Production Facilities

Our production courses are taught entirely with portable digital video equipment. (We use the term "film" not to designate a particular technology, but a particular category of creative practice.) Students create almost all of their production assignments as individuals or in groups of two. In contrast to the specialized division of labor of the professional-style crew system used in production courses at other schools, we want all of our students to experience all elements of the creative process in creating their course projects.

This approach requires students to have ready access to the tools of the medium, and we are extraordinarily well-equipped for a program of our size.

We have upgraded our production equipment to HDV, allowing all students to work in High Definition Video. We have eight camera kits, including Canon XH-A1 three-chip HDV camcorders, Sennheiser and Audio-Technica microphones, and Bogen tripods. We also have four Lowell light kits available for checkout.

Our editing lab is accessible 24 hours a day and includes five DV non-linear editing workstations, based on Macintosh Intel iMac computers and Final Cut Studio 2 software. A new "Annex" lab space includes 2 more HDV Final Cut Studio workstations, a sound recording/voiceover station with ProTools software, and equipment to transfer 16mm film to video. These facilities are limited to students currently enrolled in production classes or approved independent projects, and are not shared with the general campus population.

In addition to the facilities specifically supporting the film curriculum, the College offers additional video production facilities for the general campus community under the auspices of Media Services and the Advanced Technology Laboratory (ATL), both located in Shain Library. Available equipment includes DV camcorders, PC and Mac-based computer graphics stations and non-linear video editing.

Production equipment available in the department