Remarkable Me

I’m Michael Andrew Zelazny. I am a Maker.

I’m a Teacher, a Maker, a Generalist, a Machine Operator, a Manager, and a Problem Solver. As a child I was always trying to take things apart mentally, and physically. It’s how I came to understand the world, and my small part in it. You’d think a five year old would be incredibly disappointed when they cut the wire connecting the remote to their toy car, only to discover it didn’t work anymore. But I was intrigued. Wireless remote-control cars exist, so there must be something more going on that I didn’t understand yet. And so, things weren’t ‘things’ anymore, but rather a summation of parts.

    This was important. If I could figure out what the pieces were, I could build with them. I could Make, which in turn meant I could interact with the world, change it, and later would find I could share my culture and life experiences. This became my teaching philosophy. That students who participate in the act of creation, don’t just gain a skill, but share the common experience of creating. The shared experience of Making binds us together, regardless of gender, race, socio-economic background, or even skill and experience level. All learning styles are accommodated, and in this manner, everyone becomes an artist, whether they are writing code, using CAD, writing an instruction manual, or figuring out a math problem. It becomes incumbent upon an educator to nurture the experience of creation in all subjects.

Fast forward a few years through public school art classes. I was developing some skills, joining the art club, painting the field for football games, going on trips to DC to visit the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art, and even won the club’s small scholarship. I was taking shop classes and practicing on my own projects at home. It was also during this period that I discovered film. Not just as a story on the silver screen, but as an art form, the summation of herculean effort by armies of dedicated, trained, and experienced artisans in every imaginable skill. I wanted in.

I graduated from Penn State University’s Bellisario College of Communications in May 2006. I worked in the College’s equipment rental office, watching over the manager’s shoulder every time he fixed a piece of broken film equipment. During senior year when other students worked on a single thesis film, I stretched my time to work on 3. I’ve worked with Rod Bingaman and Maura Shea’s ‘Chasing Butterflies’ film directly after graduation, then worked in the industry doing whatever work I could find, sometimes in Ft Lauderdale shooting commercials for carnival cruise lines, sometimes in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh working on Independent films.

I’ve spent well over the past decade managing PSU’s communications equipment rental facilities, soundstage, and teaching technical workshops and classes in Film, Telecommunications and Journalism. Since 2008 I’ve been instrumental in the college’s evolution from 16mm film all the way to 4k video. I’ve fixed and repaired countless individual pieces of equipment, tracked a constantly changing inventory valued over $1M, managed a crew of full time staff members and 10-14 students, made props for student films, and fell in love with teaching.