Hampshire

Hampshire College Bill Brand

Title: Professor of Film and Photography
Phone: (413) 559-5570
Office Hours: Wed.& Thurs 10 am -noon
Email: bbrand@hampshire.edu
Hampshire College Home Page

Faculty Biography:

Bill Brand, professor of film and photography, holds a B.A. in art from Antioch College and an M.F.A. in film from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Hunter College and was awarded the MacArthur Chair at Hampshire for the years 1994-97. Since 1973, his films have been screened extensively in the US and abroad in museums, independent film showcases, and on television. They have been featured at major film festivals including the Berlin Film Festival and New Directors/ New Films Festival. The work is written about in cinema history books and in articles by Paula Rabinowitz, Erik Barnouw, David James, Janet Maslin, Paul Arthur, J. Hoberman, B. Ruby Rich, and Noel Carroll, among others. His 1981 Masstransiscope, a mural installed in the subway system of New York City which is animated by the movement of passing trains, is wide regarded as a seminal work of public art. In 1973 he founded Chicago Filmmakers, the showcase and workshop and until 1991 served on the Board of Directors of the Collective for Living Cinema in New York City. He is currently an Artistic Director of Parabola Arts Foundation which he co-found in 1981. Since 1975 he has operated BB Optics, an optical printing service specializing in 8mm blow-ups and archival preservation.

Courses Fall 2004:

stills from Fear of Blushing by Jennifer Reeves, 2001
HACU-108
Hand Made Films
School: Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
Instructors: Bill Brand
Meeting time: Wed 2:30 -5:20 pm
Screening time: Tues 7-9 pm
Location: Film and Photography Building

Course Web Site

Description:

While mainstream cinema developed as commercial entertainment artists working on the margins created a parallel and often oppositional film history. This course will explore experimental and avant-garde films made in the artisanal mode often in political response to commercial culture or in concert with developments in modern and post- modern art. The course will focus on films that respond directly to the physical properties of the medium either by subverting the photographic process or by directly manipulating the materials through primitive animation or direct painting on film. Students will screen films from all periods of cinema history - from Winsor Mckay to Stan Brakhage - as well by artists working today. In each case students will attempt to understand films within a historical context with theoretical and historical texts. From a detailed study of films students will write descriptive and analytical essays. Also students will do their own hand made filmmaking through group and individual projects with pin-hole cameras painting and drawing on film, cel and object animation and hand-processing techniques.

Meya Deren
HACU-0210
Film Workshop I
School: Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
Instructors: Bill Brand
Meeting time: Tues 12:30-3:20
Screening time: Tues 7-9 pm
Location: Film and Photography Building

Course Web Site

This course teaches the basic skills of film production including camera work editing sound recording and preparation and completion of a finished work in film or video. Students will have weekly assignments and will also produce a finished film for the class. There will be weekly screenings of student work as well as screening of films and videotapes which represent a variety of aesthetic approaches to the moving image. Finally the development of personal vision will be stressed. The bulk of the work in the class will be produced in 16mm format. Video formats plus digital image processing and non-linear editing will also be introduced. A $50 lab fee provides access to equipment and editing facilities. Students are responsible for providing their own film, tape, processing and supplies. There are weekly evening screenings or workshops. Prerequisite courses include a 100 level course in media arts (Introduction to Media Production, Introduction to Digital Photography & New Media or equivalent and must be completed and not taken concurrent with this course).