Course Descriptions
Echo Park Film Center (EPFC)
Los Angeles, CA, 2014 - 2016
Tell Your Story Walking: Like the song says, nobody walks in LA! Or do they? In an eclectic tradition of artists and activists ranging from Henry David Thoreau, Marina Abramovich, Charles Lummis, Mahatma Gandhi, Oskar Fischinger, Rosalie Gardiner Jones, Francis Alÿs, and the Paris flâneurs, this 12-week workshop invites students to use the simple act of walking combined with Super 8 filmmaking as a starting point to re-think, re-imagine, re-activate and re-present Los Angeles as a pedestrian wonderland with cinematic stories unfolding every step of the way.
Lost and Found Youth Class: Twenty two students (ages 13 - 17) searched for found footage, sounds, objects and words to deconstruct and reassemble into new works of art with new contextual meanings. Students utilized 16mm and Super 8mm found films, as well as collaging together different tactile media materials: online footage, found sounds, archival photographs, tape loops etc. All culminating student works screened at Machine Project gallery.
See You Soon: Moving Image Memories Youth Class: Twenty students (ages 13 - 18) - We explored the following: What is a portrait but a picture of a person? Or more accurately a picture of a person taken by another person. What is the relationship between these two people? In early portrait photography, subjects are often looking straight into the camera lens. The speed of the film was so slow at the time that subjects would have to remain completely still for minutes for correct exposure. The subjects literally appear frozen in time. In this intensive, we will study the art of portraiture - its history in both painterly and photographic contexts. Students will create a five minute cinematic portrait; a representation; a carefully composed picture that evokes a certain energy of a person, time, and place. We will use the digital video medium with small Harinezumi toy cameras which allow for an intimate yet temporal creative process.
Intro to Handmade Documentary Filmmaking on Super 8 (Adult Class): Co-taught a class of five students. In this 8-session course, students learned the fundamentals of Super 8 documentary filmmaking including storytelling, interview techniques, super 8 camera operation and film processing, digital sound recording as well as analogue film editing. Each student made a five minute film about family and/or community history and edited directly on film. We watched examples of documentary films from filmmakers such as Les Blank, Agnes Varda, as well as the Maysles brothers for inspiration.
Tinting and Toning Adult Workshop: 3 day intensive workshop. Co-taught a class of ten adults on mixing different chemical recipes to create tints and tones. Students used archival 16mm footage to dip into both traditional chemical packages and home-brewed kitchen ingredient tinting agents.
Power to the Pinhole: Youth Filmmaking one-month intensive with a class of 10 students on crafting their own 16mm pinhole cameras. Each student shot one roll of film and learned how to hand process their own rolls and projected for the final screening.
Los Angeles, CA, 2014 - 2016
Tell Your Story Walking: Like the song says, nobody walks in LA! Or do they? In an eclectic tradition of artists and activists ranging from Henry David Thoreau, Marina Abramovich, Charles Lummis, Mahatma Gandhi, Oskar Fischinger, Rosalie Gardiner Jones, Francis Alÿs, and the Paris flâneurs, this 12-week workshop invites students to use the simple act of walking combined with Super 8 filmmaking as a starting point to re-think, re-imagine, re-activate and re-present Los Angeles as a pedestrian wonderland with cinematic stories unfolding every step of the way.
Lost and Found Youth Class: Twenty two students (ages 13 - 17) searched for found footage, sounds, objects and words to deconstruct and reassemble into new works of art with new contextual meanings. Students utilized 16mm and Super 8mm found films, as well as collaging together different tactile media materials: online footage, found sounds, archival photographs, tape loops etc. All culminating student works screened at Machine Project gallery.
See You Soon: Moving Image Memories Youth Class: Twenty students (ages 13 - 18) - We explored the following: What is a portrait but a picture of a person? Or more accurately a picture of a person taken by another person. What is the relationship between these two people? In early portrait photography, subjects are often looking straight into the camera lens. The speed of the film was so slow at the time that subjects would have to remain completely still for minutes for correct exposure. The subjects literally appear frozen in time. In this intensive, we will study the art of portraiture - its history in both painterly and photographic contexts. Students will create a five minute cinematic portrait; a representation; a carefully composed picture that evokes a certain energy of a person, time, and place. We will use the digital video medium with small Harinezumi toy cameras which allow for an intimate yet temporal creative process.
Intro to Handmade Documentary Filmmaking on Super 8 (Adult Class): Co-taught a class of five students. In this 8-session course, students learned the fundamentals of Super 8 documentary filmmaking including storytelling, interview techniques, super 8 camera operation and film processing, digital sound recording as well as analogue film editing. Each student made a five minute film about family and/or community history and edited directly on film. We watched examples of documentary films from filmmakers such as Les Blank, Agnes Varda, as well as the Maysles brothers for inspiration.
Tinting and Toning Adult Workshop: 3 day intensive workshop. Co-taught a class of ten adults on mixing different chemical recipes to create tints and tones. Students used archival 16mm footage to dip into both traditional chemical packages and home-brewed kitchen ingredient tinting agents.
Power to the Pinhole: Youth Filmmaking one-month intensive with a class of 10 students on crafting their own 16mm pinhole cameras. Each student shot one roll of film and learned how to hand process their own rolls and projected for the final screening.