In May 2002, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was the first, high-profile movie shot on digital video. Since then, a digital film revolution has been emerging from the grassroots up. Donna Teel and I decided to join forces to develop a film program at UMHB, using digital technology resources and talent at our university. Donna has been teaching computer graphics design in the College of Business and I have been teaching  performance studies in the Dept. of Comm. & Media Studies in the College of Humanities. Because Austin is considered the Third Coast for Film, especially independent films, we also decided to participate in independent film projects in Austin and to identify appropriate regional cinematographers who could work with us to train and involve our students in digital filmmaking.

UMHB personnel wrote and produced the first independent short films in 2004. Each year since then, we have facilitated our students in writing substantive screenplays in the fall semester that could be produced and screened in the spring semester. From the fall screenplays, we have selected two each year that our student film crews and casts have produced for public screening events. During spring semesters our student crews & casts have produced films with the mentorship of UMHB faculty and professional filmmakers.  Our spring films have also received awards and recognitions in films festivals.  Further, we have produced public service, documentary, and training films.

Training films have included those we produced during our last school year for military family life chaplains, who are in our graduate program here at UMHB in marriage and family counseling. These films were developed for the family life chaplains to use in their work around the world with other chaplains and military families, especially those who have been severely stressed by deployments to war zones.

For the past four years, Donna Teel and I have been keeping records and developing materials for our film program. We are now putting together our documents for a textbook to guide our film students through the process of developing digital films from script to screen.

In the past, I have used summer development leaves to produce three performance studies textbooks for McGraw-Hill. Our UMHB performance studies students use these textbooks in the courses that I teach. These books have also been used by other university, educational, and professional personnel in performance communication fields around the world. This past summer, I used my summer development leave to work on our film textbook, which is to be published by McGraw-Hill.

 

In the spring of 2000, my adventure with publishing textbooks for my courses began.

·        Followed instructions on company Web site for submission

·        Sent chapter and prospectus by e-mail

·        Sent final draft for publication

·        Company financed the book and marketing

·        Hired an intellectual properties lawyer for first contract

·        Option and opportunities for updating  

 

Copies of the Cru films that we have produced and copies of my textbooks are in our library.

 

                                                                        Contact Dr. Howard     
 

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