REINVENTING THE

 

R E E L

Photos this page: R. R. Jones

Enrollments in film classes last year topped 2,200. Close to 400 students are pursuing bachelor's degrees in film, making it one of the most popular majors on campus.

"The cinema is an invention without a future."
   --Louis Lumière

 

Le Cinématographe, 1895

Louis Lumière and his brother, Auguste, are credited with staging the first exhibition of "moving pictures" in 1895. Even though their screening of a mov-ing train caused panicked audiences to shriek and duck for cover, the brothers dismissed their invention as a mechanical novelty with no future.

Today, cinema is one of the world's most popular art forms and, with ticket buyers paying $7.50 or more at the theater, one of the most lucrative. While the 1900s were a time of tremendous growth for the film industry, the new century--with the advent of the Internet and a variety of digital media--holds even more promise.

As the industry booms, so has the demand for people trained in the field. This upsurge in interest is obvious at UCSC, where enrollments in film classes last year topped 2,200. Close to 400 students are pursuing bachelor's degrees in film, making it one of the most popular majors on campus.

This year's graduates were the first students to receive a B.A. in "film and digital media." The name change, from "film and video," reflects the evolution in the field as well as the program's emphasis. "Since the program was established in the mid-1970s, we've aimed to train people as artists. Now we are training them as artists who can be leaders in the digital revolution," says Professor Eli Hollander, chair of the department.

UCSC film alumni have excelled in the field, taking leading roles as directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, and technicians. The list of films and television shows they are associated with includes Titus, The Abyss, Flubber, Follow Me Home, Glory Daze, Star Trek, Days of Our Lives, Xena, and Frasier. Others have landed jobs with such companies as Skywalker Sound, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock/Spyglass Entertainment.

Many universities focus their undergraduate film programs on theory and history, reserving access to equipment for graduate students. On the other hand, technical schools typically provide hands-on experience but rarely offer academic courses. UCSC's Film and Digital Media Department stresses both.

Marti Noxon, who graduated from the program in 1987, explained the value of UCSC's dual emphasis during a recent campus visit. "Learning how to look at film theoretically, as well as technically, really made a difference when I began writing and selling scripts," said Noxon, supervising producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "I developed a sensibility for how to look behind an image to the ideas that give the image depth, innuendo, and spark."

--Barbara McKenna

 

TAKE ONE:

Photo: R. R. Jones

In the 1910s, promoters in the fledgling film industry began actively courting women audiences. Up to that point, filmgoers had been largely working-class and immigrant men, and promoters hoped that drawing more women into their theaters would lend respectability--and profitability--to their venture.

Until a new book was published this past April, the general belief among film historians was that these promotional efforts were a complete success. But the book, Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon, undermines that long-held theory.

The book's author is Shelley Stamp, a UCSC film historian. Stamp, who won UCSC's prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998, is one of seven faculty in the Film and Digital Media Department who specialize in such areas as theory, production, and history. Her book is the latest example of projects by these faculty--research, publications, and films--that are expanding the scope of film studies.

Leading film historians are praising Stamp's work as an important contribution to film studies--one that provides a new understanding to a crucial era in cinema. "The 1910s were a period of real transformation in the film industry," Stamp says. "The industry was 15 to 20 years old and starting to become more sophisticated as a visual and narrative medium, but it still lacked wide cultural acceptability."

 

"Ladies, if you spare us one evening and make use of the enclosed tickets, we will consider it a favor."

Advertisement for the Star Theater, New Hampshire, 1913

 

 

By targeting women, promoters did succeed in attracting more women. But, as Stamp discovered, the films that drew in female patrons did not always elevate the reputation of the cinema.

"Action-adventure serials, like The Perils of Pauline, politically charged

films on women's suffrage, and lurid stories of white slavery and prostitution all attracted female audiences during these years," Stamp says. "But none fostered the ladylike refinement promoters sought out; and all three further challenged an industry already worried about its public reputation."

 

TAKE TWO:

Photo: R. R. Jones

In June, David Bolam graduated with a degree in film and digital media--and a lot of options. "I have a Plan A, but I also have a Plan B and C," he says. "In this field, you have to have alternatives."

Bolam, 46, began a career in theater in England and Europe immediately after high school. Although he eventually left the theater, Bolam never lost his passion for dramatic expression. So, in 1998, he returned to the classroom, enrolling in UCSC's popular film and digital media program.

Bolam quickly discovered that his Plan A would be experimental filmmaking--visual expression without traditional plot-oriented frameworks. Bolam had his first taste of such work in a class taught by Associate Professor Lawrence Andrews, producing a piece on the long-term psychological and social impacts of the Hiroshima bombing.

Although filmmaking is his first love, Bolam is well-prepared to steer his career in other directions. He has finished a screenplay penned in Professor Chip Lord's screenwriting class. Titled "A Fighting Chance," the piece is being considered in a universitywide screenplay competition. At the same time, Bolam is exploring job possibilities in the lucrative field of interactive media (web, CD-ROM, and DVD).

As diverse as his options are, they all offer Bolam the one thing he sought when he returned to school--the opportunity to articulate his imagination. "The exciting thing for me is to turn the spark of an idea into something tangible that celebrates the complexity of being human."

 

TAKE THREE:

Photos: courtesy Blake Leyh

Last winter, to demonstrate the importance of sound in setting a mood, film professor Chip Lord showed his students the opening scenes of the Coen brothers' offbeat film, Barton Fink. "You can hear high liquid bursts, distant thunder, long metal screeches--they create a montage that gives you a visceral feeling you can't get from dialogue," Lord told his Introduction to Production Technique and Theory class.

Of the thousands of films Lord could have settled on to make his point, he inadvertently chose one in which the sounds were created by a former UCSC student, composer Blake Leyh. Leyh completed his studies in 1983 with an individual major emphasizing film and electronic music.

Lord and the Coen brothers are not the only ones to recognize Leyh's talents. Leyh has produced sound and scored the music for dozens of Hollywood and independent films, including Titus; The Abyss (which received an Academy Award nomination for sound); The Moderns; Get Shorty; He Got Game; Summer of Sam; Bamboozled; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

UCSC was the perfect training ground for Leyh, who haunted the electronic music and film studios. When he left and began working in sound design, Leyh says he was surprised to find out how much of his experience at UCSC was applicable in the professional world.

"Sound design requires a lot of creativity--something that was really valued at UCSC," Leyh says. "The faculty were very supportive and gave us access to what was, at the time, pretty sophisticated equipment. When I began working in 1983, I was, in some ways, ahead of people who were doing the work professionally. I was able to say, 'Hey, why don't we do it this way--the way I did it in Santa Cruz.' "

 


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