Tag Archives: byu

Department News 11-26-18

Posted on by
Reply

Critically acclaimed documentarian Nanfu Wang will be visiting BYU next week. Nanfu Wang is an Emmy-nominated and Peabody-winning filmmaker based in New York City. She is best known for the documentary Hooligan Sparrow, for which she worked under the scrutiny of secret police. The film paints a harrowing portrait of the oppression of Chinese dissidents. The documentary follows a Chinese artist-activist as she seeks justice for victims of a child sex bribery scandal. Filming secretly with a variety of hidden cameras and devices, Wang found herself followed, interrogated and constantly in fear of her work (and life) being destroyed. Since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2016, Hooligan Sparrow has won
over twenty awards internationally including two Emmy Nominations, a Peabody Award, a 
Cinema Eye Honor for the Best Debut Film, the George Polk Award for the journalistic achievement, an IDA award, and the Truer than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit 
Awards. Born in a remote farming village in Jiangxi Province, Chinese-American filmmaker Wang seeks to illuminate lives normally hidden from the view of the West. Her works include a variety of photographs and short films, as well as the feature-length documentary, There Is No Time, which follows a homeless man in Florida over the course of a month. Wang’s schedule will be as follows. Students, full-time and adjunct faculty  are welcome to join us for any of these events.

Tuesday, December 4:  

  • 7-8pm, Guest Lecture in 2107 JKB     

Wednesday, December 5:

  • 9-10am, Beginning Production Students about making their first feature film 
  • 11am-1 pm, Q & A With Documentary History and Theory Class (Students will have watched Wang’s film Hooligan Sparrow)
  • 7-9pm, Watch Dailies and Give Feedback to Two Documentary Capstone Projects

Radium Girls, directed by Stephanie Breinhholt, continues its run this week and next in the Margetts theatre. We interviewed the production’s dramaturg, Pollyanna Eyler, about some of the things she discovered in the process of researching the production. Stephanie really wanted the cast to see these characters as human beings, not just “good” and “bad,” so Pollyanna figured out a unique way of doing that. In one exercise, the cast and crew used relative finder from Family Search to discover they were related to some of those involved on both sides of the law suit.  Even though the play focuses on a relatively small cadre of workers, there were actually thousands of factory workers who were affected by the radium.  Check out the amazing lobby displays on the 1st floor and the study guide in the program to learn more.  Pollyanna says, “I’ve lost family members and many friends to cancer, so initially I didn’t want to work on Radium Girls due to the sad subject matter.  Over the last year of production, I’ve learned to face my fears and focus on hope.  Thanks to the sacrifice of the Radium girls, actions of concerned citizens, and continued research by scientists of integrity, we have hope for a better tomorrow.  As consumers, we can do our part to think critically and make informed decisions about how we spend our time and money.  I have come to appreciate this play, despite the tragic circumstances, as a word of caution, a support for scientific research, and a catalyst for change.”

Rick Curtiss and Adam Houghton recently participated in the ASTR Forum in San Diego. They participated in a working group on puppetry and their paper title was “The Power of Pure Form and Puppetry”. The content of the paper shared discoveries of Rick and Adam’s research in Pure Form during their creation and performances of Legend for Witkacy. The purpose of the working group was to provide peer feedback on their paper in order to strengthen it. They had a positive experience with this and got good feedback from colleagues at other institutions. They also participated in an invigorating, broader conversation about puppetry with other puppetry scholars. This conversation gave them ideas of where the scholars hope research and scholarship will go in the next few years. All together this forum experience gave us a lot to contemplate and they are in discussion about our next steps.

