24700 McBean Parkway
Valencia, California 91355
661.255.1050
Facilities
The School of Film/Video’s Equipment Cage offers a diverse variety of field equipment, including cameras, audio recorders and all manner of accessories.
Film cameras include 16mm Arriflex SRII and Bolex units, plus an Arriflex SRII converted to Super 16. Also available are Super 8 and underwater cameras, as well as other units. On the video side, various cameras accommodate 24p DV, Betacam SP, 1/2-inch and Hi-8 formats. The Equipment Cage also supplies students with a wide range of lenses, lights, grip and camera support items. It also includes high-speed cameras, intervalometers, digital SLR cameras, laptops, video projectors, LCD monitors, and other gear used for animation and installation projects. Sound equipment features, among other items, hard-drive recorders, mixers, wireless Laveliers and Sennheiser microphones.
The school has four independent sound stages, each equipped with a complete lighting grid.
Permanent Set
The Louis B. Mayer Permanent Set, donated by one of the commercial studios in
Black-and-White Studio
A 39-foot by 47-foot space, the Black-and-White Studio is outfitted with a permanent hard cyclorama. It is used by undergraduate and graduate students for various film and video shoots as well as for multimedia installations. The studio includes a standard inventory of lighting and grip equipment.
Film Directing Studio
The Film Directing Studio, measuring 39 feet by 36 feet, is used for teaching students how to shoot and direct actors for film- and videomaking. The studio is part of the Steven Spielberg Sound Stage, a building that also includes a classroom with multiformat video screening capability, a seminar room, two Final Cut Pro workstations, a control room, and a shooting studio with its own equipment cage. Equipment includes two digital video camera packages (Sony PD-150s) with full sound and lighting support, a Fisher camera dolly and a 24-channel
Video Studio, Videographics Lab and Telecine
The Video Studio is a live three-camera production facility in which students acquire video images and sound. It features a 40-foot by 45-foot live shooting space with digital key green and black cycloramas and, when needed for full green-screen work, portable green flooring. Equipment includes broadcast-quality cameras with remote camera control units. Supported video formats include Digital Betacam, Betacam SP, DVCAM and others. In addition to lights hung from the grid, there are Fresnel lens and Softlight instruments on rolling stands, and an array of grip equipment.
The Video Studio’s production control room is built around a
Macintosh workstations using Final Cut Pro allow for data capture and output of HD and SD uncompressed and DV and DVCAM formats. This enables students to combine live video and computer-generated video information while retaining high production values. Files can be shared among networked workstations throughout CalArts.
The Telecine Room in this facility is used to make non-sync transfers from 16mm film, Super 8 film and 35mm slides to DV, Digital Betacam, Betacam SP and other video formats. The production control and master control rooms are integrated with the Videographics Lab, Telecine Room and computer workstations, and allow for multilevel signal processing.
The School’s Animation Studios hold 12 digital pencil test systems with Video LunchBox digital frame buffers. These systems allow students to scan, edit and play back their hand-drawn animations for immediate feedback for motion and timing. Tests can be output to videotape for further review. Three of these systems include computers with software for editing, combining and export to tape. Digital files can be backed up to personal hard drives or transmitted via network connection to other workstations for further work.
To shoot final animations, there are two Oxberry animation camera stands supporting 16mm, 35mm and digital still image formats. For 3-D stop-motion animation, the school provides three shooting studios with lighting grids and one studio containing a computerized motion-control camera stand.
An optical printer is available for rephotographing images already on film or creating composite images from multiple film elements.
Non-Linear Editing
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association Digital Labs feature an array of editing suites and two classroom areas. Individual editing suites house eight Mac-based FireWire-protocol Final Cut Pro (FCP) stations; one Mac-based protocol Digital Betacam FCP finishing suite employing an AJA I/O; one PC-based Digital Betacam capturing protocol Avid Meridian suite; one PC-based FireWire-protocol Avid Xpress Pro HD offline suite; one Mac-based FireWire-protocol Avid Xpress DV suite; and one PC-based Premiere Pro Station. The labs also house a machine room equipped with a variety of video and audio equipment and a patchbay for both analog and digital. The machine room primarily provides the means to online capture from or finish to DV and Digital Betacam formats.
One of the classrooms offers a Mac-based FireWire-protocol FCP and Pro Tools teaching lab with seven workstations and two capture/viewing stations—one of which supports a projector for class presentations. The second classroom contains a PC-based Avid Xpress Pro HD offline system.
All FCP stations and Avid suites offer Adobe graphics applications and other CD and DVD creation applications.
