IN THIS ISSUE Productions in 2012-13
Moving Pictures Department Newsletter
Already wrapped are Department Chair Isaac Webb’s Why I Hate Candy and Senior Peter Ryan’s Positive Outlook for Blue Collar People. More productions have been Green Lit for the Spring!
April 2013
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Isaac Webb, Department Chair
Lujie Wu makes Props
Profile
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To learn how to play the violin one must play the violin which is why we take a hands-on approach to our film curriculum. Our goal at the Moving Pictures Department http://vimeo.com/33316829 is to give our students the technical training needed to execute their vision, but it is also important that they understand the nature of co-operative enterprise. Film is an expression of a team of artists and we do our best to teach our students the power of teamwork. Our films are testimonial to what a group of people can achieve if they work together.
MPD welcomes new Technical Director Trevor is the third generation of the Holmes family to teach at Idyllwild Arts.
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Tomas Gonzales’ costume rendering
IAA Documentary Airs on KCET Katherine Kerns’ A Family Like Mine airs on Los Angeles television Station KCET.
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- Isaac Webb
New Studio Coming soon: the new Moving Pictures Department could have a new home!
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Best Field Trip EVER! The MPD tours the 85th Academy Awards and watches a live taping of Brand X!
Eric Huergo Wagner
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MPD Documentaries Have Impact in Ethiopia Two documentaries by students have already helped save lives, with another crew setting out this summer.
Pages 6 Rosey Zu, Jared Billings and Jack Chen
Peter Ryan directs
MOVING PICTURES
The cast and crew of Why I Hate Candy.
Two films are ‘in the can,’ with more to come Haley Baldwin styles props for Candy
“The primary theory behind Idyllwild Arts is that our faculty are practicing professionals in their given craft. We do more than teach; we share our passion and experience” Isaac Webb
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The Moving Pictures Department has wrapped Department Chair Isaac Webb’s film Why I Hate Candy and the short is in post-production now. When asked why the first film was teacher-led, Isaac says “The primary theory behind Idyllwild Arts is that our faculty are practicing professionals in their given craft. We do more than teach; we share our passion and experience with our students. I think the students respect that we know what it means to be an artist. It says to them that we are all students of cinema and with every production we all learn together.” The film, written by Isaac Webb and Tyger Williams, is based loosely on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel and features local actors both amateur and professional. Two professional actors were cast in Candy: Locals Conor O’Farrell (The Lincoln Lawyer, CSI) as the father and as Gretchen, Elsie Fisher, whose credits include the voice of Agnes in Despicable Me. The role of Henry is played by five-year-old Isaac Irsfeld, who while very young for the character, so impressed Webb that he rewrote the role to suit the actor. Costume designer and Theatre Department teacher Minnie Walter led Costumer Caroline Metz and Makeup Artist Kaylee Spates in creating the characters’ identities. The Art Department for Candy was led by Loren Tripp,
who teaches Art Direction in the MPD, art director Lilly Mischer and Set Dresser Haley Baldwin dressed the MPD’s production RV as Candy’s lair and transformed a local house from a cheerful, airy cabin into the sinister Wicked Witch’s Cottage. Property master Lujie Wu baked five dozen gingerbread men and had the unusual task of tying apple head dolls to threads and hanging them in the witch’s cottage, adding to the creepiness of the house. The Art Department was on hand during the shoot to be sure that every thing and every one looked good on camera. Tripp says, “I was happy to see that the Art Department took the production into their own hands and carried on when I couldn’t be on the set. I think the Art Department can be proud of their work on Candy.” Peter Ryan’s“3-2-1” (movie-talk for 3 pages, 2 actors, 1 day,) Positive Outlook for Blue Collar People starred IAA Student Services Administrative Assistant Becky Bomgardner and Peter’s own father Bruce Ryan. The three-minute short was shot in a single day on Studio B on the Ryan Sound Stage. Peter Ryan directed, Cyrus Paydar produced, Quill Chase-Daniel was cinematographer, Lilly Mischer was art director and Harald Beran edited. Up next is Writer/Director Lilly Mischer’s film Noellasaurus, the MPD’s first attempt at Continued on back page
Meet Isaac Webb BY BETTY BAILEY
Moving Pictures Department Chair Isaac Webb enjoys a multifaceted career that spans the genres of film, from comedy to thriller. Webb got his start as a documentarian with his film Desire (1996-2005), which chronicled the lives of six teenage girls from New Orleans through four years of high school. The project took nearly 10 years to make and included short films made by some of the girls, who told their own personal stories. Desire screened on PBS, with help from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
festivals including the Chicago Film Festival, the Louisiana Video Shorts Festival, and the San Francisco Film Festival. His short family drama The Wedding aired nationally on Encore, Bravo, BET and Showtime. Webb has also written scripts for Universal Studios and HBONYC. The feature length psychological thriller First Born (2007), written and directed by Webb, tells the story of a new mother with postpartum psychosis. First Born stars Elizabeth Shue, Steven Mackintosh and Blair Brown.