Department News 11-19-18

Posted on by
Reply
This past weekend, BYU held the 25th annual Final Cut Film Festival. Over 40 films were submitted to this year’s festival and, in the end, 19 films were screened. Awards were determined based on category and the winners can be seen below. All in all, it was a fantastic festival! A special thanks to the SFA for supporting this yearly event and to Grant Gomm for his hard work in organizing and orchestrating the festival. Best Fiction:  “Passenger Seat”, directed by Jeffrey Hein Best Non-Fiction:  “Dreamers”, directed by Catherine Santos Pearce Best Editing: “Gather”, directed by Howie Burbidge Best Cinematography: “Gather”, directed by Howie Burbidge Best Production Design: “Gather”, directed by Howie Burbidge Best Sound Design:  “To Have and To Hold”, directed by Colton Elzey Audience Favorite:  “Anna”, directed by William Knowles; “Gather”, directed by Howie Burbidge
About 60 animation students, 20 illustration students, Illustration faculty members Justin Kunz and David Habben, Animation faculty members Nathan Lindsay and Kelly Loosli, and TMA chair Wade Hollingshaus, attended the Creative Talent Networking Expo in Los Angeles last weekend.  Kelly explains that this Expo is a great place for students to meet industry professionals, network, and begin to get an idea of how to navigate the professional world.  They encourage students to attend the Expo as early in their programs as possible because it helps them to understand how their training will apply to their eventual employment while giving them some idea of the many opportunities in the industry.  The CTN Expo emphasizes visual development and storytelling, or storyboarding and concept art, which are areas utilized in the front end of animation development and production. Many artists have tables on the floor, and many industry giants like DreamWorks, Nicolodean, and Pixar, have booths.  On Saturday night, there was an alumni event at the LDS Church in Burbank where many BYU alums joined with students to network.
While in Southern California last week, Wade Hollingshaus took the opportunity to try out the Dark Ride Disneyland app that has been created and developed by Benjamin Thevenin and Jeff Parkin.  Wade brought along his friend and media arts alum Ryan Little.  The app is designed to be used in the park and to engage users’ critical thinking skills. Although Wade used a test version of the app, Benjamin anticipates that the app will be available to the public in the next few weeks.
Student News Theatre Arts major Zoe Taylor applied for an internship for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in New York on a whim.  Zoe is a costume designer and specializes in wardrobe supervision on student film projects.  Since Fall 2016, she has been the wardrobe supervisor on student projects “Socorro,” “Anna,” “To Have and To Hold,” several 6-week Cinema projects, and is currently working on the capstone “Guardian.” She has also done art direction and wardrobe supervision on several students’ independent film projects.  After competing with many other applicants, many from Ivy League schools, and almost all from film programs, she was chosen as one of fourteen production interns on The Late Show, in part because her resume was so unique!  Her internship will go from Jan. 7 through the end of May 2019, and she will have the opportunity of rotating through all the production departments on the show.  Dennis Wright will serve as her faculty advisor.  Zoe also has the distinction of being the first TMA student to ever have the opportunity to do this!  And yes, she feels very excited and is looking forward to representing BYU well in this once-in-a-life-time opportunity!

Department News 11-12-18

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend is BYU’s 25th annual Final Cut Film Festival. This festival allows students of all majors to submit short films to be screened in the Pardoe Theatre. Due to the large quantity of submissions, a selection committee carefully reviews each year’s submissions to determine which should be included in the actual festival. This year’s festival organizer, Scott Christopherson, remarked on the importance of this opportunity for student filmmakers: “You can show your film to your friends, and they might sugarcoat it, but when you show it to the public, they’re either going to laugh, or they’re not; they’re going to emote, or they’re not… A festival gives students a goal to work towards. It pushes them to create better work because they know that people are going to see it.” Scott has personally experienced the potential opportunities these film festivals can provide; he also participated in the Final Cut Film Festival when he was a student at BYU. His work “Only the Pizza Man Knows” won Best in Fest and caught the attention of other filmmakers that would later become his greatest friends and connections in the field.

