The Show Must Go On: SBVC’s Film Program through COVID-19 by Thomas Schincke



March of last year saw a major change in how we go about our lives due to the COVID pandemic. For us college students, this meant the switch from in person classes to fully online classes. For some subject areas this was easier to do than others. I reached out to professor Lucas Cuny, and asked him on how SBVC’s film program handled this transition.

As per usual, SBVC had its annual film festival WolverineCon this year, with films from as far as Indonesia and as local as San Bernardino, but held completely virtually and every event could be attended through Zoom. Over the course of 4 days, attendees could partake in a career expo, discussion panels, a cosplay contest, the premiere of the film “The Dino” and watch all the film selections and ending with the award show, all of this held virtually and safely.

As for classroom instruction, most classes have been held remotely, with even some students having either a film or web series that they have written to be selected to be  filmed and produced. When asked about how the film program can safely teach classes where full online instruction isn't possible, professor Lucas Cuny, head of the film program, had this to say.

“Let's see basically since this whole thing started I've tried to be pro-active with our approach. We had a couple of element in place that I think really helped us to maintain our schedule and not have to cancel a lot of classes. As a matter of fact we only "knock on wood" had to cancel one class and that was due to no physical way to do it, but we actually added class sections through this whole thing and hired two new faculty members. From last summer on we instituted an equipment checkout system. So students had the option of picking up equipment needed for their assignments. Part of how we managed that was that faculty created rotation schedules so students weren't always working on the same thing at the same time. For instance in my FTVM 130 class last fall students were split up into equipment groups, some checked out lights, others checked out cameras, and others checked out sound equipment for their individual projects. As we got into the spring we added an open lab day on Thursdays so students could come in and use the equipment as needed for their classes. We also were able to add another lab section for our TV studio classes along with our cinema production classes. We also incorporated industry based safety practices for our lab and in person sessions. For instance our Multi Media Specialist, Sam Rodriguez, created these really simple and awesome signs up around the classes which read, "No mask no class." We basically created a culture of safety that enabled us to keep the program thriving.”

With the news of returning to campus next semester, the program can get back in full swing doing what it does best.

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