FALL 2014 IN MOTION

TheTHREE Pioneering Faculty WhoNEW Are Heading Up theC Production,HA IRS Animation and Media Arts + Practice Divisions

MAD MEN ALUMNI A Legendary Show with a Unique Trojan Connection RESEARCH@SCA Changing the World in Unexpected Ways

PLUS: SCA GETS AN IMAX COMEDY@SCA GOES LIVE!

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

ON THE COVER:

Chair of the John C. Hench Division of DEPARTMENTS Animation & Digital Arts Tom Sito, Chair of the Media Arts + Practice Division Holly Wills, and Chair of the Film & Message from the Dean 3 Television Production Division Mike Fink in the Performance Capture Stage at Year In Review 4 the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts. FACULTY PROFILE: RoBERT JONES 28

IN MOTION FALL 2014 In Memoriam 39 Alumni Quicktakes 40 Dean Elizabeth M. Daley

Senior Associate Dean, ALUMNI TV AND FILMS External Relations Marlene Loadvine IN RELEASE 42 STORIES Associate Dean of Communications & PR, In Motion Managing Editor Kristin Borella

Communications & Development Writer/Editor, In Motion Story Editor Desa Philadelphia MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN Design Roberto A. Gómez In once again ranking the School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) about teaching the necessary skills while encouraging rampant Contributors Allison Engel as the best film school in the United States, The Hollywood creativity. SCA students aren’t intimidated by rapid changes in Ryan Gilmour Hugh Hart Reporter described us as “the uncatchable Moby Dick of the media landscape—they’re excited by them! Eric Lichtenfeld CINEMA AND Desa Philadelphia COMEDY@SCA 8 SCALAR 14 film schools.” Our future-facing curriculum goes beyond film Justin Wilson Also in these pages, we visit our alumnus Matthew Weiner, Katherine Vu ARCHITECTURE 10 and television production, of course. In fact our game design Phillomina Wong program is enjoying a fifth straight year of being ranked the who is in the final season of Mad Men, the show he created Photographers Carell Augustus that has been universally hailed as one of television’s best. You’ll Laura Cechanowicz best in North America by the Princeton Review. And just two Steve Cohn years in, the Division of Media Arts + Practice (MA+P) is also find photos of our brand new Michelle & Kevin Douglas Scott Fisher Roberto A. Gómez already internationally recognized for remarkable, leading-edge IMAX Theatre and Immersive Lab, a gift to our students from Ryan D. Gilmour the Douglas family and the IMAX Corporation. And you’ll go Ramtin Khah research. on a journey through our research labs, which are facilitating These accolades are important because they recognize that partnerships with some of the world’s best companies to Board of Councilors our efforts combine to create something special. The School make innovative discoveries about the potential of bringing the Frank Price (Chair) MAD ALUMNI 16 of Cinematic Arts is successful because all of you pitch in cinematic arts to new fields. Frank Biondi, Jr. Bill M. Mechanic to make it so. This year marked the 85th anniversary of the Barry Diller Barry Meyer You’ll also read about our efforts to increase student support Lee Gabler Sidney Poitier School’s founding and each of those years has been dedicated David Geffen John Riccitiello at the School. This is undoubtedly one of our most important Jim Gianopulos Barney Rosenzweig to making strides in enriching the way we teach practice, in Brian T. Grazer Scott Sassa goals. From our interactions with students around the country, Brad Grey Steven Spielberg improving the facilities and resources our students use, and in Jeffrey Katzenberg John Wells innovating research that can transform the way moving images we know there are many of them who are talented media Alan Levine Jim Wiatt makers who just cannot afford an SCA education without our George Lucas Paul Junger Witt impact our culture. Hard work, in each of these areas, is what’s Michael Lynton Robert Zemeckis help. Student support doesn’t have to be in the millions of Don Mattrick required to stay ahead. dollars; every bit counts and every dollar we raise benefits our IMAX 20 This issue of In Motion is filled with stories about how and why students. Alumni Development Council LEADING we work to stay ahead. The three newest Division Chairs who John August ’94 Neal Moritz ’85 An Anniversary year doesn’t just inspire reflections about the Tim Dowling ’96 Robert Osher ’81 THE WAY grace the cover—Holly Willis of Media Arts + Practice, Mike Susan Downey ’95 Shonda Rhimes ’94 Fink in Production, and Tom Sito in Animation—are focused on School, but also reflections about everyone who has come Bob Ducsay ’86 Jay Roach ’86 through our programs—as students, faculty, parents, staff. I Robert Greenblatt ’87 Bruce Rosenblum ’79 22 making sure our students remain curious and passionate. They Ramses Ishak ’92 Gary Rydstrom ’81 hope you are doing well and that you will seek occasion to James Ishii ’76 Josh Schwartz do so by educating students to be so fluent in the fundamentals Leslie Iwerks ’93 Peter Segal ’84 strengthen your connection to SCA. Polly Cohen Johnsen ’95 Stacey Sher ’85 that they can then freely and confidently deconstruct and Aaron Kaplan ’90 Jason Shuman ’96 reconstruct media. As you’ll see in their discussion, it’s all And I hope you have a wonderful holiday season! Tim Kring John Singleton ’90 Michael Lehmann ’85 Scott Stone ’79 Laird Malamed ’94 Tim Story STUDENT SUPPORT RESEARCH INITIATIVEs Elizabeth M. Daley Michelle Manning ’81 Toper Taylor ’85 Steven J. Ross/Time Warner Andrew Marlowe ’92 Jennifer Todd 29 32 Professor and Dean Derek McLay Randy Zisk ’81 Andrew Millstein

(Clockwise from top) Alum George Lucas; Dean Elizabeth M. Daley; Alex B. McDowell, the William Cameron Menzies Endowed Chair in Production Design; Mike Fink, the George Méliès 2 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS Endowed Chair in Visual Effects; and Bruce Block, the Sergei Eisenstein Endowed Chair in cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 3 Cinematic Design at the dedication of the three chairs in the Ray Stark Family Theatre. YEAR IN REVIEW (Top right) The dedication of Bruce Block as the Throughout the year, the USC School Sergei Eisenstein Endowed Chair in Cinematic Design, Michael Fink as the George Méliès of Cinematic Arts welcomed guests, Endowed Chair in Visual Effects, and Alex McDowell as the William Cameron Menzies alumni, lecturers, and friends from the Endowed Chair in Production Design. (Middle left) George Lucas addresses the entertainment, technology, and video crowd at the dedication of the game industries to speak to students three chairs in the Ray Stark SCA Emmy-winners for their public service announcements— Family Theatre. (Middle Power of PSA and Help a Soldier Heal—(Top row) Eric and faculty. In addition to these guests, right) Special exhibit at Talesnick, Maury Shessel, Anne Popolizio, Garry Ashton, Mansan the Hugh M. Hefner Luc, Michael Maas (Bottom row) Marlo Bluford, Otto Petersen and the calendar included the installation Moving Image Archive John Berardo. in celebration of the of five new endowed chairs, the second Chairs’ dedication. Comedy@SCA Festival, and the opening of the Michelle & Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre and Immersive Lab.

(Top right) Legendary editor Michael Kahn gets his picture taken by Steven Spielberg at the dedication of the Michael Kahn Endowed Chair in Editing. (Above right) Composer John Williams with Kahn, (Above, from left) Michael Kahn Chairholder Norman Hollyn, Kahn, Producer Mark Johnson speaks Spielberg, and Dean Elizabeth Daley. to the Critical Studies course: Television Symposium.

Commencement 2014, Mary Pickford Alumni Award (Top) Jack Epps, Jr., David Isaacs, Barnet Recipient Kevin Feige, Kellman, alumni Peter Segal and Larry Morgan President of Marvel at the Comedy@SCA screening of Grudge Studios (left) with Frank Match. (Above) Segal. Price, Chairman of the USC School of Cinematic Arts Board of Councilors. (Below) Commencement speaker Jim Gianopulos, (Right) At the premiere of Chairman and Chief the documentary Milius Executive Officer of Fox (From left) Ethan Milius, Filmed Entertainment. alum John Milius, alum (Far left) Guests at Amanda Milius, and the Meldman Family Stephanie Milius. (Below) Cinematic Arts Park. Alum Andrew Dodge (Left) Milius with alum and actor Jason Bateman at Dino and Martha De Laurentiis John Singleton and Milius a screening of Bad Words waving to the packed presented by Comedy@SCA. Endowed Professor Mary Sweeney with Academy-Award house at the premiere. nominated writer Bob Nelson talk Susan Downey, alum and producer of The Judge and the Sherlock about his film Nebraska. Holmes films, visits Leonard Maltin’s Film Symposium.

(Left) Alumni Matthew Weiner and Erin Levy from Mad Men. (Right) Weiner, Levy, Actress Elisabeth Moss, writer Jonathan Igla, director of photography Chris Manley, producer Scott Hornbacher, co-producer Alum Kevin Feige with writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Marcy Patterson, costume designer Janie Bryant, and Markus at the screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Professor Howard Rosenberg. 4 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 5 Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor Mary Sweeney interviews award-winning director David O. Russell.

(Above) Tom Abrahms, Don Bohlinger, Ted Braun, David Howard, Mardik Martin, Jack Epps, Jr., Mark Shepherd, The second Comedy@SCA Festival attracted luminaries in the comedy world Georgia Jeffries and Howard A. Rodman at An Evening including (Clockwise from left) Lisa Kudrow; Lawrence O’Donnell, Conan O’Brien, with Mardik Martin. (Right) Martin with his family. Greg Daniels, and Al Jean; Barry Pascal, David Sonne and James Burrows; Joanna Cherensky, Dana Fox, Tracy Oliver, Jen Statsky and Katy Dipplod; Tom Sito, James L. Brooks, Vicky Jenson, David Silverman, Matt O’Callahagn, and Richard Appel; Mitchell Hurwitz, Jay Sandrich, Tony Thomas, and Paul Junger Witt; and Betty White. (Left to right) Screening of the filmNeighbors presented by the SCA Network and Comedy@ SCA; A student takes a selfie with Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Dave Franco; Mintz- Plasse, Carmichael, Professor Barnet Kelman, and Franco.

Editor Dean Zimmerman (left) with alum/director/ producer Shawn Levy Chief Executive Officer of Pixar Professor David Isaacs at a screening of Ed Catmull signing a copy of his with Director Jake This Is Where I Leave You. book Creativity Inc. and being Kasdan at a screening interviewed by Andrew Millstein of Sex Tape. from Disney. (From top left) Artist Jack R. Smith, actor Grant Show, actress Katherine LaNasa, Marin Hopper and Crash show runner Glen Mazzara at the opening of Part of Being an Artist: The Dennis Hopper Collection (Left to right) Kevin Douglas, Michelle Douglas, - Selected Works and Steven Spielberg, Dean Elizabeth M. Daley, Ephemera IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond, and President of IMAX Entertainment Greg Foster at the opening of the Michelle & Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre and Immersive Lab; Guests at reception; OptiTrack performers in the Performance Capture Lab; A demonstration of IMAX 3D for guests.

