Welcome to the Spring 2016 FMS Newsletter!
In this issue you’ll find our usual blend of features about FMS classes, profiles of alums, and news about FMS events.
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Inside this Issue
From the directors—page 2
FMS events — pages 3-5
From the classroom — pages 5-7
Internships— pages 8
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s AC360°, met with student members of Tufts media organizations, including the Tufts Daily and the Tufts Observer, to share insights on his career and the news Alumni news — pages 9-10 industry before taking the stage at the 11th Annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism (see page 3).
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2 FMS News
Notes from the FMS Director The first year of FMS has been an enormously exciting and busy one. Film and Media Studies Our first cohort of seniors just graduated, and we are ending the year Tufts University with over 50 majors, making us larger than many departments at 95 Talbot Avenue Tufts. We introduced several classes in the spring semester, including Global History of Cinema and Media Theory, and we are continuing Medford, MA 02155 to add courses in new areas, such as History of Animation, which will [email protected] be taught in the fall by world-renowned anime expert, Susan Napier. Due to the unprecedented student interest in filmmaking generated Malcolm Turvey—Director by the new major, next year we will also, for the first time, offer three [email protected] sections of Filmmaking 1, our introductory filmmaking course taught by Tufts alum Don Schechter and Experimental College Director 617-627-1103 Howard Woolf. Julie Dobrow—Co-director We are very grateful to the leadership team in the dean’s office, [email protected] especially Dean Nancy Bauer and Executive Administrative Dean Scott Sahagian, who have been unwavering in their support of FMS. 617-627-4744
Due to their help, we are excited to announce that a new 4K digital John Ciampa—Program Administrator projector and surround-sound system will be installed in the Tisch Library Media Room over the summer. These will prove invaluable in [email protected] delivering a first-class education in film and media studies to our 617-627-2155 students. Thanks to Deans Bauer and Sahagian, we were also able to hire two new staff members: Stacie Boucouvalas-Gianourakos, our Leslie Goldberg, J84—Internship Administrator staff assistant, and Natalie Minik, our technical support specialist who [email protected] will oversee our ever-growing supply of production equipment. 617-627-2007 This spring we continued to enhance the profile of FMS with an array of notable events. We welcomed Anderson Cooper for the annual Natalie Minik—Technical Support Specialist Murrow Forum, as well as film scholar David Bordwell, who gave a [email protected] talk about 1940s Hollywood films. Filmmaker Abigail Child, who just retired from the faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Stacie Boucouvalas-Gianourakos—Staff Assistant visited to show some of her extraordinary films, and we remain very [email protected] excited about collaborating with our new colleagues at the Museum School. We also co-sponsored a series of talks and screenings by film studies faculty. You can read more about some of these events in this Student Assistants issue. Xander Landen, A16
We look forward to being in touch again in the fall with more exciting Ben Reytblat, A18 news about the growth of FMS. Until then, we wish you a very happy Conner Calabro, A17 summer.
Malcolm Turvey, FMS Director
A note from FMS Co-Director, Julie Dobrow After building the CMS program for almost two decades and helping to launch the Film and Media Studies major in the past few years, I’m going to be making a transition at Tufts. I have been asked to spearhead the development of a new program, focusing on children and media through the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, and to work with the newly renamed Tisch College of Civic Life on the development of media and civic engagement initiatives. My appointment as a full-time faculty member at Eliot-Pearson and role as a Senior Fellow at Tisch will begin in the next academic year. I will continue to teach courses that count for FMS, to advise FMS students, and to work with all of the wonderful Tufts alums I have come to know so well over the years.
I’m excited about these great new opportunities, which will be complementary to FMS and which will enable me to consolidate my teaching and research interests.
My thanks to all of the colleagues with whom I’ve been so fortunate to work through CMS. I’m especially grateful to all of the students who have been such a joy to teach and to mentor, and to all of the alumni with whom I’ve been so privileged to collaborate. I’ve learned so much from all of you. I’m blessed to have formed relationships and friendships that will last a lifetime. And I look forward to continuing to work with you and to be in touch with you as I move my office over to Eliot- Pearson and begin work on these new initiatives.
