Gerald Hirschfeld, ASC (Fail Safe, Young Frankenstein, My Favorite Year) has also taught at the IFTW and describes the day-to-day itinerary: "We start at nine in the morning, and usually continue until about nine o'clock at night, sometimes a little later. I send students out with a shooting assignment. We then critique their cinematography. I also show them samples of some of my films. We talk about the effects they're interested in, why I did this or that, or how I lit various scenes. In the lighting classes, we keep going until 11 or 11:30 p.m., because we're waiting for dark, working outside. It's a very intense course. One of the things I do is to try to instill in all of the students a sense of seeing things not just looking, but seeing and remembering what they see. I have dozens of cards and letters saying, 'I'm learning to see. I'm learning to see.' It's very gratifying."
One of the masters who has returned to the IFTW to teach dozens of times is cinematographer Billy Williams, BSC (On Golden Pond, Gandhi, Women in Love): "Typically, I talk about the role of the cinematographer and his relationship with the crew and the director, and then I demonstrate various forms of lighting: soft light, hard light, how to control light, contrast ratios. I shoot exposure tests to give the students an idea of the latitude of the film stock and the contrast ratio, and we shoot a magic-hour shot, which usually takes place at the Homestead [the campus headquarters for all meals]. We generally start just after supper, and carry on until dark. This is a demonstration I light with the help of a gaffer; we shoot on 16mm motion picture film, while the students shoot 35mm slides. The next day, we look at the slides, but we don't see the film until the end of the week. On the following Tuesday, the students form into four groups, each with a 16mm camera, and head off to various locations around Rockport. Each person has about two and a half hours to complete an exercise of his or her own choice, and then the groups move around, so that each gets to work in at least four different locations. Some people opt to shoot a day interior, such as the interior of the Homestead; with light coming through the windows, somebody will come in, open the curtains, and sit down. At other times, students may black out the room and shoot a night interior, sometimes with candlelight. One student was particularly ambitious. He tried a lightning effect with rain running down the windows, and created his own lightning by doing a sort of shutter effect with an HMI. It was actually very effective, and he made a very good job of it."
Cinematographer Ric Waite, ASC (The Long Riders, 48 Hrs., On Deadly Ground), has taught for four summers in Maine. "I normally lecture all day on Mondays, taking students' questions as a basic jumping-off point. In the afternoon, I pick one or two lighting situations, set them up, and illustrate how to shoot them. On Wednesday or Thursday night, we would do an exterior at night, and create a major lighting setup. The students always want to know about 'poor man's process'. Everyone wants to know about what that is and how you do it, which, you know, we do quite often in this business. There are often a lot of questions about my working relationships with directors and actors. I bring along a selection of my movies on laserdisc, and I use them for both question-and-answer sessions and for explaining a lot of light situations, showing students some of the bigger sets and things. I also show a few movies by other directors. One of my favorites for lighting and camerawork is Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, shot by Russell Metty, ASC. That's one of the best ever done, I think."
Gerald Hirschfeld notes that the IFTW has a diverse, international student body. "In the last class I taught, one-third of my students were from other countries, ranging as far north as Greenland or Iceland, as far south as Kenya, and as far east as the Philippines and Hong Kong. I was also a bit surprised to have a student from London, and I said to him, 'I know there are good film schools in London; why are you here?' He answered, 'I've been to one, but the classes were taught by teachers who learn from books, not by professionals who have worked in the industry, and it makes a big difference.' That's another ingredient that makes the workshops so successful: all of the instructors are people who are working in the industry. They bring with them a lot of practical knowledge, not just book-learning experience."
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