Service learning and film production

Service Learning and Film Production
I haven't taught this class yet. I'll be teaching it in Spring 2016. So I wanted to go over some of my initial expectations and how
they developed as I participated in a Service Learning training course over the past year and honed the idea, specifically as it
related to service learning in a production curriculum. So what I want to do is share something of a crash-course in what I
learned over the past year as well as some thoughts to either scare you off or help you dive in.
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.
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This is how BGSU defines service learning
-Service connects to a learning outcome. Not just one or the other.
-Students have an understanding of how service relates to the learning outcomes. (And this is where you have some freedom to
be creative.)
-A civic aspect. Students have an understanding of how their particular academic discipline can promote civic values and enrich
their community.
This can be a component, a capstone, a semester-long collaboration.
R.G. Bringle and J.A. Hatcher, A Service-Learning Curriculum for Faculty,
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 1995, 2: 112-122
By Thomas Castillo
Photo by Dean Hochman page 7 of 28

Why is this important.
Again, this is a stock image!
There are numerous Issues coalescing around service learning.
It is identified as a research-supported high-impact teaching practice, alongside such very common production curriculum
elements as internships, capstone projects, collaborative projects, and undergraduate research.
š
It addresses some issues in education reform about the value of higher education: bang for the buck by contributing to
meaningful experiences rather than just credits.
Production is actually pretty well-positioned in pedagogical terms. Were are doing a lot of this stuff because it is necessary in our
field. So we're actually quite close in some respects to implementing service learning, and for those working on community-
oriented projects, you may actually be doing it already.
Professionally, I came to understand that it also connects to issues of tenure and promtion and its place in the academy.
Depending on your department, it may or may not be welcomed. It may or may not be considered valid. It often doesn't fir into…
By Thomas Castillo
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Professionally, I came to understand that it also connects to issues of tenure and promtion and its place in the academy.
Depending on your department, it may or may not be welcomed. It may or may not be considered valid. It often doesn't fir into
easy check boxes. It seems to go across categories in that teaching/research/service portfolio, and so it is important to really
advocate and articulate the value of this time and effort.
Finally, it opens up opportunities for grants and funding. We all have this problem as film people: What are you studying again?
How do you explain this to the university grants office. But you bring in the service element, the outreach element, the
pedagogical element and perhaps you have something that qualifies for some funding.
By Thomas Castillo
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My word cloud. The 2 c's, 3 p's, and 3 e's. But this is completely arbitrary.
Content and Connections.
-Addressing Content. How do we engage with content? Is there a space for that? Are we teaching, essentially, purely technical
things?
-Are students making connections between outside experiences and coursework with their film work?
-As a program, are we encouraging or creating avenues where this is encouraged or valued?And programmatically, were
students really being encouraged to find this kind of content? Were they being encouraged to link their other studies/interests/
experiences into their production work? Upon reflection, not really.
-Not just technique, but process; really get down the to nitty gritty of taking on a project rather than the technical aspects of taking
on a project. With intention?
-Compassion. Empathy. Engagement. Do these things ever come up in the production classroom?
…
By Thomas Castillo
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So my journey started with a few nudges.
One, obvuously getting some information from my colleagues about the teaching that they are doing.
And a nudge from my wife, who as a graduate student enrolled for this PD course and suggested it to me after hearing me work
through some of those things on the previous slide.
I enrolled in Service Learning learning community. And the big carrot was money, not only personal PD money but also money to
seed the course.
All this without fully understanding what the end product would be, without a community partner in place. Without any sense of
how I would implement the course.
So we got a big binder and this learning community has some expectations that you will actually, you know, follow through, so
there is a bit of an intimidation factor.
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By Thomas Castillo
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Now, we look at a lot of examples and resources and models and most are certainly not going to be in film or the arts, and this
was a big mental sticking point for me, and it was very easy to get lost.
And that's okay. Because what I learned is that everyone else is struggling with those same things. And you're going to hear
ideas that are really great and make a lot of sense. And some that really ain't that impressive, at least initially, but eventually they
come around to those key elements of service learning.
Again, you might be closer than you know, but sometimes it just takes looking at it from a slightly different perspective.
