The State of Film at Duke

I hate telling people my major.

When I talk to people outside of Duke, I say “Environmental Science and Film.” When I talk to people here, it’s more like “Environmental Science and Policy with the AMI certificate… but I think I’ve taken more film classes than classes for my major and I want to be a filmmaker.” And it’s actually true; I checked today on ACES! I’ve taken 11 FVD/AMI classes—more than what’s required for most majors—and I’m leaving Duke with some lousy certificate that has a pretentious name and takes a mouthful to explain.

Duke has a lot of energy behind its arts programs right now—some more than others—and programming, classes and facilities are growing exponentially. However, in this formative time for the future of film at the University, all the momentum isn’t entirely productive. Administrators and faculty need your help shaping its unfolding evolution, especially because I hear that you young folk out there might be able to graduate with a Film major as early as 2012.

Excuse me, I meant an “Arts of the Moving Image” major.

I have to say, I have rarely been more disheartened than when I realized that all of the hard work I had done would land me a certificate with such a hoity-toity name. Thankfully, the program has not yet undergone a complete overhaul, but the choice of name spoke loudly: Duke is afraid to be known as normal. I feared the words “experimental documentary” like none other.

I’ll start by saying there’s nothing wrong with experimental films; they’re actually quite lovely. But the mere fact that nearly everyone in an Intro to AMI class is making them is mind-boggling. You can’t teach someone who barely knows the alphabet of film to write a meaningful poem. One needs to learn and practice the conventions before meaningfully subverting them, and that can take years. I find the idea of having inexperienced freshmen running scratching pieces of film and capturing images of the ocean from funny angles offensive. Art film and the avant garde—while they can certainly be playful—aren’t children’s concoctions. They are experiments made through conscious choice and extensive knowledge of the medium, not by first-time filmmakers with Flip cams.

To my delightful surprise, production classes under AMI have blossomed. But as class membership has increased, equipment budgets have also decreased. Currently, the quality of the few cameras available to Duke undergraduates puts programs at USC and NYU to shame. The paltry quantity, however, has necessitated a clamp-down on student access and sometimes sending students home empty-handed; real film programs usually check out equipment for an entire semester. It is embarrassing that student groups and students themselves are forced to fill the gaps left by a fully funded academic program at one of the world’s wealthiest universities. Filmmaking is an industrial craft: it requires significant capital, without which making good films just can’t happen.

Despite my qualms, the state of student filmmaking on campus is strong. The Program in the Arts of the Moving Image and the Center for Documentary Studies make Duke one of the most unique schools in the filmmaking world, bridging documentary, narrative and experimental film in a unique and academic way and leaving students with an eclectic background of knowledge. Freewater Productions provides strong support and a fantastic forum for filmmakers outside of the classroom. Duke Student Broadcasting is also coming into its own, and the organization has lots of potential for growth if all of its resources are put to use—and back in the equipment room every once in a while.