Make Media
Meet BAVC Media Student Danielle Bezalel!
Meet BAVC Media Student Danielle Bezalel!
Danielle Bezalel graduated from UC Berkeley (go bears!) in 2014 with a degree in Film and Media and a minor in Education. She's passionate about making media that matters, singing on stage with her band Happnstance, eating lots of chocolate, traveling the world, getting fit, and cracking jokes with her 18 year old brother. Email her at daniellebezalel@gmail.com to hear more about her story and to get involved with Sex Ed with DB!
ICYMI: National MediaMaker Fellows Making Waves
Our 2017 National MediaMaker Fellows head to Washington D.C. this month for the 3rd annual Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival, which “celebrates the finest new films inspired by the investigative instinct.” Pausing on this phrase, it struck me just how often the projects that come out of the Fellowship began with a simple question, or a hunch or a scenario that required further investigation. We don’t often identify independent filmmakers as investigators, but I think that a sense of purposeful curiosity is the seed of many stories and a force which shapes the course of production. Every March we welcome [...]
Failed utopias and resilient publics: Interviews with BAVC Media’s 2017-18 Residents, Andrea Rodriguez and Erica Molesworth
Last month, BAVC Media announced Andrea Rodriguez and Erica Molesworth (pictured above) as the recipients of our 2017-18 Residency program. With support from the San Francisco Film Commission, the Residency builds on the successes of BAVC Media’s previous Artist-in-Residence program, offering participants a shared work space, industry-standard equipment, and opportunities to take advantage of BAVC Media’s courses and share out their projects with their creative peers and the public. Although Andrea and Erica have backgrounds in different disciplines (Andrea, in dance and interactive design, and Erica, in visual art with an emphasis on photography) and radically different creative practices, the [...]
Todd Leachman
How did you first hear about BAVC Media? Unemployed Production-side person. Got SF Goodwill Workforce grant. Tell us your BAVC Media story. (500 words or less) I decided to get into editing after 25 years in production. I evaluated several options and BAVC Media was the clear winner in terms of value. They have up-to-date equipment/software, industry-seasoned instructors, and course diversity/scheduling flexibility. Best of all, the connections one makes are terrific because the classes are mixed with students from all the various programs and corporate training. The other fantastic aspect is the career workshops and counseling. They revolutionized my thinking in [...]
Lauren Militello
How did you first hear about BAVC Media? I heard about BAVC Media searching through the Workforce Initiative Act's education providers list. The WIA funded my tuition toward a Video Production Certification. Tell us your BAVC Media story. I started at BAVC Media in January 2015 and completed the course September 2016. I attended BAVC Media to fill in the gaps of my video production skill set. I wanted to go more in depth with industry professionals and have the time to ask questions about processes and equipment. I really enjoyed a lot of the teachers of the courses, [...]
Chris Austria
How did you first hear about BAVC Media? I am a graduate of Pyramind, a music production training center in San Francisco. Aisha Ayers, one of my classmates, worked at BAVC Media, and she told me about the film classes at the school. Tell us your BAVC Media story. I am a wildlife photographer, and conservationist with Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda- East Africa. We are a safe haven to 46 orphaned chimpanzees that have been rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. The sanctuary was founded in 1998 by Dr. Jane Goodall, and a group of Ugandan trustees. [...]
2016 National MediaMaker: Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz
Around 4am on the morning of December 12, 2016, nearly 30 men, women and children were swaddling themselves in their warmest winter shawls, preparing hot beans and hot cocoa, and scooping up candles, toddlers, and guitars to step out into the Central Valley pre-dawn frost to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few miles north, at a hotel in the center of Stockton, two filmmakers had traveled a distance to line up their batteries and SD cards, slip on their coats, and map their way in the dark to the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center to record this ritual. For me. And I, 3,000 miles away, was [...]
2016 National MediaMaker: Kevin D. Wong
The truth is, I was about ready to give up on the project when I was accepted to the BAVC Mediamaker Fellowship program. I had spent the previous year and a half submitting to funder after funder and the seemingly endless stream of "No's" was taking it's toll on me. Three days before the applications were due I got home from a job that had run into overtime, opened my computer to the half completed application and thought to myself “why bother? It’s just going to be another no.” I knew that I was going to be on a shoot [...]
2016 National MediaMaker: Jethro Patalinghug
I applied for BAVC Media’s MediaMaker Fellowship full of doubts that I would ever be picked. I had previously applied for grants and fellowships and had been rejected by all of them. I thought it might have something to do with my ethnicity: I’m Filipino. But I continued to apply. Navigating the filmmaking process is a very daunting and isolating experience. I really needed support, whether it was through funding or mentorship. I didn't have anyone to talk to about my film. I didn't have the necessary critical feedback that could bring my skills to the next level. I found [...]
2016 National MediaMaker: Rob Rooy
Almost by definition, we documentary filmmakers work in siloes of our own making. In making a film, we may only be meaningfully involved with a handful of other people – subject/s, a few crew members perhaps and maybe an editor. But to stay within the silo is the kiss of death; total immersion can be wildly distorting. There’s a numbness that can set in as you wrestle with moments on film again and again and again. As artists and storytellers, we must reach outside our siloes if we are to maintain a healthy, creative perspective on our work. This need [...]
