Dave Banks

Dave Banks has 30 years of international news, documentary and reality program experience and specializes in remote and hostile locations in the Middle East, North Africa and the South Pacific. Dave covered the war in Afghanistan, directed adventure races in Australia, Morocco, New Zealand and the Sahara Desert. Under the cover of darkness Dave risked arrest to film explorers climbing Mt. Ararat in Eastern Turkey in search for the Ark.

Recognized with 13 Emmy Award nominations, has won three Emmys, two International Monitor Awards and one ADDY Award for writing. Dave, specializes in remote and hostile locations in the Middle East and North Africa. Dave’s client list includes Mark Burnett Productions, Discovery Channel, Cosmo Studios, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX Networks, Warner Bros, History Channel, PBS, MPH Entertainment, Channel Nine Australia, London Weekend Television-UK, BBC 1 and 2 UK. NHK-Japan, German Television, and Canal Television-France.

Documentary for the Citizen Journalist

Faculty: Dave Banks

Expertise level: Intermediate to advanced

Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Final Cut Pro

Course description: Documentary for the Citizen Journalist / Version 1.0 -- week-long

This course is an introduction to both the creative and practical aspects of documentary and nonfiction filmmaking. It is designed for emerging filmmakers, photographers, citizen journalist and social advocates who seriously wish to consider documentary and nonfiction filmmaking as an additional skill set.

The course will be a week-long and will consist of screenings, equipment orientation, scriptless shooting, clearance releases and directing. Whether your intention is to use this new skill set for broadcast, cable or the internet this course will give you the necessary skills and confidence in producing your stories.

This is a companion course to the Final Cut Pro classes.

Documentary for the Solo Journalist

Faculty: Dave Banks

Expertise level: Intermediate to advanced

Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Final Cut Pro

Course description: Documentary for the Solo Journalist -- week-long

News and Documentaries for the Solo Journalist

Faculty: Dave Banks

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Final Cut Pro

Course description: News and Documentaries for the Solo Journalist –- weekend

Designed for those with previous hands-on shooting experience, and/or individuals with a firm background in related media fields. This three-day course will ensure participants have an understanding of essential concepts of self reliance in the field.  This is a raw “on the edge” learning experience, which will deal with the practical skills needed to make a well-crafted news or documentary story as a solo act. You will be provided the necessary skills to single-handedly shoot your story, develop interviewing and narrative techniques, edit in the camera and practical solutions to life on the road. 

PF Bentley

TIME, NEWSWEEK, ABC-TV Nightline, Travel Channel, Emmy Nominee, 16 years of Presidential Campaigns, numerous University of Missouri first place awards, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Sunbums Magazine, “book -- “Clinton: Portrait of Victory”, book -- “Newt: Inside the Revolution”, Contributing photographer on 10 “Day In The Life” books by Harper Collins, assignments in all 50 states plus 21 foreign countries for numerous magazines and television story coverage

HDV Documentaries

Faculty: PF Bentley

Expertise level: Advanced

Pre-requisites: Good working understanding of Final Cut Pro

Course description: HDV Documentaries -- week-long

This interactive digital video workshop is designed to take the video journalist into the world of longer form pieces designed for television magazine shows, and 30-60 minute documentaries. Projects for this workshop will be shot on professional HDV video cameras in 16:9 format and edited in Final Cut Pro. Upon completion of this course participants should be able to produce longer form documentaries for network television and feature films.

HDV for Photojournalists

Faculty: PF Bentley

Expertise level: Advanced

Prerequisites: Good working understanding of Final Cut Pro

Course description: HDV - Digital Video for Photojournalists -- week-long

This interactive digital video workshop is designed to take the photojournalist into the world of HDV video journalism. Transferring photo skills into video, simple storytelling and editing for video journalists using Final Cut Pro will be taught including compression for output to the web. The workshop will also cover what other factors and problems video journalists must deal with whether working for a local paper’s website or shooting for the broadcast world.

Photoshop for Photojournalists

Faculty: PF Bentley

Expertise level: Advanced

Prerequisites: Good working understanding of Final Cut Pro

Course description: Photoshop for Photojournalists -- weekend

Learn the Photoshop secrets of professional photojournalists who need to get their images looking great in a minimum of time in this three-day workshop.

