Speaking From Experience

Ever since Paul Fornelli viewed the world through the lens of his camera, his world forever changed.

Paul Fornelli saw the camera, the possibilities behind it and the productions he could make as a way to access the fame and glitz of Hollywood.

He quickly realized that the red carpet was not all it's chalked up to be and that he preferred the live production aspect of media.

"My original thought was that I was going to get into the film industry and win Academy Awards, Oscars, red carpets, glamour, all that kind of stuff, and during grad school I realized what was involved," said Fornelli. "That in film you are lucky to get three to four minutes of footage in an eight-hour day. I saw that in the same eight-hour day I could go out and cover a football game, a couple of basketball games back to back and cover news stories, which just fit a lot better with my personality."

Fornelli started out in the music and recording industry working with various garage bands helping out with the stage production, setting up the band equipment and making sure the show ran smoothly.

"I would be on the road with some of the bands as they went from gig to gig, traveling to various clubs and venues," said Fornelli. "So, there were plenty of instances of somebody's van or car breaking down in the middle of nowhere, then you'd have to scramble to make it to the next show on time."

Occasionally, that meant sleeping overnight in one of the cars.

"Or the band being forced to play with borrowed gear loaned to them from one of the other bands on the bill when the equipment van never arrived," Fornelli said.

Fornelli described this time working for bands as "hardly work in the traditional sense."

"During a typical work day, you weren't necessarily interacting with the bands themselves. It was more mundane than that. You were more likely to be interacting with folks like club managers, DJs and sales vendors," said Fornelli. "It was after normal working hours when you'd really get a chance to hang out with the bands, when you went to see them play at local clubs, concerts or even house parties."

Fornelli worked at Green World Records for a time as well, collaborating with and helping produce vinyl records for artists such as Motley Crue, Great White, Rat, Mojo Nixon and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"South Bay was actually a big hub of rock and roll, heavy metal and hair metal back in the '80s and '90s," said Fornelli. "So we worked with some of those groups and then I kind of segued out of that and into video production."

Fornelli moved on to do film work for Cannon Films, then began working for several city governments including Torrance, Santa Monica and Long Beach on local productions. While working for these local access production programs, Fornelli trained many of the people under him in video production skills while pursuing his master's degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

He taught a few video production classes at Torrance High and Peninsula High through the Southern California Regional Occupational Program, which allowed him to try out teaching.

From there, Fornelli taught at El Camino College, Santa Monica College, briefly at CSUDH, his own alma mater LMU, and finally made his home at Dominguez Hills in 2001, where he has been teaching ever since.

Fornelli's passion for video production and film stems from early MTV music videos and Martin Scorsese- and Brian De Palma-directed films.

With his enthusiastic knowledge and experience in pre-production, behind-the-camera work and post-production, Fornelli helped co-author a text in 2018 for up-and-coming media producers titled "Viral Media: A Digital Production Marketing Guide for Advertisers, Journalists and Public Relations Professionals."

"The nature of the industry is so much different than ever before," Fornelli explained. "When we tried to find a textbook, we couldn't find any that addressed it from either the film or video perspective and what you have to factor in in terms of journalism, advertising and viral content and their nuances."

Fornelli's goal when writing "Viral Media" was essentially to attract and create a new subset of journalists who can branch out into the ever-evolving field of digital media.

"Part of trying to write the text was to get a different audience; someone that is not dedicated to 'I want to be the next director, next Scorsese,' but somebody who is not 100 percent sure what they want to do in a journalism, advertising or PR career," Fornelli said. "A lot of this stuff now you can have some control over what you want to do."

The changing nature of the field of video production and media can be one of its biggest hurdles but can also be the catalyst for new content and skill adaption, Fornelli said.

"Circumstances change, technology changes," said Fornelli. "That's the history of the profession we are talking about. This is an industry, whatever subcomponent of TV, radio, advertising, journalism, whichever you choose to go into. It's about constant change; as technology changes the means of distribution, your skill sets will change over time."

Recently, Fornelli assumed the role of chair of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Advisory Board where he has taken on many responsibilities including writing resolutions, going to Senate meetings and finding out the inner workings of how the campus operates, who does what on campus and how to institute meaningful change.

Fornelli is also on the leadership group for the E-sports organization where he helps get the team into the HyperX Gaming Tournament held in Las Vegas each year.

"I'm not the huge gamer that I used to be at one point in time," Fornelli admitted.

Fornelli is also intrigued by the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it can be implemented into the classroom.

"What seems to be the new academic approach to AI is, let's not pretend it doesn't exist, let's find ways to make AI a part of the assignment or a portion of your course, where part of the assignment would require using AI to do 'X, Y and Z' so there isn't this guessing game of, is this student using it to do something they weren't supposed to do?" Fornelli explained.

Fornelli's message for alumni and students in general is: "The nature of students is changing; a lot of the older generations are coming back for degrees, and I say more power to you. For all students in general, we must become lifelong learners, and that is truer now than ever."