Filmmaking Unpacked: A Guide to Navigating Creative Dilemmas is a podcast/audiobook written, narrated, and produced by Professor Ross Morin (Department of Film Studies). Season 2 was released as weekly episodes across the spring semester, and all 26 episodes from both seasons are available wherever you get your podcasts. Professor Morin describes Filmmaking Unpacked as “a free, Open Educational Resource (OER) discussing the toughest psychological, philosophical, moral, and practical questions we face as creators of any type. It is a self-help audiobook for creative people in any field.” After the first season in 2025, the podcast won the Signal Awards‘ silver prize for Best Education Podcast!
Professor Morin was also awarded grant funding from Shain Library’s OER Grant Program to help support the production of the podcast. He felt inspired and compelled to create this OER due to the lack of books or resources anywhere that discuss all the elements of filmmaking (e.g. hardware, software, sound design and mixing, screenwriting, production, cinematography) within the context of critical thinking about deeper philosophical and moral issues inherent to filmmaking. Professor Morin states:
“Most film production resources present as anti-critical thought, as technological manuals or practical guides to production without any consideration of the complex topics that come up in the liberal arts environment. Because most film production educators are industry professionals, their educational resources and approaches are practical rather than philosophical. This book, an absolute one-of-a-kind, integrates both approaches.”
As a curricular and pedagogical project, Professor Morin aimed to create a resource “instilled with the values and philosophies of our Humanities-driven liberal arts curriculum, that challenges students to think critically about film production work from their first class.” He says:
“I often find that in the classroom, I need to spend a good amount of time arguing against the books that we have assigned, because the only filmmaking resources that exist are so anti-critical/philosophical thought. This book will work in tandem with the rich curriculum I have built and teach students, from day one, how to achieve at the highest level.”
The project has already impacted many students enrolled in Film Studies courses at Connecticut College since spring 2025. Filmmaking Unpacked replaced textbooks in a range of filmmaking courses, reducing the course-associated costs for enrolled students and providing a more accessible course text that is available in multiple formats (both audio and digital/printable text). As Professor Morin strove “to take from the unique and rich intellectual and philosophical experiences that occur in the ‘exclusive,’ ‘elite,’ and expensive liberal arts filmmaking classroom and bring them out to global public access as a free Open Educational Resource,” this public resource—already downloaded in more than 50 countries—is certain to have a much bigger impact well beyond expense-saving for own students. On a personal level, Professor Morin describes the OER as “the most meaningful project I’ve undertaken in my life. The culmination of everything I’ve learned across decades of teaching and filmmaking.”
