Derek Horne

University of Southern California (USC) - location: Los Angeles, CA.

Three USC students made it to the Student Academy Award finals and though they didn't take home a medal, their work has indeed been validated.

"It helps my family to understand what I'm doing here at school," said Chansoo Kim whose one and a half minute film Floating was nominated in the Animation category.

Inspired by a dream of floating around a roomful of people, Chansoo committed his vision to Kodak 5245 EXR 50ASA Daylight film. "I used a very traditional technique to make Floating. The basic materials used were newsprint paper and prismacolor pencils," he said. "It took nine months to complete the film. I worked by myself, other than the music performed by Hye Kwon."

Even though her film wasn't a part of the official ceremony, Heather Benz has already received interest in her documentary film Back to Back. "I did get an invitation to enter a festival free of charge because of the nomination and a Hollywood production company inquired about the movie, although I'm sure they didn't realize it was a documentary," she said.

Back to Back is about a cycling enthusiast who creates an unusual bicycle for himself and his wife. Having an obsession for tandem bikes, Heather chose this topic to fulfill a 4 minute long class assignment.

"Since the class had very rigid rules about the amount of film we were allowed to use, we had to plan things out carefully in advance," she explained. "Before shooting we filled notebooks with images we thought were relevant to the look of the film we were trying to create. I did some test shooting at one of our main locations with a video camera. Also, it was decided in advance that every time a bicycle passed the frame it would be travelling from right to left, so that it would be easier to cut things together."

Shooting on 16mm B&W film, Heather and her DP Tory Foster completed the film in half a semester. "We lost some film due to technical problems," she recalled. "This reduced our already low shooting ratio to less than 5:1. Also, it rained during one of our outdoor shoots."

Victor Viyuoh experienced his own share of problems when filming his narrative film entitled Mboutoukou in his native country. "I had no phone in Cameroon, but that wasn't too bad because phone lines seldom went through anyway," Victor recalled. "I was counting on emails, but I found out even emails took a week to get to me."

Victor took five USC students to Africa with him. The rest of the crew were his family and friends in the village. "This was important because one of my main reasons for shooting back home was to give them a chance to learn filmmaking," he explained. "The US crew trained people as Script Supervisor, 2nd AC, and Boom Operator."

After a 13 day shoot, they discovered ghosting on some of the images. "So, on that last day when the crew was supposed to catch their flight back to the US, we had to pickup a whole scene, a scene that had taken us a day to shoot," he said. "We re-shot the entire scene in less than an hour, loaded our equipment and luggage into a van, and drove 6 hours to the airport."

The actors were auditioned at the Presbyterian Secondary School in Bamenda. They shot most of the film on existing locations and built a few huts. "Since we could not carry a lot of grip gear from the US, we built 4x4 frames out of PVC plumbing pipes," he said. "With a great deal of the shoot taking place on hillsides, the villagers helped to carry all the film gear down the hill on their heads."

Victor and his dp Clay Westervelt chose Kodak film (EXR 7245 50 ASA and Vision 250 Daylight 7246) to tell the story of a 12 year old boy's determination to get termites out of a termite mound.

In addition to being a finalist for the Student Academy Awards, Victor won the Kelts Trust Award as well as the Edward Small Directing Award. Having recently graduated with an MFA in film production, Victor acknowledges the classes and teachers who have left an Impression on him. "With Mboutoukou, for example, I stood on the shoulders of some great teachers," he said. "Paul Wolansky was extremely influential on how the script turned out, John Syrjamaki okayed the international shoot and advised me on what pitfalls to avoid, and my mentor, Brenda Goodman, gave invaluable producing advice, hugged me when things were tough and pushed me when I got lazy. It was a very rewarding experience."

Being half way into her graduate degree at USC, Heather acknowledges Scott Gorden in screenwriting and Norman Hollyn in editing as being the teachers she has learned from the most. "I wanted to go to school where I could focus on documentary filmmaking but also learn about narrative filmmaking," she explained about her choice in attending USC.

"I think people are encouraged to develop personal expression, while technology is also playing an important part in the program," said Chanoo who is in his third year in the MFA Animation & Digital Arts program. "I appreciate this balance between art and technique. He also attributes most of his learning to Kathy Smith "an amazing artist and a good teacher."

"USC has an illustrious alumni," added Victor. "John Singleton and Robert Zemeckis went to school here. The idea of Singleton bursting out of film school and making a movie was way too appealing to ignore." Although USC handles the distribution of all their student films, Victor hopes to see his film Mboutoukou screen at CRTV, Cameroon's only TV station.