Where USF faculty, students and graduates are invited to talk about journalism and its problems and opportunities. This blog is not affiliated with the University of San Francisco, nor is the university responsible for any of the opinions expressed herein -- though it is certainly responsible for the people who entertain those opinions, having educated them. They make us proud.
In "A Filmmaker's Glamorous Life," online and in our latest print edition, Esther Robinson surveyed a number of filmmakers about the jobs they've taken to support themselves when they are not making films. In this blog series we'll run the unedited responses we received that were then condensed for the piece. Below: Sam Green.
Filmmaker: How did you support yourself during the production of your last movie/movies? And what was good/not good about these jobs?
Green: I've done a bunch of different things to support myself while making films. I started off doing freelance editing. I did some terrible outdoors/nature shows when I was getting started. The worst was an outdoor cooking show. In other words, some shmoe cooking over a campfire. The guy was terrible. It was quite an editing challenge to come up w/ good takes.
For a while, I edited docs for the History Channel. Also, pretty low quality stuff. America's Psychic Past — one of my masterworks. This was actually really good work — I would crunch on a project for six or eight weeks and make what was for me a lot of money. Then I could not work for two or three months and edit my own stuff.
After a while, I started teaching at universities, and that I actually love. It doesn't pay great, but I really do enjoy working with the kids.
I think it's a balance between making money that will allow you to do your own work, but also not completely sapping your spirit or creativity or integrity. I now direct commercial stuff from time to time and that's the challenge.
Sam Green is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker. Green received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs. His film The Weather Underground was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004, broadcast nationally on PBS, and included in the Whitney Biennial. His other award-winning documentaries include lot 63, grave c, The Rainbow Man/John 3:16, N-Judah 5:30, and Pie Fight ’69. Mr. Green currently teaches at the University of San Francisco and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has received grants from the Creative Capital, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony, the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts. www.samgreen.to
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I have the highest respect and admiration for the Media Studies department and I am proud to be an alumnus of the University of San Francisco. This is a letter of reflection and critique on my experiences with Media Studies.
USF has a newspaper, a television station, a radio station, a magazine and a website.The media studies professors need to make it inexcusable for a media studies student not to be involved in at least one of those media outlets. I have recommended to the department this sort of enforcement/encouragement from the media studies professors and received a similar response every time. “It is up to the students to get involved.” I couldn’t agree with that response more, however, many of the media studies students are apathetic and lack ambition. They need a serious push by the professors to get the ball rolling. I believe a strong student involvement in these extracurricular activities will create healthy competition and enhance the students desire to learn in class.I found competition and desire to learn lacking throughout much of the media studies students. A media studies student who doesn’t contribute to any of the on campus media outlets is like a performing arts student who doesn’t contribute to on campus theater. If possible, make it a requirement of the major. Watching CNN, YouTube and movies should no longer be acceptable extracurricular activities for a media studies student. If a student wants to write but does not feel the Foghorn is accepting of his or her work that student should be encouraged to start an alternative newspaper. A great model to look at in terms of student involvement with school newspapers is GeorgetownUniversity.
Excuse the Wikipedia excerpt but it is written concisely, “GeorgetownUniversity has several student-run newspapers. The Hoya is the University's oldest newspaper. It has been in print since 1920, and, since 1987, is published twice weekly. The Georgetown Voice, known for its weekly cover stories, is a newsmagazine that split from The Hoya to focus more attention on citywide and national issue. The Georgetown Independent is a monthly ‘journal of news, commentary and the arts.’ The Georgetown Academy, restarted in 2008 after a hiatus, targets traditionalist Catholic readers, and the Georgetown Federalist, founded in 2006, purports to bring a conservative and libertarian viewpoint to campus. The Fire This Time is Georgetown's only minority news source. The Georgetown Heckler is a humor magazine founded on the Internet in 2003 by Georgetown students, releasing its first print issue in 2007. The Gonzo was a former student humor magazine, published from 1993 to 1998.”Like USF, Georgetown is a Jesuit school and has close to the same population of undergraduates.