In 2000, Webb’s feature length comedy screenplay Blackbottom was one of only eight scripts selected for the esteemed Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab, a five-day workshop that pairs new writers with established professionals who act as creative advisors.
Webb has received numerous individual awards and grants including the Rockefeller Fellowship, a Kodak Spirit Award, The New Orleans Film Festival’s Lumiere Award, and a Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship. He has also been featured in Filmmaker Magazine's 25 People to Watch and is a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.
The Northwestern University graduate has produced, written and directed several short films that have been recognized by prestigious
Isaac and his wife Olivia live on a hillside above Palm Desert with their five-year-old daughter Miranda and nine-month-old son Memphis.
Isaac Webb
Moving Pictures welcomes Trevor Holmes BY LOREN TRIPP
The MPD welcomes alumni Trevor Holmes to the department as the much-needed Technical Director. Holmes is dividing his time between MP and the Theatre Department, and is the TD of the Junior Players Theatre during the Summer Program. Graduating from the Theatre Department with an emphisis on Technical Theatre, Holmes went on to California Institute of the Arts where he received his BFA in Scenic Design. He has worked in television production, including The 82nd Annual Academy Awards, The NAACP Image Awards, and The American Cinematheque. Holmes is happy to be back at Idyllwild Arts, where his grandfather Robert Evans Holmes led the Festival Choir in the Summer Program for many years and his father Dwight “Buzz” Holmes is a Governor of the IAF. With the help of students, Holmes has already built a set on
Studio B for the Cinematography class to work in and will help put the animation studio together. Holmes will supervise the students with set construction and will manage the Sound Stage. “It feels great to be back in this wonderful artistic community. I look forward to working with the Moving Pictures Department and the Theatre Department."
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Katherine Kearns’ Documentary airs on KCET MOVING PICTURES
Katherine Kearns
Last month, Hollywood opened its doors to Idyllwild Arts senior Katherine Kearns and the crew of her 22-minute documentary A Family Like Mine. http://vimeo.com/48816585 The film screened at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as part of KCET’s annual Fine Cut Film Series, which is currently running on KCET. The series showcases 17 student films, sixteen of which are from universities and graduate programs. Idyllwild Arts was the only high school to be included.
Katherine, who was raised by a single, gay father, says she started the documentary to find others who had grown up in similar situations. What she found was a supportive and uplifting community in her own back yard. “I really just wanted to open up peoples’ minds and show them something that they wouldn't have otherwise seen. But in retrospect, this documentary is really just for people who cherish and love their families. It's really just to show people that love comes in many forms."
“That this film, made by our high school students was broadcast on Los Angeles Public Television and screened at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the sole high school production in the company of the best college and university productions (including even the prestigious American Film Institute) is, I think, a fitting testament to the exceptional quality and advanced skills of our student filmmakers, as well as our amazing Idyllwild Arts Moving Pictures Department program,” said Dr. Ira R. Abrams, who teaches documentary production at Idyllwild Arts.
“Making any film, in the end, requires a great deal of courage and insight about human character,” said Abrams. “But attempting to make an documentary about yourself and your family, that puts them into the context of an engaging story, may be one of the most difficult and risky tasks a filmmaker can ever take on.” Katherine Kearns and her amazing student crew (Tirzah Donau, Alex Laudeman, Paul Jung, and Makai Metzler) not only accomplished the latter, but in the end they crafted a superb professional documentary that may, in the end, help many to forever alter the limited and proscribed way they see and understand the world of human families.
A Family Like Mine tells the touching stories of several individuals who were raised in families with same sex parents. "This documentary was really made for people who didn't know much about gay families,” said Katherine. “It was for people who had preconceived ideas of what a family should and shouldn't be.”
“The Studio will be a huge boon to the Moving Pictures Department” Isaac Webb
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A Family Like Mine A Family Like Mine is will screen this month at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) in Seattle. It is currently under consideration in festivals across the United States including the Palm Springs International Shortfest and the Los Angeles Film Festival.