The Final Cut Film Festival will be held from Thursday, November 15 to Saturday, November 17. In addition to the short film submissions, the four fiction and two nonfiction media arts capstone projects will also be screened, making a total of 19 films being shown. To maximize the number of submissions screened, different films will be shown each night and the final night will be followed by an awards ceremony. For more information about showtimes and which films will be shown each night, click here. For access to ticket purchase, click here.

Final Cut Posters FB cover photo.jpg

Radium Girls opens this weekend and with only nine characters playing 40 roles, the play “is a fast-paced snapshot of the true story of what happens when the American dream bumps up against the realities of health, wealth, and big business.” Commenting on the unique aspects of this production, director Stephanie Breinholt said, “It’s a nice challenge for the actors and for me in staging all of these different scenarios in one very simple space without a lot of props or furniture… The actors change costumes in the blink of an eye, or even one moment they’re one character, and then they turn and they’re another character.”  One of the things the dramaturg, Pollyanna Eyler, tried to help the cast deal with was how to understand how people could jeopardize others’ lives when they were aware of the risks. Eyler points out that, “Even the ‘bad’ people, they’re not villains. They’re just real people with real intentions of trying to do what they think is appropriate in the situation.” Breinholt also remarked on how impressed she was with the actors’ ability to empathize with their characters saying, “I love that the cast is finding positives in every character… You could go in with quite a bit of bias, especially against the characters that represent the Radium Corporation, but they’re finding the humanity in every character. It’s not just a cut and dry story. Everyone has good qualities, but they make some glaring mistakes.”  For more about the production, click here. For access to showtimes and tickets, click here.

Megan Sanborn Jones and the current grad cohort of 6 students attended a one-day (October 31) Frantic Assembly workshop to learn the “Frantic method,” which is a way of creating physical theatre using the principles of pressure, counterbalance, and team work.  We created some lovely duets and group movement pieces, and concluded the workshop with a group choreography with all the participants.  The best part of the day was the ride back and forth to SLC in Megan’s mama van, where we talked about art, history, baby names, and the gospel. Frantic Assembly also conducted a workshop here on campus with Kris Jennings, Julia Ashworth, and their students.  They participated in similar experiences, where they learned the principles of the Frantic method in devising theatre stories.  Frantic Assembly teaches a method of devising that is one of the most studied and praised theatre companies working today.  Their work has always been about more than the work on the stage.  It is about the ethos of collaboration, empowerment, and of the constant desire to improve, telling stories in a voice we don’t always hear and finding talent in places we don’t always look.  The group has toured extensively across the UK and worked in over 40 countries internationally collaborating with some of today’s most inspiring artists.  Below are some of the fun things they did at the workshop on Saturday, November 3.

Student News

Anna, directed by Billy Knowles, just won Best Student Drama Short and Best Director Student Short at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards. Anna was screened last week at the media arts forum and will be screened this weekend at the Final Cut Film Festival.

unnamed

Department News 10-29-18

Posted on by
Reply

Each year, BYU’s Student Theatre Association brings students together in a feat of theatre production known as 24 Hour Theatre. This year, the event started Friday evening, October 26 at 7pm. Student playwrights were given 11 hours to write a script incorporating various prompt word “leaves” throughout the story. One such “leaf” was the required broom prop that had to be incorporated into all the productions. At 6am the next morning, playwrights submitted their scripts to be printed and distributed to directors, actors, and technicians. By 7am, all production teams had their scripts and began the process of blocking, memorizing, and rehearsing. Each team had a writer, a director, a minimum of three actors, and a production team. After a quick lunch and gathering props and materials, each of the five teams received a 30 minute rehearsal period on the Nelke stage. By 3:30pm, Nelke Resident State Managers and members of the STA were prepping for a technical run through. From 4-5pm, production teams then performed a dress rehearsal for their fellow production teams before they all ate dinner, applied makeup, and the house opened. The first performance ran on Saturday, October 27 from 7:30-8:30pm—only about 24 hours after playwrights began writing the scripts the night before—and the second performance was from 9-10pm. Each performance was followed by an audience question and answer session moderated by playwright Greta Gebhard. All in all, the productions were a huge success! Congratulations to the STA, playwrights, actors, and technicians on another great set of productions!

