Special Resources and Facilities in Culture and Media

Special Resources and Facilities in Culture and Media

The Program in Culture and Media offers students a unique opportunity to turn their critical studies of media and documentary film into practice with a set of film and video courses.   In the two-semester Video Production Seminar taught in the Anthropology Department, students use new state-of-the-art JVC GY-HD100 MiniDV camcorders and Final Cut Pro digital video editing systems for training and to produce, shoot, and edit their own documentaries.  Student documentaries produced in the Program circulate world-wide in distinguished documentary and ethnographic film festivals and through distribution by prominent film distributors. Film production classes and facilities are provided at NYU's Department of Film and Television in the intensive Summer Sight & Sound Program where students learn to shoot and edit 16mm black and white film.

The Anthropology Department also has a film and video screening theater, the David B. Kriser Film Room, as well as an excellent and expanding collection of over 2000 ethnographic film and video works, including most of the classics, important recent works, and a unique collection of works by indigenous media makers. The Department of Cinema Studies has a collection of over 400 films in its Film Study Center, and the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media in Bobst Library contains nearly 14,000 tapes of films and documentaries as well as viewing facilities available to students. In addition, some of the best film, video, and broadcast libraries are available in New York City, including:

In addition, The Center for Media Culture and History and the Center for Religion and Media frequently sponsor events that offer students invaluable opportunities to meet and view a wide range of works by documentary and ethnographic filmmakers from around the world. In the past, these have included monthly workshops in visual anthropology; events with distinguished guests such as Jean Rouch and David and Judith MacDougall; conferences on special topics such as the representation of Native Americans and indigenous media; a symposium on ethnographic film held in conjunction with the Margaret Mead Film Festival held at the American Museum of Natural History; and conferences in conjunction with the Native American Film & Video Festival, held at the Museum of American Indian in NY.