The New Moving Pictures Department Sound Stage could soon become a reality! At the far west end of campus, past the Children’s Center and Junior Players Theatre, stands an imposing metal building waiting for a new life as the Moving Pictures Studio. The Studio is a 4,000 square foot warehouse structure with three story ceilings, ready to become Idyllwild Arts’ newest arts facility. Nestled on a plateau overlooking the San Jacinto Valley, what began as a Maintenance Garage was re-designated in 2007 as the Studio by the
Idyllwild Arts Foundation. Now the Moving Pictures Department is going forward to complete the building. With thirty Moving Pictures majors and many more applicants to the department, there is a great demand for additional stage and production space. The Studio will include six sound-proof editing bays, production work rooms, equipment storage, and a classroom. The
Where else but I dyllwild Arts can a student film maker work with a music composition major to create an original score and have a full orchestra record it?
Dressing the set on Studio B
sound stage will have over 2,000 square feet of open space and a visual effects green screen. Says MPD Chair Isaac Webb, “We’re building an animation studio for Noellasaurus in Studio A and we want to build a set for an ongoing webcast about boarding school life. It would be great to make those sets permanent and still have room for other productions. The Studio will be a huge boon to the Moving Pictures Department, allowing both the Academy and the Summer Program to expand their offerings.” To some, it's a warehouse in the woods; but to us it is a definitive way for Idyllwild Arts to establish itself as the preeminent film program for high school students in the world.” With the completion of the Bruce Ryan Sound Stage, The Moving Pictures Department was created by Brad Battersby in 2000. In 2007, the Echavarria Family added the Alexis Annex to the sound stage to honor their son, Alexis Echavarria. http://www.alexisechavarria.com The Annex added a much needed work space, storage, editing room, makeup room and restroom. From its beginning thirteen years ago, the MPD has grown from ten students to over thirty today. Bruce Ryan, parent of MPD senior Peter Ryan ’13 and Chair of the IA Building and Grounds Committee says, “ When we started this department, it seemed like we’d never fill the sound stage, and now we’re squeezed for space. This summer we spent our family vacation building scenery on the sound stage with the Summer
Program students, and we saw the need for the bigger, better studio. We’re motivated to finish the Studio because Moving Pictures and Idyllwild Arts needs that facility to fulfill its potential.” Ryan and his wife, Loren Tripp, are spearheading the campaign to fund the Studio. Says Tripp, “We already have $1.1 million covered and it will cost another $500,000 to get the Lot open. When you consider that a kitchen remodel can run over $50,000, it’s a bargain. My dream is that we raise $2 million; then we can equip the stage with the newest technology and build scenery and costume shops that can be used by MP, Theatre, Fashion and Visual Arts.” When asked what will happen to the Ryan Sound Stage, Webb has an interdepartmental mindset. “When we aren’t shooting or screening there, the Ryan Sound Stage will become a scoring studio for the Jazz and Orchestra students to record music and sound effects for the films. The Music Composition students created original music for all the student films a few years ago and it brought them to a level beyond what even colleges can achieve. Where else but Idyllwild Arts can a student filmmaker work with a music composition major to create an original score and have a full orchestra record it?” Webb asserts that the new stage will be put to good use right away. “The students will create artful films and tell compelling stories at the Lot. If we could, we’d start shooting in there tomorrow.”
“To some, it's a warehouse in the woods; but to us it is a definitive way for Idyllwild Arts to establish itself as the preeminent film program for high school students in the world.” Isaac Webb
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A day in Hollywood: The Academy Award Rehearsals! MOVING PICTURES
“The Moving Pictures Department had a front-row view of another aspect of Moving Pictures; television production.” Loren Tripp
BY LOREN TRIPP
On the Red Carpet at the 85th Academy Awards
The students and faculty had the unique privilege of visiting the rehearsals of the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Thursday, February 21st. At 8 a.m. the students and faculty boarded a bus from snow-bound Idyllwild and arrived at The Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard for a 5-hour VIP tour. Suzan Mischer, parent of Lilly Mischer, ’13, coordinated the tour of the Dolby and her husband, Don Mischer, the director of the Oscars live telecast, allowed the students into the Video Truck to watch him direct the 22camera rehearsal for the live show.
c AMPAS
of the stage, back stage and under the stage on this extraordinary, behind-the-scenes tour. Bob Dickinson, winner of 20 Emmys for television lighting design, gave a talk about his work on the Oscars and reminisced about his first Academy Awards at age 28! Bruce Grayson, makeup artist to several presidents and countless stars, also stopped and talked with the students about his job at the Oscars. We discovered that Grayson’s wife, Liz Sagal, producer of the FX TV Show, Sons of Anarchy, danced in the Idyllwild Arts Youth Summer Program years ago! After the Oscars, the group boarded the bus and headed to Bruce Ryan Production Design Studio in Burbank for pizza and a slide show of Ryan’s work in television art direction. The last stop of the busy day was Sunset Bronson Studios to see a live taping of British comedian Russell Brand’s FX television show Brand X, which Ryan designed. Students filled a whole section of bleachers and met director Troy Miller. The department enjoyed the randy, unpredictable show and saw what goes on during the production of live television. After the broadcast, Brand himself came over, chatted with the students and posed with them for a photo.