Demo Day, USC Games’ twice-yearly exhibition of student video games, attracted large crowds to hands on demonstrations of the student video games. Provost Elizabeth Garrett, Distinguished Professor/Chairholder Mark J. Harris, and USC Trustee Verna Dauterive at the Dedication of the Mona and Bernard Kantor Chair in Production. 6 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 7 Cold reads, jangled nerves about eighty sketches for the class. “From a yoga class undone by an angry instructor, LIVE what Pam’s told us, it’s a pretty accurate a loaves and fishes “holy diet” and an For the first show, filmed on March 7, the experience in that we have to work with unexpected turn on a torture scene called four-hour dress rehearsal was mostly chaos. other divisions that may have their own “Zero Dark Dirty.” A fish sticks commercial from USC, Chatter from the four camera operators to take on the sketches.” Veasey was pointed in from animation student Brian Rhodes the control booth was constant. “They keep her critiques, occasionally giving praise and was added to the mix. There were some moving, and it’s hard to keep them in focus.” occasionally being very funny herself. “I love rough moments in the control room, with it’s Comedy “Which camera should he be looking at?” doing this,” she said. “The students want it so a missed cue and the show going a minute “It’s a waist shot?” “So we’re going straight much. They have my whole career ahead of over, but Professor Joel Parker said, “We got from shot 1 to shot 4?” “I can’t hear through them.” Dress rehearsal for the second show everything in this time.” He continued “You my headset.” was smoother, despite some students being can’t know what you don’t know until you Night! Sketches included Staal playing Tim Gunn starstruck by the host. “Oh, my God, I was do it and when a show is live, the lessons (Project Runway) on the red carpet and floored,” said Kevin Vaughan, a second-year come really fast. What these students are actor Sheridan Pierce doing a spot-on grad student in directing. “Horatio Sanz is learning almost can’t be measured.” On by Allison Engel impersonation of Zooey Deschanel as a among my all-time SNL favorites. I was very the season finale, broadcast April 25, host perky prison counselor. (The writers made nervous talking to him. I’m still shaking.” Sanz, Misty Monroe appeared in the open and use of her Deschanel impersonation in the for his part, also admitted to some butterflies. two sketches, and there were sketches on, In what is arguably the coolest course offered this year, next two shows, showcasing her as a perky “I’m a little nervous, always.” When asked among other topics, befuddling locker room murder investigator and a perky marriage how the Comedy@SCA Live vibe compared interviews, awkward prom photos and Lady directors and writers from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, therapist.) At show’s end, actor Riley Smith, to that at SNL, he said, “This is more like it Gaga’s fashion choices. The project, by all who also was consistently funny, summed it would be on a Wednesday when we’re measures, was a huge success. Afterward, production students from Trojan Vision, and actors from the USC up best. “I honestly thought it was going to rehearsing.” Epps declared, “It was an amazing experience that greatly exceeded my expectations. We School of Dramatic Arts produced a sketch comedy show—filmed be a disaster, and it honestly wasn’t.” Then By all measures, a big success it was promptly back to work, with the just wrapped the class a couple of days ago before a studio audience and broadcasted live on television. writers pounding out new sketches in the Sanz did the cold open with cue cards— and when I bump into students from the class, writer’s room that Veasey ran like one at a another learning experience for the we’re all going through comedy withdrawal. network. Senior Kenny Martin estimated that production staff—and appeared in one Who knew USC had such a talented funny he and others each wrote or punched up sketch, “Street Eats.” Other sketches included bone? I’m counting down the days until we In other words, USC’s version of Saturday Night Live. do this again next year.”

The academic project was complete The USC School of Cinematic Arts is with high-stakes pitching in the writer’s serious about comedy, offering twenty room, last-minute schedule shifts, drama courses throughout its divisions for students A Minor in focusing on the genre. For the Comedy@ in the control booth, and actors dealing SCA Live project, the logistics were daunting Comedy with fast set changes. The project’s and collaboration was key. It involved sixty three episodes featured professional students in four classes—eleven students In addition to breaking ground with guest hosts: Jim Staahl (SCTV, Curb in a sketch-comedy writing class taught by Comedy LIVE! the School of Cinematic Arts offers Your Enthusiasm), Misty Monroe (The Pam Veasey, whose lengthy producing and a Minor in Comedy. Groundlings, How I Met Your Mother), and writing credits include In Living Color and The Gregory Hines Show; twelve students in “The comedy minor gives undergraduate candidates Horatio Sanz (SNL). a sketch-comedy directing class taught by the chance to explore and develop their individual The Comedy@SCA brain trust Phil Ramuno, who co-wrote the book on comic voice in an academic setting,” said Isaacs. “This directing sitcoms (The Sitcom Career Book) is a unique opportunity to participate in working The idea was dreamed up by Jack Epps, and has helmed many, including Nine to Five, classes that create, analyze and live comedy. The Jr., (who served as the “Lorne Michaels” Gimme a Break and Soap; twelve students Comedy Minor at the School of Cinematic Arts is a of the show), Barnet Kellman, and David in a Dramatic Arts sketch-comedy acting truly unique college experience.” Isaacs, principals of the Comedy@SCA class taught by Kristin Eggers ’01, a veteran initiative. The three have major Hollywood of The Groundlings and Fox Comedy Hour; Students interested in the Minor in Comedy should credits as key players behind Frasier, Cheers, and twenty five students in a Trojan Vision contact the Writing Division at the USC School of The Simpsons, M*A*S*H (Isaacs), Murphy production class taught by Joel Parker, who Cinematic Arts at [email protected] Brown, Mad About You (Kellman) and Dick oversees eleven hours of live programming Tracy, Turner & Hooch, Top Gun (Epps). each week at the station.

8 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 9 Where Cinema and Architecture Intersect by Claudia Guerra

> At the School of Cinematic Arts’ Media Arts + Practice Division, Behnaz Farahi, an architect and second year Ph.D. student, has created a number of installations she calls “Breathing Walls.” Prime examples of what is called responsive or interactive architecture, her walls literally respond to human prompts with physical actions. Gestures such as swiping and tapping are read by the wall and interpreted into movement by its aluminum ribs. A feedback loop between user and architecture is created, wherein the wall’s “brain” learns from each interaction. As inputs read by a microprocessor become more numerous, the wall’s response becomes more complex. Even Farahi doesn’t know exactly how the wall will respond. It is an exploration of the relationship between humans and the built environment, and what stories can emerge from that relationship over time.

While architectural spaces have often served as of space can help communicate with the user—maybe characters in film, using constructed space as the actual calm them down or make them excited.” She explains platform for storytelling is a more recent development the relationship between inhabitant and an interactive “We are exploring how it feels that has emerged from the interdisciplinary nature built environment as similar to “the relationship you to have a wall that might hug of the Media Arts + Practice Division (MA+P). What might have with your dog. You’re telling them what started as a specific collaboration between the School to do, but they have this intelligence in the system. you or might move away from of Cinematic Arts and Professor Greg Otto at the USC They can interact with you and they can build on you. It’s a good way to start School of Architecture, to study the practical applications learning.” Eventually she hopes to create a system that thinking about what the next of interactive architecture, has become a greater can organize and sustain itself, while interacting with partnership. Faculty and students have been crossing its user in a constant feedback loop, moving beyond form of architecture will be.” over from one school to the other and at least one static architectural scenarios and into the realm of course is being developed in tandem between the two storytelling. schools. In addition, funded research projects with Intel, Steelcase and other companies, as well as a recent influx Is this the new intersection of cinema and architecture? of architects into MA+P’s Ph.D. program, are all helping “Suddenly we have a confluence of people, materials SCA explore the potential of architecture as a cinematic and funding around this particular question,” says Holly medium. Willis, Chair of MA+P. “Everything we do now is very non-linear, distributed. It’s participatory, collaborative, For example, Farahi is particularly interested in and immersive. So how do we create new ways for “exploring how the kinetic and physical reconfiguration that to function?” In the collision of two rigid and linear

10 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 11 “The best thing an academic program can do is offer a Different phases of Media Arts + Practice Ph.D. Candidate space for asking, answering, Behnaz Frahi’s Breathing Wall. pursuing and researching a set of questions.” set, the world develops organically and is capable of architectural perspective to the division’s research on delivering a multitude of narratives within the space storytelling across multiple forms of media. Aroosiak as students interrogate its rules based on a variety of Gabrelian is exploring how the time and motion based interests. Catastrophic events, fuel source acrimony, medium of cinema can express the temporal nature and the inevitable plague have all played a part in the of landscape and built environment. She uses Google development of this fictional world. Street View to create new landscape design fictions and hopes to eventually manipulate the raw imagery Students pull out individual narratives with more or less such that her viewers can actually travel through the architectural results. Terraforming, where the city grows story space. Biayna Bogosian is looking at how different disciplines, the traditional paradigm of narrative is being heart rates), could the room perhaps intervene in a itself, has been one productive outcome on a variety environmental and media inputs can be used to design a rewritten. Cinema is being re-imagined by re-imagining discussion, pull up a similar conversation from three of scales. There are also Oculus Rift projects where more efficient living environment. She sees architecture architecture. years ago and then make a new suggestion, or maybe, as a virtual reality experience is created. Like its initial as a series of data, and media as the act of translating it gets to know people, feed them information tailored conceit, McDowell’s class has also grown organically. It such data. Combining media with architecture gives At the Mobile Environmental Media Lab (MEML), to their interests. has essentially become open source as schools from her a much larger platform to create a narrative and Dean of Research Scott Fisher and Researcher Jen around the world have started working with the customize the environments she creates. Stein have been working with enormous amounts of As part of the project, MEML is working on an emotive framework that the class developed. (A story on SCA’s data generated by four thousand sensors built into the response interface, where a room knows that you have research labs is on page 32.) Throughout MA+P students and faculty are attempting School’s Interactive Media Building, which houses the walked in and acknowledges your presence. At the to transcend the two-dimensional screen, turning the Division. Most of these sensors track climatic data, but moment it is just a lighting change (they have created a While MA+P is most certainly leading the way in audience from passive observers into active participants there are also sensors that capture the behavior of its threshold that illuminates when it recognizes a friendly defining the intersection of architecture and the in the story-making process itself. As narrative becomes residents, such as their movements through its spaces. face) but, Stein adds, “we are exploring how it feels to cinematic arts, other explorations are emerging. Block, more immersive and less linear, why wouldn’t the “We were curious if there was something we could do have a wall that might hug you or might move away an interactive city-building game was created by Jose architectural space of this immersive experience be an with that in a narrative sense,” explains Fisher. “Could from you. It’s a good way to start thinking about what Sanchez, a Professor at the USC School of Architecture integral part of the story? we make the building a character that tells stories about the next form of architecture will be.” who works with SCA’s Game Innovation Lab and whose what happens in the building?” In fact, almost all of the construction game Bloom was featured in London during “The best thing an academic program can do is offer lab’s current projects explore the narrative capabilities In trying to determine which architectural platforms the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. Block encourages a space for asking, answering, pursuing and researching of the built environment in some way. MEML’s eventual work for which narratives, Professor Alex McDowell’s users to think of architecture in its relationship to a set of questions,” says Willis. By virtue of its radically goal is to create architecture that not only broadcasts World Building course is a good place to start. environmental and ecological systems, rather than purely interdisciplinary nature, MA+P is uniquely capable of stories, but can author them as well. McDowell teaches students how to create the kind by design and appearance. City data from Los Angeles, navigating the edge between cinema and architecture. of worlds that will influence rich narratives, regardless such as transportation and energy costs, is used as a For instance, in their partnership with Steelcase, MEML of genre. To instigate the explorations, McDowell asks structure for players to create cities and neighborhoods “We’re trying to re-imagine what cinema can be,” adds has been tasked with imagining the workplace of the “what happens when you introduce a narrative conceit that will efficiently and economically meet the needs of Fisher. “We’re not sure exactly where it’s going to future. Could interactive architecture make a room so to a fictional world?” In their latest project, students real populations. go, but it’s already amazing.” In this kind of academic adaptable and responsive that it becomes an integral have developed a specific set of rules for a city named environment, there are no limits to the ways stories can member of a design team? In addition to recording Rilao set on a steep island in the South Pacific that is This fall, two additional architects joined the MA+P be told. what’s happening in the room (including participants’ too small for its current population. Once the logic is Ph.D. program. Their presence adds even more