2 3 Events
Edward R. Murrow Forum 360°: Beyond the Headlines with Anderson Cooper
By Julie Dobrow
The excitement was palpable. Cohen Auditorium, packed to capacity, erupted in the kind of raucous cheers you’d hear for a rock star when FMS Co-Director Julie Dobrow introduced the guest of honor. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper took the stage, waving to the cheering throngs.
In the 11th Annual Murrow Forum, interviewer Jonathan Tisch, A76, questioned Cooper about how his childhood was touched by tragedy (his father died when he was ten, his brother committed suicide when Cooper had just started college) informed his reporting on tragic situations like he encountered in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, Sri Lanka following the tsunami, and Ferguson Missouri. “It’s made me a better reporter,” replied Cooper, whose work on television has spanned stints on Channel 1, ABC, 60 Minutes on CBS, and CNN. Cooper later described himself as a “catastrophist” who expects the worst, tries to prepare himself for it and never loses his compassion for those who experience it.
Tisch posed a range of questions, including about how Cooper conducted pointed interviews with politicians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (“I felt it was part of my job” he replied), why he so often had chosen to cover the Anderson Cooper on the Cohen Auditorium stage difficult stories overseas (“You have to go and be willing to with Jonathan Tisch, A76, at the 11th Annual Edward be open to what you see, to be changed by it, and I think it R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism should horrify you and it should make you cry at night,”) and, of course, what he thought of the race for the White House in 2016 (“no one knows what to expect in the months to come…”). Prior to his public talk, Cooper spent some of his time at Tufts viewing part of the Edward R. and Janet Murrow archival collection, along with their son, Casey, and his family. Cooper also did a book signing of his new book written with his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes. More than 100 people had lined up hours before the event for the chance to get a autographed book and take a selfie with the journalist sometimes known as “the silver surfer of cable news.”
Cooper also conducted a session with representatives from The Tufts Daily, Tufts Observer, Her Campus, TUTV and the Tufts Podcasting Network. Cooper spent his time with the student journalists discussing his own career path, offering suggestions for getting a foot in the door and answering questions about how to cover stories in when you get emotionally involved with them, and how to interview difficult subjects. Each of the student journalists participating found him to be engaging and inspirational. One of the student editors remarked afterwards, “This was an opportuni- Anderson Cooper posing for a “selfie” with students ty of a lifetime and I will always remember; this as a highlight after signing a copy of his book for them of my time at Tufts.”
Every year after the Murrow Forum organizers Dobrow and Neal Shapiro, A80, question what they will do next year 3 to top the event we just had. The event with Anderson Cooper made us wonder all the more! 4 Events On the Air
By Julie Dobrow
Amidst the sophisticated paraphernalia of their hidden meth lab, Walter White (a.k.a. “Heisenberg”) rolls his eyes. “My god, that is the best coffee I’ve ever tasted!” “Sumatran beans,” says a slightly chagrined Gale Boetticher, his new assistant. “And I also have to give credit to the grind.”
This iconic scene played on the big screen in Cohen Auditorium to kick off the 2016 “On the Air: Media Careers for the Networked Generation” event. Why Breaking Bad? “Because,” said FMS Co-Director Julie Dobrow in her Julie Dobrow, co-director of the Film and Media Studies introduction, “we have three Tufts alums that were centrally program, moderates the keynote panel with Alex Marin, A involved in this award-winning television show. And we 92, Sharon Hall, J86, and David Costabile, A89, who have them with us today to speak not only about Breaking joined the panel via Skype. Bad, but what its success can tell us about the future of television.”
In this opening panel, Sharon Hall, J86, who read Vince Gilligan’s script after the networks had rejected it, saw its brilliance and sold it to AMC, Alex Marin, A92, who is an executive VP at Sony Pictures Television and tasked with international sales and distribution for Breaking Bad and developed its counterpart in Columbia, and David Costabile, A89, the actor who played Gale Boetticher in the American version, engaged in a lively conversation about the show’s incredible – and surprising – success. The panelists concluded that when Breaking Bad went to Netflix, it not only dramatically increased the viewership but also altered the trajectory for many television shows going forward. And, of course, laid the groundwork for the way many of us binge-watch series like Breaking Bad.
Subsequent breakout sessions included one on news, one on advertising and marketing, one on television and one on films.
