| "Sitting back and enjoying a good story, a fairly passive experience, is something that the Human race will always enjoy and value, and that's what we're all about. We're storytellers." During his 28 years at RIT, including his time as a graduate student, Malcolm Spaull has seen the School of Film and Animation (SoFA) evolve from a small graduate program supported by the school of photography to the most selective program at RIT He describes his current position as the MFA coordinator for SoFA as "half administrator and half teacher." Spaull is the sole advisor of SoFA graduate students, fifty in all, and occasionally teaches undergraduates. He works so closely with students throughout the course of their studies that he occasionally ends up on the roster of an intramural basketball team. "Every couple of years students find out I played in college and ask me to join their team," he said, citing basketball as one of his passions. His other passion, of course, is filmmaking. Spaull grew up in Manhattan with parents who made a living on the stage. He earned a degree in Mathematics from St. Lawrence University, where he was very active in theater, and returned to Manhattan to teach high school math, making him ineligible for the draft. During his teaching years, he worked with New York University film students and developed an interest in filmmaking on both sides of the camera. He came to Rochester, his wife's hometown, to raise a family and attend graduate school at RIT "I won a few awards with my thesis film and had the opportunity to go to California, but decided to stay and teach," he said. His thesis film, a clay animation titled The Walrus and the Carpenter won a Student Academy Award. "A few doors opened up, but that meant picking up my whole family and going out there and walking directly into an industry that I didn't want to work in: commercial feature films." As Spaull was finishing his degree, RIT began accepting students into its undergraduate film program, and Spaull joined the faculty. His earliest achievement as a faculty member was starting the video program-the emerging technology at the time. "Just when I started working here, video started to get big. When you saw the news in the 70's, the cameramen had to shoot, develop, and edit in time for the 6 o'clock news. When video reached broadcast quality, we started the degree programs." Spaull has continued to push the technological side of the curriculum, gaining access to top of the line equipment and putting it in the hands of students. SoFA's resources will be expanding with the addition of the space vacated by the printing press in the James E. Gannett building and the prospect of a new building. Spaull will be directly involved in all of SoFA's expansion plans. Taking a three quarter sabbatical from teaching, Spaull will work with RIT's advisory board and Development Officer Deb McKenzie to cultivate industry contacts and build a capital campaign for SoFA. "My role in it is to simply give a perspective to these people about the program," he said. "The short term is to secure some money for renovations; there are significant plans for the space. It's unknown when we will get the building; how long it takes relies on a number of sources." The new space will provide room for the SOFA Archives, a project that will collect the best of each student screening in a safe storage space. Currently, the best films produced by SoFA are stored in boxes and on shelves in the offices of faculty members. "I probably have 30 or 40 films all over the place and only I have [them]," he said, speculating as to whether or not some of the older videos can still be viewed. "Video only has a shelf-life of about 15 years," he said. Of newer technology he said, "The next evolution is in terms of the quality of the picture. It's taken 20 years to bring high definition to television. The technology had been around for a long time, but it took a while to bring it to the consumer." Spaull pointed out that filmmakers are now able to shoot digital video and make a film on a laptop, an opportunity that SoFA students have with the resources available at RIT The technology of filmmaking may have changed drastically over the course Spaull's career at RIT, but above everything else, he stresses the importance of traditional filmmaking and storytelling in his students' educations. "At the heart of what we do, it's not technology, it's storytelling," Spaull says of his profession. "In the end, what people want is to be lost in a good story. You can do that by reading a book, or you can do that by watching a movie. So, the more compelling we can make the image and the sound helps the story, but in the end, the quality of the story, how well told the story is, is what's important." As far as Malcolm can see, that will never change. "You can talk about interactive storytelling, but that is not as dynamic or exciting. Sitting back and enjoying a good story, a fairly passive experience, is something that the human race will always enjoy and value, and that's what we're all about. We're storytellers." |