By Thomas Castillo
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There's always this issue of the film that is just shot in the dorm haphazardly. And then there are some that are shot carefully. In
the dorms. And we as faculty kinda complain about that.
Structurally, are students really being encouraged to NOT to that? How so?
Are we just teaching exposure? Camera angles? How to push some buttons?
So over the past few years really, I've been re-thinking how I address content in the courses to encourage better student work.
Typically, it's pretty free as to what I assign students for projects: You do what you want.
In the production context, that's cool. People mostly have their own ideas...but perhaps it's also worth integrating more specific
themes. Perhaps we can really look closely at specific content and ways of knowing something about the world. So perhaps
there can be a space for that.
It's still a class first, you are still a university teacher, so while service is obviously going to be a key element of the experience, I
think you start with a clear (or in my case, hazy) sense of what you are teaching. Essentially, don't let the service overwhelm the
subject at hand.…
By Thomas Castillo
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My wife is interested in maps and she has kind put this idea into my head about the different ways that we map the world. Now,
you can have actual maps but I started to think about film as a way of mapping. You can look at it as data. And you start to piece
together stories from that data.
Cultural Mapping is this term that unfortunately if you do a google search it brings up a lot of PR firms and land developers and
very yuppie civic booster-types. And that's all well and good. But I found this somewhat more academic but also interesting
definition:
By Thomas Castillo
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Cultural mapping involves a community identifying and documenting local cultural resources. Through this research cultural
elements are recorded – the tangibles like galleries, craft industries, distinctive landmarks, local events and industries, as well as
the intangibles like memories, personal histories, attitudes and values. After researching the elements that make a community
unique, cultural mapping involves initiating a range of community activities or projects, to record, conserve and use these
elements. …The most fundamental goal of cultural mapping is to help communities recognize, celebrate, and support cultural
diversity for economic, social and regional development.
— Clark, Sutherland and Young
Now I think what I wanted to add to that was also a critical element. Because I think the stories of the bad, the weird, and the
specific are all perfectly valid. But ultimately I think it relates a lot to filmmaking, and this became my content and also the way in
which I would engage with the service aspect.
With some caveats.
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So...THEN PRODUCTION
In production, you are going to have to decide if you want to be attached to a specific form. Audio production: ie podcasts and
audio stories. Documentary production. New Media production, digital storytelling, installation, augmented reality.
Consider how themes can ground the content in a specific area but still allow for many different approaches. That said, some
forms seem to work better than others: Audio production, documentary, digital storytelling.
So what's funny is that I locate cultural mapping and this other term, engaged storytelling which is kinda unfortunate because
there is a lot of very small picture marketing stuff related to both of those terms to the learning community, and they didn't get it.
They Didn't like it. They wanted to know what the heck we were going to DO in the course.
You chat with people in the core requirements: Sciences, Sociology courses, Writing, or the Languages and they are really
struggling with student engagement. They have this content but they feel that they are delivering it in a dry way. This is the world
of lecturing all the time, mid-term and final exam and that's your grade. And it's like that because they are teaching huge classes
in lecture halls. So there's a whole structure that encourages that kind of experience.
In film production, we typically have a lot more going on. Working with equipment, working on projects, often working on multipl…
By Thomas Castillo
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The Web Series.
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In thinking about what I wanted to do, a few things popped into mind as good models that I would reference.
Now, it's really important to find example materials, obviously for building your class materials but also for the learning
community and down the road for the community partner. They are going to want to have an idea of what you are doing.
By Thomas Castillo
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Lightning over Braddock. Obviously this classic tough to classify film that has a lot of humor, that engages with real-life issues in
a unique way, and that really paints a vivid picture of the characters in this community.
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Hollow: Saw (or browsed through, really) this web-based documentary called Hollow. I was really taken with the form, the
vignettes, and with the level of engagement with the community. It really was not just a filmmaker's vision, but a venture that
required deep community involvement. And also with these ideas of compassion and empathy. These aren't things that often
enter into the conversation in film courses. Was there a way to do so? Was there a way to engage more forcefully with the
CONTENT of what students were doing rather than the form: that shot was underexposed!
