Above: Students learning in the Audio Arts/Film 221 class in the new SocDoc lab (photo by Carolyn Lagatutta)
Cinema, according to Arts Division Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu, is a force. It’s an art form that can help topple dictatorships—and bring human rights violations from the shadows into the light of day and justice to victims.
“The power of filmmaking is this: it makes real the conditions of dehumanization and the powerful uprisings of perspectives that happen to you when you’re in a theater in a way where inequality can no longer be ignored,” Shimizu said.
It’s with this trust in the medium of film not only to provide creative expression but to right wrongs that UC Santa Cruz’s Film & Digital Media Department (FDM) invested in a groundbreaking new facility, the Social Documentation Laboratory at Westside Research Park, which opened its doors to M.F.A. and Ph.D. students in winter 2025.
The state-of-the-art technology provided in the lab is intended for use by students in the M.F.A. in social documentation program (SocDoc), which blends excellence in filmmaking with a focus on diversity and addressing social inequalities, and students in the Ph.D. program in film and digital media, who work across theory and practice in a wide variety of media.
“The SocDoc Lab is a state-of-the-art facility that will elevate the socially engaged filmmaking of our SocDoc M.F.A. and our FDM Ph.D. students,” says Stephanie Moore, Senior Assistant Dean of the Arts Division, “providing them with the advanced tools to promote justice in culture, politics, and economies across the globe.”
Mind-opening space
Professor of Film and Digital Media Jennifer Maytorena Taylor (photo by Nick Gonzales)
Located south of the main campus in Santa Cruz, the Westside Research Park is already home to several other UC Santa Cruz programs, mainly those in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Professor of Film and Digital Media Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, who served as the founding Faculty Director of the lab through its conception, development, and construction, started working on establishing enhanced facilities in 2019. “I felt strongly that our programs would really benefit from professional-level facilities,” says Taylor.
Westside Research Park is located in a space with easy access to an expansive and beautiful outside, undeveloped environment, which Taylor sees as a highlight. Situated just off of Natural Bridges Drive, the building directly overlooks Antonelli Pond and is surrounded with open space.
“It’s a good way for our students to be able to balance working in digital media and having access to nature,” says Taylor. “It makes it really clear that students being able to go outside, to connect to nature, really enhances their creative work.”
Founded in 2005, the SocDoc M.F.A. is the only program of its kind in the UC system and has a contemporary view of documentary that sets it apart from traditional approaches. Students considering enrollment have a clear idea of a project, a commitment to social justice and human rights, and a desire to study their subject areas in depth. The program prepares graduates for careers in independent media, documentary, human rights work, and creative contributions to a range of fields.
With training from professionals who are outstanding in their fields, students gain the skills and confidence to enter the increasingly sophisticated world of documentary production. Students train in production, creating projects on their own as well as in a group to learn what works and gain experience. Lighting, cameras, locations, subject and character choices, all come into play. So do editing techniques, motion graphics and animation, trailers, and websites. As important as training in equipment is training in worldview, from the ethics of documentary to perspectives of narrative.
The lab is a place of discovery for students and professors alike, searching for the best pathways to make a difference in the world through videography, photography, audio, and words.
A place to thrive
Taylor secured outside funding for the new lab through anonymous donors. Arts Division Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu helped expand funding through the support of Chancellor Cynthia Larive and Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer—which makes the lab a true embodiment of collaboration between donor, department, division, and the university. After five years, the facilities are finally open.
“As a documentary filmmaker myself, embarking on a new project now called Servants’ Quarters about Japanese American domestic workers in San Francisco, I profoundly appreciate how our SocDoc program fosters a very special environment where film students and faculty grow as both artists and scholars creating new and needed narratives,” says Dean Celine (as she is affectionately known by students). “In this new, outstanding space, magic will be made, great things are about to happen, and I look forward to all of the truly remarkable work that will impact all of us and transform the world.”
One of the biggest challenges with creating this space was dealing with COVID-19, which slowed the renovation process. However, Taylor sees its positive side, given that the longer timeline allowed the team to think more deeply about how students would interact with it. “We’ve been able to have some time to really test the space out and design it as thoughtfully as we can with input from students, folks in the filmmaking community, other faculty, and from our staff,” she says.