12 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 13 including the public media archive Critical “tags” that group related content. “It’s a small designed it for,” says McPherson. After its Publishing that takes Commons led by USC professor Steve set of relations between the content but it’s beta release in early 2013, Scalar won an Anderson, offer creators built-in access to really powerful and really flexible,” explains Editor’s Choice award from PC Magazine. the E-Book to materials without additional hurdles like Erik Loyer, Scalar’s Creative Director. trips to the library or clearing copyrights. Moreover, as its name suggests, the Scalar Considering that the demand for online New Dimensions The platform is also easy to use. Like many platform offers the user (it’s tempting to say journals is only growing, the Scalar platform blog sites, you don’t have to know how to “reader”) the ability to consider the work should have an exciting journey as it is code to use Scalar; often just inputting a on different scales, whether contemplating frequently reinvented to facilitate scholarly link and text is enough. However, the open the project as a whole presentation, or communication online. “There’s a real Scalar demand for a format to write this kind source and extensible nature of the platform focusing on its various parts—a video or means authors with coding expertise can photo for instance. (Compare it to the way of work,” says Loyer, a media artist who specializes in interactive essays (he is also Enter Scalar, a I want to communicate. Now what’s the personalize its capabilities. McPherson says a user can zoom in and out when using All digital writing is not created the Creative Director of Vectors). “The way web authoring best form or medium to communicate such manipulations are welcome. “One of Google Maps.) Scalar links to media creates a chain from equal. A student writing for the and publishing that in?” the goals we have for Scalar is to stretch Another exciting development is that the scholar to the archive to the public that platform people’s imagination about how they can School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) Scalar is already showing promise beyond can be really seamless,” he says. “And that’s designed Scalar grew out of work on the digital communicate and how they can undertake academia. “Scalar is now being used by what we see people getting really excited website might be happy that specifically to journal Vectors, which highlights the research,” she says. creative writers and by artists interested about.” accommodate cultural changes the illustration of her blog post Perusing a finished Scalar publication is in new, interactive forms of documentary. digital writing catalyzed by really remarkable. The end-user can choose We’re pleased to see this broader uptake for academic technology. is just one embedded movie or her own “path” through the materials, and look forward to having creators take purposes. “It was The idea With reporting from sometimes based on her interests using Scalar in directions beyond what we initially Phillomina Wong game trailer. But when working designed with scholars also benefited on her thesis project she needs to or students in mind, to think about new ways to do academic writing, but it can from a reference so many different kinds be used by anybody,” says SCA Professor growing pool of of media that linking, embedding Tara McPherson, who spearheaded the development team. “It’s a way to think scholars A review of a and referencing become a new- about new kinds of writing for the 21st who wanted to work A project that uses museum exhibit that uses media nightmare. century, and that includes multiple kinds of Scalar’s API to create an multimedia for a scholarly media as well as text.” with digital materials in their scholarship. app-like experience: journal: With support from the Andrew W. Mellon The platform allows users to create long Foundation and the National Endowment by Desa Philadelphia freedoms-ring.org scalar.usc.edu/hc/ form writing that is born-digital. It’s like for the Humanities, McPherson led a team caa.reviews-bernini taking an e-book and turning it upside to create the Alliance for Networking down, side-to-side and inside out because Visual Culture, charged with studying Scalar deliberately expands on traditional and creating scholarly visual media. The linear presentations. Instead, it allows the Alliance released Scalar as an open source author to link, combine, or layer source platform, partnering with archives, libraries materials—whether it’s her own text or and university presses to provide the kind movie, or YouTube clips, other articles, of content and relationships that would data visualizations or sound. If it exists demonstrate its potential. on the internet, there is a way for her to A scholarly article incorporate it into a Scalar book, and to do Scalar projects like Performing Archive: Curtis + “the vanishing race,” which includes written in Scalar that so in a way that is uniquely her own. “Scalar includes a media archive: A project is consistent with the way we try to teach at scholarly essays and Edward S. Curtis’ exploring over 2,500 the Cinema School,” says McPherson, who historic photographs of the American West scalar.usc.edu/anvc/ photographs by the chaosandcontrol teaches in the Critical Studies and Media and its Native peoples, and Freedom’s Ring, photographer Edward Curtis which also involved students: Arts + Practice divisions. “We want both a multimedia exploration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech, offer media-rich students and scholars to think: here’s what scalar.usc.edu/works/ annotated displays. The project’s partners, performingarchive

For more information or to view these and many more projects in action, visit: scalar.usc.edu/scalar/showcase

14 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 15 MAD ALUMNI We found that Trojan family ties at Mad Men were indeed strong, as represented by the list of USC grads listed in these The SCA Mafia. pages. The visit also gave us a chance to catch up with Mad Men creator and principal writer Matthew Weiner, SCA We’ve all heard the term. alum and winner of many awards, among them several Emmys and the Mary Pickford Award (which is given to an It’s the politically incorrect way of SCA alum who has made transformative contributions to the entertainment industry).

saying we like each other so much We asked Matthew what he looks for when hiring new staff, that we keep collaborating again especially among graduates from the alma mater. MW: I’m one of those people who believe there’s more to and again. We heard that SCA education than getting a job—that it has other purposes, like enriching your life and making you a better artist, a better audience member, and that it informs all aspects of your was strongly represented among experience of living. And one of the things that I like about the people from USC is that they seem to be educated. And the staff of the award-winning that’s much more what I’m interested in. Someone who, with or without academic success, knows something about show Mad Men. Since the show the world, has seen a bunch of movies, has read a bunch of books, and I also think it’s just the kind of person that goes is in the process of wrapping up to USC. I feel like I get curious people who can contribute in ways other than just doing their job.

production, we thought we’d In Motion: It’s funny that you mentioned curiosity because that’s one of the things that Dean Daley likes to say she’s better investigate quickly. looking for. Talent matters, but you can’t teach students to be interested. So when you taught at SC...

MW: I only taught for one semester.

In Motion: Well, I guess it’s made a lasting impression there By Desa Philadelphia because people talk about it as if you were there longer.

MW: Well, it’s kind of the fantasy on some level because two of the people who were in the class of eight people actually Photography by Roberto A. Gómez came to work with me.

In Motion: I think that’s why it’s become the stuff of legend.

MW: I didn’t have a show; I was on The Sopranos when I did it. But that program [SCA Writing] was so hard to get into and there is a lot of talent in it, and they are young people who worked for a few years before they came to work for me,

16 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 17 is wrapping up its final season, so we asked its USC alumni to tell us what job(s) they did to bring MadMen the period drama to life, and what they plan to do now that they’ve returned from the stylish 1960s.

Heather Jeng Bladt SCA, Writing for Screen & Television, 2005 Mad Men Job Title: Writer and Assistant to Matthew Weiner Jonathan Igla What she’s up to now: Currently writing projects of SCA, Writing for Screen & Television, 2005 my own and looking to write on another great show. Mad Men Job Title: Writer/Executive Story Editor What he’s up to now: Writing the feature Under Cover for Summit/Lionsgate and Mandeville Films; trying to teach my dogs to replicate the incredible Melissa Bly McSorley breakdancing move they accidentally performed. Dornsife, Psychology, 1985 Mad Men Job Title: Food Stylist/Prop Assistant What she’s up to now: I am currently working on State of Affairs for NBC. Jenny Koreny SCA, Film & Television Production, 2013 Mad Men Job Title: 2nd Assistant to Scott Hornbacher and Marcy Patterson What she’s up to now: Recently produced and Bartholomew Burcham directed a slate of shorts for Google Glass. SCA, Critical Studies, 2004 Mad Men Job Title: Assistant Editor What he’s up to now: I would love to teach at USC in the future. Erin Levy SCA, Writing for Screen & Television, 2005 Mad Men Job Title: Writer/Supervising Producer What she’s up to now: I’m working on a couple Kendra Shay Clark projects and attempting to reintegrate into civilian life. SCA, Stark Producing Program, 2005 Mad Men Job Title: Casting Associate What she’s up to now: Casting Director on Aquarius, a new show for NBC. Marcy Patterson SCA, Film & Television Production, 2002 and they worked their way up here. The interesting thing is that In Motion: What do you think of web product? Because a lot of Mad Men Job Title: Co-Producer having talent and being able to execute something based on talent people now are trying to create some kind of TV on the web. Stephanie Drake What she’s up to now: Looking to produce other great work! or having the tenaciousness to stay in it, that’s a personality thing. Dramatic Arts, Theatre, 2005 Part of my teaching mission was to not just emphasize writing, MW: I think, as was proved by the Writer’s Guild strike, there is no Mad Men Job Title: Actress (Played “Meredith”) but also staying with writing, because your time becomes divided difference whatsoever, except for access to an audience. I have little What she’s up to now: Recently enjoyed a great trip kids who do not know that Netflix is an internet-based company. to Italy and will be busy looking for my next great role! Lindsey Villarreal very quickly into the show business part of your career, which The button is on the remote, so that’s all there is to it. YouTube, SCA, Film & Television Production, 2013 is networking and hearing about jobs and getting interviews and Google, depending on what happens with Net Neutrality, we’ll Mad Men Job Title: Producers’ Assistant writing spec material and judging the marketplace and all these What she’s up to now: Looking for new and exciting see how much access we really do have to the audience. Let’s take things that are kind of hard to learn. Matthew D. Egan opportunities in having a future as a writer/producer. something like The Sopranos, which was first on paid-TV, a very Dramatic Arts, Scenic Design, 2005 Honing my improv comedy chops! In Motion: If you are a student in the writing division now, what small slice of the audience but an audience that paid basically by Mad Men Job Title: Propmaker should you be doing in terms of analyzing what’s on television right the episode to get it for three months and they watched all the What he’s up to now: Currently Co-Resident Set/ episodes. And then they watched it on videotape, then DVD, then Lighting Designer and Asst. Technical Director at now, to prepare yourself? Spokane Civic Theatre on HBO Go, then on Netflix, then on iTunes. Once you have this Haley Willis MW: I think that you’re best served by paying attention to possibility, it’s just a matter of who’s going to put up enough money Dramatic Arts, Theatre, 2013 storytelling in general and not thinking about the form so much. It to produce a show the way it’s been done on the network—then Mad Men Job Title: Writers’ PA What she’s up to now: Now pursuing a career as an actor. takes a long time to make it as a writer without saying, “Oh this is on pay cable, then on basic cable—on the internet. And we saw the hot thing,” or “This is the interesting thing,” or “Feature people Netflix do it; there’s nothing that smacks of incredible production Michelle Fellner value and big name talent like House of Cards. So someone will do SCA, Film & Television Production, 2002 are moving into it,” or whatever else it is. Television is changing Mad Men Job Title: Assistant Editor really fast—who knows what it’s going to be in 3 or 4 years. I didn’t that on YouTube. Someone will do that on Google. So when I think about the web, it’s just another channel. People watch Mad Men Carly Wray pay attention to television and here I am. It’s like, who knows if SCA, Stark Producing Program, 2005 undergraduates should be paying attention to games. on their phone. No one foresaw that when we started the show. Gary Freund Mad Men Job Title: Staff Writer What she’s up to now: Currently a writer on NBC’s I think the format is kind of inconsequential. All I can say is that In Motion: Do people sit around and talk about SCA around here, USC Department of Cinema,1949 or are you guys too busy? Mad Men Job Title: Father of property master; new fall show Constantine. finishing things is the most important thing and that I applaud the supplier of materials of the period such as film School on de-emphasizing the pitch process in favor of completed MW: Is there talk about film school? Oh my God, of course there commercials, stationery, moviola, and work. You are much better served, especially as a fledgling writer, is. We had four people on the writing staff out of ten that went instruction in moviola operation. to show that you can execute your ideas rather than just talk What he’s up to now: Seriously retired, but enjoyed there. So there’s some conversation. revisiting my own past. about them.

