Borough of Manhattan Community College Expands Its Reach with Avid Unity ISIS
Since its founding in 1963, a primary mission of the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) has been to address the needs of underserved populations, providing opportunities for students with limited means but unlimited potential. The school’s two-year Video Arts and Technology (VAT) program is achieving this goal, thanks in part to a state-of-the art facility that includes the only high-definition (HD) studio and television data network in the City University of New York (CUNY) system, providing students with hands-on access to the industry’s latest technology.
To better facilitate the large storage requirements of HD projects and to accommodate increased demand from students in the VAT program, the school’s Media Center recently upgraded its setup to include an Avid Unity ISIS system. This flexible shared-storage setup will enable the school to offer VAT courses to twice as many students. Upon graduation with their associate’s degree, students can either transition to four-year colleges or land jobs in the competitive film, television, and multimedia industries.
A long-time Avid customer, BMCC used an Avid Unity LANshare EX shared-storage solution with 15 Avid Xpress DV workstations prior to the Avid Unity ISIS upgrade. “We were out of space,” says John Gallagher, director of the Media Center, explaining the reason for the upgrade.
“We realized that we needed a storage solution that could handle HD. With the upgrade to the ISIS [system], we doubled our storage capacity from 4 TB to 8 TB.”
The upgrade also included 15 seats of Windows-based Avid Xpress Pro software with Avid Mojo SDI hardware for advanced digital and analog I/O and monitoring. These workstations, along with 10 Macintosh-based graphics workstations, are all linked to the Avid Unity ISIS system via Gigabit Ethernet connections. “The ISIS allows us to have a 25-workstation hybrid lab with much more bandwidth than before,” says Gallagher.
Not only has the addition of the Avid Unity ISIS system provided more shared-storage space for VAT students, it has enabled them to view their projects at higher resolutions that are more storage-intensive. And, because the shared-media network can support several hundred users working simultaneously in real time, it has paved the way for BMCC to enroll dozens more students in the VAT program. During the 2006-2007 academic year, there were approximately 270 students in the VAT program. “Enrollment in the introductory VAT 100 course has recently doubled, and we are expecting to enroll significantly more students in the next few years,” notes Philip Weisman, coordinator of the VAT program.
“We realized that we needed a storage solution that could handle HD. With the upgrade to the ISIS [system], we doubled our storage capacity from 4 TB to 8 TB.”
NSF Grant Paves the Way
With the program’s excellent reputation and expanded resources, and with support in the form of a $900,000 Advanced Technological Education grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the college is looking to expand and further diversify its VAT student population. One focus of the grant is to design and implement a professional academic training program for women and minorities.
The NSF grant will fund this pilot academic program in video technology, targeted toward women and minorities, which will begin in high schools, continue at the VAT program, and articulate with participating four-year colleges. It will also support the implementation of a professional training program for working media professionals in digital media technology, including members of unions, trade organizations, and groups serving women and minorities.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity for the VAT program to establish a national model in digital video education and to help broaden the access of women and minorities to this industry,” says Shari R. Mekonen, associate professor in the VAT program and principal investigator (P.I.) of the grant with Dr. Sandra Poster, founder of the VAT program.
“The NSF grant will be used internally to strengthen the program and externally to recruit more students,” says Weisman, also an associate professor. “We want the VAT program to be a conduit for women and minorities in the film, video, and multimedia industries. This grant will help us achieve that goal.”
“The bottom line is…that if you know Avid [systems], then you have a skill you can use when you go out into the world.”
Collaborative Experience
Students who enroll in the VAT program begin by taking a variety of courses to improve their general skills in English, mathematics, speech, and the social sciences. They also take introductory courses in video technology and media applications using Avid Xpress Pro software to create group as well as individual projects.
In addition to using state-of-the-art HD video editing technology - including the Avid DNxHD codec for storage-efficient editing in HD - students use industry-standard audio equipment as well. A Digidesign Pro Tools|HD digital audio workstation and six Pro Tools LE systems are used for both the entry level and advanced Sound for Performance/Digital Media courses, as well as for voice-overs and sound effects for the program’s Remote Video/Editing and TV studio courses.
