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

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

“Who Was That Masked Woman?”

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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.

ABC News 20/20 in collaboration with The Courier Journal: Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor

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

Very happy to share some great news!

A small team of New Paltz student filmmakers earned a prestigious Award of Excellence at the Broadcast Education Association International Festival of Media Arts for their short-form documentary, “Ben (Not the Fish).”

Digital Media & Production alumni Erin Wolcott ’20, Conner Sweeney ’20, George Catechis ’20 & Jillian Pugliese ’20 produced the film as a capstone to their Digital Filmmaking Seminar. The film focuses on Ben, and uses his story to showcase a YMCA program dedicated to lifting the emotional and financial burdens of families whose children deal with life-threatening illness.

The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) is a leader in telecommunications and electronic media, and their annual Festival is a celebration of audio and video production in a variety of genres, by students and faculty from institutions around the globe.

Prior to earning BEA honors, “Ben (Not the Fish)” premiered at the 2020 Hudson Valley Film Fest and was an official selection at the First-Time Filmmaker Sessions, the Lift-Off Sessions and FLICKFAIR, the on-demand film festival.

Congratulations to the student filmmakers!

https://sites.newpaltz.edu/news/2021/03/ben-not-the-fish/

On behalf of the Digital Media Production faculty and myself, I wanted to express my congratulations to all our students for your work this semester.  I won’t mince words:  this was a challenge for our students, our faculty and our staff.  There were invisible challenges as well—many of our students had to take on extra caregiving responsibilities, or work responsibilities, or faced terrible pandemic-related impacts.  Yet, you faced this challenging semester with determination and spirit and were able to find a path through it.  For those students who have struggled, please do reach out to your professor.  We are here to help you in this journey, and we want to make sure you know what options are available.

I can tell you firsthand that I experienced students who were ready and eager to learn, to do well in their coursework, and who are ready to meet the challenges of an evolving industry.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge some students are considering a semester off or are weighing options for next semester.  When making these decisions, please consult your advisor and your professors.  We are here to help you make the best of this circumstance, but we all need to make sure we have open channels of communication.  If you have not yet spoken to your advisor about next semester, please do so.  We’re here to listen to your concerns and help you plan for the best possible future.

As I mentioned in my August letter, our industry is changing.  Radio, Television and Film are still being produced and/or broadcast, but with the challenges of the pandemic, the landscape of media production careers has shifted.  We are keeping a close eye on industry standards and expectations and moving our curriculum in line with those standards and expectations.

This fall, production classes met with minimal contact hours, and met at 50% capacity per session. We were able to sign in and sign out gear safely and in keeping with CDC guidelines, along with academic and industry expectations during this time. We are following CDC, Media industry, NYS, and national college guidelines from such organization as UFVA and BEA.

Pedagogically we have made decisions to help students navigate majors in our program. For example, production majors could co-register for certain classes in the sequence in the fall 2021, or to take some classes out of sequence so they will not fall behind.  The faculty have had robust conversations about what changes needed to be implemented to ensure the rigor of the classes and majors would not be impacted.

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to follow up.

All this said, I feel we have a great deal to be proud of.  If you are struggling or uncertain reach out to your professors and advisor. We are here for you, and are eager for you to succeed.

I am also here if you have any concerns. I will be periodically checking my email over break.   brayg@newpaltz.edu

Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday Season and a Bright New Year.   

Warm regards,

Gregg Bray, PhD

Interim Chair, Department of Digital Media and Journalism

(Photo by and Provided By Professor Megan Sperry, Woodstock Film Festival October 2020)

On behalf of the Digital Media Production faculty and myself, we hope this message finds you well.  Our department and professors have received a number of emails from students concerned about how to move forward, given that so many of their classes are online, while a few production courses remain, in part, on site.   

First thing to bear in mind is our industry is changing.  Radio, Television, and Film are still being produced and/or broadcast, but with the challenges of the pandemic, the landscape of media production careers have shifted.  We are keeping a close eye on industry standards and expectations, and moving our curriculum in line with those standards and expectations. 

For the fall 2020, production classes will have minimal contact hours.  For face-to-face meetings with the students, we’re cutting the class in half (for Audio, TV Studio, Field, and Seminar, 8 students meeting at a time;  Digital Storytelling no more than 12), minimizing the number of assignments, keeping the groups small, conducting outdoor lessons for camera operations, and doing as much remote training on post software as possible.  It’s probable that on-site class meetings will not exceed a total of 8 per student for this semester for most production classes. 

Given the technology-rich nature of this degree program, a chief concern is your access to the equipment.  We are instituting new safety and sanitation guidelines for equipment sign in/sign out and storage, as well as a digital reservation system for equipment sign in/sign out.  These details will be shared with all students in our majors in the weeks to come.  We are following CDC, Media industry, NYS, and national college guidelines from UFVA. 

If you are not comfortable returning in the fall for the production class, then please don’t.  No student should ever feel at risk coming to campus.  But bear in mind we might be in the same position in the spring 2021.  We have been responding to a national pandemic, and keeping an eye on the rest of the country’s response to the pandemic.  The CDC and the governor’s office has warned of a ‘second wave’ coming to New York this fall and winter, meaning that we’re bracing ourselves to be in a similar position this spring (online classes with minimal onsite production classes).  

One possibility we’re looking at is production classes in summer 2021, so worst case scenario we hope to offer Seminar in Digital Filmmaking, Field Production, and TV Studio Production as limited summer classes in 2021 to help students finish up.  This will grant students graduating in August access to the May commencement ceremonies, and get their degree shortly after the May commencement.  For example, if you skip Field production this semester, and then take it in the spring, there’s a possibility you can take Seminar during the summer and finish by the end of June/early July. This is not guaranteed, and whether these classes run depend upon enrollment.  

Safety is the goal for everyone.  We want to continue on a productive track that brings you toward your goal of creating quality content, receive industry training, and graduate in a timely manner.   

Thank you for your patience while we work through our plans addressing student concerns during this horrible pandemic.  I hope understanding some of these variables help with your decision moving forward.   

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to follow up. 

Warm regards, 

Gregg Bray, PhD

Interim Chair, Department of Digital Media and Journalism.