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The heavy snow that fell in Columbia, Missouri in February did not thwart volunteers from preparing venues and setting up projectors for the city’s annual True/False Film Festival. “The show must go on!” one participant tweeted. A storm of its own, the late winter festival transforms the small Midwestern town each year with a showcase of compelling documentaries selected from around the world and thousands of enthusiastic movie lovers who flock to watch the real life stories on the screens.

UNT student Filip Celander was among the tech crew helping to produce the event. A graduate student in the MFA documentary production program in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film (RTVF), he has worked the festival for the past six years. His involvement at film festivals began fifteen years ago when he was hired to coordinate the Filmmakers of Tomorrow student program for the annual Telluride Film Festival in Colorado — one of the nation’s premiere film festivals that will celebrate its 40^th anniversary this fall 2013. Celander has been hooked on film festivals ever since.

“I love watching documentaries,” Celander says. “That is why it’s so exciting to go to True/False and Telluride. In my job I get to see so many films. It is inspiring to see what films are out there — what is being submitted to festivals and what is being chosen.”

His passion for documentaries inspired the native Swede to pursue an advanced filmmaking degree. Now in his second year at UNT, Celander finds the program to be rigorous and rewarding. The faculty are inspiring as teachers and scholars, he says, but also as professionals actively engaged in making and showing films around the world and winning awards for their work. “The faculty produce quality work and expect the same degree of professionalism from you, which is extremely exciting.”

Films made by RTVF faculty, alumni, and current MFA students are among a repertoire of creative work making an impact at major festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Award-winning documentaries and narrative films like Diary of a City Priest (Eugene Martin), Gaza Shield (Tania Khalaf), River Planet (Melinda Levin), Undocumented Dreams (Sara Masetti) and The Revisionaries (Scott Thurman) have received a gamut of industry accolades — from the Golden Cine Eagle Award and Telly Award to festival honors such as “Grand Jury Prize,” “Official Selection,” and “Best of Fest” — and with screenings at notable venues such as Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Channel, PBS, BBC, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, and the US Department of State American Documentary Showcase.

Core Production

The RTVF graduate program is young compared to more established programs such as those at Temple, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, American University, and New York University, but in less than a decade since the first two MFA students graduated from UNT in 2005, it has steadily gained attention and respect from academic and industry peers. The MFA degree is among a handful in the nation that focus on documentary production, and it has recruited increasingly exceptional and diverse graduate students. Nearly one third of the current MFA students are from other countries, including Taiwan, Italy, China, and India as well as Sweden, with alumnae from countries including Argentina, Turkey, Togo, and Syria; the multicultural backgrounds contribute cinematic perspectives that greatly stimulate the graduate forum.

“The MFA program is quickly becoming the signature piece of the department,” says Radio, Television, and Film chair Alan Albarran. “Our talented faculty, diverse student body, interdisciplinary training, small classes, and location in the Dallas/Fort Worth area help elevate a perception of who we are.”

A well-defined and focused curriculum is the backbone of the program. MFA program coordinator and professor Ben Levin, a veteran teacher and filmmaker who worked at Temple University and Emerson College prior to UNT in 1990, wrote the original proposal that kick-started the program and continues to form its curriculum. While writing the draft and studying other documentary programs across the country he asked, “What can we do that these other programs aren’t doing?”

In the first semester of the first year, new students make an 8-10 minute documentary in the MFA Documentary Workshop — a tour de force introduction that challenges students to quickly learn the ropes of production, from theory and story structure to the technical details of shooting and editing. “In one semester students develop an idea, a schedule, and then shoot their project,” says assistant professor Tania Khalaf. “It’s fun, it’s overwhelming, but they love it!”  Productions culminate in public screenings, which additionally raise the bar to succeed.

Assistant professor Jason Balas then takes these first-year students through a rigorous graduate cinematography class that emphasizes professional lighting, lenses, and camera work with the most advanced equipment available.  Senior lecturer Brenda Jaskulske teaches the graduate location and postproduction sound class.

The workshop and these additional courses launch the program and lay a foundation of production experience that prepares students for future projects. Yet it is the two-semester, second year class taught by professor Melinda Levin that distinguishes UNT from other universities.  In this course classmates work in small teams on each other’s projects and rotate positions as director, director of photography, editor, and location sound recordist. Over the course of the year everyone gains experience in all production roles.

