Author: Caroline Osborn
Students walked a red carpet into Thorne Hall on Saturday evening to watch the final projects of Occidental’s graduating film majors. The short films lasted about ten minutes each and included such divergent genres as drama, western, documentary, comedy, and psychological thriller. Seats were packed with film majors’ family, friends, professors, and students interested in the creative work of their peers. The crowd seemed to enjoy themselves, laughing at the comic moments, staying silent and serious during the dramatic scenes, and cheering when their friends’ names came up on the screen.
A reception preceded the film screening during which film students greeted their supporters enthusiastically, hugging and talking loudly. Women wore summery skirts and men had donned ties and dress shirts. A general air of euphoria and camaraderie hung about the film majors as they posed for a picture. Their huge and genuine grins were a visual sign of their pride in their accomplishments.
“This group of comprehensive projects is by far the strongest I’ve ever seen,” said Professor Amy Lyford, art history and visual arts professor. She stressed the prevalence of cooperative collaboration achieved by this group of students. As evidenced by the credits at the end of the films, a great amount of interweaving occurred. Students helped one another produce their final projects by taking crew positions or small roles in the cast.
Most of the film majors express interest in pursuing a career in the film industry. Michelle Waring will attend film school at U.S.C. next year and hopes to eventually work as a director. Lisa Andrews would also like to work as a director, but also harbors a fondness for screenwriting. Lindsay Washington is interested in directing, writing, and editing. One of the emcees of the night, Lucas Clark, is also a graduating film major, but opted to write a feature length script as an alternate comps project. Part of the motivation to host the event was to include himself in his own senior comps presentations. “I hope to humiliate myself a little and hopefully get a few laughs,” he says before going onstage. After emerging in gold cargo pants dressed as Vanilla Ice with Justin Morgan (another graduating film major) dressed as Miami Vice, he achieved both of his goals.
Each student director both wrote and directed his or her own piece. Professors advised students to decide on an idea for a film over the summer, and students began to write scripts as soon as they returned to school. They finished initial drafts in about a month, then spent a few weeks in a workshop stage, polishing and fine-tuning. After the scripts were ready, students had to find actors. Waring says they contracted actors through casting websites and auditioned the applicants. Coordinating schedules and negotiating expenses could be difficult, especially since most student directors had not previously done anything of this scale. But everything came together in the end.
In searching for topics for their comps films, student directors often drew inspiration from aspects of their own lives. Michelle Waring’s film, In Between, follows a young Indian woman’s first few days at an American college and her struggle to adapt to the new culture while still preserving her identification with India. Waring was born in Australia and has moved frequently, forcing her to familiarize herself with experiencing of unfamiliar cultures. Lisa Andrews’s film, Song, centers on a young woman attempting to write an original song. The discovery that her ex-boyfriend is fighting in Iraq moves her to compose something meaningful. She wanted to show a musician working to produce something “meaningful, not fame-based.”
Andrews is a vocalist and pianist herself, so the movie comes from her artistic quest for honesty. Talent in multiple creative areas has its advantages. As demonstrated by her inclusion of music in the film, the combination of different artistic outlets possible in film appeals to Andrews.
Lindsay Washington says that her film, The Make-Up, was inspired by Diablo Cody’s Juno. “I got such awesome performances from all of actors,” she says. The key to coaxing convincing performers from actors, she goes on, is to hold rehearsals. Actors learn to feel comfortable with one another this way, and it leads to valuable and funny improvisation. In fact, one scene from Washington’s movie is almost entirely improvised.
The graduating film students who showed at Film Comps include Harry Walling, Kathleen Jo Luevano, Gerry Maravilla, Diana Keeler, Justin Morgan, Cindy Tang, Clay Hoadley, Rosie Enriquez, and Sam Slesinger, as well as those previously mentioned. All twelve seniors are talented individuals just waiting to unleash their skills upon the film world.
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