Charles Merzbacher completed his training to be a yoga instructor in spring 2023. Aaron Kopp says years of yoga practice help him carry a camera through long shoots. The colleagues discovered their shared interest as they prepared for the 2023–24 school year—Merzbacher’s 27th and last at COM and Kopp’s first—and wondered how they could bring the discipline into the classroom. 

“What if we did a class that explored the principles of yoga through stories that we tell in films, but also through the filmmaking process?” says Merzbacher, director of film production programs. Soon, they were drafting a syllabus for Heart-Centered Production, an advanced production course for undergraduate film and television students. 

Their unorthodox course challenged students to think beyond the classic American understanding of yoga as a practice of physical poses and to consider the broader frameworks of yogic tradition which goes back thousands of years. “Yoga principles are really ethical guides for how to live a healthy life,” Merzbacher says. “And then there’s another part of yoga, which has to do with situating yourself in the cosmos.” 

The two teachers developed exercises and assignments that would meld the ancient practice with modern filmmaking techniques—and they found many natural connections. “The way we move through the world as human beings and as filmmakers, they’re not separate,” says Kopp. “Good art comes from being an attentive human being.”

To practice dharana (concentration), they asked their students to record one brief shot each day for 10 days, then edit them into a short film. “It helped us attend to the moment, to focus on what was around us, to see the world,” says Kopp, an associate professor of the practice in film and television. 

Another exercise drew on the mandala. Creating these circular designs is considered meditative and a way of representing the spirit in visual terms. To transfer this practice to motion pictures, students moved a dolly-mounted camera around the improvised performance of dance student Erin Mahoney (CGS’22, CAS’24). Later, each student edited the shots into a short film. “We created this process-oriented exercise, and the outcome was kind of mysterious,” says Kopp. “It was really a magical little thing that we made.”

The way we move through the world as human beings and as filmmakers, they’re not separate. Good art comes from being an attentive human being.

Aaron Kopp

The class also did a workshop with Brita Heimarck, an associate professor of music at the College of Fine Arts. An expert in ethnomusicology and world music, Heimarck has studied sound in yogic traditions and is editing a book on the subject. She shared her instrument collection with the class and let them experiment. 

“Sound is a huge part of film, and the way the yoga tradition has explored sound is understanding that it can be a pathway to understanding, and a pathway to the things that are beyond the here and now,” Kopp says. “Both traditions can go far beyond what words can do, connecting us with a deep, core human experience.”

Students had two major film production assignments during the semester. The first was a team effort, with pairs of students producing a film inspired by yamas and niyamas, a series of yogic principles of restraint and self-discipline. Elle Misko (CAS’25) and Gauri Nemi (’24, Pardee’24) explored the Niyama Santosha, or contentment, by following someone constantly in search of that ideal—a three-year-old toddler—with their camera.

For their final project, students had more freedom—they just needed to find inspiration in the themes of the semester. Julia DeSantis (CGS’22, COM’24) focused on mortality for her film, telling the story of a young woman coping with the death of her goldfish. 

Although Merzbacher retired following the semester, Kopp hopes to continue offering the course. “For thousands of years, yoga has been this pathway between the lived experience and the mysteries of the universe,” Kopp says. “That’s when films function best—when they usher us into that space of wonder.”