Fall 2016 FMS Newsletter

- Notes from the director - FMS expands production - Documenting China - An anthropological approach to film - Internship rundown - Faculty profile - Dudley Andrew visits Tufts - Alumni snapshot - "Starring John Cho"

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Notes from the FMS Director

The second year of FMS is proving to be as eventful and thrilling as the first. We are continuing to attract students to the program, and are ending 2016 with over 70 majors and minors. We are also expanding our curriculum by sponsoring or co-sponsoring innovative new courses. Highlights this fall included "Race to the White House" taught by CNN political analyst David Gregory, Susan Napier's "History of Animation," and new faculty member Alexander Shraytekh's "Popular Culture and the Arab Spring." Next semester, we are tremendously fortunate that our technical support specialist Natalie Minik, who is an accomplished documentary filmmaker, will be teaching "Documentary: History, Theory and New Directions" through the Experimental

College.

Among the events we participated in this fall, of particular note was "A Year Like No Other: Politics & The Press in 2016," which FMS Co-director Julie Dobrow helped organize. Featuring New York Times reporter Patrick Healy, National Public Radio reporter Asma Khalid, Mic co-founder Jake Horowitz, and moderated by David Gregory, the panel offered insights into the role of the media in this tumultuous election cycle. Meanwhile, in December we welcomed to campus Dudley Andrew, the R. Selden Rose Professor of Comparative Literature and professor of Film Studies at Yale University, who gave a stimulating talk on 3D. Finally, the merger with the SMFA continued apace, and we are in the process of integrating the SMFA's curriculum with ours. We are very excited that Tufts students will be able to take advantage of the SMFA's many wonderful courses on experimental film, video, sound art, and moving image installations.

I look forward to being in touch again at the end of the spring with more exciting news about the growth of FMS. Until then, I wish you a very happy 2017.

Malcolm Turvey, FMS Director

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FMS expands production By Natalie Minik, FMS Technical Support Specialist and Instructor

It has been an exciting year for the production side of Film and Media Studies. With a newly-structured production track, students are getting experience in both the technical and theoretical sides of creating media content. To help this process, FMS has invested in professional audio and visual equipment to give students hands-on experience with industry standard equipment. Over the summer, the department acquired a fleet of Panasonic GH4 cameras, Tascam DR-701D sound recorders, and Felix LED light kits. This fall semester, students in all three sections of Filmmaking I used this gear to develop their technical filmmaking skills while working on their class projects. Students will continue to produce work during the spring semester in courses centered on filmmaking, screenwriting, and directing, while also completing senior projects.

In addition to our main fleet of GH4 cameras, FMS has invested in cameras for faculty work and advanced student projects. This year we purchased two Sony FS5 units, featuring a smaller, handheld form factor that uses a Super 35mm- sized sensor for cinematic imagery. This camera is great for both narrative and documentary work, and students and faculty have already begun to experiment with its scope. We also purchased an Arri Alexa Plus, a professional camera that provides a great cinematic look and is used in many commercials and Hollywood films. For example, the 2015 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film, Ida, and 2015 Academy Award nominee, Mr. Turner, were shot with this camera. Two faculty member projects have been shot with the Alexa Plus this semester: Howard Woolf’s feature Letting Daniel Go and professor Jennifer Burton’s ongoing project Half the History. Additionally, FMS student Ben Taylor, A17, will use the Arri Alexa to shoot his senior film, Trail, over winter break.

This year, Tufts students have had access to more audio and visual equipment than ever before. By providing access to resources students need to execute their creative visions, we hope to continue to support and promote the

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production side of FMS over the next semester.

Inside the equipment "cage" in the basement of 95 Talbot Avenue

Senior project profile By Conner Calabro, A17

Menglan Chen, A17, came from China to Tufts with a purpose. And now, three and a half years later, she has fulfilled it.

Chen first contacted Film and Media Studies Co-director Julie Dobrow as a high school student in China seeking advice about what she could do after she graduated from high school (but before she came to Medford) to gain some experience with documentary. Chen’s passion for documentary began to gravitate toward photography after she took advantage of the SMFA courses offered to her as a Tufts student.

In addition to documentary, Chen is also interested in anthropology (her major),

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as well as Asian American studies - which both led to her chosen topic for her first photo-documentary and Communications and Media Studies senior project: Qiang and China, Made and Unmade. Throughout her final semester at Tufts, Chen made a photo-documentary book with supplemental text that examines an ethnic minority group in southwestern China. She chose Qiang as the ethnic minority group of focus because a large earthquake struck the group's village, and after it hit, the centralized government enforced many reconstruction projects.

