KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Bo
Aye, a third-year design and media arts student, edits
his
latest film.
By Christopher K. Saroki
Daily Bruin Contributor
If aspiring directors are cowpies, then Southern California is a
cattle farm.
Teeming with filmmakers, ranging from talented to creative to
insipid, So. Cal harvests an abundance of films every year. From
this herd of directors will emerge tomorrow’s Stephen
Spielbergs and Oliver Stones.
But how can one find the gems in all the manure? Shorttakes,
presented by Campus Events ““ promises the cream of the
crop.
Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom, the film
festival will present 15 to 20 short films.
Short films are the first steps of all great
directors. Many amateur directors stumble and fall. Some get
up and persevere. Others give up.
Professor Myrl Schreibman of the Department of Film, Television
and Digital Media believes that the hardest part of making a short
film is the problem of telling a story in a short period of
time.
Schreibman additionally believes that making short films is
tougher than feature length movies.
“Organizing is the hardest part,” said Bo Aye,
third-year design media arts student.
At age 20, Aye is working on his first five-minute production.
According to Aye, getting all the actors together at the right time
is difficult as well.
Obviously there are several different aspects to making a film,
and as if that wasn’t tough enough, just getting into
UCLA’s film school is a long and difficult process.
Of about 800 applicants for the production/directing subset of
the Graduate Film Department, only 21 are accepted. Only 30
students are taken for the undergraduate production/Directing
program, from a pool of 600 applicants.
Becky Smith, chair of the Undergraduate Film, Television and
Digital Media committee, said the program is very intensive.
Juniors learn basic film editing, directing, cinematography,
screenwriting, producing and shooting. Students also start out
with 16mm film, which Smith considers a luxury and a helpful
learning tool.
During their senior year, the students produce a final work
which might include a documentary, a short film or a feature length
screenplay.
All of the students must produce short films.
“They work on this project their entire senior year
““ it’s almost like an honors thesis in other programs,
but it’s their senior concentration,” Smith said.
Going to film school, however, is not needed in order to make it
in the film industry ““ working like a mule is.
“The big thing is the student has to be aware they got to
pay dues when they get out of here,” said Schreibman.
Schreibman, having spent most of his life in the business, knows
that paying dues takes time and not all are cut out for it.
“If you go to medical school, you know when you get out,
you’re a doctor ““ not true when you go to film
school,” Schreibman said. “If (the students) have the
fortitude to hang in there while they pay those dues, then they can
eventually click.”
The Shorttakes Film Festival provides these amateur directors a
chance to show their work to large audiences and win gift
certificates from Kodak.
For those who wish to experience the creativity of the next
generation, the Shorttakes Film Festival is the place to go.
Shorttakes is a chance to see the defining art form of the
twentieth century.
“It’s expressing emotion in picture,” Aye
said.
FILM: The Shorttakes Film Festival is tonight
at 7:30 in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Admission is free.