“The Spin Zone: Making and Shaping the News” featured alumni Mary Knowles, J86; A17P, senior segment producer at HBO; Marian Porges, J82, vice president for News Standards and Practices at NBC News; Neal Shapiro, A80, CEO/president of WNET; and Rosanna Xia, A11, staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times. The session entitled “Trending in Digital: Advertising and Marketing in the 21st Century” had alums Meg Siegal, J99, executive director of the Radio Business Lab at Stephen Engel, A83, shares some wisdom about WBUR in Boston and Terrence Tran, A12, senior analyst at transitioning from being a lawyer to a television DigitasLBI discussing new venues for companies to advertise. comedy writer during the panel session ”Nothing Sells
Like Success: How to Develop a Series for Television.” “Nothing sells like success: How to develop a series for television” spawned a very lively discussion with television writer/showrunner Stephen Engel, A83, producer Nan- cy Glass, J77; A 14P, writer/producer Todd Kessler, A80, and Hall. And finally the two Alexes – Marin and docu- mentary filmmaker Alexandra Liveris, A07, discussed what it takes to get films made in “From Pitch to Production: Movies and Features.” 4 5 Events Faculty Film Series
By Malcolm Turvey
One reason FMS at Tufts is unique is that faculty in a wide array of departments across the university teach its courses. In order to showcase the rich inter-disciplinary work of our film studies faculty, FMS teamed up with Vida Johnson, professor and director of the Russian Program, to organize a series of film studies faculty talks and screenings throughout the semester.
The line-up was as follows: Vida Johnson (Russian) on Ivan's Childhood (Russia, 1960) by Andrei Tarkovsky; Malcolm Turvey (FMS Director and Art and Art History) on Mon oncle (France, 1958) by Jacques Tati; Susan Napier (Japanese) on the animated film Millennium Actress (Japan, 2001) by Satoshi Kon; Nina Gerassi-Navarro (Romance Languages) on the documentary Nostalgia for the Light (Nostalgia de la Luz) by Patricio Guzmán (Chile, 2010); Alessandra Campana (Music) on Hanna by Joe Wright (US, 2011); Lee Edelman (English) on The Law of Desire (La ley del deseo) by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1987); and Monica Ndounou (Drama and Dance) on Within Our Gates (US, 1920) by Oscar Micheaux.
The series was capped off by a screening of The Locket by John Brahm (USA, 1946) and a lecture by the world- renowned film scholar David Bordwell, titled "The Switcheroo Tradition: Narrative Innovations in 1940s Hollywood." As the diversity of films screened indicates, the extraordinary range of its faculty's research and teaching interests distinguishes FMS at Tufts. (For further information, visit the faculty page on our new website.)
Abigail Child visits Tufts
By John Ciampa
Noted filmmaker Abigail Child screened a trio of suburban- themed shorts during a March visit to Tufts. Taken together, these films challenged, provoked, and inspired audience members and upstart student filmmakers alike.
A visual triptych—Cake and Steak, The Future is Behind You, and Surf and Turf—refracted pre-existing home video footage through new narratives that, in many ways, transformed their Abigail Child intended meaning. With The Future is Behind You, for instance, Child utilized footage shot in Germany during the buildup to WWII to create a sense of mystery surrounding the fate of an unsuspecting Jewish family. Child explores themes of family and sexuality in the film, with the backdrop of war and the impending Holocaust as a powerful and unavoidable weight for the viewer to also consider.
Child’s film career stretches back to the 1970s, where her early focus was on documentary. Her later work became increasingly experimental, culminating in the seven-part opus Is This What You Were Born For?
The event concluded with a reception in the Remis Sculpture Child presents “The Suburban Trilogy” Court below the Tufts Art Gallery.
5 6 From the Classroom—Senior Projects
The annual FMS Senior Celebration took place on May 5 to honor and celebrate 54 students graduating with a minor in Communication and Media Studies, as well as the first six students ever to complete the Film and Media Studies major at Tufts. Students in both cases must complete either an original research project, teaching a perspective course to student peers, or writing an additional paper for a media elective. Students who selected the first option brought their projects along for all to see.
Below, six students give a brief overview of their project. Students displayed and discussed their projects at this year’s Senior Celebration
Imogen Browder, A16 (FMS major) — Streaming in Progress: Television in the Age of Online Distribution Streaming in Progress: Television in the Age of Online Distribution identifies and discuss the various ways streaming technology has impacted the television industry, including the business itself, the content, and the audience. In order to talk about television in the present, we take a look back at the history of television and use audience data and industry insight to consider the future of the business.
