For the last five summers, one of my assignments has been Instructor for the Woodstock Film Festival Summer Youth Filmmaking Lab. The three-week intensive lab introduces young teens to the world of filmmaking. It challenges them to conceptualize, produce, shoot, edit, and audio-mix original short films. This year I worked with a team of five amazing students on their documentary, ‘Paperback,’ which will premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival this fall. On Wednesday August 3rd, Woodstock Film Festival hosted a ‘Friends and Family’ screening at the Rosendale Theater. A proud papa moment–Nora Bray (in the Fiercely Independent Shirt) worked with an instructor and pees to create ‘Hunger in Kingston,’ a beautiful community oriented documentary short. Her film will also premiere at the festival! Well done, everyone!

What an exciting academic year. We began in the fall with fully on-site classes. Through this wave of the pandemic, we have had shifting guidelines, occasional remote learning, and yet the students persevered and made it a memorable year.

In my personal life, I welcomed my new son, am relocating (locally), and am now moving into the Chair’s office. Professionally, the film is in post-production, the book is moving forward, and the classes were all very successful.

I do want to take a moment to congratulate all our students, colleagues, and staff for such an amazing academic year. We all have so much to be proud of. As Professor Sperry (pictured below/photo by Professor Megan Sperry) tells us, Teamwork makes the Dream Work. And this year enjoyed quite a bit of team work. From our successful Ottaway Seminar, to the Legislative Gazette, to the Lambda Pi Eta induction ceremony, we have seen one accomplishment after another. Among them include new opportunities through our alumni and Foundation Board members Ed Carroll and Gina Carroll, two remarkable people we are honored to welcome back to our area. Their generosity created the podcasting class (see the article below), and have created scholarship opportunities for our DMJ students.

As I enter the Chair’s office, I recognize the responsibility in helping shape and move forward our exciting programs and majors with an eye toward media’s complex future. For now, I welcome everyone to take a breath, and enjoy some professionally produced podcasts courtesy of Professor Barry.

Excited to return to campus this week to begin the Spring semester. During my fall sabbatical, a play I wrote was published; I started a collected volume, ‘Who Was That Masked Woman,’ and made a short film, ‘Escapism’ currently in post-production. Getting these irons in the fire is invaluable for a teaching scholar, and practitioner, and it was wonderful having the space to get these projects rolling or, in the case of ‘Foul Feast,’ completed.

As we move into Spring 2022, I reflect on what a fine opportunity we have to help young people realize their dreams, take deeper dives into their interests, and explore new horizons with their work in media production and studies. This semester I’m instructing two sections of Seminar in Digital Filmmaking, and a section on film noir. That class, 90 Minutes To Die, is a personal favorite!

I look forward to seeing colleagues and students in our vibrant campus community this week, even as we navigate through the (hopefully) end of this COVID wave. See you on campus at SUNY New Paltz!

The University was kind enough to recognize me with the Chancellor’s Award in Teaching. Thank you to my chair and colleague Lisa Phillips for the nomination, to colleagues Patricia Sullivan, Hanna Sawka, and Josh Simons for your support; and to former students Erin Brady, John Mingione, Jason Latorre, Tara Latorre, and Chelsea DeMott Wildey for your letters of support and encouragement. I will try to do you all proud. 🙂

Latest directing project in progress. In the can, now moving to post. Exciting! Thank you DP/1st AD Eveline Levin, Sound Technician and Gaffer Joseph Vlachos, Scripty Harry Sheridan, talent Joseph Davis and Willis Williams, screenwriter John Patrick Bray, and PA’s Eamon Bray and Nora Bray. Also thanks to Christopher J. Sorrentino for the poster design, Jennifer Guyton-Bohlen for the toy costume designs, and to Megan Sperry for additional set dressing. Big thank you to Joshua Kreitzman, our project’s Guardian Angel. And to my yellow lab Arthur for keeping quiet during filming. #thatsawrap #comingsoon

Have a call out for this collected volume. Accepting abstracts through December 15th for consideration.

“Who Was That Masked Woman?”

Congratulations to Megan Sperry and her team of SUNY NP students on their video capture of all the events from the 2021 Woodstock Film Festival. Great job! Photos by Megan Sperry.

From Professor Sperry: “That’s a wrap on the 22nd @woodstockfilmfestival So proud of the DMJ students and alumni who worked hard this past week. Great to see the festival return to a somewhat normal experience. It was great to see some fantastic films, catch up with old friends and make new connections. This festival is so important to our community and I’m always grateful to be part of the crew! Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Congratulations to everyone involved in the Dreamworld film, which was an Official Selection of the Woodstock Film Festival! Saw the screening last weekend, and am proud beyond proud of the students’ efforts. The film is a culmination of work undertaken by remarkable SUNY New Paltz students. Rose Felice began shooting for this project very early in her college career in Kimberly Ruth‘s Digital Storytelling class.

