Adjunct Continues Film Editing Career while Teaching

Olivia DrakeJune 16, 20065min

Jacob Bricca will be appointed to adjunct assistant professor of film in July.
 
Posted 06/16/06
Jacob Bricca ’93, formerly a visiting assistant professor of Film Studies, will become an adjunct assistant professor in July. His appointment is for four years.

Bricca spent several years as a full-time film editor in Los Angeles, but left to come to Wesleyan to teach four years ago.

“I found Wesleyan a very empowering place as a student,” Bricca says. “The years I spent here were really important in helping me define who I was and what I thought about the world. I probably wouldn’t have considered it if it hadn’t been Wesleyan, but coming back here was a really attractive idea. I’ve found that I really love teaching, and still have enough time to keep active as a filmmaker.”

Bricca is the editor of Lost in La Mancha (2002), the feature documentary about Terry Gilliam that played in theatres worldwide, and Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew (2002), which won the Audience Award on PBS’s Independent Lens series in 2004. Other recent editing credits include Tell Me Do You Miss Me (2006), a music documentary about the rock band Luna, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006, and What A Girl Wants, a short about the media’s impact on girls’ self-image that is currently used in media education programs throughout the country. He’s also had credits in Sink Or Swim (1998); Max, 13 (1999); Never Land (2000) and Dreamer (2000).

As director, Bricca recently finished his first feature Indies Under Fire: The Battle for the American Bookstore, the first documentary to look in-depth at the issues surrounding the growth of “super-chain” bookstores.

He’s taken editing and directing awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Chicago International Film and Video Festival and Trimmer’s Rock Film and Video Festival in Pennsylvania.

Bricca’s presented a paper titled “Found Footage and the Media Criticism Documentary,” at the 2004 University Film and Video Association Conference and “Teaching Documentary as an Extension of Fundamental Filmmaking Techniques,” at the 2003 University Film and Video Association Conference.

At Wesleyan, Bricca has taught Sight and Sound, Advanced Filmmaking and Senior Thesis Tutorial. In addition, he co-authored the Snowdon-funded “Celebrating the Liberal Arts Tradition in Film” series and co-directed and co-produced the 2004 “”Freeman Asian Scholars Program,” a series of 15-minute videos used by the Wesleyan’s Admissions Office in their recruitment efforts for the Freeman Asian Scholars Program.

Bricca received his bachelor’s of arts in film studies and sociology from Wesleyan and his master’s of fine arts in film editing from the American Film Institute.

Aside from film, Bricca loves music. This interest, he says, impelled him to go into video editing.

“When I was a kid, I made my mom listen to me play DJ as I cycled the LPs on and off the record player. I spend at least as much time listening to and learning about new music as I do watching new films,” he says. “At its best, a well edited film is very musical and rhythmic even when the subject matter has nothing to do with music.”

Bricca lives in New Haven and enjoys spending his free time with his wife and 2-year-old-son, Rory.
 

By Olivia Drake, The Wesleyan Connection editor