Hampshire College

FACILITIES AND RESOURCES:

Advanced Media Lab B-2:
This lab is primarily designed around video editing, but it's certainly not limited to that. As we have embraced more and more users on campus, the range of capabilities of all the labs has broadened dramatically. Interestingly, the people at Amherst College are asking us right now if we would like to standardize on using Final Cut Express instead of Final Cut Studio. Their intent is good. It's so that Five-College students who move back and forth from campus to campus end up using the same version of software and we all lower our costs. But, our answer is no--our work is too broad in scope. We need the additional applications that come with the studio package: Color, Motion, DVDStudioPro, SoundTrack, LiveType, and Compressor. So if you think all we do is edit video, you're wrong. We make media and that, in our current world view, requires us to have a much wider range of possibilities and skill set and hence software.

There are six stations in the room, with half of them using a miniDV deck and the other half without decks, intended for users who have brought their own camcorders or have already captured their footage. As we move faster and faster into the world of tapeless, the necessity for decks diminishes. Indeed, that's the first question I ask students: How are you going to output your project? Is it going to tape, or are you making a video-DVD, or  are you going to end up only with a QuickTime file? It's no longer so predictable where and how you finish your project. In the old days--last year--it was pretty much taken for granted you were going to output to tape, but now, who knows?

I just did a total of the storage capacity for the media labs, and I was surprised to find that we have 16.8TB of storage, so we're moving up a little in the suffix world. Gigabytes are no longer the cap. Gee, I wonder what's after the teras.

Studio 3 B-3:
The studio has been for quite a while used primarily as a classroom space and very little as a shooting space. As the Film and Photo crowd move back over to their own new building we'll find ourselves graced with a lovely studio space. I've been moving away from using the overhead light grids to using more floor lights, and have found it more enjoyable and easier. There're fewer trips up and down the ladder and the lighting ends up being more subtle and dramatic instead of generically televisionish.

We have a large green wall for chroma keys; it's quite popular with the Cognitive Science crowd, who do a lot of animation and compositing. I'm glad we've got a curtain that covers it, because I can only stand to see that much green for short periods of time.

We have three studio cameras, but as with all things moving through techology land, they're still back in time a little because they're the 4:3 aspect ratio of standard definition. So if you want to shoot in 16:9 you need to bring a camera from Media Services.

InterMedia Lab B-5:
This is our advanced lab, though we don't actually tell anyone that. It has four 24" iMacs hooked up to a server just for that lab, though there's 1TB of storage on each station. The room is good for video editing and audio editing. We do a lot of radio documentary work and there's a very quiet small announce booth for recording voice-overs or telephone interviews. There are also a couple of midi-keyboards and a flatbed scanner on each station. We also have a nice animation stand and iStopmotion on the two computers next to it.

Oh, wait: You think I mean this lab is advanced because of the equipment. No. It's because we put the advanced students in here. It's the work that's advanced; the equipment is just there. People like Anna Elliot, who spent last year working in Afghanistan producting a television show. Or people like Kyle Brodie, who spent his summer and most of last semester traveling across the country shooting a documentary. We get students like these all the time and most of them aren't even media concentrators, they're just typical Hampshire students--ambitious, resourceful, and sincere. I always feel privileged to work with them.

AudioTorium B-6:

This is a very small room for doing audio synthesis work. That's done using Max/MSP, Jitter, Live, Reason, ProTools, and Logic. The room's got a 5.1 surround system for those spacy audio mixes. Oh, yes, don't forget the midi-guitar sitting in the corner. It's a great capabiliity, but it does take some getting used to.

Division III Editing B-7:

This lab has Final Cut Pro video and ProTools audio editing and is reserved for advanced work. Twenty-four hour access is available for Division III students who live strange hours and work long time slots. The Mac Pro Tower has HDMI ins and outs, lots of storage, lots of RAM and it's the home to the first Hampshire student to shoot with a RED camera. You, too, can be a Hollywood wizard if you shoot in 4K resolution. Well, maybe it doesn't have anything at all to do with the camera.

Electron Music Studio B-8:

Two ProTools audio editing stations each with full size midi keyboards, rack mount synthesizers, and audio synth applications: Abysnth, Reason, Live, Max. CD burners and mini-disk recorder. Recently I've grown fond of Logic, or should I say I've grown less fond of ProTools. I love the sounds that Logic offers and its native ability to import OMF audio from FinalCut is a big advantage. While the room has two computer stations we find that it ends up being a single user space but people use both  computers at the same time--one plays and one records. I often end up in this room on Friday afternoons after a hard week and play a little jazz and try and relax. I'm not a very good muscian, but it's fun.

Media spaces are all over Hampshire. Most of those, however, require that you be in a class to use them. The rooms above in the library are open to all Hampshire members, regardless of your concentration or what classes you are taking.