Industry Advantage: Sheridan College Offers Fast Track to Film and Television Careers
Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, boasts the third largest art school in North America. With an international reputation for film, animation, and design programs, students come to Sheridan from around the world to gain the skills and experience necessary to enter the workforce. Of approximately 4,500 full-time students in the college's School of Animation, Art, and Design, roughly 200 are enrolled in the school's Media Arts undergraduate program, which focuses on film and television production and post production. Competition to get into this highly regarded program is fierce. "There are as many as 1,500 applications for 65 positions each year," says Didier Kennel, master editing teacher for Sheridan's media programs, which include a postgraduate program in Advanced Television and Film that accepts only 45 students per year.
One of the reasons there are so many applications for these highly coveted spots is the successful job placement. "Close to 90 percent of the editors leaving Sheridan have jobs within the first few months after graduation," says Kennel. "Many graduates enter the workforce as assistant or junior editors and then quickly work their way up. We now see older graduates in the position of offering employment to new graduates. They even go so far as to call us first when a position becomes available so that our students often get first crack at a job."
In order to prepare students to land jobs in the competitive film and television markets, Sheridan College offers intense instruction on industry-standard technology. For editors in the Media Arts program, this means working on Avid systems from their first year through graduation. Says Kennel, "Regardless of whether our graduates want to work in corporate video, indies, broadcast, or feature films - when it comes to employment opportunities for our students, understanding other software cannot compete with training on Avid systems."
"Close to 90 percent of the editors leaving Sheridan have jobs within the first few months after graduation."
- Didier Kennel, Master Editing Teacher, Media Arts Program, Sheridan College
Industry Standard Technology
The Media Arts Program at Sheridan is a three-year undergraduate program. Students entering the program rent a Macintosh iBook laptop with pre-installed applications, which include Avid Xpress Pro and Digidesign Pro Tools LE software.
To complement the mobile units, students also have access to a post-production lab, which includes four Media Composer Adrenaline systems with the Avid DNxcel board for HD editing, two Media Composer Adrenaline systems, and three Meridien hardware-based Media Composer systems running on a combination of Macintosh and Windows platforms. Three Symphony systems are also available for student use. Audio editing and mixing resources include two flagship Digidesign Pro Tools|HD systems, plus 40 Mbox systems and three Digi 002 systems. In addition, the school has a full television broadcast studio.
First-year students also use Final Cut Pro software, however the school plans to switch these systems to 120 copies of Avid Xpress Pro to complement the second- and third-year editing curriculum, which focuses nearly exclusively on Avid systems for nonlinear editing. Currently, second-year students use Avid Xpress Pro software and third-year students use the Media Composer Adrenaline and Symphony systems. The flexible Avid systems offer comprehensive training on both Macintosh and Windows platforms.
"Because students have Avid Xpress Pro on their laptops, they can do the offlines at home or even on the train on their way into school. It gives them a lot of flexibility regarding where and when they can edit."
- Didier Kennel, Master Editing Teacher, Media Arts Program, Sheridan College
Technology in the Classroom
Students learn the basics of editing on Avid systems using Avid Xpress Pro software and then move on to use the Media Composer Adrenaline system. Says Kennel, "The higher-end systems are used for the more complex and effects-oriented projects as well as for onlining student shows. But because students have Avid Xpress Pro on their laptops, they can also do the offlines at home or even on the train on their way into school. It gives them a lot of flexibility regarding where and when they can edit."
After students complete offline edits on their laptops, they e-mail or bring their projects to the editing suites in the post-production lab to do their online work. Currently, each system operates as a standalone suite, but Kennel hopes that the lab will add a shared-storage system, such as Avid Unity LANshare or the Avid Unity MediaNetwork, in the future. Says Kennel, "With the prospect of more programs at Sheridan using the Avid products, we see that a central storage solution would be beneficial to everyone."
Assignments for the upper-level online editing course correspond to the students' advancing appreciation of the technology. Explains Kennel, "Because the students encounter the same interface and workflow from Avid Xpress Pro all the way through to Media Composer Adrenaline or Symphony they can concentrate on editing and not on trying to come to terms with a new system every time they move to another Avid product. This allows us to challenge their creative abilities with each subsequent assignment."
In addition to the consistent interface and ease of use that the Avid systems offer, students appreciate the ability to use mixed media on the timeline. "We do a lot of shows that require special effects and compositing. Being able to work with mixed media on the timeline allows students to combine high-resolution special effects created in other programs with low-resolution footage and to then check how well it all integrates before putting it online," explains Kennel.
Student projects include dramas, comedies, and industrial programs and typically range from one-minute to 15-minutes long. The undergraduate program's culminating assignment requires students to offline and online a half-hour television show, complete with commercial-break bumpers. Footage for these projects is provided by production companies from the Toronto area, so students get a chance to work on top-notch material. Once the student projects are complete, the show's director comes into the classroom to watch the edits and critique the students' work, providing students with direct contact with industry professionals.
Currently, only students in the graduate class in Master Editing use the Media Composer Adrenaline HD systems for editing and finishing in HD. However, Kennel is hopeful that this will change in the near future. He explains, "High definition is the future of our industry. The ability to learn this system in school will give our students a real advantage in the workforce."
Attracting Industry Talent
One of the key advantages of having such a strong international reputation is that Sheridan College attracts instructors at the top of their game from all over the world, including screenwriters who have written A-list scripts and animators who have worked on some of the biggest animated films. "Every one of our teachers is still involved in the industry, which means that they bring current information and techniques used in both pre-production and post production to the classroom," says Kennel.
Kennel himself has a long history with Avid products, having worked as a freelance editor for 20 years and been an Avid Certified Instructor for more than 10 years. He has trained editors in Canada, the United States, Europe, South America, and Africa, and has taught in Sheridan's Media Arts program for the past 11 years. Since September 2000, he has worked at the Avid Authorized Education Center at Sheridan College for Animation and Emerging Technologies (SCAET), providing specialized training on Media Composer Adrenaline, Symphony, and Avid Xpress Pro systems.
While Kennel is currently the only full-time instructor offering editing courses, the college invites industry experts to complement the curriculum. Says Kennel, "We are able to bring in working picture and audio editors right from industry, which helps to make the program a very vibrant learning environment. Not only does this give students the opportunity to learn the very latest practices, but it also helps them begin to build a network that will greatly improve their job search after graduation."
Success After Graduation
Kennel believes it is essential to offer students hands-on experience with the tools that they will use as working editors. "We are driven by what the industry needs. We want our students to make an impact as soon as they graduate. Our choice as an educational facility is to ensure that our students are employable. We look to the industry to see what it is using and what it recommends. Avid has been leading the way in the post world for many years and is still, by far, what professionals use."
So, how successful are the graduates of Sheridan College? "Many of our graduates win top awards in their fields," says Kennel. "Our most recent Academy Award nominee was Erin Faith Young who was nominated for the short documentary "Hardwood" in 2005. Erin graduated four years ago."
Aside from the awards and accolades, Kennel says that all he has to do is sit down and watch a few television shows to be reminded of his students' success. He explains, "I get a kick out of watching the credits roll because I can say, "That's one of ours and that's one of ours, and there's another and another." From a teacher's point of view, this is really cool."
*Credit: Courtesy of Sheridan College