Chapman University Sets New Educational Standard for Collaborative Filmmaking
Chapman University, one of California's oldest and most prestigious private universities, recently made a stunning $41 million investment in its Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts by building a new 76,000 square-foot facility for its undergraduate and graduate film students. The new facility features state-of-the-art sound, directing, Foley, television, and motion capture stages, as well as fully-networked classrooms, seminar rooms, computer labs, and a 500-seat Dolby surround sound theater.
As part of its mission to prepare students for jobs in television, film, and broadcast journalism, the school put $1.6 million of its investment into Avid products ranging from Windows-based Media Composer software, Media Composer Adrenaline, and Media Composer Academic Studio solutions for film and video editing; Avid Mojo SDI for real-time video and effects; Symphony Nitris and Avid DS Nitris systems for finishing; Digidesign Pro Tools|HD and Digidesign D-Command stations with the Digidesign ICON integrated console for sound mixing; Digidesign Pro Tools LE with Mbox hardware for sound editing; and Avid iNEWS, Avid iNEWS Instinct, and Avid AirSpeed systems for news editing, news management, and playback of student-produced news shows. All of these systems are supported by an Avid Unity ISIS media network with 130 real-time clients for the seamless exchange and storage of media at every step of the production process from ingest to editing and finishing, in both SD and HD.
"We believe that the film school experience should parallel the filmmaking experience," says Bob Bassett, dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. "We create a unique opportunity for our students by providing them with the same industry-standard tools that they will find in the professional world and teaching them how to work collaboratively, just as it is done in the business."
Does this strategy work? Just look at the results. Chapman students are drawing industry attention and entering the job market with force. In the past year alone, Chapman has been the home to a 2007 American Cinema Editors (ACE) Student Competition winner, a 2007 ACE intern, and a nominee for a Student Academy Award. That says nothing of the student-made films that have been accepted at Cannes, Sundance, and other festivals and the numerous graduates who have carved out professional careers in the competitive film and television industries.
"With the right tools in their hands the only limit for students is their imagination."
- Bob Bassett,
Dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts,
Chapman University
Building a Collaborative Infrastructure
The school began its investment in digital editing systems in the early 1990s when it installed several standalone, IBM-based editing systems from Discreet Logic and other providers.
Over the years it expanded that investment, adding Avid standalone systems to its resources and eventually integrating them into a hybrid 80-system, software-only network that was supported by an Avid Unity shared-media network. It was only with the recent facility-wide renovation that the school expanded that investment even further.
"We looked at Apple and other providers, but it was clear to us that Avid wanted to be our partner," says Bassett. "We were invited to [Avid's corporate headquarters in Tewksbury, Mass.,] introduced to product managers and developers, and shown the company's technology roadmap." This, Bassett explains, helped Chapman make its decision as it became clear that the school could produce a virtual mirror of the products and work scenarios that the students would encounter in professional settings. He also notes that he could protect the school's existing Avid investments.
At the heart of the new Avid infrastructure is an Avid Unity ISIS scalable media network that provides uninterrupted, facility-wide support to 130 networked clients, so students can easily access and store their work. The system, which is based upon Gigabit Ethernet technology, is currently used by the school to support real-time SD editing. The school will soon add support for the Avid DNxHD 36 encoding format, so students can gain practical experience editing projects in visually rich HD using the storage-efficient codec. The scalable ISIS media network supports a virtually unlimited number of HD and SD file formats and easily accommodates the school's current DV25 format and will support the school's upcoming Avid DNxHD 36 implementation, which will support 1920 x 1080 resolutions.
"[Avid Unity] ISIS was the most robust offering on the market and the only
product that could support 130 seats reliably," says Dan Leonard, associate dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman and one of the schools primary technologists. With its ability to support as many as 330 real-time clients, the Avid Unity ISIS system also allows the school to prepare for expansion as needed. He continues, "With [Avid Unity] ISIS it is easy to manage workspaces. Students no longer need to lug around FireWire drives to do their work. Instead they can sit down and edit, and their storage space is scalable to their needs. Additionally, they are no longer limited by the physical capacity of a FireWire drive. If they need extra gigabytes of storage, we can provide it with ISIS."
With Avid Unity ISIS connectivity, students can work as industry professionals do with high-end film and video editing products, such as Media Composer software, Media Composer Adrenaline, and Media Composer Academic Studio, and boost their power with any one of the school's 35 Avid Mojo hardware accelerators, 25 of which support SDI. Beyond that, they can work on the school's Symphony Nitris and Avid DS Nitris finishing systems, as well as their four Digidesign Pro Tools|HD systems. Additional firepower will be available to broadcast students who will use Avid iNEWS newsroom systems and iNEWS Instinct journalist-editing workstations to plan, create, and produce broadcast content, and the Avid AirSpeed multi-purpose media server to ingest and play out footage. "We made a big foray into the high-end when we went with Avid," says Leonard. "Our students are already doing terrific work."
"We looked at Apple and other providers, but it was clear to us that Avid wanted to be our partner."
- Bob Bassett,
Dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts,
Chapman University
A Real-World Workflow
The student thesis project is perhaps the most indicative of Chapman's educational philosophy and a testament to the sophisticated project work that each student undertakes while at the school. In order to graduate, each film student must complete a film on the school's industry-standard tools with the help of five other students. One student is typically the writer/director with the other students filling the roles of editor, cinematographer, production designer, sound designer, and producer, as needed.