Chen wasn’t sure what the goal or theme of her work would be until she took a semester off from college to live in the Qiang village and personally experience the environment, as well as hear many of the stories of its inhabitants. “When I lived there I was able to not only see the changes that the earthquake had caused, but also how the meanings of places in the village have changed for the people over the past 100 years,” she says.

From her lived experience with the village and villagers, a story emerged: the exposition of how the Chinese central government imposed a narrative of what the ethnic minority is in this region and how it attempted to reconstruct the ethnic unity of the village. More importantly, though, is the underlying theme that Chen hoped her readers would extract: “I’m really hoping that my readers can try to understand these experiences without pre-supposed ideas of what the identity is of these people or what it means to be autonomous.”

Although Chen has completed her senior project and her time at Tufts, her work on this particular project is far from over. She graduated last fall and hopes to return to the village at a different time of year so she can see the place again before the Chinese New Year. Ultimately, Chen hopes that her work and experience thus far is just a starting point; she hopes to be able to go to more villages and talk to other ethnic minorities to tell their stories, as well.

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Chen's camera eye: An excavator hired from the city to repair private farmland in Radish Village, Sichuan, China, March 2016

An anthropological approach to film By Abby Lord, A17

It was 8 a.m. and my first day at the School of Visual Anthropology Film Festival in Minneapolis. I was there to do research for my undergraduate thesis and was fully confident that I was where I needed to be. However, to be completely honest, I was nervous about whether I would find what I was looking for. My senior thesis is on sensory ethnography, audiences, and film. This intersection between anthropology and film has been studied before but most of the studies

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are focused deeply on only a few films - I wanted to write about something new. When I talked to Film and Media Studies Co-director Julie Dobrow about this film festival, she encouraged me to apply to the Undergraduate Research Fund, and I ended up getting this trip fully-funded by Tufts. So there I was in Auditorium B of the Minneapolis Convention Center, the lights were dimming and the first film was about to start.

The first film was At Low Tide by Anna Grimshaw and it confirmed exactly my reasons for going to the festival. The film incorporated aspects of anthropology and aesthetics that I was interested in. Beginning my experience with that film provided a framework for the types of questions I would ask filmmakers and myself. Sitting, experiencing, thinking, watching. It made me think about what it means to be a viewer and helped me practice what it means to be an active viewer in a way that is specific to sensory ethnographic film. After the film, I scheduled an interview with her and it made me realize the tremendous amount of support and encouragement that established practitioners have for the younger generation of ethnographic filmmakers.

My senior honors thesis topic was an idea that was formed from my dual interest in my double majors- anthropology and film/media studies. I was attracted to the encouragement of creativity in knowledge creation in anthropology and was particularly interested in the relationship between film and representation in anthropology. The creation of the FMS major came at a perfect time because it gave me an environment I didn’t know I needed but did. Taking Natalie Minik’s Experimental College class "History and Theory of Documentary" confirmed my interest in documentary film and laid the building blocks for what I am still doing, which is exploring and discovering a variety of experimental ways of creating non-fiction film. The flexibility of the FMS major gave me the ability to combine my interests and fully immerse myself in the specifics.

Going to the SVA Film Festival and the overall conference confirmed what I thought I knew about myself and the type of person I want to become. Being in

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an environment with people who are experimenting with the wide variety of creative ways to do knowledge creation inspired me to pursue my interest, no matter how specific. It exposed me to a community of people who showed me that I was not alone in wanting to experiment with different forms in a critical way. Since the festival, I have been scheduling interviews with filmmakers and have felt myself become more confident in asking questions and interacting with people in the field. Not only was this experience one that gave me the ability to get original content, it also helped me imagine my future and the type of person I want to become. Thank you to Julie Dobrow, Malcolm Turvey, Amahl Bishara, and Nick Seaver for their help and encouragement.

“Flexibility” a key predictor of success in the media fields by Leslie Goldberg, FMS Internship Administrator

A high-level media executive recently told me that the ability to be flexible is the key to success in today’s fast-paced media climate. And, he said, Tufts students have that skill.

Imagine the film student who learned to use Final Cut Pro in her Filmmaking I class freshman year; by senior year, Adobe Premiere is the go-to software for film editing. This student has to be flexible enough to learn the new software, trouble-shooting as she goes. She also has to take what she already knows about editing and apply it to this completely new milieu.