“I don’t know of anybody else doing this,” (Ben) Levin says. “People do crew projects but not quite this way. It gives them respect for each of those areas as well as the experience of working with other people. Ultimately, the program is designed for the students to find themselves creatively and be exposed to enough options so they can move in one direction or another.”

Third year student Hanny Lee, a native from Taiwan, agrees. Although she prefers to be behind the camera, she says the exposure to other production positions has given her newfound skills that have made her a better filmmaker. “Whether you like the job or not, you have to learn your designated role,” Lee says. “If you’re good with the camera, then you might not ever push yourself on editing. This class is a real world experience, because in the industry you have to learn how to work with other people on teams.”

Lee is completing her master’s thesis documentary, Kicking All Odds, which follows the friendship of two women athletes — a Christian and a Muslim of the National Palestinian Women’s Soccer team — and their experiences living in the West Bank. “RTVF has everything you need to complete film projects, with unlimited access to equipment,” she says. The all-digital department boasts state-of-the-art audio gear, recording studios, editing software and video cameras, including a RED digital cinema camera, which delivers superior capture resolution. The technology available to RTVF students has changed with the department’s investment in digital equipment, but some film items are classic. The department’s quality film camera lenses, for example, are adaptable to the new cameras and enhance the digital toolkit.

Lee has mentored with Khalaf for the last three years as a Research Assistant (RA). She currently teaches the labs for Film Style Production, an undergraduate class that introduces students to different aesthetics of directing, shooting, and editing footage for both documentary and narrative fiction films. Some students advance to take an intensive, five-week documentary production workshop in the summer. “I’ve seen good films come out of this workshop,” Lee says. “I completed a short film in that workshop that got me into a lot of film festivals and won several awards.” Her recently completed short documentary, Vermilion Cliffs, received an Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association and will premiere at the Dallas International Film Festival in April 2013.

(Ben) Levin observes that many students discover they like to teach as a result of their research and teaching positions. Such was the case with Celander, who says, “I had absolutely no intention of teaching prior to being a Teaching Assistant. However, that has changed.” He credits Melinda Levin for setting an example of excellence and for her encouragement. “In the beginning it was absolutely nerve wracking to have people look to me for information," he says. "I had to come to class prepared and be able to answer questions. It was really helpful to observe Melinda because she’s a very accomplished teacher. And I learned something by teaching the labs and explaining the material to others.”

RTVF professors believe the teaching and research positions will make graduates more attractive for teaching jobs, especially since they are trained in all facets of production. About a third of the students who came through the program now teach. Khalaf is also a graduate of the RTVF program. She chose to stay and teach at UNT to give back to a department she regards as being fertile with ideas and creativity. “I love teaching as much as I love making films. One energizes the other,” she says. “Teaching in this environment is such a rewarding experience.”

Changing the Lens

Documentary production anchors the program, but classes in history, theory, critical studies, research methods, and social media additionally equip students with a conceptual and creative framework for researching and making original work while managing the real world challenges of funding and promotion. (Ben) Levin, esteemed by students and faculty for his thorough knowledge of documentary production and history, says it is the program’s flexibility to teach a variety of filmmaking styles that encourages innovation and attracts both students and professors to study and work in RTVF.

According to pioneering Scottish documentarian John Grierson, who allegedly coined the term “documentary” in his 1926 review of Robert Flaherty’s film Moana, “Documentary is the creative treatment of reality.”  This precept continues to guide the work of many 21st century documentarians. Though documentary filmmaking has traditionally been defined for its “fly on the wall,” strictly observational techniques, the genre is complex and draws on a wide variety of art forms, including investigative films, autobiographical documents, reality television, documentary comedies, and many other classifications spanning journalism and more “directed” cinema. “Documentary MFA students at UNT are groomed and encouraged to seek out their own cinematic voices, and subject matter coming out of the program ranges from the intimate and personal to the global and political,” says Melinda Levin. “Each student’s productions are researched and immersed in the history and current national and international trends of the field.” 

