Making Movies

One film student's journey
from Santa Cruz to Sundance

by Scott Rappaport

More than 3,300 people submitted their original short films to this year's Sundance Festival—the prestigious annual celebration of independent cinema founded by actor Robert Redford in 1981. After a rigorous screening process, the final cut for the 2004 festival included only 86 films, 53 of which were made by American filmmakers. Two of the accepted films were created by students at UC Santa Cruz.

One of those students was Aaron Platt, whose 7-minute film The Cold Ones screened five times in January at Sundance, universally regarded as the premier showcase for American independent films. But Platt's Sundance success wasn't limited to his own film; he also shot the footage for fellow student Cam Archer's 10-minute short, Bobbycrush. Their films were made as projects in UC Santa Cruz assistant professor Irene Gustafson's film production class.

Like Sundance, UCSC's Film and Digital Media Department is deeply committed to nurturing original, innovative filmmakers, helping them to develop and adapt their creative vision in the rapidly changing world of film production.


platt
"If there's one word that summarizes UCSC's Film and Digital Media Department, it's 'competitive.' But it's a great atmosphere for students who are really driven to make films."

—Aaron Platt

"In many ways the films are representative of what we try to engender in our classes," notes Gustafson. "They are structurally and narratively inventive and illustrate young and talented filmmakers finding their 'voice.'"

A graduate in June 2003 with a bachelor's degree in film and digital media, Platt describes UCSC as a place where film students receive valuable exposure to a widely diverse range of film styles and genres. He says this approach provides a remarkable amount of creative freedom, at the same time offering students a thorough and rigorous critical background in theory and production.

"The professors basically lay out this palette of what's out there, but they never push you in any one direction," observes Platt. "They just open the doors for you."

"If there's one word that summarizes the Film and Digital Media Department on campus, it's 'competitive,'" he adds. "But it's a great atmosphere for students who are really driven to make films. It makes you work harder, and you know you have to keep yourself organized or you're not going to make it."

Platt's The Cold Ones is a partly autobiographical look at two preteen siblings who are confronted with abandonment by their mother and the death of their father. A powerful and surreal tale of family dysfunction, the film was included in the experimental Sundance category "Shorts on the Frontier."

Since his film screened at Sundance, Platt was awarded $500 and named "most promising filmmaker" at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan. He has also been offered various projects—including a music video he recently shot in Los Angeles, and the opportunity to film an interactive installation for a summer art fair in Switzerland.

"Sundance definitely opens doors," says Platt. "Now, instead of worrying about sending your film out to 50 different festivals, 50 film festivals are coming to you saying they want to see your movie."

The route to Sundance acceptance, however, was anything but easy for Platt. After having his previous film rejected by programmers in 2001, he worked as a volunteer for the next two Sundance Festivals, meeting countless other filmmakers and absorbing the scene as he continued to make films and study at UCSC. He also learned how to cope with the time-consuming maze of logistics that goes hand-in-hand with making an independent film.

sundance_poster

"You often spend a whole day just to get a few seconds of footage," Platt notes. "For example, in The Cold Ones, you only see a train for about 10 seconds, but I spent hours chasing trains and finding schedules just to film and record them. When you're making an indie film with a two-man crew, you can't just call up and arrange to have a train come."

Although Platt now has a day job to support his film endeavors, he continues to devote endless hours to making movies. The competition is brutal, and achieving success in the film business is never guaranteed, but receiving that call from Sundance definitely improves the odds.

"When you get a call like that," Platt says, "it's telling you that all you've gone through—the dollars invested, the phone conversations, the scheduling, all the headaches that go with making a film—it shows you it's all worth it, that it's paying off."

'Thumbs up' to another UCSC—Sundance connection

Mean Creek, a new feature film written and directed by UCSC alumnus Jacob Estes, opened nationwide as the Review was going to press in August.

