Master Shot

Feature film project gives students a close encounter with the filmmaking process.

A collaboration with faculty member Kris Holodak's film company, Heron Media, the feature-length film Diffraction features students, faculty and staff as actors and production crew. 

The script was written specifically to be a collaborative endeavor between students and professionals, that could be shot entirely on a college campus. Professionals worked as heads of department including producer, director, cinematographer, camera operator, sound recordist, production designer, art director, hair and makeup, fight coordinator, and composer. There were five professional actors. The rest of the cast and crew, including the lead actors, are students who make up about 70% of the team.

In addition to students working independently during production, two classes used the film as a project during the spring ’22 semester – Special Topics: Feature Film Production in the Digital Media department, and Computer Aided Design in the Theater department. Fall ’22 the film was be the main project in DGMD’s Editing Techniques class. Spring ’23 it will go to DGMD’s Sound Design class and the Advertising major’s Campaigns class.

"Feature films are giant, interdisciplinary, collaborative projects. For many of our students this is a bigger project than they are likely to do in their professional careers. Once they have done this everything else will seem easy." -- Kris Holodak