I have read several of Georgetown’s newspapers and they are interesting and cover a wide range of topics. Furthermore, multiple newspapers give students more options to explore writing styles.The same student involvement should be applied to the TV station as well. With a feed running into all the dorms, it is a perfect venue for student filmmakers, aspiring journalists and anyone else who has something to express.The strongest push for student involvement, as well as an opportunity to properly articulate what the Media Studies major is, should come from the advisors and Introduction to Media classes. My feeling is that mandatory student involvement in the on campus media needs to be instilled in the student’s first year of school. Early involvement gives students time to find something that interests them and devote several years to that interest. One of my greatest regrets of my college experience is that I didn’t start writing for the Foghorn until junior year. Most of the blame for not getting involved is upon myself, but if my major placed a larger emphasis on being involved it would have helped me greatly. Furthermore, the major’s multiple directions in skill building - journalist writing, filmmaking and radio broadcasting – result in a confusing educational process.
A stronger emphasis should be placed on history and philosophy in the media studies department. A media history class would provide a good platform for media studies students to decide what area they want to focus on. A prerequisite that I had to take before I was allowed into any upper division media studies courses was Introduction to Media Studies. Perhaps the class has improved with a better professor but four years ago that class was completely unbeneficial.It was not challenging or interesting but most importantly, it didn’t provide me with any skills to excel in my upper division classes. I suggest eliminating the class and replace it with a more focused class.I would have benefited from media history as an introductory class, a class that coheres our contemporary understanding of media with the origins of media from generations previous. Because of the poorly taught introduction I found that my Media Studies education was built on a weak foundation. I left freshman year confused by what my media studies major was. In retrospect I stuck with the major for my first two years out of curiosity as to how the media studies major would come together. Also, to speak candidly, the introduction class was so easy and saturated in pop culture that it encouraged many non-critical thinkers to enter the major.
The first time I learned about Jürgen Habermas, a modern historic figure with many illuminating thoughts on communication, was in Dorothy Kidd’s senior seminar class. Although I am grateful for having learned about this philosopher, I am disappointed that I was learning about him and his thoughts in my last year of college. Furthermore, in Kidd’s class we only learned about Habermas second handedly when he was referenced in media articles and essays. I would like to have read something written by Habermas. The leading philosophers of today all have something to say regarding media. There is more than enough written and said about media by philosophers to have an entire class devoted to the subject (Media and Philosophy).
i.e. -“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.”
-Noam Chomsky
Philosophers’ and intellectuals’ thoughts on the media are highly critical of mainstream media. Frequently I would hear and have conversations with my peers about the corruption, censorship and deception of the media. Most of these conversations were uninformed yet could carry on for hours. It has become a common understanding among the youth that the media lies. I recall after a year of classes with the media studies department I was plagued by distrust with any information given to me through the media. The media studies department instilled in me a vague lack of trust with the mainstream media but never provided me with good sources of honest reporting. A wonderful class would be one that focuses on propaganda and trusted reporting. For example, Media studies students should be knowledgeable with Communist and Nazi propaganda of the past. Furthermore, students should be learning about present-day struggles with censorship that are still occurring in Iraq and Iran (and within our own country). Propaganda and censorship was discussed in two excellent media studies courses: The Documentary taught by Sam Green and Communication Law and Policy taught by Ed Lenert. However, those two professors only briefly touched on the issues because propaganda and censorship were not the focus of the class. Also, Professor Green and Professor Lenert are two very bright gentlemen with good understandings of the past, present and future of media. I am sure they would have insightful thoughts on how to improve the major.
