Other issues include the space crunch facing VES faculty and Harvard’s lack of multiple screening rooms for 35 millimeter films.
“We really do need more screens,” Jenkins says. “You can’t have a university this large with so much interest in the medium...and have one 210-seat room,” he adds in reference to the Carpenter Center’s auditorium.
Even that single screen, Jenkins says, is in need of an updated sound system.
All involved agree that these issues will not stand in the way of starting the undergraduate concentration next fall.
But as VES winds the reels for the new program, Connor notes that showtime is by no means guaranteed.
“There are train wrecks periodically,” he says. “It has to actually happen.”
—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.