News Archives

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MMC Back in Session

January 25, 2009

Maine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic year Maine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yeaMaine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yeaMaine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yeaMaine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yeaMaine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yeaMaine Media College students are back on campus for the second trimester of the 2008- 2009 academic yea

Fleming Caffery Announces Book & Exhibition Tour

April 9, 2009

After spending years photographing a small village in northeastern Mexico, Debbie Fleming Caffery, who received a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on the project, has completed a book and exhibition titled The Spirit & The Flesh.

Her work captures the daily lives of villagers whose cultural center is their local church. Of this period she has said, “I felt incredibly comfortable in a culture rich in celebrations of religious feasts, with strong, independent, highly emotional people, much like the people I grew up with in southwest Louisiana.”

While exploring the village, Debbie stumbled upon a cantina near the church that served occasionally as a brothel. “Symbols of heaven and hell were dominant, both in the church environment as well as the cantina, “ she says, “The brothel brought new elements into my work: secrets, sensual needs, desire, and often unexpected love.”

The Spirit & The Flesh U.S. exhibition schedule includes Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, beginning April 4, Gitterman Gallery, New York, from May 21, and Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, June 4.

Debbie leads her workshop Documentary Portraits June 21 – 27 here in Rockport.

MMW Board Welcomes Rosenblum

November 9, 2009

John Rosenblum brings his considerable expertise in business and academic affairs to the Workshops' board of directors.

Board Chair John Claussen welcomes new Board member John Rosenblum
Board Chair John Claussen (right) welcomes new Board member John Rosenblum John is Dean Emeritus of the Darden School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. John began his academic career at the Harvard Business School and was Dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond after his tenure at the Darden School.

He currently serves on the board of directors of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo and Company and is a trustee for a number of nonprofit organizations including the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc., the American Civil War Center in Virginia and both the Farnsworth Art Museum and Atlantic Challenge in Rockland, Maine.

"I am honored to have been asked to join the Workshops community. The passion and creativity that pervade this wonderful learning environment are inspiring," says Rosenblum of his recent election, "I look forward to helping the organization realize its extraordinary potential."

The Last Truck airs on HBO

July 22, 2009

On June 3rd, 2008 General Motors announced it would close its assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, just outside of Dayton. For those who took the buyout, June 27th was their last day. In The Last Truck, filmmakers and Workshops faculty Steven Bognar and Julie Reichert explore the impact of a plant closing on individual lives and livelihoods.

Steven Bognar is an independent filmmaker and media arts educator. His first film, Personal Belongings, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened nationally on the PBS series P.O.V.

Julia Reichert is professor in the department of community health and professor of motion pictures in the theater arts department at Wright State University. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary, for the films Seeing Red and Union Maids. Their last documentary A Lion in the House, won the Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Filmmaking

The Last Truck airs nationally on HBO September 7.

Reichert and Bognar team teach their Producing the Documentary workshop in Rockport September 13 – 19.

Maine Frame Photo Contest Supports Scholarships

July 22, 2009

MMW is partnering with Blurb, the online book publishing company, and B&H Photo Video to sponsor the Maine Frame Photo Book Contest in celebration of the creative work produced by Workshops students.

2009 students, across all programs, are invited to participate by submitting four images to one or of four categories: Portraits, Places, Documentary, or Fine Art. One hundred images will be included in a Blurb book titled Maine Frame, copies of which Blurb has generously offered to provide to students whose images appear in the book. Copies will be available for purchase in the Blurb online bookstore beginning in October, with proceeds to benefit the Workshops’ scholarship fund.

Images to receive top votes in each category receive a $100 gift card from B&H Photo Video. B&H will host a reception for Workshops alumni in Manhattan during the 2009 PDN PhotoPlus Expo to celebrate the release of Maine Frame.

The submission deadline is August 21. Visit our website August 22 - September 2, 2009 to vote for your favorite images, whether you enter the contest or not. You can also email this link to friends and encourage them to vote, too.

For entry details and guidelines visit www.theworkshops.com/maineframe. Good luck!

Congo/Women Exhibition Features Work of Bleasdale, Haviv

July 15, 2009

Congo/Women Exhibition Features Work of Bleasdale, Haviv

The images of VII photographers and Workshops faculty Ron Haviv and Marcus Bleasdale are featured in the touring exhibition Congo/Women Portraits of War: The Democratic Republic of Congo, which returns to New York this fall.

photo by Marcus Bleasdale

Congo/Women is an international photography exhibition and educational campaign to raise awareness of the widespread violence facing women and girls in Congo. The exhibition features powerful life-size photographs that convey the strength and courage of Congolese women, with accompanying essays, both written and audio, that describe the impact of the crisis from a range of perspectives.