Max Greenhouse, A16 (FMS major)—Character of the Dance Character of the Dance is a multimedia, performative lecture on competitive ballroom dancing. The piece integrates the fields of drama, dance and film together into one seamless critique on the competitive industry. It includes a cast of eight dancers and a narrator who helps transition between the various dances, scenes, and clips in the piece. The clips, pulled from movies like Strictly Ballroom, Dance with Me, and The Tango Lesson all serve to visually further the argument the narrator is presenting; that there are many different “characters” of ballroom dancing that each have their own contested and problematic history. The piece attempts to solve these problems through live dance Max Greenhouse, A16, discusses his project at the Senior numbers or suggest more long term solutions when the issues Celebration with faculty member Jennifer Burton are systemic.
Sarah Zheng, A16 (FMS major) — Inside the classroom: Political correctness Political correctness has become the rallying cry in the media against oversensitive, "coddled" college students and the limits that this phenomenon has placed on freedom of speech. But what does the term really mean and how does it manifest on the Tufts campus? This documentary explores the culture of political correctness at Tufts, both in terms of how this culture affects the way that professors are teaching and how students are learning in the classroom. It seeks to open up conversation about political correctness through the filmmaker's personal journey in coming to understand what the term means and what its implications are for teaching, learning, and free speech.
6 7 From the Classroom
Napassorn Boon-Long, A16 (CMS minor)— Follow Me To College: A Let's Get Ready Marketing Campaign For my CMS Senior Project, I created a Marketing and Communications Campaign for Let's Get Ready (LGR), a nonprofit organization that I interned with this summer. Let's Get Ready provides free college access and college success services to low-income and first generation students. The goal of my project was to increase the visibility of LGR's online presence and improve communication between the organization and its donors, volunteer, and program participants. I conducted a SWOT analysis and content analysis of Let's Get Ready's current social media accounts to identify what kind of content gets the most attraction and engagement from their followers. From there, I proposed different social media strategies to use on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, as well as revamping their slogan and e-newsletters. The main factor I focused on was how to create dialogue between the organization and its online followers, rather than just distributing information from one side. To tie all the social media proposals together, I suggested the use of the hashtag #FollowMeToCollege as a way to thread all the different social media posts together as a cohesive communications platform for LGR. Follow Me To College also became the new slogan I propose for the organization, and the name of my project. My hope is that this project can help an amazing organization gain more visibility and support for a very worthy cause.
Noriko Louison, A16 and Morgen Quintus, A16 (CMS minors)—Galactic Zoo Time: An App to Practice Executive Function for Preschoolers Our project is an app for iPad that targets the development of executive function skills by embedding tasks of working memory, mental shifting, and inhibition within a healthy habits and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) curriculum. We developed a design manual and illustrated still frames to convey our plan for the app, which we would love to see developed in the future. The app’s narrative, Galactic Zoo Time, takes place at a space zoo where users are invited to help with the feeding, exercising, Noriko Louison and Morgen Quintus’ senior project on and bathing of the alien creatures. Galactic Zoo Time is display at this year’s celebration unique in its integration of executive functioning training within a larger narrative structure with moments for creative play: each task is followed by open-ended activities that include drawing and making music. Our hope is that this interactive and responsive design will engage users so that they will continue to enjoy using the app after many plays.
Katherine Higgons, A16 (CMS minor)— Once Upon a War For my senior project, I wrote a feature-length screenplay about a group of friends’ experiences from World War II, shown through the perspective of fairy tale characters. While the screenplay included many references, the main perspectives were taken from five different stories: The Brave Little Tailor, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Sleeping Beauty. I chose to mesh these two genres, fairy tales and war, because the original Grimm’s’ fairy tales were dark, gritty, horrific, and violent, similar to the many aspects of World War II. My story is significant for a variety of reasons, with the main ones being that I have taken away the romanticization that modern times and Disney has placed on fairy tales and war films and that I have tried to be as historically accurate as possible in order to not disrespect the complex history of Europe (specifically Germany) during World War II. I have always loved fairy tales, and in finishing my screenplay, I have completed a project that I have been imagining for three years.
