Brooks Institute - Campus and Student Life

Campus and Student Life

Brooks Institute has two main campuses, both located in Santa Barbara, California and Ventura, California. The Professional Photography Program facilities are located at the Santa Barbara campus. The Visual Journalism, Film and Video Production and Graphic Design classes are located at the facilities in Ventura. Brooks also has two libraries, one in Santa Barbara and one in Ventura, that contain thousands of books, journals and other publications.

Brooks Institute also has two public art galleries that display student, faculty, alumni, and guest photographer work. Brooks Institute's Gallery 27 is located at the Cota Street campus in Santa Barbara. The Visions Gallery is operated in conjunction with the Marriott Ventura Beach in Ventura.

Brooks Institute graduations are held in the historic Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara.

Before Brooks Institute established the Ventura campus and renovated the property into a school, the lot was used by Hollywood production companies to shoot motion pictures. Scenes from both Titanic and Cast Away were shot on this location. The Ventura campus contains three professional Hollywood style sound-stages, a 'Mexican Village' movie set, and the 'Brock House'; the actual set used as the interior house in the film Erin Brockovich.

In June 2010, the "Mexican Village" was used for the production of the feature film "Without Men" directed by Gabriela Tagliavini; it stars Eva Longoria, Christian Slater, Oscar Nunez, Paul Rodriguez and Monica Huarte.

With the creation of the Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting program, many notable industry specialists have come to the Ventura campus to participate in screenings, lectures and seminars. During 2010, Brooks hosted screenings along with Q&A sessions with notable professionals, including: Mark Fergus, writer of Children of Men and Iron Man, David Sheffield, writer of Coming to America and The Nutty Professor and Brian Nelson, writer of Hard Candy and Devil. These sessions are open for students of all Brooks Institute programs to attend.

The Visual Journalism Program at Brooks hosts a Documentary Program. This is a class based program that all Brooks undergraduates are invited to participate in. This documentary class takes students all over the globe to document various cultures. Students spend an entire scholastic session (approximately 2 months) in another country and return back to California to edit a multimedia presentation. The Brooks Institute documentary class has taken students to countries such as Ireland, India, Mexico, Cuba, West Africa, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Australia, Argentina, China and Chile. In 2010, the students of the documentary program ventured to Vietnam and were guided by world renowned photographer Nick Ut.

The Chile documentary group of 2010 raised nearly $7,000 for the Chile Earthquake Relief Program.

In 2011, Brooks Institute removed its facilities from the Jefferson campus and is now primarily located in the Cota and Mason Street campuses. Respectively, the Ventura campus is still running its usual programs.