancing practices.
Frequently Asked Questions
For the academic year 2020-2021 the Filmmaking & Moving Image Arts program of the college is prioritizing the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. While we understand that compromises in equipment and studio access will need to be made, we will do all we can to maintain fair and equitable usage of both our film equipment and our production spaces in the Heimbold building.
With this in mind we have established the following guidelines:
For assignments and conference work directly related to their Filmmaking coursework and with approval from their Filmmaking professors, students enrolled in the following classes (and who are able to travel to campus) will have access to reserve and checkout filmmaking equipment from the Heimbold ER (Equipment Room), reserve (in multi-hour blocks) private editing suites (side-rooms) of the Ziskin Digital Media Lab, and can reserve the Sound Booth. Animation students will have access to reserve cintiq station usage in Heimbold 129 and Heimbold 136 A & B. Please note: For a given assignment, professors may choose to limit their students to using their own personal phone/webcam, etc.
For health and safety reasons the Sound Stage will be used for teaching and for recording faculty lectures; however, it will also be available for independent student film production on weekends during the fall semester by the joint permission of filmmaking faculty and the program director of technology. By necessity, usage for all spaces and all equipment will be subject to adjustments in campus health and safety standards as we confront the ever-changing nature of the ongoing health crisis.
- Fall Classes potentially requiring equipment and space reservations:
- Damani Baker - First Year Studies: Introduction to Documentary Film
- Doug MacHugh - SLC Virtually Live: Creating the Pre-recorded Comedy-Variety Show
- Rona Mark - First Year Studies in Filmmaking: Finding Your Voice in Film
- Rona Mark - Writing for Directors/Directing for Writers
- Robin Starbuck - Experimental Documentary: Theory and Practice
- Misael Sanchez - Working with Light and Shadow
- Misael Sanchez - Visualizing and Creating Images
- Scott Duce - Drawing for Animation: Character Design (tablets and sound booth only)
- Scott Duce - Storyboarding for Film and Animation (tablets and sound booth only)
- Robin Starbuck - 2D Animation: Short Narratives (tablets and sound booth only)
*Misael Sanchez’s 2 credit class (Introduction to Cinematography - Fundamentals;) will not have access to check out equipment but, like all other Sarah Lawrence students, may check out equipment from the Audio Visual department.