Chuck Braverman

Chuck Braverman is an executive, a producer, director, and cameraman. He is well known for his fast cut “kinestasis” montage films including the classic three minute history of the United States, “American Time Capsule.” He has won Emmys for his documentaries, Clios for his commercials, Cable Ace awards for his network cable productions, and in 2001 won the prestigious Best Documentary award from the Directors Guild of America for his film, “High School Boot Camp.” Also that year Chuck was nominated for an Academy Award® for his documentary “Curtain Call” about the Actors Fund Retirement Home. Chuck has also directed several two-hour movies for television and many episodic shows including “Northern Exposure,” “Melrose Place,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Sledge Hammer,” and “St. Elsewhere.” In the mid 90’s Chuck was the Senior Vice President at Sony New Technologies and supervised the development and production of the first 3-D Imax films and an interactive theatrical feature film.

Producing Documentary Films

Faculty: Chuck Braverman

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Students should be familiar with current documentaries that are on television and in the theaters and have a passionate desire to produce documentaries that will be seen. Basic knowledge of photography and editing will be helpful, but not mandatory.

Course description: Producing Documentary Films -- week-long

This course will delve into the history, development, pre-production, production, post production, and successful selling documentaries to major television networks. The class is not intended to be overly technical, although we will discuss some tech issues that are very important today; HDV, post work flows, new cameras, etc. What we will dive into are the kinds of docs being made and how to sell them. Can you make a living producing documentaries and what are the different ways.

Thomas Kranzle

Thomas M. Kranzle, an award winning cinematographer, has years of professional and academic media production experience, with work spanning commercials, documentaries, magazines, catalogs, and websites. Mr. Kranzle is a consummate cinematographer, with a love for the potential and impact of visuals. He also has a passion for teaching, with a devotion to education and sharing of experience. Finally, he is the president of Venture Media Group, a premier film, photography, and design firm for the outdoor industry. He pursues all ventures in life to the fullest of his ability and seeks to bring out the best in those around him.

Digital Time-Lapse Production

Faculty: Thomas Kranzle

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Primary understanding of a digital SLR camera, basic knowledge of Final Cut Pro but not required

Course description: Digital Time-Lapse Production -- weekend

In Digital Time-Lapse Production, students will be provided with a fundamental understanding of producing time-lapse shots on Digital SLR cameras. The course will cover camera setup and operation, time-lapse shooting techniques and tricks, time-lapse production, and time-lapse post production.

Nature Cinematography

Faculty: Thomas Kranzle

Expertise level: Beginner

Prerequisites: Understanding of camera operation and Final Cut Pro is required.

Course description: Nature Cinematography -- weekend and week-long

In Nature Cinematography, students will learn how to adapt their video production knowledge to remote outdoor shooting. The course will cover cameras, filters, lenses, rigging, lighting without electric, camera mounts, and mobile postproduction. Students will spend much time on location to allow for hands on experience.

(This course will be spread out between a weekend course, a week-long break, and a week-long course. This would allow for in class instruction the first weekend and on location shooting the second week. Students would use the break time in between to prep for the shooting trip.)

Lighting for Video

Faculty: Thomas Kranzle

Expertise level: Beginner

Prerequisites: Primary understanding of grip equipment, camera operation and Final Cut Pro is required.

Course description: Lighting for Video -- weekend

In Lighting For Video, students will be equipped with a fundamental understanding of lighting techniques used for various video mediums. Basic video workflow will be covered from lighting diagrams through color correction. Students will learn how to meter for their video camera, use foot-candles for exposure measurements, adapt film ratios to video, light scenes, and how to use digital color correction.

John Randle

John comes to teaching via overlapping careers in film, stage, TV and consulting. In the early days he specialized in producing, writing and directing corporate image films for such clients as United Airlines, Quaker Oats, Hewitt & Associates, John Deere & Blue Cross -- scoring festival wins at The American, Chicago International, U.S. Industrial, National Educational, Chicago Film Council, National Council On Family Relations, American Personnel & Guidance Association and a Special Award from the US Council of Industrial Media Leaders for the Superlative Management of Arthur Andersen’s TV Production Center.