The exhibition also features the work of photojournalists Lynsey Addario and James Nachtwey. Congo/Women is co-produced by Art Works Projects and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago.

With a total of 38 images, Congo/Women demonstrates the impact of war on women, illustrates the physical reality of the crisis, and reveals specific cases of individuals who are personally affected by, and bear witness to, the region’s extreme violence. NPR’s Tell Me More interviews Ron Haviv prior to the Washington, D.C. exhibition opening. LISTEN

The VII Photo Agency partners with MMW each season to bring internationally renowned photojournalists to Rockport to lead Master Classes. Marcus Bleasdale teaches his class August 9 – 15, and Ron Haviv leads a workshop September 13 – 19.

Winning Grants by Carole Dean

July 8, 2009

Where do you start? I read thousands of proposals a year for my Roy W. Dean film grants. I know what wins grants and what turns judges off quickly. Getting it right can be a piece of cake.

Documentary film funding starts with a well-written, organized proposal. It outlines your film’s story, background, and need. It also outlines the approach, structure and style in four to eight pages of dynamite passion

Getting started may be the hard part, when really, this is the best part. Just write page after page of your visions for the film. Don’t worry if you only need a 6 page proposal and you now have 25 pages, just keep putting down what you “see” happening in your film. Focus on your vision of the film. I realize that you are not sure what your subjects may say in the interviews, but if you did your research thoroughly, you know the subject matter. So, tell it to us as a compelling story and any people you have secured for the film, tell us their story.

Click here for the complete article at From the Heart Productions. Writer, producer, and author of The Art of Film Funding, Carole will be in Rockport to teach her Grant Writing for Documentaries workshop August 16 – 22.

Hayes On Set for "The Proposal"

July 8, 2009

Kerry Hayes © Walt Disney Pictures 2008Walt Disney Pictures’ latest romantic comedy The Proposal opened on June 19 as the #1 grossing film for the weekend, taking in over $40 million. Sandra Bullock is a pushy boss who forces her young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to keep her Visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada.

Workshops instructor, Kerry Hayes, was the still photographer for the film, which shot at different locations across the U.S., including the other Rockport - Massachusetts.

With over 25 years of experience working on feature film sets, Kerry has been the still photographer on more than 60 films, including: X Men 3, Take the Lead, All the Kings Men, The Day After Tomorrow, The Recruit, Changing Lanes, Nobody's Fool, Legends of the Fall, and Broadcast News.

Kerry will be back in Rockport, Maine to teach his Still Photographer on the Set workshop September 27 – October 3.

MMC Launches 30-Week Multimedia Program

July 29, 2009

Maine Media College announces the inaugural year of its Multimedia Professional Certificate Program. This new program provides artists the training-ground and state-of-the-art digital technologies necessary to create work which combines the art of storytelling with the cross-over applications of still images, video, audio, graphics, and animation.

Founded in 1996 on the campus of Maine Media Workshops, the College follows the Workshops’ mission and long tradition of unparalleled intensive hands-on training for photographers and filmmakers. Graduates of the Professional Certificate Program follow an intensive 30-week curriculum that includes the study of craft and production, history of media and contemporary trends, as well as professional development to prepare them for the next phase of their careers.

Maine Media has been a pioneer in this emerging field, offering one-week workshops with combined media formats before the term “multimedia” was defined in the industry. “Maine Media students, exploring new approaches to storytelling, broke ground in this area years ago,” says College Dean, Elizabeth Greenberg, “blending the skills they gained in both photography and filmmaking courses, and working to bring both forms of media to their projects – photographers recording sound to give their documentaries a literal voice; filmmakers editing with still photographs to add historical impact to their narratives.”

Admissions continue for the fall trimester of MMC programs. The Professional Certificate Program begins September 7.

Sacha Nominated for Emmy© Awards

July 29, 2009

MediaStorm producer and MMW multimedia instructor, Bob Sacha, has just been nominated for two Emmy© Awards for New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming.