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Awkward Black Girl. It's approachable, it's dealing with real-life issues in a humorous way, and it's something that my students
might kinda be familiar with.
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Going in, the whole idea was to make a video for someone. That would be our service. We'd have a very direct link between the
learning outcomes and the service and they would get a video out of it, similar to what Daniel described in his presentation.
But there become a lot of problems with that:
-The schedule never aligns.
-The artistic vision never aligns.
-logistics will kill you: transportation, etc.
I thought deeper about it, and having the content somewhat figured out, the class may ultimately be better served by putting
some distance between the production and the service.
So, don't make a video. At least not at first. It will come in time as you build relationships. It may yet happen, but no need to rush
in.
And part of this has to do with how we deal with process as filmmakers. How do we get to know a subject in some level of depth?
How do we gain an understanding of the content, which is essentially our community? We need to on-the-ground research. And
we may need to put down the camera.
…
By Thomas Castillo
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First, Your community's stories have value. If you don't think there is a story there, you aren't looking hard enough.
Your community has valid opportunities. Even for people in production.
The reality for us is that the majority of our students will not work in the film industry. Not in our location. Now before the Provost
gets the wrong idea, I want to expand on that. The film industry per se itself is really, really small chunk of the media or
entertainment industry job-wise. So students will do some films, work at TV stations, work for in the production or media wing of
large companies, run their own small businesses. They are going to do a variety of things. So that's one thing, is that it is
perfectly valid, especially. And I think Daniel's example here shows the possibility of working with clients to create content that
meets their needs.
The other thing is this: A lot of the work in film is NOT production work. We have a course called the studio experience and
students apply to work on a faculty-directed film. And of course there's like 20 people who want to work in the camera
department. Now what I need is someone to deal with the LLC paperwork, someone to deal with the SAG paperwork, someone
with just good basic email skills, and outreach skills. So, at some level there's a mismatch of skills and it's kind of al our own fault
because we're not really talking about these things in our production classes. So, at a certain level cameras and lights are the
least of my concerns and there's this whole back end of office skills that cause me more problems. But the bottom line is that it
can be appropriate for students to get some work experience in venues that are not majority "production" or production-related…
By Thomas Castillo
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Special Topics is Your Friend.
Some key things about course design.
So, suddenly you are NOT teaching a production class that is still kind of a production class. You probably do not want this to be
a core production class because you don't want to spend a ton of time working on tech in class. You want people to have an
existing foundation do that you can spend more time discussing the content. You probably want it to be a higher-level elective
ideally.
You are going to have issues of equipment checkout, and again this connects to how you conceive of this course and not
defaulting to making a video. You can approach the content multiple ways.
You'll be dealing a lot with things like transportation and logistics: older students are more likely to have cars. The service
expectations have to be communicated very clearly from the beginning.
By Thomas Castillo
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This whole thing...it's not really a one-semester project. It's an ongoing project.
Time. It takes time to build relationships and figure out what each party needs.
You don't have to do everything at once from a production standpoint. This semester its the web series. Next semester? Maybe
something different. But you have an approach and you have content, you will just tackle it in different ways.
So maybe you do make a video, just not in the first semester attempt.
By Thomas Castillo
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You do have freedom in how you proceed, but it will take you pushing, either by locating appropriate community partners, or by
locating and serving a community need yourself (also known as the mural project), because you are an artist and it is your
responsibility to instigate at some level.
So ultimately the model that I most closely followed was community-based action research, very quickly defined as working in
smaller groups with a faculty member to learn research methods and subjects.
So...my service?
NOT YET FIGURED OUT.
But I was able to reach out to a few different organizations:
An Arts high school.
A community arts center.
A disability film festival.
And what I think some of these different opportunities will allow some flexibility to have meaningful service opportunities and…
By Thomas Castillo
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By Thomas Castillo
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So...Maybe you are already doing this and haven't named it...or maybe it just doesn't ultimately fit with the course that you are
teaching...but that's okay so long as you are creating meaningful experiences for your students that have a life outside of the
classroom.
By Thomas Castillo
Photo by sylvar page 28 of 28

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