Entering a New Era of Multimedia - Lehman College

Clockwise from top: Professor Michael Ferraro, alumnus Michael
Bacon performing at the dedication ceremony, President Ricardo R.
Fernández displaying the plaque that will adorn the Center’s entrance,
and Susan Masi and Sudhir Jambhekar of FXFOWLE Architects.
courtyard space. We were able to introduce daylight all the way to
the lowest level.”
Another design element adding to that open feeling, notes
FXFOWLE associate Susan Masi, are large glass windows placed
on the newsroom and control rooms that allow students to look
into the instructional spaces and see what’s going on.
“In architecture, particularly,” explains Jambhekar, “we value the
idea of people walking around, circulating, so to speak, because it
animates the space.”
The windows also draw attention to the Center’s main purpose:
a place of learning.
For Professor Miguel Pérez (Journalism, Communication, and
Theatre), a nationally syndicated columnist and television news
commentator, that means “teaching the journalism of the twentyfirst
century.” When he was in college, he tells his students (who
can’t really imagine existence before the Internet), state-of-the-art
“meant a really good darkroom.”
Today, in the Center’s all-digital, completely wireless newsroom,
he talks to them about expanding both the print (web) version
of the College’s Bronx Journal and its version aired on Bronxnet
to include more local news coverage of the borough. And about
launching a “Lehman Live” radio station.
“When we train future journalists today,” he explains, “we’re training
them in what’s called cross-platform journalism. They need to know
everything from taking photos to editing photos to editing video to
standing behind the camera and in front of the camera, to twittering,
using Facebook, and all means of communication. That’s what
the new media is about. And that’s what we can now do out of this
Multimedia Center.”
For Associate Professor Michael Ferraro (Art), the Center is a
place for students to create interactive, virtual-reality story worlds
that combine the narrative thread of fiction with the popular game
structure. Before coming to Lehman in 2005, Ferraro cofounded
Blue Sky Studios (creators of the animated movie Ice Age), and
he’s collaborated with companies like Disney, Warner Brothers,
and Nickelodeon, as well as with Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard,
and others.
Lehman is alone among colleges, he says, in “exploring and
defining the direction and idea of experimental media. There’s a
real opportunity here to cultivate the talents in New York and start
to create a new Indie spirit. It is exactly the right environment in
which to experiment with approaches that help keep the humanities
relevant in the digital age.”
Advances in technology, he believes, have “pushed aside” the
intellect in most television and movie entertainment, and he sees
the Multimedia Center as the perfect environment for producing
original content and new creative directions. “We’re not market
driven. We don’t have to sell plush toys or sheets and pillowcases
to children. This Center provides an unprecedented level
of technology and the resources to start to really experiment with
paradigms and models for how media could be used and how it will
be produced in the future.”
For alumnus (‘95, B.A.) and award-winning composer Michael
Bacon, the Center will usher in one of the only film-scoring programs
on the East Coast. Using a sound-attenuated, computerized
music classroom, students will learn how to use the latest software
instrumentation programs to create memorable and marketable
compositions.
“My teaching plan is going to be based on my own experiences,” he
says, “and I hope to bring a lot of my personality, and my talent and
skills, and hopefully impart some of them to students in the same
way as when I came here and studied with a lot of great teachers—
John Corigliano and others. Music is a sharing experience.”
The Center also will serve other purposes. A suite of self-contained
editing rooms lends itself to post-production of commercials,
movies, and television series. The custom-built broadcasting studio
with its high-def Sony cameras doubles as a recording studio with
its Steinway Grand Piano, Peavey guitar amps, and variable wall
panels. Graphic workstations where students create story worlds
become, in the hands of faculty, tools for developing new educational
software.
As President Ricardo R. Fernández observed at the dedication
ceremony, “We all know the movie The Bronx Tale. Over the coming
years, this Center will see the creation of hundreds, even thousands,
of Bronx tales, woven in this magnificent facility and inspired
by the creativity of the Lehman community.”
Lehman Today/Spring 2010 19