On October 19, Kelly Loosli attended a conference sponsored by the Church Public Affairs Department titled “Building Bridges in Entertainment” at DreamWorks Studio in Burbank, CA.  Matt Ball, a TMA alum, is currently head of the Southwest Region of Church Public Affairs and organized the event, drawing upon members of the church from the top echelons of the entertainment industry to present about the industry to government consulate representatives from around the world who are interested in growing this industry in their home countries.   Several panels of producers, attorneys, new media, and other groups presented to the consulates. Both Matt Janzen (VP at Lionsgate) and producer Gerald Mullen participated.  Kelly organized and presented with a panel of LDS animators, Brandon Sawyer (Writer, Show runner, bishopric member, and media arts alum), Ken Daurino (writer, producer of many animated features, including Despicable Me, and LDS convert), and Glenn Harmon (Animation alum, “Pajama Gladiator,” storyboard artist at DreamWorks).  The purpose of the conference was “to establish or strengthen relationships with Consuls General; those diplomats responsible for effecting visas to our worldwide missionary force.  This event was developed as a way to get closer to our Consuls General and say ‘thank you’ to them for all of the visa work they do for us as a Church.  Our ‘thank you’ came in concert with the chance to fulfill their business needs as a diplomat.  The objective was to create an event which would bring Consuls General and the Diplomatic Corps together in California by appealing to one of their main business objectives for being posted here: to discover, create or inspire international business opportunities for them.  The goal was to paint a picture of how to create business opportunities for the diplomats’ international countrymen within the entertainment industry.”  Kelly pointed out that, “As a result of this event, the church now has good contact information for more than 60 consulates, and personal business cards for more than 50 diplomats. They were also able to have face-to-face interaction with many countries (such as China) that rarely attend events.”

George Nelson traveled to Poland last week to give the keynote address at a conference on the re-socialization of criminal offenders at the University of Copernicus in Toruń. His address was entitled, “What Separates Us from the Criminals We Incarcerate?”  The International Scientific Conference took place last Friday and Saturday, October 26 & 27, and explored the multidimensionality of prevention and re-socialization in prison populations.  George has worked with various entities in Poland on learning styles, training educators and prison administrators in teaching non-traditional learners for the past nine years.  In addition to the keynote speech, George taught a workshop to PhD students on the same subject.

George Nelson

Several intriguing mysteries materialized during the opening weekend of MouseTrap,  directed by David Morgan.  Whose was that Alfred Hitchcock-like voice that welcomed us to the theatre?  How did they make snow come down outside the windows, and wind blow in when the windows opened?  The production featured a rich set, impressive sound design, and intriguing characters that made us laugh and spooked us at the same time.  A solid review can be accessed by clicking here. Discover why this play is the longest running show ever!!

mousetrap

Alumni News

Last Thursday, October 25, both the theatre and media arts forums featured alums of our programs.  The media arts forum featured director Chantelle Squires (Media Arts 2004) and writer Melissa Leilani Larson (English 1998) who spoke about the process of creating Jane and Emma, a recently released feature film that focuses on one of the first black converts to the church, Jane Manning, and her relationship with Emma Smith and the church.  The theatre forum featured La Donna Forsgren, a graduate of the TMA master’s program (2005) who is currently a theatre tenure-track professor at Notre Dame.

