New Wine in Old Bottles: “Films without Celluloid” and Making the Most of the Spaces You’ve Got
1. New Wine in Old Bottles:
“Films without Celluloid” +
Making the Most of the
Spaces You’ve Got
Andy Horbal
University of Maryland
The Innovative Library Classroom
May 12, 2015
3. The Problems
• Current spaces not ideal for multimedia
production instruction
• Designed for media consumption, not production
• No instruction lab
• Not enough cameras to go around
• No money for new equipment or
construction
4. Assets
• Plenty of software options
• Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, etc.
• Expertise
• Film Studies/Media Resources Librarian
• Full-time Multimedia Production Specialist
• Enthusiasm!
5. “Films without Celluloid”
Movie poster for Intolerance (1916) in public domain. Picture of scissors retrieved from
http://pixabay.com/en/scissors-isolated-white-background-213700/ + used according to the terms of a CC0 (public
domain) license. Picture of Lev Kuleshov (1925) found on p.81 of Lev Kuleshov: Fifty Years in Film (Raduga
Publishers, 1987) + used according to 17 USC § 107.
6. Lessons
• You don’t need a camera to plan a film
shoot
• You don’t need a camera to experiment
with filmmaking
• Experimentation is the key to media
literacy
8. Benefits
• Active learning!
• Shifts focus to core media literacy
concepts
• Less pressure to produce a polished finished
product
• Production software = means to an end
9. Applications
Imaged retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Video_Camera.JPG + used according to the terms
of a CC0 (public domain) license
10. Contact
Andy Horbal
Head of Learning Commons
1101 McKeldin Library
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 405-9227
ahorbal@umd.edu
http://www.slideshare.net/horbal125/new-wine-in-
old-bottles
Editor's Notes
Instruction history focused on finding materials in collection
Mandate to move “from being containers for information toward platforms for learning”
Media literacy = defined by ACRL as “a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media”
Show a short film clip (Psycho as example)
Hand out paper versions of the same clip (one page for each shot)
Exercise which varies by class
a. Tell a different story using these same shots
b. Tell the same story using 1/2 or 1/3 the number of shots
b. Storyboarding exercise: what additional info would you have need to *shoot* this scene? (camera placement, movement, etc.)
4. “Film festival”
5. Generally followed by group production or post-production work, time permitting
Drawbacks = If there *is* a media production assignment, must be supplemented with one-on-one support