Link to technical Info
Cinema Laboratory 18
Fall 2026
Spring 2026 welcomes the 18th Cinema Laboratory!
Founded in 2012 by Deborah Eve Lewis, Cinema Laboratory, or “Cinemalab” provides opportunities for filmmakers to hone their personal cinematic voice through consistent weekly practice of fast, yet precise, filmmaking.
In the Cinema Laboratory, students make around ten film "sketches" – with most shooting happening during class time – with the emphasis being on making, taking risks and exploring the cinematic form on an elemental level. There will be failures and triumphs—all work strengthening and stretching each filmmaker's ability to express ideas and feelings through picture and sound. Since equipment is checked out ahead of time, all participants need to do is show up, receive a prompt, and get to the work of making a film! Note: Some students bring their own equipment, but that's not necessary.
Cinema Laboratory’s practice of consistent moviemaking aims to create a space and time where filmmaking efforts are not expensive and precious, but intuitive, brief, engaging, and challenging in a fast-paced workshop setting. Cinema Laboratory seeks filmmakers who are self-motivated, hard-working, curious and creative.
Throughout the semester-long laboratory, students sharpen their cinema-making skills through attention to process and experimentation in order to move to a higher level of precision in cinematic expression. There's an exercise taken from the notebook of Robert Bresson, who wrote, “It is with something clean and precise that you will force the attention of inattentive eyes and ears.”
Precision arises through both practice and experimentation.
"Cameras do not make films; filmmakers make films not by adding more equipment or personnel, but by using what you have to the fullest capacity. The most important equipment is yourself, your mobile body, your imaginative mind and your freedom to use both."
- Maya Deren
Please contact Deb Lewis with any questions regarding Cinema Laboratory to be sure your educational interests are in line with the course. deb.lewis@utexas.edu