An official selection of both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals, the movie tells a chilling story about a group of teenagers who set off on a boat trip down a river that soon evolves into a harrowing journey into the wilderness. An allegorical tale, the film probes the moral dilemmas teens face in the anxiety-ridden 21st century.

rogerandjacob
Film critic Roger Ebert, with alumnus Jacob Estes
Courtesy Jacob Estes

Estes began writing scripts and making films at UC Santa Cruz more than a decade ago, graduating in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in media studies.

He went on to earn his master's degree in film directing at the American Film Institute (AFI) where he wrote and directed several short films.

While at AFI, Estes's script for Mean Creek won the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, an international search for new talent administered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He also met the film's eventual producers there, who turned out to be the chair of the directing program at the AFI's Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies and two of Estes's fellow classmates. After receiving critical acclaim at the Sundance Festival, Estes's debut feature was picked up for distribution in North America, the U.K., and Australia by Paramount Classics.

—Scott Rappaport

How a UCSC film student helped Michael Moore make film history

Every weekday morning during the winter of 2004, Dan Hancox took the subway from an apartment in Brooklyn, past the Statue of Liberty, to a small office in the heart of Manhattan. A 21-year-old film student at UC Santa Cruz, Hancox was commuting to his temporary job as an intern for Michael Moore's latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11.

ka_lg
Photo: Lion's Gate Films

One of only five interns in Moore's New York production office, Hancox spent his time conducting research for the film, an unprecedented documentary of post-9/11 America and the Bush administration that broke box office records when it opened nationwide in June. The film had previously won the top honor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for Moore, who received the 2002 Academy Award for best documentary with Bowling for Columbine.

Housed in close quarters with the film's editors, Hancox had a front-row seat to the making of the first blockbuster election-year documentary in the 90-year history of the American feature film. Surrounded by storyboards of the entire film, he verified background information, assisted editors with various technical projects, was privy to stunning, previously unseen footage from Afghanistan and Iraq, and generally soaked up the mechanics of putting the film together.

One of Hancox's responsibilities was to screen tapes of Fox, CNN, and other major TV networks, searching for news footage that Moore could use in the film.

"I looked at quite a bit of tape," Hancox recalls. "They would have different assignments for me each day. One morning they would say: 'we're looking for clips about U.S. troops in Iraq not getting enough funds to supply everyone with Kevlar flak jackets.' The next morning they would ask me to look for a specific story about a government warning to watch out for model airplanes because they could be used in terrorist attacks."

Dan Hancox
Fahrenheit 9/11 intern Dan Hancox
Photo: Jim MacKenzie

Hancox was pleased to see that some of the clips he had personally tracked down were woven into Moore's final footage. He also had the opportunity to meet and talk with the director himself during his first week on the job. "I had this image of Michael Moore before I got there—that he would be super-slick and running more of a Hollywood-type production. But instead, I found him to be very nice, relaxed, and down-to-earth."

Hancox's internship was arranged by community studies professor Paul Ortiz, who had recently met one of the producers of Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Ortiz advises Hancox in the Page and Eloise Smith Scholastic Society, a campus organization created to provide financial and mentoring support for UCSC students who are orphans, foster youths, or wards of the court. Hancox was born in Korea and adopted by a family in Michigan, before moving to Santa Cruz to attend UCSC.

An aspiring filmmaker now in his senior year at UCSC, Hancox says that the internship has opened his eyes to the documentary art form—a facet of filmmaking that he had received little exposure to in the past.

"The main reason I took this internship was that I had no work experience with documentary or independent films," says Hancox. "I was under the impression that those types of films were from a different world—that they were less interesting and rarely watched. But I think Michael Moore has done a remarkable job of bringing the political independent film into the mainstream. He's demonstrated that you can make a very entertaining movie that still makes you think about important political issues."

Hancox added that working on Moore's film has also inspired him to reconsider the content of his own films. "The internship has motivated me to become a more responsible filmmaker—not just someone who makes films only for their entertainment value. It was an extraordinary experience."

—Scott Rappaport


Return to Fall 2004 Issue Contents