Film Editing
The Sub-Level area has eight six-plate Moviolas, one eight-plate Steenbeck flatbed for editing 16mm film, an eight plate 16mm KEM, and a four-plate Steenbeck for editing 35mm film.
Dubbing
There is a dubbing facility available to students for transferring a wide variety of video and audio formats.
The
2-D Animation Computer Labs
The 2-D Animation Computer Lab and Lab Annex enable students to scan, manipulate and edit animation and subsequently record it on Betacam SP videotape. They can also use various pieces of audio equipment and networked access to the school’s sizable sound effects library to create their own soundtracks.
3-D Computer Animation Lab
Serving as both a classroom and a production facility, this lab is built around 3-D Windows XP workstations that run Maya and related software packages. Additional workstations are available for scanning, painting, compositing and other image processing techniques used in 3-D animation. The facility also features a Bluefish 444 nonlinear editing system for outputting computer animation files to video and a Betacam SP deck for recording to videotape.
Digital Imaging/Compositing Lab
This 2-D computer animation lab is designed for combining, compositing or hybridizing video, 16mm film, drawn animation, cutout animation, puppet animation and any computer image-based project. Essential software tools in this lab, such as Adobe AfterEffects, Photoshop and Premiere, facilitate the production of film/video motion graphic image layering, visual effects creation, image collage and montage. Final project output in this lab may be to motion picture film or video. Other lab uses include the creation of composites for use in either interactive projects or as complex motion textures for 3-D computer animation models.
Multimedia Lab
The Multimedia Lab provides equipment and software for the development of interactive and performative work. The facility features many software and hardware tools for the creation of wide-ranging media pieces, from Internet-based work to installations, from performances to event-specific art. Tools include special-purpose software developed by students and faculty, and an array of sensors, motors, and other options for input and output.
Sound Facilities
The School of Film/Video offers state-of-the-art sound equipment and facilities to meet all recording, mixing, editing and post-production needs. All rooms are Pro Tools-based, ensuring easy transitions from one phase of post-production to another. All rooms have access to the school’s online sound effects library, which contains more than 30,000 digital effects, and over 50 hours of production music.
Basic Sound Room
Designed for entry-level recording, mixing and editing, the Basic Sound Room is built around a Pro Tools mixing control surface patched to a multitrack digital recorder and outboard devices. Able to accommodate computer editing and mixing to a video image, this room also includes
Recording Studio/Video Mixing
The Recording Studio is utilized for recording narration, dialogue replacement, foley and other effects, as well as for music scoring. It features vintage microphone preamps, a Pro Tools system combined with a digital mixing board control surface, and digital multitrack recorders. Images can be projected from videotape or QuickTime movies.
Film Mixing Theater
A large theater-sized space for mixing sound for film and video projects, the facility includes a fully-automated, digitally-controlled control surface, a large Pro Tools HD system with extensive signal processing plug-ins, and outboard equalization and dynamics control. Mixing can be performed while watching film or video images.
Pro Tools Workstations
The school’s Pro Tools nonlinear sound editing systems allow acquisition, editing and pre-mixing of film and video projects. Projects can be transferred to these rooms via network or external media from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Digital Labs. Then, when editing is complete, projects are transferred to one of the mixing rooms.
Transfer Room
The nerve center of the school’s sound department, the Transfer Room controls signal flow and synchronization between all other School facilities. Able to handle transfers to and from nearly every audio format, this facility can also transfer 16mm film (via telecine) or video images in sync to QuickTime movies or videotape for the purpose of editing and mixing sound-to-picture with Pro Tools. Additionally, the facility is used for creating Post Conform, OMF and AAF sessions and preparing materials for editing.
Sync Flatbed Telecine
The Flatbed Telecine enables students to transfer 16mm film to any analog or digital video format for the purposes of sync post-production sound locked to video.
The 125-seat Bijou Theater is CalArts’ main screening facility. It features a high-quality video projector and both 16mm and 35-mm Xenon projectors as well as DVD, laserdisc, DVCAM, Betacam SP, 3/4-inch and VHS equipment.
Library Resources
A large collection of 16mm films, videos, DVDs and laserdiscs is available in Film Services, which is part of CalArts’ Division of Library and Information Resources. Film Services also provides viewing facilities. The collection contains materials that illustrate artistic output in a wide variety of media, as well as some 35 years of faculty and student work.
Channel 8 Closed-circuit Television
Channel 8, CalArts’ closed-circuit cable system, can be viewed in dormitory rooms, the library, the cafeteria and various lounges. It serves as a valuable showcase for film and video work by both students and faculty.