18 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 19 IMAX comes to USC

Filmmakers at USC now have The School’s Michelle & Kevin Douglas “This gift is not only transformative for small screen,” Spielberg told the audience the distinct IMAX Theatre and Immersive Media Lab, the research efforts of the School but, that had gathered to see a 3D presentation made possible by donations from the most importantly, puts the cutting-edge highlighting the capability of the IMAX opportunity of Douglases, IMAX’s largest shareholders, immersive storytelling, large-format system. He added: “Everything they do and the IMAX Corporation, was unveiled filmmaking, and virtual production tools starts on a small screen. They take their themselves may even help shape the future of as the newest addition to the state of the in our students’ hands,” said SCA Dean work home, and the small screen becomes learning how the technologies. “The students’ exploration art Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Elizabeth M. Daley. With the Zemeckis whatever they can work on—their iPads, of IMAX filmmaking and immersive Arts on June 4th of this year. Center already boasting an impressive their iPhones. They’re used to seeing things storytelling will push the boundaries of the to develop Performance Capture Stage and a World tiny. The result of that is, film students shoot medium, creating experiences we cannot There’s no doubt that the goliath 46’ x Building Media Lab, the addition of the too many close-ups. The result of this is even imagine yet,” Robert Zemeckis said in and envision 26’ IMAX screen will push students out IMAX theater underscores its standing as they’re going to stop shooting close-ups, a statement. of their comfort zones and broaden their one of the most advanced learning facilities and they’re going to start expanding to the understanding of how to visualize their horizons that IMAX demands.” features in the in the country. That pioneering spirit of invention and work. The 50-seat theater and immersive At the IMAX Theater and Immersive creativity is something that IMAX CEO lab houses every tool necessary for Speakers at the launch event included epic proportions Lab, students will get access to tools and Gelfond knows well. “IMAX has been a learning and experiencing the medium: director Steven Spielberg, IMAX CEO emerging technologies to build expertise cinematic innovator since its inception more ceiling-mounted grids for overhead lights, Richard Gelfond, and Kevin Douglas. afforded by IMAX in the format’s newest techniques. They than 45 years ago,” he said. “We take our by Katherine Vu cameras, and sensors; sophisticated 3-D Spielberg praised the School’s forward- will be creating immersive 3D films, commitment to the future of entertainment thinking curriculum and highlighted the technology. projectors for the left and right eyes; built- integrating IMAX into virtual production, very seriously and believe that through this in OptiTrack motion capture cameras; vital importance of embracing new and even experimenting with how to use gift we can help educate future filmmakers and high-speed network connectivity that technologies in a constantly changing the technology in multiplayer game design. of the world on how to use technology to enables streaming of events in real-time. industry. “Film students do work on the These fields are changing so rapidly, students express their vision in new ways.”

20 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 21 LEADING THE WAY { Three New Division Chairs Take Over }

The School of Cinematic Arts’ seven divisions are distinct entities, each growing rapidly with respect to teaching practice as well as innovating research. But in order to make great media the divisions also collaborate a great deal, sharing talent, ideas, and resources. The job of keeping all the parts working together—fluidly and progressively—is a massive undertaking that wouldn’t happen without the nimble orchestrations of the divisions’ Chairs. The Division Chair must wear many hats: part visionary, part fundraiser, part accountant, and part politician (the politician personality might be dominant). It sounds like an intimidating position so we decided to ask the School’s three newest Chairs about their approach to tackling it. This is also our way of introducing them to the SCA Family.

By Desa Philadelphia

Photography by Roberto A. Gómez

22 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 23 domains that require a hundred different service people, grips, gaffers, producers— The fun part about working in a career when they walk out the door at graduation, it, but also in areas of storytelling where it’s {OUR laughter-filled skills—I think I’ve got three of them. I count gathering them together and encouraging as specific as Animation is that you have how do you prioritize? become integral. Does it seem like the field conversation about on my team to help fill in where I don’t them to move on a path they can’t see people who consider themselves individual is just mushrooming to the point where it’s have the skills that are needed, but I think that lets us achieve the things that we artists or individual creative minds, but FINK: Well for us, it’s not too hard to hard to rein it all into curriculum? what it takes to run it’s that big picture of navigating again the need to tell the story. So gathering people we’re all aware that we have to work in a think about this because we’re storytellers. local to the division and then to the vision of all kinds, sometimes with conflicting group. It’s always been about collaboration. If you just keep that one thing in mind—that SITO: One of the strengths of our program an SCA division TOOK of the School. viewpoints, and bringing them together to The finished film is the work of art and you’re there to help these young people is how to adapt animated filmmaking find ways to tell compelling stories—you’re for the new technologies. In my own PLACE in the volume move forward in a unified way is something everything else is a process to get to I’ve always done—and it didn’t hurt that I that point. I think of the division in the on the right path. So, if you hold that personal case, I was thankful that I began was an army officer. same way. Each instructor has individual, as the course you stay on—Does it help my career when a lot of golden age artists of the School’s new IN MOTION: Is that something you can teach people how to tell a story? Does it were ending theirs. I was able to interact relate to Mike, having worked in a field specific talents. Some instructors are performance capture [Laughter] better at experimental filmmaking. Some help them get their voice out there to the with Chuck Jones and the Nine Old Men where you have to oversee so many people world?—it’s not difficult then, to know what and Hanna and Barbera. I knew all those who work together to create a vision? are from the traditional Hollywood type LAB, located in the of animation, yet the sum of everybody’s to do. We have faculty who are experts in guys. When they taught you, it was sort the entire process, and we rely on them to of a master and apprentice kind of thing. Robert Zemeckis Center FINK: Well, there are some similarities IN MOTION:Tom, you’re the new kid efforts creates a broad learning experience between being out in the world of feature on the block in this group. What’s exciting for the students. help set these priorities. Storytelling binds And they didn’t teach you because they for Digital Arts.} film production and then coming here. But to you about going from being primarily us all, no matter what our expertise. liked you personally. [Laughter] They did, the thing that really rings true for me is focused on your own creative work to luckily, but also they wanted what they’ve that I’ve spent most of my career gathering now having this big-vision role? discovered, and what they’ve learned, to IN MOTION: And that’s ultimately what move on to future generations. I feel that’s groups of people together, all with their it’s all about. When you start thinking about IN MOTION: Animation has changed IN MOTION: I’m going to start with SITO: Like Mike, I’ve also worked with a mission for me, to make sure that no own needs: directors of photography, what it is that the students need to know so much, Tom, not just in the way you do a loaded question because I’m not sure production designers, directors, craft large groups of people to make good films. matter how technologically advanced the that everybody knows what a Chair does. new technologies get, there’s still a strong What’s so impactful about this job that emphasis on the basic skills. made you say yes to the gig? HOLLY WILLIS FINK: I did it for the money. Chair of Media Arts + Practice (MA+P), the School’s newest division. IN MOTION: And Holly, your Division Holly Willis previously led the Institute for Multimedia Literacy [Laughter] (IML) where she helped create the groundbreaking programs that has a reputation of trying anything. would lead to MA+P becoming a division in 2013. [Laughter] Well everything that seems like WILLIS: The role of the Division Chair a great idea, intellectually. Is that freeing or is incredible in part because you get to { is it something that keeps you up at night? have an oversight of the big picture of the division and the relationship among WILLIS: I think both. I mean, what’s the divisions and thinking about how that exciting right now is that we’re at this relationship then feeds the larger vision of moment of such tremendous change and the entire School of Cinematic Arts. So we’re getting to witness the transformation it’s this really wonderful way of navigating of cinema, which has been relatively stable between the local and then the larger, for 100 years, into this proliferation of global picture of our future for the School. I storytelling that moves beyond the screen think for me, also, thinking about it in terms into the world around us. The idea of of faculty, students, staff, thinking about it storytelling and user experience, all of that in terms of curriculum, teaching practices, is up for grabs and our students get to research, funding—all of those things are really chart the way. They’re really on the kind of under your domain and things boundaries and the edges of what’s been that you get to think about, worry about, done, kind of taking the legacy of what we MICHAEL FINK strategize about, and try to help move know so well about cinema but moving it Chair of Film & Television Production everything forward. It has tremendous to all these new areas and thinking about Mike Fink is an Academy-Award winning Visual Effects creative potential with the possibility of it not just in terms of new technologies— Supervisor (The Golden Compass, 2008). He holds The having an incredible impact. That part is immersive reality, virtual reality, mobile, Kortschak Family Endowed Chair in Film & Television social media—but also into new domains: great. The other part is that it’s really hard, Production as well as The Georges Méliès Endowed Chair in education, business, architecture. So, for me, navigating all those things and the day to Visual Effects. day of having oversight of all these different {

