Andrew Garrison Co-Taught Documentary and Sound Courses in Portugal

15 Apr 2010

In March 2010, Andrew Garrison co-taught documentary and sound courses at the University of Porto.

As part of the advanced digital media program, filmmaker and UT professor Andrew Garrison spent time in Porto in March 2010. He co-taught courses with Soraia Ferreira, Dr. Carlos Guedes, and Dr. Jose Alves.

Two Porto classes offered two realities of sight and sound. In one course on documentaries, filmmakers recorded people at work — an old couple making shoes by hand, a woman setting up her little butcher shop at the market, another woman taking a break from work behind a lunch counter to talk to the crew (she knew each of her customers.) Garrison and Soraia Ferreira, a Porto-based instructor and filmmaker, challenged their students to tell each story in three minutes. It was the students' first assignment.

Across town in the afternoon, Garrison worked with Dr. Carlos Guedes in a class with eight graduate students. They listened to and watched rough cuts of films from students in the graduate Radio-Television-Film department at UT Austin. The class in sound design at the University of Porto planned to design and edit sound for the four films from Texas. They completed their first assignment in just three days: a two-minute “sound portrait” of another member of the class. The finished pieces were fun, complex, and impressive. The sounds wove between speakers and utilized effects, atmospheres, and spoken word.

Both courses were part of a unique combined PhD and Masters program that works across disciplines in Porto. In the case of the sound design class, collaboration across the waters occurs between Texan and Portuguese student filmmakers. Garrison returns to Austin after a week but continues to listen to and view work. He and Ferreira, Guedes, and Dr. Jose Alves, advise students both in-person and online.