New Camera Technologies

Alum David Mun (BFA 00) was on a panel of fellow filmmakers and cinematographers at the Arizona International Film Festival 2010.

They discussed the impact of new camera technologies and how it is changing the industry.

Shorts Program

Alum Keisha Richardson 

Three School of Media Arts Alumni screened their shorts at the Arizona International Film Festival 2010.

Antonio Villagomez (BA 08) screened Lines.

LINES:  A struggling screenwriter loses his ability to know what is real and what is not.

While Alum Keisha Richardson (BFA 09) screened her short Metamora.

METAMORA:  In search of adventure, an animated star finds the grass isn’t always brighter on the other side.

Rockie Stephens (BFA 09) screened her Omega as part of the shorts program.

OMEGA:  A young boy’s dreams of an otherworldly squirt-gun are thwarted by a she-devil in pig tails.

Derek Griffith screens D*Y*I*

Alum Derek Griffith (BA 2000) screened “D*Y*I*” a 84-minute feature at the Arizona International Film Festival.

Set in Tucson, this charming coming-of-age teen drama is about a teenage boy who starts his dream-business of promoting new bands. To save the foreclosure on his ill mother’s house, he does everything in his power to transform his struggling company into a profitable enterprise.

Congratulations to Derek!

Rachel JeeHye Thomas has her Arizona Premiere!

Rachel JeeHye Thomas (BFA 07) will have the Arizona Premiere of her 9-minute short “Stuttering Ears (Deafening the Heart)” as a part of the “Edgy Shorts” program at the Arizona International Film Festival.

STUTTERING EARS (DEAFENING THE HEART)

Friday, April 23, 2010

10:30pm

The Screening Room

 

STUTTERING EARS (DEAFENING THE HEART):  A stuttering boy and a deaf girl escape into a fantasy world to find their human connections.

Free Land screens tonight!

School of Media Arts Alum Minda Martin’s (IDS-BA 94) film FREE LAND will be screening this evening as a part of the Arizona International Film Festival.

FREE LAND

The Screening Room

Thursday, April 22, 2010

6:00pm

running time: 62 minutes

FREE LAND is a personal historical documentary that examines what it means to be constantly looking for opportunity in America. Using family history of homelessness and displacement, Martin examines the unfulfilled promise of "The Land Of The Free" and reveals how the search for free land has geographically and psychically uprooted people, created social inequalities, and left legacies of emptiness.

Focus on Minda Martin

Filmmaker and Assistant Professor Minda Martin

ALUM Minda Martin (IDS-BA 94) is an internationally critically acclaimed, award-winning director, editor, and producer of documentary and narrative films and videos that explore the underpinnings and disparities of social class.

Her films include: Mother's Heritage, (1996,Video, 11min) A Little Ballad (1998,16mm, 7.5min) AKA Kathe (2000,Video, 55min) Do You Know...(2002,16mm, 15min) Love, Minda (2003,Super8mm, 3min) Monsoon St., '77 (2006,16mm, 12.38) and most recently, Free Land (2009,Film/Video,70min).

Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Minda received her Bachelors of Arts degree from University of Arizona in creative writing, classics, and media arts. She then received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from California Institute of the Arts in film/video production. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of communication at California State University, San Marcos where she teaches production, media theory and culture related courses.

Arizona International Film Festival in Full Swing!

Over 90 films representing 16 countries will be featured in Arizona's longest running and largest Festival.

The festival runs from April 15 to April 25.

Checking in with Bryan Oki

Alum Bryan Masataro Oki (BA 09) is interning at Stuber Pictures. They are currently working on the major motion picture “Your Highness,” starring Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, and James Franco.

Randall French up for an Emmy!

Alum Randall French (BFA 2008) is working for ESPN as a Stedicam and Gib operator.  During the 2009 NFL draft he worked as an Art Designer to create visual ‘bump’ elements that could be used in several ways throughout the weekend and in collaboration with the ESPN studios.

French has been nominated for a national sports Emmy in the ‘Technical Team Studio’ category.

