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The Media Arts Department continues to strengthen its interdisciplinary curriculum, which combines studies in history, theory and production of film and video as art. Media Arts lists courses jointly with nearly ten other UNM academic units, including English, computer science, cultural studies and foreign languages and literatures.
This spring, Chair Ira Jaffe instituted a writing program in which undergraduate students receive individual mentoring from graduate students. In the past year, Media Arts also acquired digital editing equipment and digital cameras, which will assist students in preparing for festivals.
Last summer, a few Media Arts students participated in the inaugural Flicks on 66 digital motion picture festival in Albuquerque, in which ten short films were made. At this summer’s festival, more students will participate as part of a formal Media Arts internship arrangement with the festival. Student interns will gain a hands-on-overview, including scriptwriting, casting, shooting and pots-production work. They also will work in The Studio (formerly Duke City Studio), a state-of-the-art soundstage, which will become the production base for Flicks on 66.
Also this summer, Steve Anderson, a 1980 UNM alumnus, will teach a new course in film directing in The Studio. Anderson wrote and directed South Central, a highly regarded film about gang life and the relationship between a father and son in Los Angeles.
Another UNM graduate, Donna Fletcher, has funded an annual award for Media Arts students interested in women’s studies. And Dr. Ed Angel, UNM professor of computer science, has initiated an endowed scholarship in 3-D computer imaging in memory of artist and teacher Thomas Keller.
On the faculty side, Assistant Professor Nina Fonoroff, recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in experimental filmmaking, had two films shown last year at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Dr. Susan Dever received grants to research the work of Mexican filmmaker Marcela Fernandez Violante in Mexico City. Part-time instructor Gus Blaisdell presented a talk on his former professor, literary critic Yvor Winters, at Stanford University.
As part of Media Arts’ International Cinema Lecture Series, director Josh Aronson presented Sound and Fury at the Guild Cinema on April 9. The film was an Academy Award nominee for best documentary. With six hundred and eighty students enrolled in Media Arts, the program needs a full-size theatre were students may view film and video classics, as well as their own creative work, Jaffe says. Meanwhile, the old UNM bookstore is being renovated to provide seminar rooms and post-production spaces. The completion date has shifted from 1998 to 2002, however, and funding remains insufficient, Jaffe says.
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