It is apparent that with the phenomenal success of the Internet, the definition of media (especially with regards to journalism and the distribution of information by way of the Internet) has been completely changed.I noticed that this presented itself as a problem for professors when teaching a subject. For example, Professor Robertson attempted to incorporate his strong and insightful understanding of how to write a solid feature article with his, although inspiringly curious, thin understanding of new methods of reporting (blogging and video).The knowledge I gained from his lessons on writing will prove to be highly valuable throughout my life but the time in class exploring the new world of blogging will be forgotten.My roommates and I explore the Internet like untiring spelunkers.Furthermore, my peers and I type quickly and we know many short cuts when on the Internet. Watching Professors use the Internet in class is a point of frustration for many students (it wasn’t just your class Professor Robertson – time spent on the Internet in your class was minimal compared to other professors).Professors, no matter where the new media goes, whether a journalist is writing his lead on a napkin with a pencil or on his or her IPhone, that journalist will need to know how to write that lead with intelligence.Because media is changing so rapidly that leaves plenty of space to teach about the history of media. The best way to understand the present to is to know the past.
Some dream classes:
·New Journalism/Non-Fiction writing: Capote, Wolfe, Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, Didion…
oI wasn’t asked to read enough books for the media studies major. These authors are exciting legends. They changed the way many journalist approach story reporting. Also, other than their books, these authors wrote great magazine articles that could be studied along with their heavy hitting books.
·Media Philosophy Courses: Habermas, McLuhan, Chomsky and many more who I hope to come across in my own pursuit for knowledge. Too often was I assigned to read articles written by media intellectuals that used Habermas or McLuhan as talking points, but I had little to no understanding of who Habermas or McLuhan is/was. I would have enjoyed and benefitted from studying in great depth the authors that are commonly referenced in the assigned articles.
·Media History Courses: Inventions of the television, printing press, and radio. A Media Pre-electricity class would be fascinating.
oAlso: Journalism history – broad or specific.
·The Power of Media: William Randolph Hearst to the Washington Post and Watergate.
oI use Hearst and Watergate as two basic and significant topics that the majority of Media Studies students couldn’t discuss at length.
·New Media: YouTube, blogging and other advancements.
oInstead of new media seeping into other classes and distracting students as well as professors, devote an entire class to that subject.A New Media class will allow professors teaching other classes to say to a student who tries to talk about the Daily Show or their favorite blog site, “That’s interesting but save it for your New Media course.”
·Zine Publication
oOne way for the professors to help create alternative publications on campus is to have a class where the students come together to make a monthly “zine.” Furthermore, a class that looks into the process of creating your own media is important. San Francisco has many “zines,” quarterlies, pamphlets and so on throughout the city.USF likes to advertise itself as ideal because of its location.Create a “zine” that’s not only distributed on campus but in the local community as well.
oThis approach could be applied to a television show that airs on USFtv or a radio show that airs on KUSF.
·Media Writing
oI thought Professors Moore and Robertson were wonderful and challenging teachers but they seem to be carrying too much weight when it comes to written media classes. I think a greater emphasis should be placed on the written word in the major of Media Studies. More writing classes would enhance the major.
I have a few closing thoughts before the end of this letter. Guest lectures and on campus talks are frequent at USF. I think the media studies department is great about actively seeking out interesting people, but it is disappointing how bad the student turn out is. As much as I appreciate the intelligent and experienced alternative speakers that come to USF, I am surprised by how few big media people come to speak. I am sure that I revealed my naïve understanding of how the guest speaker circuit works with colleges. It probably costs lots money and involves politics I know nothing of. But the city of San Francisco is a hot spot for media and if students at USF knew that highly successful people come to speak at their university I think it would do wonders for school spirit and morale, even if these highly successful speakers sold their soul to the devil. Who knows, maybe USF will have a protestor or two outside a sold out guest speaker event at the Presentation Theater.
USF is a liberal arts school. Although the media studies major teaches film production, radio production and writing, I believe an emphasis upon broader learning rather than working only to perfect a craft will result in a unique and enlightening education. I chose not to go to film school because I believed in gaining a wide range of knowledge before I learned how to shoot a 35mm film camera. USF, specifically the media studies department, helped me achieve that goal. Media Studies should place a greater importance on history, philosophy and new media. The media studies department should still maintain and improve upon skill and craft oriented teaching (film production, audio production and writing) but the backbone of all those skills is a strong understanding in theory.
Thank you so much for reading my reflections and ideas,
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