On the Hollywood TV scene -- John taught editing for Laser Pacific, edited dramas like Coppola’s “The Outsiders” and ABC’s “Profiles”, the hit comedy “Cheers” as well as “Perfect Strangers”, “Step By Step”, “Family Matters”, “Down Home” and “Ace In The Hole” -- which led to directing “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper” for Warner Brothers, Paramount’s “Home Court with Pamela Reed” and -- back in Chicago -- “The Second City Series A Credit To The Family.” In addition, John has numerous award winning stage plays under his belt as Director and writer and is currently involved in an original screenplay, directing two main stage plays, three short films and of course, teaching for MIMA.

Actor-Director Bonding in the Trenches

Faculty: John Randle

Expertise level: Actors and directors

Prerequisites: Must have previous acting or directing experience -- even if limited to class work -- and you must be willing to role play.

Course description: Actor-Director Bonding in the Trenches -- weekend

A weekend intensive for Actors and Directors about collaborating under the pressures of production. Over the weekend -- you will learn that resolving actor-director tensions about character behavior requires a lot more than mutual respect and openness. It requires that at least one of the two player’s moves beyond his penchant for “Process” or “Results” and starts speaking the language of character “intentions” -- all the things a character will do and/or try to get what he wants. And that’s exactly what you will learn. How to think “intentionally.” How to pick intentions as an actor that resonate with your personal history. How to array your acting beats with multiple intentions of different shadings. How to validate your intentions to the director -- or if you’re directing -- how to probe and tweak your actor’s intentions without criticism or judgment. By the end of the weekend, you will understand the power of this new language. Be able to speak it from both the actor’s and director’s points-of-view. And be able to communicate quickly, specifically and brilliantly -- even to a non-speaker.

Show It - Don’t Say It

Faculty: John Randle

Expertise level: Writers and directors

Prerequisites: The only prerequisite for this course is that you write a personal one-paragraph rationale about why you’re taking this course.

Course description: Show It - Don’t Say It --  weekend

A weekend intensive on cinematic storytelling for Writers and Directors who are pursuing narrative filmmaking. Over the weekend -- and relying on movie clips -- you’ll learn about the limitations of dialogue in terms of scene setting, capturing events, dulling the imagination and weakening the narrative structure. You’ll learn how well conceived and well edited pictures can create a “dialogue” all their own that asks questions, delivers quick powerful answers, raises thematic debates, builds chains of cause and effect, provides compelling exposition, injects symbolism, links scenes, hardens story structure and exposes the pure essence of characters, things and ideas. By the end of the weekend, you will have adapted a dialogue-heavy two-minute script into your own lean, image-packed narrative; storyboarded it with a digital camera; filmed it with motion and collaborated with an editor to sequence your new telling. And in so doing -- you will have employed many of the cinematic powers listed above and significantly shifted your storytelling brain toward the image, the essence and the commercial.

Anacleto Rapping

2-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Pulitzer Prize nominee, People, Audubon, Sports Illustrated, Today’s Christian Women, Marriage Partnership, World Vision, Kentucky Monthly, Sierra Club Magazine, Family Circle Magazine, Schiedemayer & Associates, Bigscreen Networks, Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Sunset Magazine, Focus on the Family, GO magazine, Campus Life Magazine, New Man Magazine, Cirque du Soleil

Action Photography

Faculty: Anacleto Rapping

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisite: Bring your best five to ten examples of your action photographs

Course description: Action Photography -- weekend seminar

Every action has a reaction and capturing those high emotion peak moments is what it is all about. Many times we miss the “moment” and wish we had pressed our shutter button a split second faster. The goal of this workshop is to teach the techniques and skills in photographing action packed events from the sports world to the adventure world. Choosing the right lens to use, where to position yourself and anticipating where the peak action and reactions will take place is discussed and taught during the course. There will be classroom instruction and demonstrations, informal discussions, group critiques and fieldwork to improve and enhance your skills. You will walk away from this course with a greater understanding and technical skills in capturing storytelling action photographs.

A 35mm digital camera with a wide angle lens (24mm and/or 35mm) and a telephoto lens (200mm and/or 300mm) lens is recommended. Bring your best five to ten examples of your action photographs.

Portraits and Light

Faculty: Anacleto Rapping

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisite: Bring your best five to ten examples of your portrait work

Course Description: Portraits and Light -- weekend seminar

They say that a person’s eyes are the windows to their soul, telling us the truth about that person without speaking a word. Not only is a person’s eyes storytelling but the use of light to enhance the portrait is just as important.

