Film Studies Professor Matthew Herbertz knew he wanted to teach since his sophomore year of year of college when a professor told him that if he wanted to influence the film industry, it would be through teaching the future artists.
“I knew that if I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing in the theatres, I had more of a chance to making an impact as a teacher than I did strictly as a filmmaker,” said Herbertz.
At DePauw, he was able to impact students by teaching the first two production classes this semester, “Topics in Digital Film Production: Introduction to Digital Filmmaking,” and “Advanced Topics in Digital Film Production: Creating the Short Film.”
At the end of both production courses, the students will have created a short film.The introductory class focuses on weekly exercises, such as working with sound elements one week and the other working with different types of shots that depend on framing. The advanced course uses the same topics and filmmaking techniques, but at a more accelerated pace.
Herbertz said he enjoyed teaching the classes, but leading the advanced course was more challenging to teach because the students did not have the base knowledge an advanced production class expects, since this is the first production class being offered. “They were learning exposure, how to operate a camera, work with sound etc. and there were all these basics they learned and then were thrown into,” said Herbertz.
Herbertz wants his students to learn filmmaking skills and also become “thinkers who have purpose behind the content they create.” He hopes his students understand the power they have as aspiring artists and that they have the power to influence their audience. Herbertz said, “Media affects our everyday life now more so than ever, so I hope they are both intellectually and politically constant creators.”
Junior Greisy Genao struggled at first with the class because there were a lot of technical aspects she had to learn. However, after the class became more hands on, she enjoyed it more and now will definitely be declaring a minor in Film Studies and considering screenwriting as a career.
“My favorite part has been learning how films are made and the hands on part of it,” Genao said. “Now I watch a movie and I’m just thinking about the shot composition, the lighting, how many takes did they have to take for one scene, and scheduling.”
Herbertz himself is still involved in filmmaking and has two films in the pre-production process, is constantly writing, and attends film festivals. “If you want to teach filmmaking, you have to be an active filmmaker and create work, they’re not separate for me,” said Herbertz.
As both a filmmaker and professor, he knows the importance of knowing how to do everything at a certain degree and makes sure to teach his students multiple skills they would need throughout the production process.
Senior Matt Curran said Herbertz stylized the lab as kind of a real production and would assign roles of director of photography or director and the students had to keep up the pace and make sure they were setting up well for each shot. “It was definitely high expectations during lab, which was good to mimic what it would be like in a real situation,” said Curran.
Two more production courses will be offered in the spring semester covering directing and acting as well as screenwriting.