Congratulations to Randall French on the nomination!

Warring Factions at the Gallagher

WARRING FACTIONS

Wed April 14, 7pm

Gallagher Theater, UA Student Union

FREE

 

Screening of documentary WARRING FACTIONS, by UA Media Arts Alumnus Justin Mashouf

"Warring Factions" is Mashouf's first feature length documentary. Filming began in April 2007 while Mashouf was a student in the Media Arts BFA program.  In the wake of rising international tensions, he is cornered into answering the question, "Where is your loyalty, America or Iran?" Shot in both countries, Mashouf's journey throughout the film uses his love for break dancing as a way of bridging an American culture with Iranian youth. Additionally, he becomes a student of the traditional Iranian martial art of "Varzesh Bastani" and seeks to understand the sentiments of the religious conservative generation of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

As voices in the Obama administration deliberate their official Iran policy and media outlets have fueled the perception of a nuclear standoff, "Warring Factions" is a call to (dis)arms. By combining documentary and studio reenactments, Mashouf looks at the blurring of world borders, and the looming threat of another war in the Middle East.

Mashouf will be screening the 70 minute documentary in addition to speaking about his experiences in Iran, his detention by Homeland Security and the confiscation of his video footage on suspicion of terrorism.

The screening is sponsored by Asian Pacific American Student Affairs, the Center for Middle East Studies, and the School of Media Arts.

Focus on Matthew Harp

Matthew Harp (BFA 98) was acknowledged as a Library Journal "Mover and Shaker" for his work producing the Library Channel and the Library Minute videos.

Please see the full story here:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/MS2010Inductee/2140493373.html

Congratulations Matthew!

An Update from Daphne Riahi

An update from Alum Daphne Riahi (BA 91):

“After graduation I returned home to Alaska and became a writer for the Anchorage Times.  I received an MBA at Alaska Pacific University (APU), spent a semester in Vladivostok, Russia and then a year abroad in France as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.  

In 1995 I returned to the US and started my career in investment management at Barra/RogersCasey in Darien,CT and NY City.  My husband Doug and I were married in 1997 and in 1998, I worked in Risk Management at Pimco/Columbus Circle.  From 1999 through 2002, I worked for IBM Retirement Funds and received the CFA charter.  I taught business courses through APU's distance learning program and CFA courses locally until 2004 when our daughter was born.   While working as a portfolio manager for a fund of hedge funds through 2006, I also volunteered for the Stamford CFA Society Board (2002-2008) and was society President for ’05-'06.   

Since then I've volunteered as Finance Chair for our daughter's preschool and currently work in the finance committees of her elementary school and a NYC not-for-profit organization.  For hobbies, I love to travel with my family, hike, ski, research investments, and read, write and relax with our two Siamese cats.”

Checking in with Michael Toubassi

Saosin

Alum Michael Toubassi (BA 95) is launching a new website for his Upstairs Film production company.

http://www.upstairsfilm.com/

Michael also just produced/directed an EPK for Universal Pictures' "Repo Men"  and produced/edited a Behind-the-Scenes short for Capitol Records band Saosin at Old Tucson Studios.

Focus on Ashley Hillard

 Actress Mali Elfman

Alum Ashley Hillard (BA 06) has provided us with this news:

“I have my first short under my production company banner, Good Grace's Productions LLC, called “First Night,” and I am producing another short called “Pluto.”  “First Night” is out to film festivals.  I am also currently working on several features and am managing two actresses, Katharine McEwan and Mali Elfman.  Also, I am still writing for Australian movie news and reviews site Moviehole.net and regularly attend press screenings and junkets.”

Focus on Rachel Ellis Adams

Rachel Ellis Adams (MA 02) is on the teaching faculty in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.  She teaches "Introduction to Electronic Media Production," which is half in-studio multi-camera production and half classroom-based "media aesthetics" theory.  She is also working on her third screenplay, a comedic suspense-horror film based on an allegory of selfishness.  

The Reel Girls Guide

Alumna Reena Dutt (BA 98) is the founder of Off-Chance Productions.