24 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 25 I think that’s what’s most important right adjunct faculty, primarily because we can what that was. And they had not thought which will bring in writers and animators we’re actually leading the way.” to go where there is no pathway yet. So now; is trying to reckon with this shift. hire working professionals who can’t yet about that. So they just decided they would and live action students to really dive we look for that kind of passion for doing commit to a full time academic career, create their story traditionally because the into creating new, compelling characters, SITO: The challenge of my division is something that hasn’t been done yet. but are really happy to share what they’re technical hurdles, within the parameters whether they’re animated or live action, that years ago when you said Animation, you just meant cartoons. It was always SITO: I think we’re looking for people who IN MOTION: learning on their jobs and what they’re of budget and time, weren’t on their side or environments for those characters or The School as a whole is just Bart Simpson or The Jungle Book or have a fire in their belly to want to make not just teaching students how to master experimenting with. This is invigorating for because they really didn’t know the tools. whatever it is. I’m pretty excited. It’s a lot both full time faculty and for students, and But the tools existed with other students— of fun. whatever. Now, when you say Animation, animation, who love the medium as much the skills that are already in the toolbox you’re saying Visual Effects, you’re saying as we do. And that what’s kind of enjoyable of the professionals out there, but also enlivens the conversation. There’s pressure in Holly’s program and in Interactive Media internally within the faculty to just do & Games—and our students could work Games, you’re saying Interactive. You can’t is seeing the collaboration between the working to think critically about what the watch television without seeing computer students. I’ve taught at other schools where next innovations might be. The idea is better on every level, whether it’s creative with them. They just realized it too late for IN MOTION: You’re talking about pedagogical issues or practical, every day it to pan out on that one project. But it graphics happening. You can’t look at your students are working on their own projects, that we’re always moving forward; that in divisions working together and students phone; you can’t play your game without kind of like [crosses arms across chest]. addition to taking from the industry, we’re issues such as learning to operate an Avid, was a clear signal that we had to address it, being adept at many things. How do and remembering it. I felt, by working collaboratively, particularly Animation. So what I’m happy about is From when I started teaching at USC also contributing to the industry. How does you walk that line at giving students that our program has tried to open up in 1994, I enjoyed watching how the SC that impact your own work, and how you with Tracy [Fullerton] in Interactive Media an interdivisional experience while still [Laughter] & Games. Because what we’re finding is and show all these alternatives to students. students would aid one another. If one had instruct the faculty to think about their nurturing expertise within some area. My generation was more cinema-centric in a problem another one would help them work with students? SITO: I always forget. that students there have great technical SITO: I think it’s varying the faculty so it’s terms of their frames of reference. When out. Seniors would pause to answer the not heavily weighed in one area. That keeps you sat around with a few people, you questions of freshmen and juniors. I liked it vibrant and gives the students choice. could drop a line from The Godfather or that caliber of student; I’d like to continue TOM SITO Your choice of faculty becomes almost like Apocalypse Now and people would know to encourage that. Chair of the John C. Hench casting a movie. I know in animation, when what you were talking about. Now, students Division of Animation & you’re putting animators on an assignment, are more games-focused. You mention Digital Arts you say, ‘This person’s good at comedy. This something from Mortal Combat or Legend IN MOTION: Mike, I feel like it’s probably Tom is a winner of the person’s good at drama. This person’s good of Zelda and they know it all. That’s their most difficult for you because everybody prestigious Jane Foray at animating animals.’ We have teachers that frame of reference. So we try to take that feels they’re a filmmaker these days because Award for lifetime are steeped in traditional techniques, or are in and show them the possibilities. And also the technology is so accessible. What are { achievement from the more experimental, or whose specialty is mixing media. There are movies happening you looking for? International Animator’s non-objective like installations and things now that we call hybrids. A hybrid is a movie Society. He is a veteran of the like that. like Ted or like Guardians of the Galaxy, a live FINK: We’re really looking for a freshness. Hollywood Animation Industry with action movie with animated characters in it, Which is hard to find because young credits that include Disney classics WILLIS: The other thing we’re so both disciplines are working side by side. people today are media saturated and like The Little Mermaid, Beauty & experimenting with is thinking about the We have to prepare our students for that quite often what we see is work that is the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, kind of community that we’re building kind of work. really accomplished. Seventeen year olds, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and outside of the classroom and the ethos and eighteen year olds, applying as freshman, Fantasia 2000. the kind of person that we want to graduate with seriously skilled films. The sound is from the School, whatever division you’re in. IN MOTION: Final Question: What do good. The images are good. Everything is So take the example of the game that we’re you look for in students? Who are you pretty slick. But I’d rather see something a not supposed to know about as faculty, but hoping is finding SCA? little rough around the edges that is trying that the undergraduates experience when to push into new territory and trying to they come in [Reaity Ends Here] and begin WILLIS: For us, at the Ph.D. level, since we take some risks. We’re looking for people FINK: That’s really interesting. I’ve found FINK: It’s very interesting, the struggle chops, understand a lot about how to working across all the different realities. only accept three students, we’re looking who have that kind of freshness, that that we, without knowing it or working at between learning the tool and being a get an image on a screen in a new way, With that, we’ve created students who for visionaries. People who are going to sort of edge and risk-taking, and a real it, get a lot of guidance from the students. creative individual. but know less about production design, come in and rather than thinking they’re take this work to the next level and do commitment to story. We look for it both If I have any instruction, it’s to listen to pacing, and cinematography - what a real going to be the next famous filmmaker, something radical and dramatic out in the in the undergraduates and graduates. We’re the students. There’s a lot of pressure At the end of last term a graduate student camera might shoot so that it feels natural. which may have been the dream that they world. We have very high expectations not looking for people who have really high from students up to the faculty about wanted to do a film using the Oculus Those kinds of skills, which we develop had when they came into USC or to SCA, for the Ph.D. students. For the undergrads, sets of technical skills. We can deal with what they need, about what they think Rift. But a Rift—virtual reality—can see naturally in Production kind of come later instead what’s valued the minute they get we’re looking for people who are innovative, that. Technical skills can be taught. is important, how they view things. And anywhere you look! It’s not as if you’re in Interactive, so we’re trying to bring our here is radical creativity at any cost, like who are working in different areas. They if we pay attention to what they’re doing, shooting a narrative film in the traditional students together to make it all work. And making things, making things quickly, doing don’t have to have any particular skills in things become pretty obvious. The next sense. You have to create the entire Tom and I have just started to work with it fast, being creative, working together. So media offering, but maybe they’ve done time we have a faculty meeting it becomes environment so that you can turn and see; a major studio, and with Jack Epps in the that becomes the ethos the moment they sculpture and music, they’ve combined a discussion. We have a large number of if you hear something, you can turn and see Writing Division, to create a new course get here: “We’re not just here to follow; different creative forms and they’re willing

26 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 27 Editing a Legendary Career with THE by RYAN D. GILMOUR IMPORTANCE of Robert Jones SCA Instructor Robert Jones Receives AN American cinema editors Career Achievement Award giving back

Professor Robert Jones what the style of the pieces,” says Norman Jones is a beloved educator at USC. Although by Hugh Hart has a reputation as one Hollyn, the Michael Kahn Endowed Chair he has a legendary resume, he still claims that his of the greatest editors in the history of in Editing at SCA. “As Bob often says, to be entry into teaching was a bit of a fluke and he film. For over fifteen years at the USC editors we have to be chameleons so we have never expected to love it as much as he does. Today, she helps run the School of Cinematic Arts, Jones has taught to take on the persona of the film that we’re “I turned sixty five [working] on a film I’d been Steven & Alexandra Cohen editing for both general production classes working on. And if anything Bob’s [unique on for two years and I just didn’t want to do and editing-specific classes in the Film & talent] is the ability to do just that. All of his Foundation, which recently that again. I didn’t want to wake up at seventy Television Production Division. He’s known films have fantastic character.” donated $5 million to lighten five and be working on two or three year for his incredible knowledge of film, his calm Jones’ films (as both a writer and films. It can wear you down so I retired and the load for USC School of demeanor and his instinct-based editor) are a survey of somewhere around the week I retired I got style of editing. Students that Cinematic Arts undergraduates American cinema including a call from USC asking if I wanted to come have learned under Jones in need. But Alex Cohen Guess Who’s Coming to down as a professor and teach,” says Jones. have gone on to be Dinner, Shampoo, It’s a “What surprised me most is being able to understands first hand the editors, producers, Mad Mad Mad Mad convey my feelings and thoughts on editing. I directors and every pressures faced by gifted World and Love thought I wouldn’t know what I was doing, and other imaginable Story. His work editing was so instinctual I didn’t know how students of modest means. Not job in the industry. has spanned to explain it, but I think I have a better handle Regardless of the so long ago, she herself was a several genres on that now and things seem to work pretty job, his gut-based college student experiencing and budget sizes. well. “ style of filmmaking He won the tough financial times. has shaped an Academy Award Jones has a strong following among students entire generation of “My dad was a postal worker and my mother, for screenwriting and alumni of the School of Cinematic (From left) Javier Grillo-Marxauch; Trojan professionals. a stay-at-home mom,” Cohen says. “I was the in 1978 for Coming Arts. It’s not an overstatement to say that Tim and Claudia McCaffery; and Jones’ teaching style has influenced several first in my family to go to college and knew my Alexandra and Steven Cohen. “My mantra is, ‘Cut to Home. In 2014, Jones generations of Trojans. “I love Bob because parents could not afford it, so I chose a local what I want to see, when received the ACE Career when he teaches, he’s respectful and he treats college and worked to cover what my financial I see it.’ It’s very simple yet it Achievement Award. It seems us like our success is important to him,” says aid did not. After two and a half years, I had to works,” says Jones. “I think you have to like no one was surprised Jones would education—these students are the future of GIFTS IN MANY SHAPES Kali Rose Heithold, SCA alum and a designer leave school because I could no longer afford become aware of your instincts and trust receive the editing guild’s top prize—except the entertainment industry.” AND SIZES at the Queen Mary Dark Harbor. “When he my tuition.” them. I make my cuts as they come and Jones himself. was teaching us, he was a mentor but he was She continues, “One of the greatest things To build a welcoming environment for work the same on all of them. I try to remain Now that she’s in a position to help others, “I was stunned. I hadn’t worked in film for straightforward. There’s a lot of emotions about USC is that its admissions are based financially challenged students, SCA continues honest and work on performance. ” Alex and her husband Steven include arts fourteen years. I never expected it,” he jokes. running high at USC and he was good at solely on merit,” she says. “It’s such a special to forge new partnerships with forward- and education as major areas of focus for “A touchstone for Bob’s work is that he’s “It was a wonderful evening. I treasure the keeping us on track. He’s also amazing at place that we wanted to make it easier for thinking contributors. They include tech their foundation, which has provided support always searching for the character moments evening, but I never expected it.” Words with Friends. So there’s that.” students to apply and stay in school, knowing entrepreneur Ram Shriram and his wife to underprivileged students at New York and how they fit into the story, no matter there would be funds available to them. This is Vijay, whose recent gift of $1.5 million to University’s Tisch School of the Arts and what inspired me: If we can alleviate some of create need-based student aid for graduate funded scholarships at Brown University. The the financial stresses on gifted students who students reflects their admiration for SCA’s USC School of Cinematic Arts presented have so much to offer, then they can give 100 multi-disciplinary approach. The Shrirams say one more prime opportunity to invest in the percent of their focus to their studies.” they are excited their contribution will be future. After a visit to the campus, Cohen The Bob Jones Professor MARY SWEENEY: “enabling education for the next generation recalls, “Dean Daley and her team met with To that end, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Film Festival The Last Detail. The profanity and Jack of talented writers, directors, and producers.” my foundation director and me to discuss how Nicholson’s kinetic volatility in Hal Fund for Student Support provides need- Ranked number three in Forbes Magazine’s If you were to curate a Ashby’s The Last Detail was audacious USC helps incoming students who cannot based student aid to at least twenty new 2009 list of top tech dealmakers, Ram Shriram afford the tuition or who experience other Bob Jones film festival, NORMAN HOLLYN: SCA Programming in 1973. Nicholson & Otis Young escorted the lanky, tender undergraduates each year. By year four, helped steer Netscape during the early days financial challenges.” what film would you Bound For Glory. That’s a bio Director ALEX AGO: Randy Quaid to prison for stealing $40.00 from a polio donation the fund could be supporting some eighty of the Internet, worked at Amazon with CEO picture of Woody Guthrie, See No Evil, Hear No cup. Based on Robert Towne’s screenplay, Bob Jones crafted their students at the same time, a record for Jeff Bezos, and served as a founding board include, we asked three Inspired by SCA facilities Cohen decided to and it’s kind of sprawling and Evil. The Richard Pryor, trip up the Eastern seaboard; getting drunk, fighting, freezing and the School. The largest gift in SCA history member for Google Inc. In 2000, he formed SCA experts. Here’s do something for promising students from those things can tend to get Gene Wilder comedies getting the kid laid, with affecting emotional balance, until, at the earmarked specifically for student support, the his own start-up incubator, Sherpalo Ventures, what they chose and away in the editing room were classics when I was end they watched him ushered through the bars into guaranteed backgrounds like her own. “I was amazed at Cohen Scholars program represents one of to provide guidance and funding for early stage why. if you’re not focused and growing up! hell…and you ached for all of them. the technology they are using and I realize several new initiatives designed to stem the companies. careful. that these students are getting a top notch rising tide of student debt.

