(some of my notes from the last two years)
I just crawled out from under the rock, a rock called graduate school.
After spending more than 14 years working as a photojournalist, my last two stops went from the frying pan into the fire. When we first heard the Rocky was going to close, my wife, Kate Szrom, and I immediately started applying for graduate schools around the country. Ultimately it came down to two very interesting options: Science and Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State vs. Syracuse University. For a number of reasons, Syracuse won out. Time and money were a huge factor and Syracuse offered us a better chance to pursue our individual interests. But that program at Montana State (started by the Discovery Channel) is still pretty interesting. In the choose-your-own adventure of life, I sometimes wonder how that other journey would have turned out.
The path I chose was an M.A. in Documentary Film & History that is a joint degree between the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the History Department at The Maxwell School. It is a new program (we were the third class ever), and small (6-10 students per year). It is based around an interesting, simple concept: study filmmaking while also pursuing history classes related to your documentary interests. Overall, the program was one of the hardest things I have undertaken in my life — hundreds of pages of weekly reading and a slew of 15-30 page papers on top of film school. But in the end it was totally worth it, I wouldn’t change a thing.
I focused my thesis project on my 91-year-old grandfather (it was great spending time with him, stay tuned for viewing opportunities), and I focused my studies on the environmental history of the American West. The history / geography / environmental studies courses were intense and amazing, but the filmmaking classes are what really blew me away. It’s all about storytelling.
Professor Breyer is a master teacher (as are Professors Strickland, Quin, Elin, Wilson, Moran, McCormick, Strong, Longstaff, Coffey, Dubin, etc.). I am humbled at how lucky I am to have passed this way.
Now back to the real world, already in progress.
I guess I better start a blog.
Welcome.
