We provide solid and respected professional programs for the committed student, and, more important, we provide a liberal arts education as an integral part of professional training so that students will be more flexible, more successful, and happier in the world of work.
--Excerpt from McDaniel College's First Principles

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In order to be well-rounded video storytellers (fiction and non-fiction), students focus on fundamental skills at the core of the liberal arts: strong research and writing; understanding character, narrative development, and historical context; all the while nurturing teamwork, critical thinking, and creative problem solving.

In addition, our production courses emphasize media literacy -- expanding the notion of traditional textual literacy to include creating, reading, and analyzing the complex video and audio messages we encounter everyday on TV, the internet, and in the movie theater. Indeed, the more experience students acquire about how media content is generated and manipulated, the less they will be at the mercy of the assumption that everything they see on a screen reflects some sort of unquestionable “reality.”

Larger university systems tend to prepare students for work in a highly specialized area of the film and video industry: “You will be a videographer.” “You will be a production sound recordist.” “You will be an editor.” But McDaniel College’s video production courses focus on teaching students in a holistic fashion: Undergraduates, for instance, must become proficient at every position on a studio crew – from copy writer to teleprompter operator to technical director to, yes, even on-camera talent.

And so, our mission is not to crank out an army of technical drones, but a wave of creative, educated, independent thinkers and storytellers, graduates with an in-depth understanding of the entire flow of the production process.

Our institution’s First Principles state it best:  This approach will ultimately enable our students to be “more flexible, more successful, and happier in the world of work.”

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Studio and Control Room:

The 1,100 square foot video production lab in the basement of Lewis Hall features 3 dolly-mounted Sony digital cameras; a Porta-Com headset system; professional Chimera and Mole Richardson lights; Sennheiser and Audio-Technica microphones; a teleprompter; a video switcher; an audio mixer; and flat screen monitors.

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Electronic Field Production (EFP) units:

While we strongly encourage students pursuing our Film & Video Studies Minor to purchase their own digital handycams, the lab does have a limited number of EFP kits available to be checked out for location shooting. Each kit contains one digital handycam, 2 batteries, a battery charger, a power adapter, and various video and audio cables.

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Edit Suites

Again, we strongly suggest that students pursuing our Film & Video Studies Minor purchase their own edit systems. Because our liberal arts approach strives to be tech-neutral, we do not require the purchase of any particular edit software or system as long as it can output news packages and other assignments to DVD or mini-DV tape. (Most commonly used by our students: Final Cut, Adobe, and Avid.) For most courses, we actually prefer students continue using systems they are already comfortable with – this way they can concentrate on storytelling, instead of stumbling their way through a new software tutorial.

For students who do not own their own systems, we have 3 options:

1) Our introductory edit suite: Beginners can use 3 digital, non-linear Avio edit stations specifically designed to be extremely easy to operate (auto save function, simple tools to cut and dissolve).

2) Our video editing lab: Students who want to learn a more advanced, professional system move onto our video editing lab which contains 12 Macintosh computers with Final Cut Pro software. (If students are editing long format featurettes, we highly recommend that they purchase their own external hard drives to store media.)

3) Film Apprentice Edit Suite: Seniors who have been accepted into our Filmmaking Apprenticeship receive exclusive access to this space to complete their 20-30 minute video capstone projects. It contains 1 Macintosh computer with Final Cut Pro software, and a traditional 16mm film Steenbeck edit table.

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Access to Video Gear & Production Facilities

All full time McDaniel undergraduates currently enrolled in the following courses can receive semester-long, 24-hour access to the video production lab in Lewis Hall B4:

Television Production
Documentary Production
Filmmaking Practicum (Jan Term)

In addition, all full time McDaniel undergraduates currently active in Terror TV (the campus TV Club) can receive semester-long, 24-hour access to the video production lab in Lewis Hall B4. To do so, they must:

1) act as a grip or production assistant on at least 3 studio-based video projects produced by veteran Terror TV producers

2) demonstrate proficiency on all studio and control room gear, including how to power it up and power it down; and

3) acquire final written permission for access from the Terror TV Station Manager.

Please note: The Lewis B4 video production lab is designed to operate as an educational facility, not a full-service production house. As such, we are not equipped with either the gear or the personnel to provide production, duplication, editing, or technical services for those outside our core constituency – those students currently enrolled in McDaniel’s video production courses, and those currently active in Terror TV (the campus TV Club).

Neither does our operating budget allow for us to lend equipment (cameras, microphones, lights, etc.) to those pursuing projects outside our very specific instructional mission.

Should you need production or duplication services, an Internet search will reveal dozens of professional video production houses in the Baltimore-DC area.

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Access to Video Production Students

We regularly receive requests from businesses, non-profits, governmental agencies, schools, churches, and other members of the community to produce videos (commercials, PSAs, instructional shorts, etc) for their various organizations. Please know that McDaniel College does not release names or contact information for our Film & Video Studies students, and therefore cannot act as an agency or clearinghouse for video talent.

If you would like to register a formal internship opportunity, you can do so through Career Services, then ask that department to forward your information to us.

We expect all internships to provide the following:

• opportunity for our students to mentor someone who has significantly greater skill in the relevant area (shooting, editing, writing, directing, mixing, public relations, marketing, etc.)
• opportunity to network with professionals currently working within the industry; that is, people who can potentially connect our students with legitimate job opportunities upon completion of their undergraduate degrees.
• opportunity for our students to function within a vibrant, real world organizational structure, one that exposes them to both the breadth and depth of the industry.

If you would like to request coverage for an event (on campus or off), you can do so by contacting the campus cable TV station – Terror TV! – through the Office of College Activities.

The General Manager and Executive Board regularly review such program requests, and endeavor to undertake them whenever feasible, based on the availability of personnel, production gear, and whether or not the request would be considered of interest to the campus TV station’s core audience.

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The McDaniel College Cable Station

The campus cable station (Channel 75), which is owned by the McDaniel College Corporation and operated by a partnership of the TV Club (under the Office of Student Affairs), and the Communication Department (under the Office of Academic Affairs):

1) exists to serve the diverse community of students, faculty, and staff on campus by broadcasting its 24-hour signal on a closed-circuit network to all college-owned dormitories, apartments, residences, offices, and classrooms.

2) presents only content written, produced, directed, or edited by current, full-time undergraduate students of McDaniel College, or recently graduated alumni of said institution. The station does not broadcast content produced by outside, commercial, or off-campus sources.

3) is a non-commercial entity based on the public television/public access model. As such, it does not broadcast paid advertisements, infomercials, or other revenue-generating spots. The station does, however, reserve the right to broadcast student-produced public service announcements and public notices of events (on-campus or off) that are of special interest to members of the broadcast community.

4) embraces television as a tool to educate, inform, entertain, document, foster debate, as well as encourage participation in the college community.

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The TV Club: Terror TV

Terror TV holds weekly meetings during the Fall and Spring semesters in the Lewis B4 video production lab. All full time undergraduates currently enrolled at McDaniel College are welcome to attend, regardless of major or minor.

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