Melissa Leilani Larson
Chantelle Squires

Media arts students met in F-201 where Chantelle and Melissa discussed the making of the film.  They showed a short clip, and talked about their discussions during development about whether or not they would get into the practice of polygamy prevalent in the early church.  Instead, they decided to focus more on telling the story through women’s perspectives.  Melissa, the writer, worked to get things as historically accurate as possible, even though information on the night after Joseph’s martyrdom was scarce.  This was a beautiful film in which LDS female artists worked to tell LDS women’s stories.  There were about 75-80 students who attended. After Chantelle and Melissa’s presentation, they opened up the floor to a Q&A.

forsgren_headshot_for_web

La Donna Forsgren spoke at the same hour in the Nelke Theatre to about fifty theatre faculty and students.  After graduating with her MA from BYU, La Donna went on to receive her PhD from Northwestern University and is now teaching at Notre Dame, currently writing a book about constructing an oral history of the black arts movement in theatre and performance.  She is a playwright, dramaturg, theatre historian, and also has four children.  La Donna was able to speak about some of the challenges she faced and the strength she received from her beliefs—particularly how the Lord helped her accomplish some seemingly insurmountable tasks along the way.  In addition to the forum, La Donna presented a guest lecture on approaches to dramaturgy and race and led a graduate seminar on the Black Arts Movement before a lunch conversation with theatre students on Friday.

We are so grateful to our alums who are willing to come and share their expertise with our students!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Department News 10-08-18

Posted on by
Reply

BYU’s Center for Animation has garnered two significant awards this year. In May, animation students won E3’s College Game Competition, an important honor in the realm of game animation. Now BYU has been named the top animation program with Bachelor of Science programs by Animation Career Review.  Capitalizing on a co-operative team model that mirrors the top animation studios, the program produces two capstone projects each year, one animated short and one video game.

This cooperative model has led to many College National Emmys and Student Academy awards over the years for the animated shorts.  The video games they have produced have received finalist status in four out of the six years that E3 has held the College Game Competitions — nabbing their first win this year. Alums of the BYU Center of Animation are working in many recognizable studios including Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks and BlueSky.  To watch films, play games and see other work from BYU’s animation students, click here, or to see the full BYU article about the animation program’s recent recognitions, click here.

beat-boxers

Recently, Julia Ashworth, Amy Jensen, and undergraduate student Mariah Eames attended the 5th International Theatre for Children and Young People Researchers and Critics forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina (ITYARN).  The forum took place from September 17-21.  The theme of the forum was “Writing for the new generation, ‘Gen Z,’ ‘iGen’ or ‘Centennials.’ Where is TYA Going?”  Julia Ashworth and Mariah Eames presented on the processes they went through as two white, non-Latina women adapting and directing Romeo y Julieta.  How do you present and invite a minority culture into the dominant one?  They discussed the processes they used to adapt the script and ways they brought Latino voices into the process.

Amy Jensen also presented her research around the theatre students who were victims in the Parkland shooting in Florida and how they presented themselves to the nation via social media. The title of Amy’s work is “No More Thoughts and Prayers: What the Performance of Youth Protest in Real-World and Online Communities Might Tell Us About the Future of Theatre with Young People”, which is about how the online and live protests of young people might help us to see them better as collaborators with us rather than receivers of our work. The case study is about the Parkland student’s public and activist response to the shootings at their school. Closely aligned with ASSITEJ, ITYARN, the research branch of ASSITEJ, is held internationally every three years.  This smaller forum for the Argentine chapter is held every other year.  Paper presentations were in both English and Spanish.  English speakers were provided with headphones. Julia has found the international perspective of these forums, particularly the ASSITEJ conference which focuses more on production, to be invaluable to her in her role as Young Company producer.

This is the last week to go see Young Company’s production of The World’s Strongest Librarian on BYU campus before they continue their tour to elementary schools in the area. The show has had considerable success as well as fun surprise visits from the world’s strongest librarian himself, Josh Hanagarne. Don’t miss out on this heartwarming tale about learning to make friends and love learning. For tickets and showtimes, click here.

1809-37 181 1809-37 World’s Strongest Librarian PLAY Publicity photos for BYU’s upoming production of “World’s Strongest Librarian”. September 12, 2018 Photo by Jaren Wilkey/BYU © BYU PHOTO 2018 All Rights Reserved photo@byu.edu (801)422-7322