The main goal of this workshop is to teach techniques in photographing environmental or personality portraits and the use of quality light in those portraits. Working with and understanding who your subject is, producing distinctly different portraits within the same location, making your subject comfortable and using their body language to tell what the person is like will be emphasized. The use of multiple lighting sources and techniques is also taught. There will be classroom instruction and demonstrations, informal discussions, group critiques and fieldwork to improve and enhance your skills.

You will walk away from this course with the ability and knowledge to produce a story telling portrait of an individual using quality light in all its many forms.

A 35mm digital camera with a normal lens (35mm and/or 50mm) and a portrait lens (85mm and/or 100mm) lens is recommended. Bring your best five to ten examples of your portrait work.

Rick Ray

An experienced documentary travel film producer with 14 published works airing on television and in home video internationally. The producer, director and writer of the award winning film “10 Questions For The Dalai Lama” and “The Soul Of India”. A National Geographic lecturer and filmmaker. A visiting lecturer in film production, travel and stock footage archiving at universities, museums and performing arts facilities nationwide. Founder of two international stock libraries, Wish You Were Here Film and Video and DVArchive.com.

Final Cut Pro - Level 1

Faculty: Rick Ray

Expertise level: Beginner

Prerequisites: Familiarity with computers

Course description: Final Cut Pro -- Level 1

This course is for the beginning video editor with no prior experience with Final Cut Pro. The student will learn how to capture frames from tapes, import files from P2, learn the basic media management and editing strategies, effects, keyframing, speed and motion controls, color correcting, and timeline editing. This course will also cover strategies for exporting to most formats including tape, iPod and the web. It will be a fun course but challenging at the same time. For those who know some of Final Cut Pro, this would be a very good refresher if you have forgotten the basics.

Rick Rickman

Pulitzer Prize winner, TIME, Newsweek, US News & World Report, People, Men’s Journal, National Geographic, Audubon, Travel & Holiday, Islands, Corbis, NewSport Photography, Allstate, ATT, Haagan Daz, John Deere, Magnavox, Maxicare, Phillip Morris, Sloane Valve, Tenet, UCI Medical Center, Yonnex Sporting Goods, Visa, Northwest Airlines, Kodak, Gillette, Nikon, K-swiss -- see his bio

The Art of Telling Stories

Faculty: Rick Rickman

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisite: None

Course description: The Art of Telling Stories -- week-long

This intensive hands on shooting course is designed to help the aspiring journalist develop a better understanding of what it means to tell stories visually. This week-long course in story telling will examine how pictures work together to convey information in stimulating ways. It will help the participant discover a new awareness into themselves and their personal motivations as it relates to photography. This is not a course for people who aren’t self motivated. This is not a course for people who are comfortable with creating snapshots of their lives or family. This is a course designed to help the aspiring visual story teller enhance their skill sets by creating conceptual challenges designed to improve their compositional, aesthetic, and mental acuity skill levels. This is a course for students who want to become better visual story tellers and persons. Each student will be required to produce a short yet comprehensive visual story that they will find, research, and execute in one weeks time. Each day the student will be required to show work in progress and discuss that work with the instructor. At the end of the week-long session the student will show his work to the class and discuss the merits of the work and the reasons the project was undertaken. The project will be critiqued and the process of each student will be examined. Each member of the class will closely examine what worked and what didn’t and how the project could and should have been better executed. Working one on one with one of the best story tellers in the country will have great benefit to each student participant of this intensive course of study.

The Artistry of Sports Photography

Faculty: Rick Rickman

Expertise Level: Beginner to intermediate

Prerequisite: Portfolio

Course description: The Artistry of Sports Photography -- week-long

This course will be designed to help the beginning to intermediate sports photographer improve their skill sets. We will select students from submitted portfolios that establish the potential student’s abilities as a sports photographer. For the photographers selected, this course will be an intensive training ground in ways to elevate the level of their existing skills. We will take the students to events that will give them the hands on opportunities to shoot daily. The work will be critiqued daily and the photographers required to examine their successes and short comings of each shoot. Shooting with guidance and support will help each student learn techniques that will help them in their future careers as sports photographers. Working shoulder to shoulder with one of the finest sports photographers in the country is a rare opportunity and will help each student see first hand how great pictures are made. Shooting in a real life setting will help the student understand the stresses and pressures brought to bear by performance demands. We will examine some of the finest sports photography available today with visual aids and deconstruct why the pictures work and how they were made. This intensive hands on course will improve the skill sets of the participants and give each participant a better understanding of what it means to be a professional sports photographer and how to get into that arena.

