By Priya Khanolkar, Fusion Alumni Relations.
Hannah Weddle (TSOA, 2010) was part of a revolutionary time for Fusion. In 2009, when social media and cell phones were gaining traction, Hannah became the Director of Technology for the Fusion Film Festival. Since this was the first year the department was instilled, Weddle was Fusion’s first webmaster. Today, she is a Production Format Specialist and works with front end web development, formatting content for websites and E-readers. This past December, she spoke with Fusion about her journey from here to there.
When Hannah was a sophomore at Tisch, she thought she wanted to be a director. Once she began her Sight and Sound classes, that idea pivoted. She found that she really enjoyed the technical side of film: the lights, camera, and sound. Hannah was fascinated by the science behind it all and why everything worked the way it did. She remembered very clearly how, at this time, she was one of the only girls interested in the technical side of filmmaking. Because of this division, Hannah found that many people would try to pigeonhole her into other categories of the film department, but she stuck with what she loved. Because of her passion for technology, she became a Digital Teaching Assistant on the eighth floor of Tisch where the photography studios are housed. Her work there, along with work she had performed in Fusion, led her to her current career path.
Directly after graduating from NYU, Hannah did freelance film work, but she wasn’t extremely satisfied with the pace of the work. She went to grad school a year after graduation with a concentration in technology. Her first job after grad school was at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library where she was in charge of digitizing the collection and re-recording phone calls made by John F. Kennedy for a documentary.
Hannah was in college during the digital revolution where cell phones became a regular item to have, television shows began streaming on the internet, and social media began taking off. This was a very critical time for her because she was trying to understand how technology in film would change. How would the industry be impacted by the use of iPods and laptops? She knew from then on that she needed to go in the direction of technology and help answer these questions. She needed to be working directly with tech, and Fusion gave her that opportunity.
Hannah knows the importance of technology as a force that’s driving the industry and she acknowledges how it is changing all the time. This is why she loves working in the fast-paced world of technology. From pioneering as one of the only women to attend a camera class to working solely in tech, Hannah has certainly come a long way from her time at Tisch.