7 8 From the Classroom
Radio free Tufts
By John Ciampa
It’s 6 p.m. inside the deep recesses of Tisch Library and it’s almost shop time. For Craig LeMoult, A98, a senior reporter for Boston’s National Public Radio affiliate station WGBH, his otherwise nondescript computer lab is about to transform into an audio workshop, filled with students threading sound snippets, research, and stories into compelling narrative weaves.
It’s a veritable digital/audio kitchen—and LeMoult’s eager to hear what each student has cooked up for their final projects.
But LeMoult’s much more than just an audio technocrat. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School, LeMoult’s also a bare-knuckled reporter at heart, with a knack for mixing hard-edged, breaking-news with richly-textured soundscapes to flesh out his stories.
LeMoult’s syllabus spells out the protocol: “You are now a reporter for Tufts Radio News. You will learn everything you need to create four to six minute audio feature pieces. We will listen to some great radio stories and learn to appreciate and emulate what makes them great.”
Throughout the course he pushes students to work with a discerning, critical eye, with an emphasis on capturing sound and adapting their writing into tightly-wound scripts.
Another of his goals is clear: to provide each LeMoult (back, right) fields a question during his class “Radio student with the ability to complete every step Journalism and Audio Storytelling” of the story-building process themselves. To become, in essence, a true independent radio reporter. “I want them to be able to go out in the field and come away with something that’s suitable to pitch,” he says.
Students had to produce three original, edited, sound-rich stories during the course: a profile, an event story, and one additional feature. All stories that were suitable for broadcast were posted to the WMUA-Tufts Radio website and the Tufts Podcast Network.
Highlight’s included a funny and touching profile of a local gas station attendant by CMS senior Jordan Abosch, A16. There’s also freshman Sarah Chin’s colorful piece on the growth of “flow arts” in Davis Square. This year’s Burke intern, Annika Leybold, A16, contributed two stories, including “Sweet Education,” an in-depth look at maple syrup that’s produced locally in Somerville.
These and other stories available on the podcasting network exhibit keenly-sculpted details that easily capture the attention of listeners. In short, they are professional sounding clips that one could imagine hearing on the radio.
“I’m a photographer and I’m used to telling stories visually,” says Nick Pfosi, A16, a CMS minor pursuing a career in photojournalism. “But this class gave me a new appreciation for what you can do with sound. The possibilities are endless.”
8 9 Internships Students exercise creative muscles during spring internships By Leslie Goldberg, FMS Internship Administrator
This year brought some varied internships to the Film & Media Studies program. Along with taking on “tried and true” positions in advertising agencies, public relations firms, broadcast media outlets, and newspapers, Tufts stu- dents also interned at nonprofit agencies, start-up companies, and big data marketing firms. A networking trip to the Tufts Career Fair in the spring also garnered new internship offerings, including at the Museum of Fine Arts, athe- nahealth. Inc., the Malden Observer, and more. Here’s what a few FMS interns had to say about their experiences this year:
I interned at Gupta Media, which is a digital advertising company with a focus on advertising for musical artists. I mostly worked on campaigns at the planning level. I researched potential target audiences for new artists and made media plans for both new and established artists. These media plans showed what the outline of an upcoming campaign would be, and they usually consisted of some combination of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Instagram ads. I also learned how to navigate the ad platforms of each of these sites and gather analytics for current or past campaigns. Finally, I learned to analyze campaigns using those statis- tics in order to report back to clients on a campaign's success. Overall, I gained a huge amount of knowledge about how to suc- cessfully advertise a music release across various digital platforms. I would highly recommend interning at Gupta to anyone in- terested in digital marketing or the business and sales side of the music industry. —Maris Nyhart, A16
I really enjoyed my internship at the Malden Observer; it was unlike any internship I’ve ever had. Instead of going into an office every day and sitting at a desk, at the Malden Observer I set my own schedule. I chose what articles I wanted to write, including business profiles, stories of people, events in Malden, and even crime reports. I learned how to edit stories for journalism, and to understand the huge difference between writing a paper for school and writing a story for the paper. Working at the Malden Ob- server taught me invaluable writing skills and helped me figure out the style of work I’m most interested in. —Maya Blackstone, A17
As a research intern at Corporate Accountability International this spring, I learned valuable skills that varied from organizing meetings to creating weekly work plans and analyzing international policy documents. Each day, I read numerous news stories and researched information to support public health and environmental campaigns. The best part of the experience was the people. Everyone was so warm, and I always felt as though I was an important part of the community. It was an incredible experience to be part of such an effective, well-organized, and intentional team. This summer, I have decided to stay as a senior intern because I have had such a positive experience. -Sophie Dulberg, A17
If you’d like to learn more about the FMS internship program, contact Leslie Goldberg at [email protected].