With finely honed problem-solving abilities and the dexterity to learn new technologies in the blink of an eye, this young filmmaker and other Jumbos like her are well positioned for jobs in media. Media careers - including those in film, television, broadcast news, print journalism, advertising, marketing, publication relations, and more - require outstanding research and writing skills, creativity, teamwork, critical thinking, an interdisciplinary perspective, and of course, flexibility.

Tufts FMS students learn these “transferable” skills in the classroom, but also in

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media internships. This semester, like in years’ past, students interned at many organizations in the fields of public relations, television, journalism, and nonprofit communications. Sites included the venerable Boston advertising agency Hill Holliday, local community broadcasting Somerville Community Access Television, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, and public television’s science program NOVA at WGBH-TV.

At these sites and more, interns researched stories, interviewed subjects and clients, filmed and edited clips, worked on campaigns, analyzed data, wrote copy, and planned events. No matter what type of media they worked in, all learned technical skills and gained professional experience they could never have learned in a classroom. As one student pointed out, “the research I did as a journalism intern this semester fine-tuned my critical thinking skills and taught me how to apply what I’ve learned about doing research to the ‘real world.’ Doing this internship not only put my Tufts education to work, but also gave me confidence in my decision to pursue media as a career.”

If you want to hone your skills and learn to be flexible in the lightning-fast field of media, consider doing a media internship this spring or summer. Now is the time to start looking! For more information, contact me at [email protected].

Burton leads students on fall film projects By Stacie Boucouvalas-Gianourakos, FMS Staff Assistant

Every year students in the Producing for Film course and their professor, Jennifer Burton, create a short film about a remarkable, but widely unknown, woman in history. These films fall under the umbrella of Burton’s Half The History project. Half of the people who have lived in America, she notes, have been female. However, an absence of their stories from our textbooks and from our general knowledge has created what she sees as a gap in our understanding of history, which she feels comes from a one-sided male perspective. Accordingly, Burton is committed to using her craft to tell female

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stories and carefully selects women with a wide range of life experiences. To that end, the fall 2016 semester’s project focuses on three abstract expressionist artists – Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell – so that viewers of the film understand abstract expressionism as a whole rather than attributing one person’s experience as being representative of the whole.

Students are involved throughout the entire process, from researching the subject and writing the screenplay through distribution. Kyle Paul, A18, remarks, “This isn’t a class that can be taught lecture-style or even seminar-style, but the hands-on experience has given me vital knowledge and ‘tricks of the trade’ that make me confident in pursuing my own production projects in [the] future.”

Each student takes on a role in the production that interests them (from camera operation and producing to post-production aspects such as video editing and even creating music for the series) and then Burton fills in the remaining positions from her network of media professionals in the Boston area. “Being on set with a professional crew that we actually hired - shadowing and befriending them felt like a level-up from a typical student film project,” adds Paul.

Burton finds great value in the opportunity to collaborate with others in what she calls the “arts corridor” at Tufts. “I think it's just a wonderful thing to be able to work as artists and as scholars together," she says. The Music department has lent their talents to the sound composition, Art and Art History created artwork seen in the latest film, and Drama and Dance has lent props, costumes, and even an instructor as one of the actresses. Even the Art Gallery, which displays ones of Frankenthaler’s paintings, helped contextualize the work within the expressionist movement.

This endeavor has no end in sight. “I think I’ll do this forever,” Burton exclaims. “Why stop?”

Click here to see the first video completed under the project, which

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conceptualizes the series.

Students in Producing For Film consider their next shot in the latest installment video of Half the History.

Dudley Andrew visits Tufts By John Ciampa, FMS Program Administrator

Closing out the fall slate of FMS events, noted film scholar and theorist Dudley Andrew took a captive Tufts audience on a 3D thrill ride atop a lumbering train. The destination? A place where filmgoers can contemplate how modern visuals are able to elevate the emotional and aesthetic realism of cinema.

Citing the work of the influential French post-war film critic Andre Bazin, Andrew reiterated the importance of realism within a three-dimensional context, stating that visual innovations need not detract from the "objective reality" of what we see on screen. A brilliant conceptualist, Bazin died in 1958 at the age of 40. But

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during his relatively brief writing career successfully theorized a groundbreaking and provocative counterpoint to how films were previously critiqued - by way of writings that often assessed film according to its ability to transmute reality through technical innovation. Bazin's writings, however, espoused forms such as the Italian neorealism of the late-1940s instead of the artifice of prewar German Expressionism.

Having written and edited numerous volumes on Bazin, Andrew is perhaps the world's foremost scholar on Bazin's continuing influence. His latest volume, Opening Bazin, may be the most comprehensive look into the late-theorist's work to date.

