For 5 summers (2021 to 2025), I taught a total of 9 rounds of an intensive 2-week, all-day filmmaking course for high schoolers as part of Syracuse University’s Summer Pre-College program — initially as an assisting member of the instructional team under Mišo Suchy’s leadership, and ultimately as a lead instructor.

Our unique curriculum emphasized cinema as a medium of imaginative self-expression at the intersection of many related arts—including photography, animation, creative writing, poetry, performance, dance, music, visual arts, and more.

Along with my colleagues, which always included a team of brilliant undergraduate and graduate film students at Syracuse University, I worked to cultivate a safe, joyful space for creative community, caring, collaboration, and personal growth.

By introducing students to diverse, experimental forms of cinema outside the mainstream, we encouraged an open mindset about the wide world of possibilities for working with moving images, beyond commercial Hollywood productions and inclusive of marginalized artists who create in innovative ways with minimal resources.

While the course included gear workshops and access to professional equipment, we were most interested in helping students put these tools in service of thoughtful, personal, creative visions and grow in their self-confidence as artists with voices to share. In the words of Maya Deren, “Cameras don’t make films. Filmmakers make films.”

I cherish my memories of teaching this course and the many amazing, insightful, and inspiring young artists I had the honor to mentor and support.

To the right are compilation reels that I edited to celebrate the work of these students and the success of SU’s Pre-College Film Academy. You can find more of these videos celebrating the summer precollege program under the “Editor” section of my website.