|
Think globally - write, produce, and direct locally
The Big Picture: Robert Nott | Pasatiempo, June 1-7, 2007
Starting Monday, June 4, six short movies are being made in new Mexico, one after the other, over the course of six weeks. Each is being shot in five 12-hour days. Most of the filmmakers are first-timers.
This is the result of the New Mexico Film Intensive, a new program of College of Santa Fe’s Moving Image Arts department. The program teaches students how to produce, direct, and write. Partially sponsored by a $1 million grant from the state, NMFI offers hands-on training that culminates in the production of a short film (for directors and producers) and the creation of a feature-length script (for screenwriters).
Jonathan Wacks, a chair of the Moving Image Arts department, dreamed up the program in an effort to garner support for homegrown filmmakers. Wacks helms the directors’ classes, Tom Musca teaches screenwriting, Forrest Murray teaches producing, and Steven Kemper teaches film editing.
“The motivation is to try to sustain the New Mexico film industry,” Wacks said. “My argument was that, unless we develop the producers, directors, and writers, we’re only going to be a service industry in Hollywood. By the end of the program, the 12 screenwriting students will have feature-length screenplays that they can shop. Will those get made? Who can say? The producers and directors will have completed a high-level, 12-to-15-minute short film that will be a showcase for their talent, and they will leave here with the confidence that they can produce and direct at the professional level. The philosophy of the program is to learn by doing.”
Wacks hired Diane Schneier Perrin, a filmmaker with over 20 years in the business (she’s done everything from casting to producing), to oversee the program. According to Perrin, nearly 55 people applied during the program’s inaugural year; 26 were chosen.
“We were looking for a diverse group of students who represent different ethnicities, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different life experiences, different age groups,” she said. “They had to demonstrate that they had an aptitude for the work - the only criteria was a B.A. in any field or significant film industry experience.”
The students include a fiction writer (Armando de Agüero), an actor and director (Loren Haynes), a former medical librarian at the University of New Mexico (Ed Merta), an organic-vegetable farmer (Katie Doyle Smith), a theater producer (Craig Strong), and a journalist (Alex Yalen, who freelances for The New Mexican). Seven students are in the producing program, seven in directing, and 12 in screenwriting. Only two of the students are from out of state. Perrin stressed that the hope is that all of them will stay in New Mexico to build their film careers.
Faith Strongheart, a CSF graduate, had worked on about 15 movies in the state - “office work, coordinator on commercials, assistant director, and even as a driver,” she said - before Wacks encouraged her to apply for the intensive. “I hadn’t been doing anything filmmakingly creative since I left school in 1999, but I knew I wanted to be in the directing track,” she said. Her short film Linda as in Beautiful (which she also co-wrote) is slated for a June 11 production start.
“The realization that this is something I have wanted to do for a long time and that I’m actually going to be doing it is frightening and exciting,” she said. Ideally, her short will run on the film-festival circuit and maybe even get a slot on a cable-television channel. “What will happen in my life is that I will go back to working in the film industry here, and I’ll create more of a schedule for me to do my own projects. I’ll work six months on other film project, and then make sure I take two months off to write or shoot something of my own.”
Rorie Hanrahan, who is in the producing track, had been working for the state (including some time at the New Mexico Film Office) when she decided to apply for the intensive. She said she chose producing because “I like collaboration, and that’s the way to get good people in a movie. The first thing they look at when financing or something is, who is directing? I felt the caliber of people I could get as a director with no reputation would be less than as a producer who had hooked up with a good director and had a solid reputation.” This program, she added, has “exceeded my every expectation.” She is producing writer Shannon Rotheneder’s script In the Wake, with Craig Strong directing, as of July 2.
Coco Cabrel, a flamenco dancer and teacher, acknowledged that she got into this program by accident. Her husband, John Shane, makes movie props. She was on maternity leave from the University of New Mexico and decided to go with her husband to a meeting about the intensive. “I stumbled upon all this,” she said. “I figured I’d apply and see what happens.” She ended up in the screenwriting track. She thinks Musca is one of the best teachers in the world. “I don’t know about the directors or the producers, but I think we have the toughest class because of him. He can see things in your script right away and dissect things and tell you what’s going on and what needs to be going on. His criticism is very constructive and geared toward the work.”
Cabrel wrote a short comedy about flamenco called Cha-cha-ching and hooked up quickly with a producer and director in the program to get the film made this summer. Cha-cha-ching fell by the wayside - like many Hollywood projects - for several reasons, including casting challenges. Not every short project pitched to Perrin, Wacks, and the others got a green light for production. Students had to consider several factors, including both a limited budget ($10,000) and time element, as well as location. “You can write a short film about Paris in the 1920s, but it probably won’t be made here this summer,” Perrin said.
Other films that are being made include an untitled “10/11” project (it was originally about Sept. 11), a drama about Hurricane Katrina survivor making a new life in Albuquerque, and a piece concerning immigration issues. All the students work in backup capacities on each other’s films - the director on one picture, for instance, may end up as the script supervisor on another.
“The next step in this process is we have to figure out to provide financial support for New Mexico filmmakers,” Wacks said. There’s not a hell of a lot of value in this if these guys we are training go off to Hollywood because they can’t get support for their films here.”
Check out www.filmmakersintensive.com or contact Perrin at 473-6417 or dsp@csf.edu.
|
Click Image to Enlarge
Click Image to Enlarge |