Light Painting

Faculty: Rick Rickman

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisite: None

Course description: Light Painting -- week-long

This course will be an intensive introduction to the art of painting with light. Since light is the medium for all photography, learning to use many alternative light sources to augment and supplement available light is a photographers most important tool. This course will help the student learn techniques to enhance their existing knowledge of light and help them by developing new understanding of light and it’s interesting subtlety. The students will learn to use tools like flash lights, laser lights, and high powered spot lights to create painterly images that will help them grow as visual artists. Learning painting techniques will enhance their understanding of compositional techniques and help the student learn to finesse light by creating images with their new found skills on a daily basis. This will be a totally hands on class that immerses the student into this new art form in photography.

Michael Stern

Michael Stern is a well known and respected photographer as well as an expert in Photoshop. In addition to winning numerous prestigious awards for his photography, he has a client list many would love to have. Better known as Mr. Pixel on Phototalkradio.com, some of his client listings are as follows: Lucas Films, The Walt Disney Company, RCA, Southern California Edison, Paramount Pictures, Applause, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers Studios, ABC, Sid and Marty Krofft Pictures, Sotheby’s, UCLA, Cinema Secrets, City of Beverly Hills, USC, Southland Title, Harris Corporation, Art Center College of Design, Brooks Institute, Samy’s Camera. If Photoshop does it, Michael knows it.

Intermediate Photoshop CS3

Faculty: Michael Stern

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Understanding of Photoshop

Course description: Intermediate Photoshop CS3 -- weekend

During this intensive 3-day course, in addition to learning how to finesse selection edges for more authentic composites, we will dive into some of CS3’s newest features. The smart filters tool, JPEG processing capabilities within ACR and smart objects right out of RAW are just three of the areas we will explore. This course assumes a familiarity with the Photoshop interface and some experience working with layers, cloning, painting and color correcting. After this course is completed you will leave with a deeper appreciation of the programs functions and how to apply them to whatever visual issue you may be facing.

Beginning RAW Capture and Workflow

Faculty: Michael Stern

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Understanding of digital capture

Course description: Beginning RAW Capture and Workflow

This course takes into the realm of professional photography workflow. Shooting digital requires a new set of skills. Chief among them is “expose to the right and process to the left.” We will discuss how and why we make certain camera control setting choices. After making our images, we will download, edit, add file info, rank, process in batches and save to folders. Some experience working with digital capture is important to the entering student. The acquired skill set from this course will let you shoot with the confidence of a pro!

Studio Lighting for Products and People

Faculty: Michael Stern

Expertise level: Beginner to intermediate

Prerequisites: Understanding of a digital camera

Course description: Studio Lighting for Products and People -- weekend

With some experience coming into this course and a strong desire to learn, join us as we create the four basic portrait lighting patterns and poses and how to modify them for a specific look. Product photography is a must for success in the commercial field and to that end we will practice how to light for shiny metal, wood, plastic, glass and any other object that might find its way onto your tabletop.

Brent Winebrenner

Photographic journalism and lighting instructor at Brooks Institute of Photography, curriculum developer of core classes in lighting, widely published editorial and travel photographer, photographer for Lonely Planet Images and Aurora Stock agencies.

Table Top Lighting

Faculty: Brent Winebrenner

Expertise level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: Good understanding of your camera

Course description: Table Top Lighting -- weekend

This weekend course is designed to explore a variety of lighting setups and motion control options specific to high definition tabletop photography.

The course will begin with an introduction to designing light to reinforce and advance the client or the filmmaker’s intended purpose. The six qualities of light will be described and illustrated, followed by brief demonstrations of light modification tools, the effects they create and the emotional responses that result.

This module will be followed by an introduction to small set motion control technology, ranging from guerilla filmmaker setups to high-end computer controlled solutions.

The students will then be broken down into small groups and give “real world” case studies. They will endeavor to solve these problems using the studio’s resources top physically build light setups, compose the set design and design camera and/or subject movements. The instructor and TA will provide advice and critique throughout the process.

The students will then shoot and rough cut their projects, followed by a group critique.