The MDP at Brand X with Russell Brand, center
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The students walked the red carpet, sat in the audience to watch the rehearsal and got a tour
After some cold pizza, the gang piled back onto the bus at 10:30 at night for the trek back up the mountain. It was a 17 hour round trip, and an unforgettable day! Thank you to everyone who made it possible!
Alumni Sean Stromsoe and Luke Sherman make a difference for Ethiopians BY BETTY BAILEY
Twice a year, a team of dentists from Loma Linda University travels to Ethiopia, a country that has only a handful of dentists to serve nearly 85 million people. In 2011, Idyllwild Arts sent a film crew to document the trip for the Tropical Health Alliance Foundation, a non-profit organization, founded in 2006, to help provide educational training and medical assistance to people living in the poorest of conditions. The result of the excursion was Dembidolo, Ethiopia Mission Trip, a four-minute long documentary by IAA alumni Sean Stromsoe and Luke Sherman. The film shares the experiences of young dentists as they learn the true impact and importance of their career choice on a people who have had no dental care.
time, the film will follow a team of surgeons as they restore the eyesight of people with cataracts. “Ethiopia has one of the highest percentages of blindness of any place in the world,” said Thomas. “One-point-six percent of the people are blind. Of that 1.6 percent, 80-percent of the blindness is treatable or preventable. Of that 80-percent, 60-percent is due to cataracts.” Aside from the blindness, these cataracts create a hardship for families. “The tragedy is that it puts a terrific economic burden on the family because they have to take care of that blind person,” said Thomas. “One of the children, usually a young girl, will be assigned to lead that person around and that’s how they spend their childhood. She can’t go to school. She can’t have a childhood. There are millions of children that have to live a life of servitude to a blind person. When that person can see, you liberate that child.”
Moving Pictures Department documentarians show how dental students from Loma Linda University saves lives in Ethiopia through the Tropical Health Alliance.
Thomas said documentaries like this help raise funds and, more importantly spread awareness.
“The last I read, there were only 48 dentists there, in a country that’s the size of Spain and France,” said THAF founder Dr. Larry Thomas. Thomas said this shortage has resulted in the people trying to take dentistry into their own hands. “Sometimes they have a layman pull out bad teeth. I’ve heard of people pulling out their own teeth, they hurt so bad,” he said.
“We need to raise funds for this project but nobody gives to things they don’t understand,” said Thomas. “It (documentary) shows people the problem and it shows them we have a solution. If you create awareness, the money comes.”
“Our excursion to Ethiopia underscores the idea that one can use the medium to better people’s lives,” said Moving Pictures chair Isaac Webb. “It lets our students know that their art and actions matter. It inspires our students not only to be good storytellers but better people."
"Documentary filmmaking is a very important aspect of the moving pictures program,” said Webb. “Most kids come here to pursue narrative storytelling but it is important to us that our students understand the power of the documentary. Finding stories and characters in the real world is more challenging than imagining them but an authentic story has the possibility to effect the world in a way that even the most profound fiction cannot.”
This summer, a new Idyllwild Arts documentary team hopes to travel to Ethiopia with THAF. This
Watch Dembidolo, Ethiopia Mission Trip. http://vimeo.com/29865580
“It lets our students know that their art and actions matter. It inspires our students not only to be good storytellers but better people." Isaac Webb
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Two films are ‘in the can,’ with more to come Continued from page 2
stop-motion animation. Idyllwild Arts alumni Shaun James Esparza, an animator, is sculpting the dinosaur figures and supervising the animation process. An animation studio will be created in the Alex Annex’s Studio A especially for Noellasaurus. The film combines animation with live action and green screen effects, and should be a challenge for the department. Tirzah Donau is producer, cinematographer is Juliana Ventre. Character design and storyboards are by Visual Arts Department student
Anthony Lopez, and student animator is Kyler Aszterbaum. Costumer is Haley Baldwin, art director is Caroline Metz and property master is Fernando Mitre. Isaac Webb has invited the Creative Writing majors to submit screenplays to be considered for production. Students are busy writing and rewriting their screenplays for submission to the Producing Class to be “green lit” (movie-talk for “approved”) and then production will begin!
Moving Pictures Department shooting on location
Green Light is the quarterly newsletter for the Idyllwild Arts Moving Pictures Department. Moving Pictures Faculty: Isaac Webb, Department Chair Ira Abrams Betty Bailey Jared Billings Trevor Holmes Loren Tripp Eric Young