New Faculty Spotlight: Geoffrey Marschall

We are pleased to welcome Geoffrey Marschall as Assistant Professor of Moving Image Arts. In the second semester of his professorship, Marschall instructs Introduction to Moving Image Arts—a course where students learn the essential foundations and language of filmmaking—as well as Digital Video Editing I and Digital Video Editing II.  In each course, Professor Marschall hopes to foster each of his student’s approach to storytelling and unique aesthetic.

Marschall grew up in the historic town of Gettysburg, where his mother worked as a speech pathologist and his father was a professor of astronomy and physics. Their support of the arts trickled down into his own interest: “My parents emphasized getting out of the small circle of our town and experiencing a lot of variety. We lived in Boston, went to New York often, and it pushed me to explore the world. I’m grateful for the flexibility and [my] family that supported me in that way.”

In high school, Marschall created animation and narrative short films for class, but it wasn’t until his viewing of Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express that he knew he wanted to work with cameras, lights, and colors to tell a story. Marschall turned that interest in filmmaking into an education, receiving his BFA in Film from Vassar College in 2005 and his MFA in Production from University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2013. While pursuing his degrees, Marschall was also able to spend more than six years traveling through Asia.

It was through his experiences in Japan that Marschall first found inspiration for an ongoing project, a documentary about the lives of sumo wrestlers and their paths to the sport. While that documentary develops, Professor Marschall is writing screenplays and may be spending his summer in Texas as the cinematographer for a film.

Professor Marschall hopes that in his role as teacher his students learn to see the breadth of tactics used in filmmaking, not any one specific tool. “They can specialize, of course, which is what you have to do, but also understand how [each tool] connects and functions, what tools are used for what purpose in storytelling.” Marschall hopes that his students become proficient technicians as well as artists, and that in the work they create, there are unique, different, and emotionally impactful stories.

For more information on Professor Marschall’s professional accomplishments and interests, visit his Faculty Page.