Third year MFA student Sara Masetti blends documentary styles through reenactment and narration in her master’s thesis film, The Ocean In Between, an autobiographical portrait examining her identity as an Italian living in America. “The film is shot on 16mm film to create a more experimental sequence and define my own voice in my own character,” she says. In turning the camera on herself, she explores style and story structure approaches that are different from her previous work in digital formats. “The UNT MFA program is very refreshing because faculty always welcome your ideas.”

Assistant professor of RTVF Eugene Martin encourages this kind of experimentation in his advanced production classes. Martin, whose films include The Anderson Monarchs, Beirut, Philadelphia, and The Other America, writes and directs narrative features and documentaries that he considers to be authentic realism — hybrid creations that blur the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction genres. Martin is “inspired by meeting with people and listening to their stories, and finding power in the small human drama of everyday life.”

In The Other America, Martin documents a 17 year-old homeless boy and his experiences living in a shelter. The teen, in this case, is an actor who agreed to live among homeless persons for three months. “It’s immersive research,” Martin says, but he acknowledges the account is as much his interpretation of reality as it is anyone else’s. “Is it the realism that’s really there or is it one that I’m constructing,” he asks. “The truth is that even a documentary, like a fiction film, is constructed; you’re just making a different series of decisions. I’m always going for the story to work on a number of levels, and if I’ve done a good job, then it works universally.”

Prior to joining UNT in 2009, Martin taught at Temple University in Philadelphia, and before that he ran his own production company. His films have screened internationally in more than 25 countries. He chose to teach at UNT because he believes in the MFA program. “I was really attracted to the MFA program here,” he says. “My colleagues work on an international level, and progressive pedagogy and teaching styles are encouraged in the classroom. These things are important to me, and there is a lot of energy among the students to learn. It’s an intellectually stimulating department.”

Alumnus Scott Thurman (‘2010) attributes his success as a filmmaker to his exposure to different filmmaking styles and concepts while studying at UNT. His documentary, The Revisionaries, has garnered national recognition, with screenings at major festivals across the country and recently on the PBS televised series Independent Lens. Begun as a film in the 2^nd year production class, developed as his thesis, and completed with New York producers, the provocative film spotlights the Texas Board of Education and the influence it wields in determining content for state school textbooks.  American filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore of Bowling for Columbine says of The Revisionaries: “I hope every American sees this film.”

Thurman said the MFA degree taught him how to make good films, but it also taught him how to put theory into practical production, and how to think and talk about the work.  “It’s not enough to make the film. I learned the most through my discussions with faculty and peers about the concepts that guide the work,” Thurman says. “UNT taught me how to communicate my artistic vision in an educated way, and this has significantly shaped my experiences as a filmmaker.”

Classes like Ben Levin’s History of the Documentary and Special Topics classes, and Tania Khalaf’s International Documentary taught him a comparative understanding of film structure and style based on watching films from different eras and countries around the world. As a research assistant for Melinda Levin’s study abroad student media production classes in Thailand, Chile, and Argentina, he learned approaches for interviewing and accessing subjects from other cultures and traditions, and awareness of diverse ethical issues related to filmmaking.

Levin is in development on two new projects, including a film about environmental issues in Mongolia and the country’s struggles to reconcile its traditional, nomadic culture with a vast infusion of wealth from exports of oil, natural gas and minerals. She is also working with several UNT faculty and the International Office to design a study abroad course in Cuba.  Levin’s section of this course will include media documentation of successful environmental efforts in Cuba after the loss of Soviet subsidies.

Going Places

Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, Vimeo, Kickstarter, interactive geo tagging of locations, QR code embeds, and virtual avatar sites are among the palette of social media tools transforming artistic as well as business filmmaking practices. While most documentaries produced in the program are linear in form, (Melinda) Levin says that outreach of these types can keep a documentary “live” and relevant for years and invite consumer participation into both the subject matter and the documentary process, and that many MFA students at UNT have made extensive use of these and other media elements in the making of films as well as live, interactive documentary performances.

MFA student Sara Masetti uses Facebook and Twitter to inform fans as her films develop. “People come together around the project. Production photos, blog entries, and tweets are a great way to keep that following, both during production and then again when a film hits the festival circuit,” she says. “The information is especially helpful to festival organizers, who use it to promote the screenings.”