28 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 29 IT TAKES A VILLAGE Support funds help hundreds of students, including those shown here, from across all seven of the In September, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, known School’s divisions. around the world for the Golden Globe Awards, pledged a $100,000 endowment as part of its ongoing effort to support film preservation and education. HFPA President Theo Kingman says supporting the next Presburger says, “We focus on the Latino market in the U.S., so when generation is part of the organization’s mission. “We try every year to we started the company four years ago, part of our mission was to give as much as we can to these highly deserving organizations,” he said empower more Latinos to have a voice in this country. We want to in a statement. “It is gratifying to know that our efforts are appreciated.” build up the Latino market both in front of and behind the camera. The SCA student support contributions come in all shapes and sizes. As way we look at it, you won’t get authentic (Latino) stories unless you Kickstarter and other 21st century grassroots funding models have have people who live those stories telling them. We understand that it proven, donations of any size can translate into remarkable success might be harder for kids coming from those backgrounds to get ahead stories. Bay Area lawyer Tim McCaffery and his wife Claudia, for and pay for school, so we’re happy to provide them with support.” example, gave money to SCA’s Parent Project after their two sons Further bolstering this initiative is a new gift from television writer- began attending USC. “Sometimes I think people figure ‘Oh USC producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach and his parents. The Grillo-Marxuach is doing fine, they don’t need my small donation.’ But those small Family Fellowship will be awarded each year to students enrolled in donations help students stay in school in circumstances where maybe SCA’s MFA writing program. “This is not a full ride but it will provide otherwise they wouldn’t be able to.” someone with a significant piece of the financial puzzle,” Grillo- The McCafferys were moved to help after observing first hand the Marxuach says. “We think it’s a worthy cause to identify somebody who, quality of their children’s experience: one son is enrolled at USC like myself, has a dream of being in this industry and then provide a Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism while their point of access for that.” younger son attends SCA. “Parents and alumni might start to feel A native of Puerto Rico, Grillo-Marxuach earned an MFA from SCA’s almost intimidated to reach out with a smaller contribution but I think Writing Division in 1993 before winning WGA awards for his work that’s wrong,” Mr. McCaffery says. “A gift of any financial amount can on Lost. Currently co-executive producer for the SyFy series Helix, make a huge difference. Claudia and I decided to take whatever small Grillo-Marxuach explains, “We want this gift to go to students who step we could to help ensure that every student can go to school have experience of and interest in Latino culture. We’re not saying, ‘If uninterrupted, whether or not their parents had financial success.” you receive this money, you owe us a screenplay about the barrio.’ If For SCA alum Ricki Blustein, the desire to help students in need gained you look at the things I’ve written, very few of them actually deal with urgency after she was diagnosed with terminal, stage four breast cancer. what you’d call the Latino experience. But we are saying, ‘If you get this To benefit students at SCA Writing for Screen & Television Division or fellowship, we expect that your understanding of the Latino experience the Bryan Singer Division of Critical Studies, she has now created the will inform what you do creatively.’ Because one thing I’ve learned as an Ricki Lynn Blustein Endowment Fund in honor of professors Richard immigrant is that it creates a different point of view that comes through Jewell and Michael Renov. Blustein, who enrolled in Critical Studies at even if you’re writing the most typical forms of television. the age of 38 after working as a production accountant for Cannon Films, remembers SCA as “a nurturing experience that really changed my life. I have learning disabilities, so just being acknowledged by these FORMS OF SUPPORT professors for having a beautiful mind is something that influenced me as a person.” Student aid takes several forms at SCA. They include fellowships, need- based scholarships, teaching assistant ships, support for dissertations Blustein’s bequest also serves as a pay-it-forward gesture. She attended and finishing funds for production projects to name a few. SCA on a scholarship that helped fund study abroad in Paris. “I’ve had a lot of adventures and I’d hoped to write something of my own but I The School is pushing to increase all forms of support because the probably won’t,” she says. “My personal legacy now is to set up this gift REACHING OUT TO INDUSTRY with Rodriguez as creative director, Fogelman and FactoryMade this economy, coupled with the horror stories of compounding student in perpetuity and hope it’ll help somebody else in some way,” year launched the El Rey Network, which specializes in cable television debt that frequent the national media, means there are many talented Expanding the depth and breadth of resources, Dean Daley has enlisted programming for Latino audiences. students who aren’t following their dreams of a career in the cinematic Speaking from her home in Newport Beach’s Linda Isle, Blustein muses, support from numerous industry professionals. Endowments by Jack arts. “Our recruiters travel all over the country talking to students and “I’ve finally learned that helping one person at a time is more important Nicholson, Ray Romano, Jay Roach and more than four dozen other Lionsgate also joined the effort with support from CEO Jon Feltheimer, seeing their work so we know there are talented students who should than trying to make some big effort. Someone said to me, ‘USC gets contributors have been instrumental, but more needs to be done. The who in turn encouraged Paul Presburger, CEO of Pantelion Films to get be applying but who aren’t,” Daley says. “By far the number one reason millions of dollars so what do they need your crummy little money for?’ newly established Robert Rodriguez Fund rewards graduate Latino involved with the School. Pantelion, co-owned by Lionsgate and Televisa, we hear for their not even putting in the application is that they don’t And I said, ‘It’s the little money that counts.’ It adds up.” students pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting. An indie film pioneer, has released movies ranging from the Spanish-language hit comedy think they would be able to afford it so they don’t even want to try. Rodriguez famously shot his 1992 feature debut El Mariachi for $7,000, Instructions Not Included to the Diego Luna-directed Caesar Chavez: Our industry will suffer if this trend continues.” SCA Dean Elizabeth M. Daley notes that gifts like these contribute to and then directed Quentin Tarantino’s zombie script From Dusk Till History is Made One Step at a Time biopic. Feltheimer and Presburger the diversity of the School’s student body, since many students from Dawn before creating the Sin City and Spy Kids movie franchises. established two student support initiatives at SCA: The Lionsgate and Alex Cohen gets to the heart of the matter. “I left school because I was underrepresented groups struggle to finance their educations. “What’s Televisa Fund for Student Support and the Pantelion Screenwriting afraid to bury myself in debt by getting a loan so I know from my own inspiring about student support gifts is that they give a tremendous boost to FactoryMade Ventures CEO John Fogelman created the fellowship in Contest, both aimed at nurturing students interested in creating experience the challenges these students face. That’s why I want to help our goal of finding and educating the most talented young women and men Rodriguez’s name after he was introduced to Dean Daley by SCA alum content that features Latino perspectives. these talented kids. They need a break in life. They need someone to from all across the country, regardless of their financial situation,” she says. Chip Rosenbloom and SCA board member Scott Sassa. Partnering believe in them.”

30 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 31 “Artifacts” from the island of Rilao on display in the Interactive Media Building as part of the Science of Fiction exhibit.

housing the story—or more accurately, to the user. “Our end goal is to create the story possibilities. They can include the an experience, but every individual world’s politics, geography, geology, history, experiences it differently. That’s when the architecture, fashion, and even its physical user becomes a collaborator, a builder, as laws. And as creators develop a world well, ” she says. “It’s not a film, it’s not a in such fine detail, various facets point project; I’m producing a living entity.” not only to different stories, but also to different media. Consider Rilao. Conceived as a hybrid of Across town, in the warehouse that Rio and Los Angeles, Rilao and its history is home to USC’s Institute for Creative have inspired stories, songs, and poetry. Technologies (ICT), associate professor But they have also inspired other, more Mark Bolas also investigates what it means elaborate media projects. In the lab, these to immerse living users in virtual worlds. pieces are a tool for examining societal And it scares him. achievements and challenges; in the world of Rilao, they are artifacts. One is a virtual Bolas (who admits to having read too reality experience that was once a right- much dystopian science fiction) is the wing religious group’s propaganda piece. associate director of the MxR lab at ICT. Another is a video installation based on He also runs the lab’s sister space, the the 1919 epidemic and the shocks it sent MxR studio, in the School’s Cinematic over subsequent generations. The lab’s Arts Complex. In both locations, Bolas Rilao team spent the summer honing is furthering what he calls his “25-year “The future of cinema, of storytelling, of these and other projects, including the quest:” defining VR as its own medium. the user experience,” and thinking about first full-scale virtual model of the city. The What unnerves him is finally seeing virtual EVERY WAY IS FORWARD them in fields other than entertainment— model will turn users into visitors as they reality becoming a practical one. “It’s one architecture, education, business, medicine, don the Oculus Rift head-mounted display thing to try to convince everyone that it’s and more. and take their own self-guided tours of great,” he says. “It’s another to actually see by Eric Lichtenfeld Rilao. that it’s going to influence culture across Such a program is unique for a “film the board.” The islands that form the city-state of Rilao school,” but to Fisher, the fit is ideal. “Our Virtual reality—or VR—is a pillar of the seem to rise out of the sun-kissed Pacific. A Rilao is a creation of the World Building Lab, one of research tends to focus on interface lab, particularly for its flagship project: Bolas views his research as an extension SCA’s ten research laboratories. Staffed by students and faculty, design and experience design,” he explains. expanding the world of Scott Westerfeld’s of his master’s thesis, for which Scott few quick glances at the homes built into the these labs—which also include the MxR (or Mixed Realities) Lab, “Having cinema experts doing that design bestselling novel, Leviathan. This world Fisher was his advisor. In the 1980s, they high, sheer cliffs reveal a novel architecture. the Stereoscopic 3D Lab, the Change Making Media Lab, the makes sense, now that everything we do is filled with adventurers, steampunk pioneered the field of VR using Fisher’s Michelle & Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre and Immersive Media is so media-oriented.” technologies, and flying whales. As with lab at NASA. Fisher later brought Bolas Lab, the Game Innovation Lab, the Mobile and Environmental Rilao, the Leviathan team has been to USC. Here, Bolas was influenced by But a closer study of the archipelago exposes Located in SCA’s Robert Zemeckis Media Lab, the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center, the designing its world within the Unity working with one of ICT’s directors, Center for Digital Arts, the World Building something else—the lingering handprint of a Transient Media Lab and the Scalar Lab—are outposts on the game engine for viewers—or better still, psychologist Albert “Skip” Rizzo, a research Lab is spearheaded by Alex McDowell, frontiers of technology and content. participants—to explore at will through professor at the USC Davis School of long-ago trauma: an epidemic that gored the a professor and renowned Hollywood the Oculus Rift. Emphasizing immersion Gerontology and of the USC Keck School production designer. Here, McDowell, local population. Collaborating with industry partners including Google, Sony, and interactivity, the project first drew of Medicine. Bolas supplied head-mounted Intel, BMW, Activision, and others, the labs are deployed on whose credits include Steven Spielberg’s students from the Interactive Media & displays to Rizzo, who used them to a number of fronts that have tantalizing, even romantic rings Minority Report and Zach Snyder’s Man Games Division. Soon after, they were research PTSD treatments combining The plague ravaged Rilao for half of 1919. It to them: immersive cinema, virtual production, neurocinematics, of Steel, leads research into new models joined by students from Production, exposure therapy and virtual reality. interactive architecture, the Emerging Cities Project, and more. But of story creation. “We’re not starting Writing, and Media Arts + Practice, and killed one out of every five Rilaoans. And it to Dean of Research Scott Fisher, one purpose connects them with a blank sheet of paper and starting from Fine Arts, Engineering, Architecture, The MxR lab is now exploring the future was started by researchers from USC. all, “Reimagining storytelling and what story means in the 21st to write the script out of thin air,” says and the School of Dramatic Arts. of communication and collaboration century.” the lab’s senior research associate, Brad in virtual worlds. “We’re figuring out Newman. “We’re starting with more To lab producer Oshea Myles, a self- how to enable you to be present in Adds Holly Willis, chair of SCA’s Media Arts + Practice Division, low-level aspects of the world. ‘Bottom-up proclaimed “film dog,” the collision of multiple meetings at once, using a virtual In the year 2014. “the research efforts are a way to leverage what’s happening Storytelling,’ you could call it.” disciplines is what gives the lab its vitality. representation of yourself,” says Bolas. at the School, and for the School to take a leadership position But the collaboration does not end when “People will feel like you’re there, while in not only in the industry, but also in the culture.” To Willis, SCA’s These “low-level” aspects are the the various silos within SCA or from fact, you’re texting from somewhere else, research program is about exploring many futures at once, interconnected “rules” of the world across USC come together. It extends controlling three virtual humans.” How

