When I was taught Intro to Film as an undergrad, I was not really taught to ever think about the production of film, so I wanted to end my class on having students consider the actual labor of movies.

It’s a difficult subject to emphasize, especially because it’s one of those things I’ve thought about, read about, but never seen taught. Unlike editing or spectatorship, I genuinely was unclear how to make it meaningful to undergrads.

I decided I wanted to focus on four different key subjects: how production cultures value their craft, how labor gets divided between gender, how gig work makes lives precarious, and how unions try to right that wrong.

In explaining these concepts, I’ve emphasized the importance of never forgetting the workers who actually make what we consume, and how cinema is one of the rare things that tells us their names—you won’t find a worker’s name on an iPhone or on a can of beans at the store.

More so, I got to include ideas and work from many of my favorite scholars: Katie Bird, John Caldwell, Luci Marzola, Miranda Banks, Erin Hill, Karen Ward Mahar, Steve Ross, and Jane Gaines.

Plus, in a class where I tried to emphasize cinema as a window onto the world, it means I could end the class with CAMERAPERSON.

This was my first time teaching Intro to Cinema alone. It meant produced an hour long video every week. Lectures alone took about three full days of work. I taught some things I had never seen taught.

But I think it was important context for how students should understand how they view not just movies, but the world today. Did I do a good job? I guess that’s up to the students in their evaluations. But I absolutely tried my hardest to give them the class they deserved.