She then worked with MarleeMike and Gavin Hughes to create a remarkable account of strange goings-on in Pine Bush, NY. Happy to have seen edits in progress during Seminar in Digital Filmmaking, and to have seen a more recent edit the following year. Great job team!! #npsocialFrom

Rose Felice: I am so beyond excited to share that DREAMWORLD: PINE BUSH, NY will be having its world premiere at Woodstock Film Festival on October 2. It was a joy and an honor to tell this story about the extraterrestrial legend of my hometown and its generation of believers who still search for answers. This short documentary film was my dream project since my first semester at SUNY New Paltz, and I’m so grateful to have brought it to fruition with such wonderful people. Thank you to everyone who worked on this doc in an capacity – at any time – and a HUGE thank you to producer @marleecapuano and DP @coptic_monk who saw “Dreamworld” through with me until the very end If you’ll be at the festival, we would love to see you there!

Also my life goal of meeting Kelsey “Frasier” Grammar has been unlocked. 🙂

Photo by Jennifer Luongo

Congratulations to all those involved in this Peabody Award winning documentary, and a BIG shout out to Producer and New Paltz alumna Erin Brady! A very important and tragic story.

The Academic Year 2020-2021 has come to a close, as has my year as interim chair. Though my responsibilities, including teaching responsibilities, will continue during the summer, the pace changes significantly for the next few months. The campus largely empties out. Many colleagues go to their summer engagements. We all feel the pause.

As I reflect on this past year, I am grateful for our students, the administration, and the terrific colleagues I had the honor of sharing the roundtable with this year.

The semester started with new challenges—aside from COVID, and all the new guidelines and directives in place—there were a number of invisible challenges (too many to recount here) as we on-ramped the academic year.

The clouds began to part in September, when we secured funds from a wonderful foundation donor and college advisor to move forward on the podcasting class. Thank you Professor Brett Barry for the big assist there. From assembling the list, to working with our friends in the DASH lab and the foundation office, to defining and securing necessary equipment to launch this endeavor. Great job!

We got the new TV Studio LED lights and lighting board up and running. Big Thank you to Professor Megan Sperry, who has been a constant guardian angel to that space, and a thank you to Media Equipment Manager Joe Vlachos for making sure the gear and training were in place. Also, thank you Professor Vlachos for all your work in getting the equipment protocols set.

Professor James Gormley has been a rock star with our publication the Legislative Gazette, which is run exclusively by interns he oversees. He balances enormous responsibilities with this important publication, that has passed its 40th anniversary milestone. Thank you, Professor Gormley, for your tireless work.

There is a lot of invisible labor in academia. Part of that labor includes chairing subcommittees. Professor Will Hong chaired one of the most vital, if not THE most vital in our department. And his work was exceptional and invaluable. Thank you Professor Hong.

The Ottaway Professor this year, E. Tammy Kim, was absolutely incredible, inspiring, thought provoking. The format presented new virtual challenges. Thank you Ottaway Director Dr. Rachel Somerstein for all your work, and the abundance of energy and professionalism you bring to this role. We also had two Ottaway sponsored classes this year with journalists Emily Atkin, who is also an alumna, and Fara Warner. Again, thank you, Dr. Somerstein, for running such a successful multi-faceted program.

We’ve also had new challenges with advising and internships. Thank you to our Department Advisor and Intern Coordinator Nancy Heiz for your hard work, your dedication to our students, and for working through so many new protocols to ensure our interns’ safety and security. Every student, no matter who their department advisor may be, works with Nancy Heiz at some point in their academic careers with us.

And thank you to Robert Miller for taking on so many advisees, and guiding our students through so much shifting terrain.

Another important subcommittee examines curriculum. While there were several who made meaningful contributions to that committee, I must thank Dr. Jessica Crowell for getting into the minutiae of new classes, class revisions, and all the labor associated with ensuring a forward looking curriculum for our students. Thank you.

I would also like to thank the part-time Adjunct Professors we had working with us this year. You rose to meet our students’ needs, and our class requirements, despite so much uncertainty. I have read so much praise from our students for your efforts, I hope you know just how appreciated you are. Thank you to the full-time faculty who are currently teaching solely asynchronous classes. Your physical absence has been felt in our department meetings. Thank you for all your work with our students.

A big special thanks to our Chair, Professor Lisa Phillips, who was on my speed-dial (yes, that’s still a thing) this entire year. Thank you for taking my calls and texts. That the ship is still sea-worthy is thanks to your navigation.

Thank you to our assistant Amy Witkus for all your work with Nancy Heiz, and your work connecting with our students, our freshmen, and our transfer students.

I can’t even tell you how many new processes we had to face this year. From the scheduling, to working through paperless contracts, to purchase orders, to all the invisible work in the department, our assistant Amanda Valentin has been an invaluable asset. Saying she’s invaluable is like saying the Hope Diamond is a little shiny. Amanda—Thank you. I don’t want to picture this past year without you, and I look forward to working with you this summer.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer. Please be gentle with yourselves. You need it.

I hope to see you on the other side of it, when we’re all rested and ready to engage with a new academic year.

Warm regards,
GB