Summer often allows students to turn to laziness, procrastination, and relaxation. However, communications junior Matt Nadel used the summer to improve his skills at film. Nadel attended a Film and Video summer program at California Institute of the Arts. His schedule would start at 6 a.m., attending screenings, making films, and participated in 3-hour seminars daily. Nadel took the initiative to try and better his talents by doing what he loves over the summer.

California Institute of the Arts (CALARTS) conducts a competitive high school summer program for artists. Nadel was one of 20 kids outside of California to be accepted into the program. With 500 students per summer, the program is extremely competitive. Each of the 20 students from outside of California received an award deeming them a California Arts Scholar. The program lasted four weeks and has classes in performing arts, visual arts, and creative writing. To apply, a lengthy application process awaits and is due months before summer starts.

“I had to apply in February, and I had was write three essays on different topics relating to film,” Nadel said. “Also, I had to submit a portfolio of all my work and get a teacher recommendation. It was a very rigorous process, and I didn’t find out if I got in until May.”

The program offered narrative, documentary, experimental, and cinema history and theory. Nadel was able to learn various techniques and editing skills relating to film.

“I had extensive and intense training in mostly experimental and documentary type film. [This] is what I want to continue to work on this school year,” Nadel said. “I got to make 5 different film projects [using] digital cameras and some 8mm and 16mm film.”

8mm and 16mm is the lens for the camera and size of the cameras he used. The objective of the program is to teach students to look at film differently. Students experiment within and outside the mediums of filmmaking. This allows more and more students to find out new things about film and learn for themselves what the art form means to them. Rose Carr, a professor from the program, had nothing but great things to say about Nadel and his work.

“Matt was one of the strongest students technically and in terms of content touched on subjects others didn’t, which I really respected,” Ms. Carr said. “His work visibly grew over the course of the program, as he consciously tried new things and tied his old pieces in with his new ones, creatively recycling his beautiful images.”

Nadel was also able to incorporate aspects of what he has learned at Dreyfoos into the program.

“At Dreyfoos, I feel like I began to learn what it is like to be an artist, [which] allowed me to take this experience to a whole new level,” Nadel said.

While incorporating the skills from the program while honing and practicing film at Dreyfoos, Nadel can only improve in the future ahead of him.

“I see Matt going on to do very big things with film in the future,” Ms. Carr said. “His technical skill set is already quite impressive and he has the inner motivation to accomplish whatever he wants to make. I see him making a political impact with his films in the future.”

Check out these videos to see some of Nadel’s work over the summer:

home | portrait of the body from Matt Nadel on Vimeo.

KATHY | Personal Portrait by Matt Nadel from Matt Nadel on Vimeo.

queer | documentary by Matt Nadel from Matt Nadel on Vimeo.