MFA Thesis Screening

This weekend marked that time of the semester where everyone in the Cinema Art + Science MFA programs stop, take a second to breathe from their hectic schedules, and spend some time reflecting on why we are here doing what we’re doing.  This past Friday and Saturday evenings, Columbia held the MFA Graduate Thesis Screenings at Film Row Cinema.

The bar was definitely set high this year and it just goes to show that my cohort and I have a lot to live up to with our own films.  This semester, the thesis films screened included:

Third Timothy – Jordan Duke, Creative Producer & Julian Walker, Director

Bump)ED – Lauren Gentile, Creative Producer & Aisha Brown, Director

Requiem – Elizabeth Brouillette, Creative Producer & Michael Burgner, Director

Jon and Davy – El Hassan Amejal, Director

Sawubona – Wanda Sondiyazi, Creative Producer & Lungelo Kuzwayo, Director

Submarino – Aladdin El-Kadi, Creative Producer

The Lady with the Dog – Leonard House, Creative Producer & Kyusik Gam, Director

Stygian – Assya Dimova, Creative Producer & Joshua Garvin, Director

Crossing Jordan – Marion McMillan, Director

Punk Bitch! – Joseph Rubin, Creative Producer

Antidote – Olayinka Hassan, Director

The Vain Illusionist – Javier Delgado, Creative Producer

Blame – Kellee Terrell, Director

Raghad – Hadeel Hadidi, Director

Immaculate – Alice Packard, Creative Producer & Cooper Justus, Director

Kyusik Gam introduces his film, The Lady with the Dog

Seeing the level of quality that was brought to the table this semester, I know that as I head into my own thesis film, I want everything to be as great as it can possibly be.  I want to be excited by and proud of what I put up on that screen next year.

With that being said, I look at where I am at in the process of my own thesis film and I realize that it is going to take everything I have to make a film that even compares to the level of professionalism and quality that the filmmakers brought this weekend.  Because of that, I took the opportunity to ask some hard questions of the producers and directors who screened this weekend.

When I got the microphone, I told the filmmakers that what I have found to be true more than anything else is that sometimes you have to trust your gut and make difficult decisions.  I asked them the following question: What was the most difficult decision you had to make during the thesis process?

The filmmakers, not surprisingly so, had a lot of great experiences to share.  Here is some of what they had to say:

“Should we try to see this thing through and push people?”

After facing many challenges with locations and the weather of last winter’s polar vortex, one filmmaker had to decide if he could continue to push people or if they needed to scale the production back.

“The most difficult decision I had to make was completely throwing out the entire edit and bringing on someone else.”

When this filmmaker had difficulties in the editing process, he had to decide if he needed to bring on a new editor in order to get the film that they wanted to make.

“It’s just difficult in general doing this. Making the decision to do this was a difficult decision.”

With a cut that was originally over twenty minutes long, this director needed to bring on an editor who could help him make decisions about the edit.  He felt too close to it and when that happened, he needed to rely on someone to help him.  But more than that, he found that the filmmaking process in general, the decision to make this film, is what was difficult.

“The location of my first scene, my campus scene… We had to make a smart choice to shoot here at Northwestern.”

This director had an ideal location in mind—the campus of the school where she received her undergraduate degree.  It was personal and where she had envisioned the scene taking place.  However, with limited resources and funds, she and her producer needed to make a difficult decision and in the end, it was the right decision.

“There are tons of tough decisions I made and now it’s all good memories but at the time it was horrible.” 

From choosing between a number of potential scripts to condensing three days of shooting into one for safety reasons, this filmmaker expressed that the whole process involved making tough decisions but said it’s all good memories now.

“I think the toughest decision is learning to trust other people… so they can help enrich your vision and sometimes change it for the better.”

Challenges of casting and locations were some of the biggest hurdles that this filmmaker faced but after making progress day by day and learning to trust other people, he could see the film happening and coming together.