Once the script is finished, the writer/director begins casting, using digital systems to tape auditions and scan and download headshots and resumes. Then, working with the production designer, the cinematographer and other members of the team can take location shots, create set studies, and sketch out scenes. Once shooting begins, they can ingest dailies into any one of their Media Composer editing systems to generate rough cuts. They can share and manage their media on the Avid Unity ISIS system and even use it to stream their footage into the classroom or to faculty offices for review and discussion. As the piece nears completion, they will work with the sound designer who can seamlessly access Media Composer data in a Pro Tools|HD workstation while an online editor can do the same using an Avid DS Nitris or Symphony Nitris system to conform a project and add finishing touches, including color correction and effects fixes. Bassett notes that in this workflow students not only have instant and reliable access to their media, but they are also relieved of the hassle and cost of using their own portable hard drives. If they have footage from 16mm, Super 16mm, 35mm, or Super 35mm sources they can use the school's 4K scanner to transfer footage.
When the piece is near completion, students responsible for public relations and marketing create press materials, circulate trailers, and submit the films to festivals. "This is an end-to-end solution for our students," says Bassett of the thesis design and the program as a whole. "The 1950s auteur model where one person produces, writes, and directs is not as powerful as a collaborative model where you bring the best people together to collaborate on a project. Digital technology makes this collaboration possible, and I firmly believe that sophisticated tools lead to sophisticated collaboration."
Bassett also says that by giving students the right tools and getting them to collaborate and experiment in school they can gain confidence that will serve them in their careers. "There isn't an apprentice system in Hollywood anymore, but you have to develop your chops somewhere. School should be the place where students experiment and build confidence," he says.
Real-World Successes
Melissa Brown, a third-year MFA student at Chapman, has experienced the merits of Bassett's educational philosophy first-hand. Based upon the quality of her editorial work at Chapman, she was awarded one of three coveted 2007 ACE internships and given access to industry resources for a period of six weeks. In addition to touring post facilities and attending panel discussions, she was put to work in authentic editorial settings. Among other experiences, she shadowed the assistant editor on the hit television show CSI for one week and was able to observe and work with feature film editors Todd Feurman (The Reaping) and Mark Goldblatt (Pearl Harbor, X-Men).
Brown has worked on seven student films since starting her MFA at Chapman and says that this experience prepared her for the internship. "I've done a lot of work on different projects and that really helped when I went into the internship, especially confidence-wise.
" She had used Avid Xpress Pro software on her first four films at Chapman and a Media Composer system on her last three, so she was familiar with the Avid tools that professional editors were using and immediately noticed how they maximized their efficiency with shortcut keys and used full-screen playback for better accuracy. "I'm even more comfortable with the [Avid] systems as a result," she says. In her final semester at Chapman, she plans to take an online Avid DS Nitris training class offered by Avid and finish her thesis. After that she will join the union in preparation for landing a professional editing job in the film and television industries. Alec Smight, an editor on CSI, has already asked her to stay in touch and let him know when she gets union status.
"Students like Melissa are evidence of why we do what we do," says Bassett of the Chapman method. "By learning to use industry-standard tools and collaborative techniques students will find it much easier to transition into their careers."
But Melissa Brown is not the only success story. This year, three Chapman students were finalists for the new filmmaking reality show On the Lot from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett. Students with Avid editing experience have an added advantage on the show, since Media Composer software is used by contestants for editing projects during the competition.
"I've done a lot of work on different projects and that really helped when I went into the internship, especially confidence-wise."
- Melissa Brown, MFA Student, Chapman University
In addition, Alex Lamb, an undergraduate film student now in his senior year, won the 2007 ACE Student Competition for a television entry he created. He cut a set of video dailies to complete a television scene for the show Haskett's Chance. Along with two other nominees, Lamb was welcomed at a Los Angeles reception and introduced to several prominent people with whom he can now network.
"Chapman is different from other schools because we know a lot more about production when we graduate," explains Lamb. He also claims that the hands-on educational method is ideal. "It's really a great way to teach because the concepts don't stick until you put them to use. I like figuring things out." Lamb also plans to learn how to use the Avid DS Nitris system in his final semester.
The Future Chapman
Given the buzz around the school and its investment, tours of prospective students are virtually non-stop, and the school is receiving increasingly strong applications. "We've got students with some of the highest SAT scores in the entire school in our program," says Bassett. "It's very exciting."
Bassett aims on maximizing this advantage as the school continues to grow. "It will be a pure digital world in a few years. We will use the Internet for storage and access, cameras will be computerized, cinemas will be digital, and the hybrid methods that we use today will be obsolete. So it will be our job to keep up with these changes, and I believe that we will, and that our students will embrace the technologies that are on the way."
But technology is only a part of the innovation at Chapman. In a plan that is currently in the works this school will also be one of the first to bring feature-film production to its campus. Two production companies are currently interested in bringing low-budget, $3 million movies to the school, offering an opportunity for advanced students to further boost their experience and credentials.
"Young people come to our school with a passion for filmmaking," says Bassett. "We introduce them to the concepts of production from day one, and we give them the industry tools to work collaboratively. With the right tools in their hands the only limit for students is their imagination."
* CREDIT: Photos: Tom Bonner Photography