Masetti traveled to New York City in March 2013 for the screening of her recently completed short documentary, UnDocumented Dreams, selected as part of the Latino series in the NewFilmmakers New York film festival. Social media gave her a head start in promoting this film and making connections with people before the festival, who she then met in person to “continue conversations about issues we care about as media makers.” Masetti also won the Rising Star Award from the 2013 Canada International Film Festival based on this film.

Jacqueline Vickery, newly hired assistant professor of social media in RTVF, sees social media as being an invaluable branding tool for building relationships among local and niche communities as well as for cultivating wider audiences. “Connecting online with organizations that share an interest and expertise in a specific topic can potentially be a powerful way to share information. Social media bridges communities that might otherwise be isolated from each other,” she says. Establishing an active online presence helps raise money as well as awareness. “People are more likely to support your project with donations if they’ve already been following your work."

In her class Collaborative and Social Media Strategies, students must launch a social media campaign to promote a given project. Vickery also teaches Web 2.0, a theory and research class that examines how social media and the Internet are restructuring everyday aspects of life; privacy, identity, copyright, international relations, globalization and other contemporary issues are discussed. The Facebook page “MFA Docs UNT” and the MFA graduate student blog Focal Point Documentary are two ways in which the department uses social media to recruit students and promote its activities.

Lebanese filmmaker Khalaf tapped the Facebook community to promote her documentary, Gaza Shield (2011), by sharing photos and announcements of festival awards and screenings. “I have been contacted by people at festivals about submitting work because they’ve seen my film’s Facebook page,” she says. And social networking is quickly connecting her to global communities in relation to her newest feature length documentary, Journey to Hope, which documents a team of U.S. clinical psychology doctoral students making a difference in the lives of children living in an orphanage in Guyana.

The benefits of social media aside, Khalaf says it is the one-on-one interaction from attending festivals that she most appreciates. “I love meeting people and answering their questions in person. They get to know me and want to learn more about my projects.” Celander adds, “Film festivals are an old fashioned way of getting your movie out there, but they’re a great way to forge professional relationships by meeting people in person. If I can make even one meaningful connection at a festival, then that, to me, is worth more than 500 Facebook friends.”

Prominent and emerging film and video festivals in north Texas include the USA Film Festival, Dallas Video Fest (DVF), the Dallas International Film Festival, and Thin Line Film Fest. All of these venues have showcased UNT faculty, alumnae, and student films, and many UNT students have worked here as interns. Cinema maven Bart Weiss, associate professor at the University of Texas Arlington and artistic director of the DVF, going on its 26^th year, says he has enjoyed a close relationship with RTVF through the years and that the Dallas Videofest and other festivals benefit from the caliber of UNT talent — for the films and videos selected for screening as well as the skills that student interns contribute behind-the-scenes to festival planning and production.

Weiss, who is actively involved in the field both locally and nationally as an academic, writer, director, and board member, coproduces a mini film festival with UNT and other area universities featuring the “best of” student work.  He recognizes RTVF faculty such as Ben and Melinda Levin for actively transforming the documentary landscape at UNT, for kindling relationships with university and industry partners, and for their overall great service to the DFW film/video community. “Something is rare in this area,” Weiss says. “There’s an exceptional concentration of talent but also camaraderie in the film/video community here. We work together, advise each other, and support each other’s work. This is a great place to make movies.”

With the Dallas/Fort Worth region ranked by Nielson and other market researchers as the number five media market in the nation, RTVF graduates have an excellent record of securing high profile, quality jobs in the area, says department chair Alan Albarran. “The industry likes us because our graduates are highly skilled and can fill a variety of positions,” he says. “The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is a huge international venue that is only going to get bigger. The fact that we’re located here uniquely positions our faculty and students to make important contributions to the field.”

Albarran is proud of the accomplishments and recognition that the MFA team has achieved in less than ten years time since its inception. “The program is really going places,” he says.  The movies made at UNT are going places, too. From Dallas to New York to Trinidad to China, the documentaries and compelling stories made by UNT faculty and students are inspiring festival audiences and movie lovers around the world. That’s the real life story behind the camera in north Texas.

Additional Context

• Learn more about the Department of Radio, Television, and Film
• Learm more about RTVF Graduate Studies
• Learn more about RTVF Undergraduate Studies