Students learning in the Audio Arts/Film 221 class in the new SocDoc lab (photo by Carolyn Lagatutta)
The perfecting of the space was able to happen largely thanks to Andrea Hilderman, a UC Santa Cruz principal architect and project manager, whom Taylor describes by saying she’s “fantastic and has basically been my partner throughout this entire project.”
In creating a unique space for students, excellence through diversity and inclusion was foremost in Taylor and Hilderman’s minds.
“We designed it and built it with Universal Design approaches, making it as welcoming and accessible as possible for people with disabilities,” says Taylor. That includes making the lab wheelchair accessible and creating a quiet room for students who are neurodivergent and might need a break from overstimulation, thereby allowing the talents of marginalized groups to thrive. “We want to let people in the disability community know that this will be a space that’s for them.”
Community and camaraderie
The new facility embodies SocDoc’s emphasis on justice and diversity, and also offers new opportunities for engagement with the diverse communities with whom FDM students interact in their research and creative practice.
SocDoc’s impact can be seen in alumni filmmakers including John Ortiz (M.F.A. ’24, social documentation), whose work Jehry focused on a Costa Rican Land Back activist (Land Back is a movement that aims to return Indigenous lands to Indigenous ownership) and was nominated for a Student Academy Award; or Brenda Avila-Hanna’s (Kresge ’13, M.F.A. social documentation) Vida Diferida, about a girl growing up before, during, and after DACA and has been shown at festivals around the country. Both projects began in the SocDoc M.F.A. program.
The layout of the SocDoc Lab is intended to build community and camaraderie among a diverse group of students.
“The most important feature of the new space is the way that it will facilitate community building and collaborative work, by giving students their own workspaces within a shared space,” says Irene Lusztig, director of graduate studies for SocDoc. “I’m especially excited about the potential for collaboration across our two graduate programs—Ph.D. and SocDoc, since both programs will be using the space.”
Professor Peter Limbrick, chair of the Film & Digital Media Department, also emphasizes collaboration between M.F.A. and Ph.D. students:
“Our graduate students interact a lot in classroom settings, but this new space will really allow them to create and collaborate together in new, research- and practice-focused ways. The lab even includes space for students to experiment with multiscreen installation work. I’m excited for all the new connections and collaborations that will be nurtured there.”
Professor Taylor’s vision for the lab includes expanded collaboration with the larger independent documentary field.
“Because we’ve designed the SocDoc Lab to welcome community engagement and people of all abilities, we will be able to explore new potential partnerships with nonprofit organizations—like Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and FWD-Doc [Documentary Filmmakers with Disabilities]—that support nonfiction filmmakers and media practitioners through creative residencies, labs, and other professional development opportunities,” Taylor says. “Many of these organizations support the creative work that I and other faculty do, so it’s exciting to imagine new ways to collaborate with them.”
Building career readiness
Along with space for students to hang out, the new lab features a series of rooms with professional-grade equipment to give students career-building experience. This includes a classroom; a color-grading room with ample editing stations and all-new computers; a gallery for installations and interactive work; and the facility’s crown jewel, an audio-mixing and attached recording room with some of the best audio equipment available in the region.
“As a sound artist and composer, I’m most excited about the audio rooms and the quality of projects that can be generated in a fully equipped audio space,” says new Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Media Chari Glogovac-Smith. “In addition to helping students achieve their sound interests, using the space for sound design, Foley [the making of everyday sound effects], and live recordings for films and other creative projects would be my intended use. The speaker array will also provide a lot of flexibility for various [surround sound] audio formats such as 7.1 Ambisonics, and, in the future, Dolby Atmos.”
The professional equipment and design of the SocDoc Lab will also better prepare students for work in the film industry once they graduate.
“We want to train our students to be able to fulfill not just their artistic and academic ambitions, but also their professional ambitions,” says Taylor.
This, combined with the importance of diversity and highlighting inequality will, according to Limbrick, “enable students to change the world with their vision and their practice.”