“Our beginning Remote Video/Editing students work with standard DV while our more advanced students work in either standard or HD formats,” explains Weisman. “Throughout the curriculum, they become their own producers and are responsible for creating their own videos. Students are also required to participate in an internship program, arranged by the Cooperative Education Department, and have interned with numerous employers including NY1 (Time Warner Cable), MTV, the Showtime Network, Merrill Lynch, the Food Network, and MSNBC.”
Students get real-world opportunities to use their skills right at the school as well. In September 2006, VAT launched a new television show sponsored by the NSF grant, BMCC On Air, a regularly scheduled program that focuses on the richness and diversity of the BMCC community, CUNY, and downtown Manhattan. VAT students, multimedia students, and theater students work together using Avid Xpress Pro systems to produce the taped program. The studio also has an Avid Deko 1000 on-air graphics system, which was part of the recent upgrade. The Deko system is used to create and air lower thirds for panel discussions that are moderated by student hosts.
A final requirement in each of the Remote Video/Editing courses is a personal “dream project” that can be a documentary, a fictional narrative, a music video, or a more experimental piece. For her final project, Claire Egei, a recent VAT graduate, created an informational documentary about her native Transylvania. She used footage that she shot in Transylvania and narrated the piece herself.
Egei experienced the impact of the Avid Unity ISIS upgrade firsthand. “We were working in HD, and that takes more space. Many students had the problem of running out of storage space, but because of the ISIS [system], most of us got an additional 30 to 40 gigabytes. Before the upgrade, that would not have been possible.” Another one of Egei’s projects, the documentary Four Wheel Passion, won the school’s Joshua Smith Award for Excellence. “I used a bunch of features in the Avid systems to make that one look like a little movie,” she explains. “I used color correction and fast motion, and flipped the image. I was able to achieve a continuity that really made the piece work.”
Competitive Advantage
According to Gallagher, one of the benefits of the new Avid Unity ISIS media network is the improved quality of the students’ work. “Students are able to take a graphics class and an editing class in the same semester.
They couldn’t do that without a network. And it enables them to work on ambitious projects and edit in a collaborative environment. That’s another reason we invested in the ISIS [system] - it allows students to work in a studio environment that is just like the ones they will be using in the industry. We want our students to go out there and compete. You can’t graduate from BMCC without having worked in a networked environment. It makes students competitive.”
Egei knows the value of a competitive edge and agrees that the skills she acquired in the VAT program will serve her well when it’s time to look for a job.
“The bottom line is…that if you know Avid [systems], then you have a skill you can use when you go out into the world,” she says.
Egei attended the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas in April 2007 along with three fellow students – Patricia Brown, Christina Figueroa, and Cherise Burnette. The four were sponsored by Avid as part of a team of 28 outstanding media students from seven schools across the country. The students kept daily blogs, shot videos, and recorded podcasts, all of which were posted on the Avid Web site.
“We all got Dell laptops with Media Composer [software] on them,” says Egei. “That was new to me, but once you know Avid Xpress Pro, you can use Media Composer too. We also had a Sony HD camera. And, with our Nokia cell phones, we were able to make a wireless connection to the Web via ComVu Media’s PocketCaster program. We were going around on the floor at NAB asking people about their experiences with Avid [systems] and [our interviews] were being broadcast live on the Internet.”
Taking the Next Step
Egei is an ideal example of the kind of student BMCC wants to attract, educate, and empower. After graduating with honors from the VAT program, she was notified that she was one of only 25 students accepted into the film and video production program at City College of New York (CCNY).
“Students with limited resources can come here and succeed,” says Gallagher. “Our VAT students often arrive with no credentials. By the time they’re done, however, they are prepared to transfer to some of the best schools in the country.”
Although students are encouraged to continue their educations at four-year institutions such as CCNY, Brooklyn College, and New York University, some develop relationships with their intern companies and begin work immediately. BMCC graduates have moved on to jobs at the BBC, the Food Network, New York 1, and MSNBC.
“We include practical and creative elements in our curriculum so students can begin to find their voices and take them out into the world,” says Weisman. “Some might want to be producers, some might want to be camera people. We have a flexible curriculum so they will be prepared to do whatever they want to do.”
* CREDITS: Courtesy of Borough of Manhattan Community College