Off-Chance Productions announces the launch of their web series, “The Real Girls Guide To Everything Else,” on Strike.TV.  Starring Robin Daléa (“Without a Trace, What I like about You”), Bruno Oliver (“House, Mad Men”) Reena Dutt (“Medium, Criminal Minds”). “The Real Girl’s Guide” is a multi-ethnic, feminist response to the genre of “chick-lit” targeting women who are under-represented by main-stream women’s film and fiction.

In this first six-episode season shot by Emmy-award winning Director of Photography Robert C. Webb and directed by award-winner Heather de Michele, we follow Rasha (Ms. Daléa), a Lebanese lesbian and political journalist who is determined to write a book about the Afghan women’s struggle for civil rights. However, in order to finance this dream project, she decides to write a more marketable chick-lit book first, forcing her to go undercover as a Cosmo-drinking straight girlie-girl to research a world outside her comfort zone.

 More information and a trailer can be found at www.TheRealGirlsGuide.com

Created and written by Carmen Elena Mitchell (MTV Pocket Books Fiction Award Winner), “The Real Girl’s Guide” was born out of a frustration with the cookie-cutter stories marketed towards women. She argues that although many of the chick-lit and chick flick protagonists are smart, savvy career girls, a lot of these stories are simply revamped fairy tales “So even though the women in these stories have careers,” Ms. Mitchell explains, “their achievements are overshadowed by the quest to snag some inaccessible prince. I wanted to see stories about women who read books, who had dreams that directly impacted the world they live in and who didn’t buy into the idea that being female is something you have to paint or pluck or buy. I also wanted to see a group of friends who were ethnically diverse and whose friendship grew out of something besides bonding over men and shopping.”

The folks at Strike.TV obviously concur.  As an organization formed by a group of WGA writers during the strike, compelling stories and strong writing are the first things considered when choosing projects to support. With web series created by the writers of The Office, The Daily Show, Prairie Home Companion and a host of other well-known names already airing on Strike.TV, “The Real Girl’s Guide” will be in great company.

Future installments will focus on each of Rasha’s friends (an African American fashionista, a Caucasian nurse and free-spirited Indian-American artist) as they all navigate the world of politics, double-shifts, same–sex marriage and bargain basement girl-culture.

Congratulations Rena!

Checking in with Kelsey Self

On the "Artificial Ties" set

Alumna Kelsey Self (BA 2009) is currently working in the local Tucson film community and worked as an editor and sound editor on the recently completed short film “Artificial Ties,” directed by current UA Eller student Nick Costello. The film is being submitted to film festivals all over the country. Kelsey provided editing assistance for the “Precious Knowledge” PBS documentary and was a PA on set of the short “Blood Moon” filmed at Old Tucson Studios by New York production company Triboro Pictures. 

 

Warring Factions

Alum Justin Mashouf (BFA 2008) is screening his “Warring Factions” documentary.

 "As forces in American government and media have fueled the perception of an unavoidable war with Iran, Warring Factions is a call to (dis)arms. An American-born Iranian breakdancer finds cultural awakening by exploring his multi-ethnic roots. Faced with dual nationality in two conflicting countries, he travels to Iran to examine the political issues first-hand while exploring his cultural identity with a group of Iranian b-boys. By combining documentary and studio reenactments, Warring Factions looks at the blurring of world borders, and the looming threat of another war in the Middle East."

For more information about Justin’s documentary:

http://www.warringfactions.com

Christina Fasset Strikes a Pose

Christina Fassett (BA 07) currently holds the title of Miss California Essence 2010 and will be competing for the National Title of Miss Essence 2010 in Kansas City, MO this summer. Her platform is the S.A.V.E Campaign: Keeping Students on The Right Track.   Good luck in the pageant Christina!

Update on Tony Velarde

Alum Tony Velarde (BA 2006) served as the Production Coordinator on Roberto Gudiño’s short “The Groundskeeper” and is wrapping up his post-production coordinator position with the “Jersey Shore” for 495 Productions.