Sarah Keller, assistant professor and director of cinema studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, provided a detailed response to Andrew's lecture, generating additional discourse on the topic of Bazin and 3D. The event was co-sponsored by the Boston Cinema/Media Seminar, with many members in attendance.

Andrew's visit marked the latest effort by FMS to attract top film scholars to campus. Currently the R. Selden Rose Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of Film Studies at Yale, Andrew divides his time between mentoring students and examining the intersection of cinema and literature. In addition to his in-depth work with graduate students, he teaches undergraduate courses in

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Dudley Andrew

World Cinema and adaptation, as well as seminars related to Bazin, whose complete works he curates in a dedicated archive on the Yale campus. A leading authority on French film, he is an “officier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres,” and received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Starring John Cho By John Ciampa, FMS Program Administrator

Moviegoers have always imagined themselves up on the big screen, in leading roles as the hero or even anti-hero, splashing across cellophane in dramatic fashion to get the girl, save the day, or perhaps become that iconic character who lives forever through the magic of film.

William Yu, A14, feels the same way - he just wishes more of those roles were filled by people who looked a bit more like him.

So Yu, a Korean-born Asian American whose interest in exploring racial identity

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through television and film dates back to his days at Tufts, came up with an idea. What if he replaced the Matt Damons and Tom Cruises of the Hollywood blockbuster with...John Cho?

John Cho, you say?

Cho, an Asian-American actor who's achieved a fair amount of notoriety over the last two decades, seemed like the perfect foil for Yu's project - popular enough to be recognized, but obscure enough to defy typecasting. The Korean- born actor had previously filled supporting roles in off-beat comedies like American Pie, Down to Earth, and Bowfinger, before stepping into the spotlight for the Harold & Kumar series of buddy-flicks. Still, he flies below the mass audience radar of most Americans, despite boldly going were no Asian actor has gone since George Takai, via the role of Hikaru Sulu, the venerable helmsman in the Star Trek film franchise.

Using Photoshop skills honed as a teenager, Yu superimposed images of Cho into various movie posters and billboards. In the click of a mouse, Cho instantly became Captain America, Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible, and astronaut Mark Whatney in The Martian.

The intent was obvious: make a clear, visual, and compelling statement against the "whitewashing" of Hollywood. “It got to a point where Asians were only being cast for Asian roles,” says Yu. “But they can play any role."

Enter the Twitter handle #StarringJohnCho, which now enjoys the healthy support of nearly 7,000 followers. Yu calls it a social movement, and an accompanying website he built sums up the movement nicely: Only one percent of lead roles go to Asians. But if studies show that films with diverse casts result in higher box office numbers and higher returns on investments for film companies, why doesn't Hollywood cast lead actors to reflect this fact? A future is coming when an Asian-American actor is the next tent pole star. #StarringJohnCho creates a reality that brings that vision of tomorrow's

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Hollywood to today. Support #StarringJohnCho by sharing the hashtag and help ignite this necessary conversation.

Yu says he didn't have any prior contact with Cho, but felt comfortable using him because of the actor's outspokenness on the under-representation of Asians in Hollywood. Once he had heard about the project - about a week after its launch - Cho voiced his support, and almost immediately followed and re-tweeted the account. Within a month, the two made contact and arranged a meeting at a small Manhattan eatery.

“He liked that I was giving voice to a subject that no one has given a voice to yet," says Yu. Both men shared common experiences about not having enough Asian role models in theater and film to look up to when they were younger.

Yu believes the problem is rooted in what he refers to as the “American brand," a time-tested, profitable formula that's easily marketed to mass audiences, which also makes it risky to mess with for financial backers. It's also something that Yu says rarely includes an Asian "slice," even if the cast of a given film is somewhat diverse. Yu points to the perception of American culture abroad as something that exacerbates the problem: “It's not an issue for them because the international community just sees America as being black and white.”

Because of their considerable global appeal, Will says he would ultimately like to see more big film franchises casting Asian actors in essential roles, He also hopes that some of the posters he's created will encourage people to consider the possibilities of how such roles can look different, but remain just as compelling..

Meanwhile, three months into a new job at a New York-based ad agency, Yu continues to build his career as a strategist, but also confesses that creative side-projects like the John Cho concept will continue to be part of his work - call it a social justice seed planted during his childhood and fertilized after came to Tufts.

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He says he already has a few ideas in the works, and plans to continue writing until he makes his next big point.

Hollywood's next leading man? What a world "starring John Cho" would look like.

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