Bob has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning photographer, traveling the world for dozens of publications including National Geographic, Life, Time and Fortune. He is now part of the team at MediaStorm, a New York City-based multimedia production company, widely recognized for creating award-winning multimedia projects, interactive applications, and web sites for media companies, foundations and advocacy groups.

photo by David H. Lyman

Bob produced two MediaStorm pieces now nominated for Emmy© recognition, one for Current News Coverage, Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War (Reuters.com/ MediaStorm.org); and one for Documentaries, Intended Consequences (MediaStorm.org). Says Sacha of his nomination, “One of the best parts is that the other people nominated in my category are my heroes, including people at the Washington Post, New York Times, and Toronto Star.”

Bob’s long association with MMW, and his early interest in the convergence of still and video images with audio, brought about the development of the Workshops’ first multimedia classes in Rockport. In 2008 he also taught a team of MMW students on the streets of New York.

Visit www.theworkshops.com for a complete list of late-summer and fall multimedia workshops in Rockport, including Shooting for Multimedia, Multimedia Storytelling, Multimedia Publishing & Distribution, and Sound Design.

Stanmeyer Leads VII Master Class

July 29, 2009

VII Photo Agency international photojournalists travel to Maine each year to lead Master Classes, sponsored by Canon.

John Stanmeyer joins the Workshops’ faculty for the first time this summer, teaching a VII Master Class August 9 – 15.

photo by John Stanmeyer

VII derives its name from the number of founding photojournalists who, in September 2001, formed this collectively owned agency. Designed from the outset to be an efficient, technologically enabled distribution hub for some of the world's finest photojournalism, VII has been responsible for creating and relaying to the world many of the images that define the turbulent opening years of the 21st century. While the stark realities of the battlefield loom large, VII turns its gaze with equal intensity to more subtle forms of conflict, documenting the changes and development of society and culture worldwide. Each photographer is inspired by an array of often very different motivations, and it is from this breadth of reference that the agency draws its originality and strength.

Ron Haviv returns to lead his Master Class September 13 - 19.

The Last Truck airs on HBO

July 22, 2009

The Last Truck

Steven Bognar is an independent filmmaker and media arts educator. His first film, Personal Belongings, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened nationally on the PBS series P.O.V.

The Last Truck airs nationally on HBO September 7.

Reichert and Bognar team teach their Producing the Documentary workshop in Rockport September 13 – 19.

Maine Frame Photo Contest Supports Scholarships

July 22, 2009

MMW is partnering with Blurb, the online book publishing company, and B&H Photo Video to sponsor the Maine Frame Photo Book Contest in celebration of the creative work produced by Workshops students.

For entry details and guidelines visit www.theworkshops.com/maineframe. Good luck!

Congo/Women Exhibition Features Work of Bleasdale, Haviv

July 15, 2009

portrait of Carol Dean
photo by Marcus Bleasdale

July Talks Spotlight Robert Frank, W.A. Dwiggins

July 15, 2009

Summer nights in Rockport, Maine mean master faculty presentations at Union Hall Theatre: the whir of the ceiling fans, the scent of the sea in the air, the room filled with language of imagemaking, as the lights dim and yet another remarkable speaker stands at the podium.

July 20 at 8PM, Jeff Rosenheim, Curator of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art returns to Rockport for one of his captivating lectures. This year’s special talk is on Robert Frank’s groundbreaking book, The Americans, the subject of a blockbuster show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall, celebrating the book’s 50th anniversary.

Thursday 23 July at 8PM Bruce Kennett presents “W.A. Dwiggins: Master of the Opposable Thumb.” Known primarily as one of America’s foremost designers of printing types and books, Dwiggins was also a brilliant illustrator, satirist, playwright, set designer, marionette maker and writer of science fiction and fantasy. In this illustrated lecture, graphic designer Bruce Kennett will give us a taste of “WAD” in all the rich layerings of his life, both studio and personal.

Visit www.theworkshops.com/community for a complete listing of all free summer programs at Union Hall, 2 Central Street in Rockport Village.

Join our Facebook Group for weekly invitations.

MMW Hosts Film Panel July 18

July 8, 2009

Exhalation IV by John Paul Caponigro

Maine Media Workshops hosts a special presentation: “Launching Your Documentary: A Panel Discussion for Filmmakers,” Saturday, July 18 at 2PM, in downtown Rockport’s Union Hall Theater.

This industry panel brings New England filmmakers together to discuss the how-tos of getting work into film festivals, onto the theatrical and video distribution circuit, or released in the worldwide television market.