32 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 33 (Clockwise from top) Researchers develop games in the virtual humans act, look, and sound “People were bawling,” she remembers. do we show them? What are the limits? the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Game Innovation will provoke emotions in the real ones— “People were down on the ground, trying What’s right?” For de la Peña and the Lab; a prototype card game; and a scene from which is why, to Bolas, SCA’s involvement to hold up the head of a body that wasn’t students she oversees, these questions are Walden, a game. is so important. “What I get from my there.” Later, Bolas appointed de la Peña as just as central to their research as is the cinema students is a well trained muscle the research manager of the MxR studio. technology. areas that have more to do with other kinds that is sensitive to, and can articulate, There, the visiting head of the World of imaging, such as virtual reality.” people’s emotional reaction to content, Economic Forum asked her to create Closely aligned with the MxR studio and then use that reaction to change the a VR project to immerse users in the (Adapting to an expanding mandate, the is Perry Hoberman’s Stereoscopic 3D content or the technology.” experience of Syrian refugees. This effort lab now has as an additional workspace, lab, a less formal but highly active arm would become Project Syria, which uses the IMAX Immersive Media Lab. See story But the lab’s most impactful project might of SCA’s research program. Like Bolas, VR to transport participants first to the on page 16.) also be its most informal: the Unity Study epicenter of a bombing and then into a Hoberman is searching for the techniques Group, a largely peer-led group open to refugee camp. and language that are specific to his The Stereoscopic 3D lab was established any student who wants to learn the game medium. “Most movies aren’t designed just within the Interactive Media & Games engine. Some of the most important To de la Peña, Immersive Journalism for 3D. They’re designed for 3D and 2D,” Division, from which the lab has drawn figures in VR today emerged from summer represents the best hope for helping he says. “The things that work really well most of its graduate students. Over time, 2012’s study group. James Iliff and Nathan people become better informed for 3D are excluded.” Hoberman’s lab has collaborated on Burba formed the VR company Servios. as traditional journalism wanes and Hoberman founded the lab with Scott several initiatives with Bolas’. One such Lab assistant Palmer Luckey invented new media expands. But de la Peña Fisher and SCA professor Michael Peyser. project involved handheld stereoscopic the Oculus Rift based on the lab’s open- acknowledges that, as a medium, virtual “Originally, the lab was established to get the viewers, like a child’s View-Master toy. source designs. He then helped found reality is still too new for anyone to get “They’re less formal than virtual reality rigs whole School up to speed on stereoscopic three-dimensional object that is tracked as for the lab’s own space (located in SCA’s Oculus, a company that Facebook too comfortable with success. “We need because you don’t wear them,” explains filmmaking,” says Hoberman, whom Fisher it moves. Viewers can watch an object— newest building and just down the hall acquired in July for $2 billion. And to be thinking about best practices,” she Hoberman. Instead, these devices rely recruited to SCA in 2003. “But it’s morphed. including a person—degenerate, renew, or from the MxR studio), she describes it Nonny de la Peña, a former Newsweek says. “How far do we push users? What on gyroscopes embedded in phones and It’s become more fluid. We’ve moved into otherwise transform, depending on where as filled with games and toys, curves and correspondent and now a doctoral tablets to enable the user’s “virtual look- it is in space. “We’re just experimenting crazy colors. “We wanted the space to candidate in Media Arts + Practices, built around.” something else: a new field. with that now,” he says, “and with the reflect the playful methodology we work “We were thinking about stereoscopes expressive possibilities of these media.” in. You can always tell when you’re in our The seeds of this field, “Immersive and how they facilitate social interaction. lab!” The lab also has many open spaces Like Hoberman, Interactive Media & Journalism,” were planted in 2007, when People passed them around. People could and few barriers separating work groups. Games Chair Tracy Fullerton puts the de la Peña created a virtual experience remove themselves [from the experience] “I like the vibrant interchange,” Fullerton ultimate premium not on the tools, but of Guantanamo Bay, a piece she dubbed to talk, then reenter. It was interesting says. “We invite students to come in and on the experiences they can be used to Gone Gitmo. She decided to further this how quickly you could go back and forth, work even if they’re not part of the lab— create. Fullerton’s medium is play itself, not work by pursuing her doctorate at the whereas with a head-mounted display, it as long as they don’t leave their lunch rooted in any one technology, and always School. “SCA understood and embraced takes a while to readjust.” there.” my ideas of how digital technology, 3D, lending itself to new applications. This is and VR could be applied to journalism,” The lab is also working on applying 3D the foundation of her Game Innovation At the Game Innovation Lab, some she says. projection to installations and art projects. Lab. Its overarching goal is to investigate— projects are conceived internally and then “By projecting stereoscopically onto three- and push—the boundaries of what games executed with outside support; others Bolas invited de la Peña into the lab. Her dimensional shapes, you bring virtual space can be. This includes what games mean begin as concepts that are hatched by major project there began with audio into real space,” he says. for entertainment, but also for art, science, other entities, which then enlist the lab’s recorded at a food bank, where a man and education. Fullerton, who earned an help. An example of the former is Walden, had waited for so long that he collapsed You also tap into what drew Hoberman MFA in Film and Television production a game. Supported by an Arts and and fell into a diabetic coma. The lab to stereoscopic 3D roughly thirty years from SCA, grants this as a large umbrella. Humanities grant from USC, as well as a helped de la Peña create a virtual reality ago. With a background in painting and It encompasses health and wellness, grant from the National Endowment for piece around the recording. Several music, Hoberman has been working with sustainability, innovation in the arts and in the Arts, Walden, a game invites players to months later, Hunger in Los Angeles 3D since the 1980s, when he became aesthetics, social justice, civil participation, recreate Henry Thoreau’s experimental debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. interested in adding depth to his work. and more. living at Walden Pond. Chronocards, on “But I wanted to do it over time, as the other hand, began as a history project opposed to making a sculpture,” he If the lab embodies a diverse slate of proposed by Microsoft. Seeking to build interests, it also represents a diverse group (Above) A variety of optical interfaces on display reflects. a game that would mark the centennial at the School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media of researchers. Projects are developed of World War I, Microsoft brought its Building. (Below left) A user interacts with the Under Hoberman’s direction, the lab by division students and also by students components to the Game Innovation head mounted dispay for Project Syria at the is now exploring how to create depth from computer science, communications, Lab, which would launch not one game, World Economic Forum in Davos. (Below right) over time and in motion simultaneously, fine arts, education, and other disciplines. The virtual Syrian refugee camp in Project Syria. but two. (“Because that’s the way we through “projection mapping.” Here, “A lot of USC buildings are represented do things around here,” says Fullerton.) projectors mounted throughout a room in the research we do,” Fullerton says. As Both games were designed for young cast a changing, updating image onto a