9 10 Internships Endowed summer internships offer unique experiences
By Leslie Goldberg
Annika Leybold, A16 and Jem Wilner, A16 will be expanding their media horizons this summer in two competitive, application-only endowed summer internships.
Annika will be participating in the David Burke Internship, a position that places the award recipient in a major news organization such as WBUR in Boston or ABC News in New York; this year, Anna will be working at WBUR. The internship was established in honor of Tufts alumnus, the late David Burke, A57, as a tribute to his career in public service and media, and to his commitment to mentorship and experiential learning.
Annika studied clinical psychology and Spanish at Tufts, but found her passion for radio with the Tufts David Burke, A57 Podcast Network. She grew up listening to This American Life while driving around her home of Portland, Oregon. As the unofficial arts correspondent with TPN, Annika wrote about exhibits at the Tufts Art Gallery and explored professors' work on Frida Kahlo and Edgar Allan Poe. She's fascinated by the role of memory in story-telling and wants to work to preserve stories that matter, especially from marginalized voices. Annika says, “I am really looking forward to developing my storytelling skills at WBUR and am so grateful for this opportunity!”
Jem is excited to be participating in the CJ Saraceno Internship, which gives enterprising, creative Tufts students the opportunity to dive head on into the Los Angeles media world. This internship was established in memory of C.J. Saraceno, A11, who passed away suddenly in 2013. Funded by alumni, friends, and family members who cared about and were inspired by C.J., the internship honors this passionate creator who challenged the status quo. Jem grew up in Putney, Vermont, which inspired his love of adventurous cooking, the outdoors, and his passion for building worlds and storytelling. He graduated with a major in drama and minors in entrepreneurial leadership and film and media studies.
At Tufts, Jem produced three miniseries, four short films, a music video, and two theatrical productions. C.J. Saraceno, A11 He also spent time behind and in front of the camera, directing and co-writing five short films, as well as acting in many projects. Jem has interned at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way Productions, working as a personal assistant to George DiCaprio, and “winterned” at Bona Fide Productions during his sophomore year. He says he is “overjoyed to be returning to Bona Fide this summer!” In the fall, he will start full time at ICM Partners, where he will continue to pursue his passion for film and entertainment.
10 11 Alumni News
Alumni Updates
Crystal Bui, A11, was presented with an Excellence in Journalism award this month from the Society of Professional Journalists. Michael Glassman, A01, is now working a development executive for LD Entertainment in West Hollywood. Jane Lee, A14, is currently working for the FCC while pursuing her J.D. degree at George Washington University. Molly Lorenzo, A09, is now working as a product designer at Turo in San Francisco. Lilly Lu, A15, had a her screenplay, Great Minds, accepted into the Beverly Hills Film Festival in April. Jaffar Mahmood, A00, directed an episode of the hit series The Middle this season. Shay Martin, A12, is now working for MasterClass, an educational startup based in San
Francisco. Gracie McKenzie, A15, is now working as a digital producer for the Diane Rehm Show at
WAMU in Washington D.C. David Myers, A96, is now the vice president at Roll Call in Washington D.C. Valerie Wencis, A04, is now the director of communications at the Fletcher School.
FMS welcomes new staff member FMS continued the expansion of its staff this spring by welcoming Natalie Minik as the program’s new technical support specialist.
Minik holds an MFA in experimental and documentary arts from Duke University as well as a BFA in photography and an ABJ in journalism from the University of Georgia. After graduating from Duke, she was the 2013-2014 Lewis Hine Documentary Fellow through the Center for Documentary Studies. At FMS, she assists students with their technical equipment needs, organizes equipment pickup, and holds workshops on understanding lens-based tools for artistic practice.
“As someone who sees technical proficiency as not only an understanding of equipment and workflow but as an opportunity to guide artistic work, I hope to aid students in creating media they feel communicates their ideas to the fullest extent,” she says. Natalie Minik
Before joining Tufts, she was a production coordinator at Cambridge Community Television where she worked with community members and interns to create media content for Cambridge.
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