Moderated by Workshops Film Program Director, Mimi Edmunds, the panel includes Louise Rosen, a media executive with over 25 years experience in the international television and film business specializing in project development, production and distribution; Benjamin J. Fowlie, Founding Director of the Camden International Film Festival; award-winning independent filmmaker Mary Mazzio; and a programmer from public television. Edmunds says of the event, "The panel is ideal for filmmakers looking to give their work a marketing edge in this increasingly competitive arena."

For complete information on all free programs at the Workshops this summer visit the Community Events page of our website.

Winning Grants by Carole Dean

July 8, 2009

portrait of Carol Dean

Where do you start? I read thousands of proposals a year for my Roy W. Dean film grants. I know what wins grants and what turns judges off quickly. Getting it right can be a piece of cake.

Hayes On Set for “The Proposal”

July 8, 2009

Walt Disney Pictures’ latest romantic comedy The Proposal opened on June 19 as the #1 grossing film for the weekend, taking in over $40 million. Sandra Bullock is a pushy boss who forces her young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to keep her Visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada.

Workshops instructor, Kerry Hayes, was the still photographer for the film, which shot at different locations across the U.S., including the other Rockport - Massachusetts.

Kerry will be back in Rockport, Maine to teach his Still Photographer on the Set workshop September 27 – October 3.

Caponigro Gathers Alumni for Exhibition

July 1, 2009

Exhalation IV by John Paul Caponigro
by John Paul Caponigro

The Workshops and John Paul Caponigro present a beautiful collection of his alumni's work July 6 – 30 in an exhibition titled The Next Step at the Workshops Gallery. The opening reception is set for Tuesday, July 7 at 6:30 pm. John Paul will present a wider selection of each artist's images in an evening lecture at 8 pm. Many of the artists will be on hand to discuss their work.

At the request of a small group of alumni from the Maine Media Workshops, John Paul Caponigro's Next Step Alumni group was started. They have met collectively and privately for over 9 years in private workshops and online forums. The membership has grown to 75 members (by invitation only).

Arabesque by Karen Daspit
by Karen Daspit

The name for the group came out of John Paul's constantly asking his students, “What's your next step?” It was quickly found that this prompting focused individuals to generate concrete results quickly and to realize that there is always a next step.

Caponigro has had an influence on all of the participants but his style is not directly reflected in their work, "It's a privilege to help foster each individual's authentic artistic voice in ways that are most appropriate for them. We have all helped each other grow in this process." Click here to read the complete press release.

Tapp Uses Multimedia to Document Ash Spill

July 1, 2009

A recent project from photographer Carlan Tapp has been published on the burn. website - an evolving journal for emerging photographers, curated by Magnum photographer David Allen Harvey.

click to play video

Moved by December 2008 reports of a spill of fly ash (the combustion waste generated in the burning of coal for the generating of electricity) in Kingston, TN, Carlan set out to document a situation he felt was being down-played in the media. He worked for eight days photographing and interviewing the residents of the area closest to the Kingston electric generating plant. His report, to date, is recorded in photos, audio, and written narrative in “Clean Coal TVA Ash Spill”.

“For the past five years much of my work has focused around the social cost of producing energy in the USA” says Tapp in the introduction to this compelling multimedia presentation, “I continue to work in the Four Corners area of the Southwest on the Navajo Nation striving to photograph the true ‘cost’ of using coal for the production of electricity. An ongoing project, Question of Power, shows the human condition as we mine, burn, and dispose of combustion waste using coal in the creation of electricity.

Carlan shares his techniques for multimedia storytelling with students in his New Media Photo Narrative workshop, August 23 – 29.

News Archives

MMC Back in Session

Fleming Caffery Announces Book & Exhibition Tour

MMW Board Welcomes Rosenblum

The Last Truck airs on HBO

Maine Frame Photo Contest Supports Scholarships

Congo/Women Exhibition Features Work of Bleasdale, Haviv

Winning Grants by Carole Dean

Hayes On Set for "The Proposal"

MMC Launches 30-Week Multimedia Program

Sacha Nominated for Emmy© Awards

Stanmeyer Leads VII Master Class

The Last Truck airs on HBO

Maine Frame Photo Contest Supports Scholarships

Congo/Women Exhibition Features Work of Bleasdale, Haviv

July Talks Spotlight Robert Frank, W.A. Dwiggins

MMW Hosts Film Panel July 18

Winning Grants by Carole Dean

Hayes On Set for “The Proposal”

Caponigro Gathers Alumni for Exhibition

Tapp Uses Multimedia to Document Ash Spill

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