34 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 35 students and their teachers. And because 2009 based largely on the entertainment- containing precisely the same information for a large roster of advocacy groups. inform and empower teenagers on issues other labs, the students and staff work many classrooms lack regular access to education model espoused by Writer/ and number of facts—and compared their These include, among others, Tree People, related to obesity and immigration. The in partnership with industry sponsors. technology, the games were printed on Director/Producer/Researcher Miguel impacts. “Did the audience get the same the Community Environmental Legal pilot and a character outline have been One sponsor has been Microsoft, which opposite sides of a deck of cards. Sabido in the 1970s, and considers the amount of information? Yes,” says Kagan. Defense Fund (CELDF) and the Doe written by Pam Douglas, Chair of the worked with MEML on a camera that, “But the more important aspect was lab to be both a production facility and Fund, a New York City organization that television track in the Writing for Screen worn around the neck, automatically Also for young students—and at the a research organization. Its mission is to the motivation to actually do something. & Television Division. “We’re out there records thousands of images per day Statistically, more viewers were motivated works with the homeless. request of NASA—the lab is developing create media that alter awareness of, and employing our own,” Kagan notes. “We’re along with audio. “It came to be called a game based on USC research into new forms of life on Earth, or extremophiles. (Previous page, top) The Change Media Making Lab’s “We know students and teachers have website. (Bottom) Students work in the common areas access to mobile phones, so we’re doing of the Interactive Media Building. this one as a smart phone app,” notes (This page, top) MiraLab Flux, a co-production with the Fullerton. “We’re making a beautiful game School of Architecture for the Solar Decathlon. (Bottom) that plays on a mobile phone.” Mobile and Environmental Media Lab prototypes for interactive architecture and interactive interfaces. As breakthrough as these projects are, there is even more to them than being innovative and well designed. “We’re not ‘Lifelogging,’” says Fisher. “But then we just about making cool games,” explains started thinking: if we can do lifelogs for Fullerton. “What we do is about people, humans, what would it mean to have a playfulness, and how we approach the lifelog for a building? Or a car?” world. We want to make games that are MEML’s home is in the Interactive Media surprising and new and delightful, but also Building. Equipped with 4,000 sensors really change people’s lives for the better. If and an information management system it was [just] about technology, I’d go crazy.” that reports on temperature, air quality, A prime example is a game that helps and more, the building can generate huge underserved high school students navigate amounts of data. “We wanted to figure the college application process. The game out how to have the building tell stories sets many goals for the player, including using that data,” Fisher says. filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). “You can tell them Jen Stein, who was then a doctoral to do this all you want, but when they play candidate in what would later become the game, they realize how critical it is to the Media Arts + Practice Division, began their future plans,” Fullerton says. by creating an iPhone app for participants and a Twitter account for the building. Tracking how many players filed for The building tweeted information about aid reveals another dimension of the energy consumption, foot traffic, what lab’s research. “In general, research is movies were showing in which screening always about proving an intervention,” rooms, which plants needed watering, Fullerton notes. “Games can act very and more. And as participants came in well as testable, provable interventions contact with the eight iPads that Stein had in communities, provoking or creating installed, the building also knew who had to take action based on the drama.” A number of the films have played possibilities for learning or behavior behavior regarding, pressing cultural issues. dedicated to giving opportunities to SCA interacted with it, how, and how often. This It also examines how specific properties in festivals and garnered awards, and change. Not through showing them Like his counterparts at SCA’s other labs, filmmakers. On almost every project, we enabled the building to send participants of media play a role in that change. For many are influencing the communities something but through allowing them to Kagan enjoys the lab’s cross-discipline employ USC grads, if not also current personalized digital gifts and even arrange example, the lab is experimenting with they were designed to reach. Kagan experience it.” collaborations. “We’re availing ourselves students.” seemingly serendipitous encounters how different kinds of music can affect cites Water and the City, made for Tree of lots of research that our colleagues among users. To Fisher, this made the our experience of documentaries. The People; Tamale Lesson, a drama (in both are doing in the schools of sociology, building a character. “You get to know it. It lab is also exploring how the viewer’s English and Spanish-language versions) For many of the artist-researchers education, communciation, and then gets to know you. It’s a colleague,” he says. The idea that an emotional experience of an interview is affected by that encourages at-risk women to get of SCA—whether as directors, game experience can spark change is also the interviewee’s eyeline. applying that to the productions we’re designers, animators, scholars, or anything screened for cervical cancer; and Well Stein, now an assistant research professor advocated by a former occupant of the making,” he says. The lab’s partners else—their canvases are imagined More fundamentally, Kagan is interested Played, a short narrative film about ADHD, and the co-director of MEML, next Oval Office. Or at least a replica of it. have included the USC Keck School of environments and virtual spaces. At the in the interplay among narrative, the which has been shown at conferences in explored ways to give the building a life Professor Jeremy Kagan, a veteran film Medicine (with departments ranging from Mobile and Environmental Media Lab, viewer’s ability to retain information, and China and Turkey, and that is now in use as outside its own four walls. She built a table and television director who counts The Psychiatry to Orthopedics) and the Brain the canvas is the physical world. MEML the viewer’s motivation to act. Under a a tool by psychologists and sports trainers. using wood from the original MGM studio West Wing among his credits, founded and Creativity Institute, for which the lab is inverting our traditional relationship grant from the National Cancer Institute, lot, and from a podium found in an old SCA’s Change Making Media Lab on this the lab produced a dramatic piece and produced a series of videos on perception In addition, the lab is now developing Bite to our surroundings by investigating how lecture hall. “We were trying to create an principle. Kagan established the lab in an informational documentary—each and ethics. The lab has also produced films Me!, a forty-part web series designed to they can be built to engage us. As at SCA’s

36 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 37 A user tests Project ALICE, a nine-month Alternate Reality Game from the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ MEML in conjunction with BMW/Mini. IN MEMORIAM object that had a very deep backstory, that had a lot of memories of where it came from,” says Fisher. “And she set it up so that if you walked by it with Bluetooth enabled, it would dream these images to Scott Gorden Burton “BJ” Sears you of its past lives.” (1957—2013) (1948 - 2014) Screenwriter & Professor Editor & Professor In 2010, BMW joined this exploration of “ambient storytelling” by enlisting MEML to make its Mini Coopers similarly Gorden was born in Providence, Rhode Sears was born in Columbus, Indiana. interactive. Each year, BMW supplies Island. He earned dual Bachelor’s degrees in After earning a BA from DePauw and MFA the lab with one new Mini. (Last year’s Accounting and English at the College of St. from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Sears was named Nigel.) Like those of the Josephs in Rutland, Vermont. helped found Boulder Valley Institute in SCA building, the Mini’s sensors—some therapy; Nevermind, another video game, motivated Fisher to start the School’s Colorado. 300 of them—provide the raw material is designed to recognize the symptoms of research program in the first place. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a for its lifelog. The car generates data PTSD by monitoring heart rate and force Prior to joining SCA, Fisher had been professional screenwriting career. Over the next twenty Moving to California to pursue a professional editing on everything from the wheel rotation used on the controller. affiliated with NASA, Atari, Paramount years, Gorden worked extensively in television, writing for career, Sears worked on many feature films and in speed to the windshield wipers. It can Pictures, MIT, and others. What drew The Golden Girls, A Different World, ALF, Full House, Saved television. He was sound editor for Academy Award- then communicate the data in a concise, Technology Scholar-Practitioner Steve him to SCA was the vision. “Dean Daley by the Bell, and City Guys. Eager to share his knowledge but distinctive, voice. “‘Seat-warmer Anderson’s Transient Media Lab (TML) is realized how important a program like winning Amadeus, picture editor for films including The on. Sunroof open. California winter,’” SCA’s newest, cross-disciplinary research this could be,” he says. “For a school of and abilities with the next generation of screenwriters, he Unbearable Lightness of Being, Jacob’s Ladder, and Henry & quotes Fisher, smiling. MEML has also lab and is taking on high-risk, high-reward cinema to be doing work in architecture dedicated part of his storied career to being a professor June, and worked with multiple notable directors. In 2005, experimented with making the cars send projects that do not fit into the other is just so unintuitive. But if you think at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He was beloved Sears joined the faculty of the film department at the a teen play-tester on quests, recover lost fixed-space labs. In short, TML gives the about it, everything is about narrative by students of the Writing Division who admired his Savannah College of Art and Design, where he became memories, and message its future owner School the ability to commit to projects and story. So the focus is on content, commitment, talent, and passion toward his work. a beloved professor of post-production, teaching editing from the assembly line. As a result of all that have potential for the future but may on the experience, and that’s way classes and serving as consultant for hundreds of thesis still be considered unorthodox. The lab’s He is survived by his three children, Zachary, Kelsey, and of this work—or play, depending on how more important than focusing on the films. you view it—Fisher expects some version projects include Fire Visualizer by Kevin technology. Because ultimately, it’s what Shea, his brother, Mark Gorden, in addition to ten nieces of lifelogging to be part of cars in the McGowan, which uses fire to create data you do with the technology.” and nephews. He is survived by a sister, Susan Sears, brother-in-law near future. “Which is great,” he says. “It’s visualizations of sounds; Keys to Directing Greg Sundberg, and nieces, Kelsey and Sayre Sundberg. exciting to see stuff get out of the lab.” by Jeremy Kagan, an interactive text that On a practical level, SCA’s programs uses Scalar (for a story on Scalar see do a great deal with technology—not These successes are even more page 14); Spark Deck by Elizabeth Ramsey, only pioneering it, but also obtaining remarkable given how the program’s playing cards that are brainstorming tools; patents and granting licenses, a valuable approach to research differs from the and The Difference Analyzer by Anderson revenue source. More fundamentally, one typically taken by large research and Chandler McWilliams, a video engine they use technology as a vehicle for universities. Fisher notes that such schools that allows for multiple juxtapositions e.g. progress: to transform storytelling, adapt are “very engineering-oriented,” whereas interactions of humans and computers in our environments, and evolve our ideas SCA’s approach to research “is more filmed media. of what a cinema school can be. Peek about the culture of making. Just trying into the the World Building Lab and stuff. Prototyping.” This sense of innovation, even adventure, you’ll see many objects that embody this extends to SCA’s scholars. The School evolutionary spirit: mocap cameras, an The Creative Media & Behavioral Health offers two Ph.D.s—one through the Bryan Oculus Rift, pin-ups of the flying whale. Center, for example, has been blazing Singer Division of Critical Studies, the But on a table in the back, off by itself, may a new trail by connecting the worlds other through Media Arts + Practice. Each be the most emblematic: a framed picture of media and health and wellness. requires students to undertake research. of Charles Darwin. Lovingly called The Garden, the organized To division Chair Holly Willis, Media Arts research unit, led by founder and director + Practice is so closely aligned with many Marientina Gotsis has several projects of the labs because the research done Eric Lichtenfeld is a writer, focused on wellbeing. A stuffed animal by its Ph.D. students is “practice-based,” communications consultant, called Pluff, designed for children with or “thinking through making.” The point, and the author of autism, gives researchers critical feedback she says, “is to design something and then Action Speaks on behavioral and quality of care issues; reflect on the design process.” Louder: Violence, Spectacle, Skyfarer uses the mechanics of active video and the American Action Movie games to alleviate the drudgery of physical “A different perspective” is what (Wesleyan University Press)

38 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 39 Danny Abrahms ’11 has created a comedy web Bryan Burk ’91 will executive produce, and will also produce an ensemble musical conceived by documentary Print The Legend to Netflix, which Akiva Potok ’03 produced and Jadrien Steel Bryan Singer ’89 produced the digital series that premiered at the New York Television Athena Wickham ’02 will produce 11/22/63, Feig, to be scripted by Yana Gorskaya ’02 and released the film in forty countries on September ’99 directed Victoriana which won the New Visions comedy series Spooked through his Bad Hat Harry Festival. It has since been picked up by the online based on Stephen King’s time travel novel about an her partner Maia Rossini. 26. Kortschak’s company, Audax, has also purchased Award at CINEQUEST. Productions. Singer will also direct X-Men: Apocalypse network My Damn Channel. unremarkable man who must try and prevent JFK’s Moonfall, a film about an FBI agent who travels to for Fox, which will be overseen for Bad Hat Harry assassination, as a 9-episode series for Hulu. Dana Fox ’00 is producing the MGM a colony on the moon to investigate its first death. Matt Reeves ’88 has signed a three-year Productions by Jason Taylor ’00. Patrick Aison ’03 has sold an untitled drama to comedy Don’t Mess With Texas. production deal at 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox TV about a woman who, seeking Dan Burks ’02, Frank Mele ’00, Joel Michaels, Tim Kring ’88 has created DIG with Gideon Raff, John Singleton ’90 has signed on to re-write, revenge, becomes entangled with a master assassin Ed Parks ’00 and Rachel Ward ’00 produced Ian Fried ’08 has written a six-episode event series for USA Network. Tim Kevin Reynolds ’81 has co-written Clavius, a direct and produce the untitled Tupac Shakur biopic. who teaches her how to kill. Space Station 76, which premiered at SXSW. Sony the feature film Spectral, has also created Imperative Entertainment with Zak first-century thriller through the perspective of an He also executive produced the documentary Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions has acquired all which is currently shooting Kadison and Bradley Thomas. agnostic Roman centurion, played by Joseph Fiennes, Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Gaz Alazraki ’01 will direct a international rights. in Budapest. Universal & charged to find the missing body of Jesus of Nazareth. Emergency of a People, which had its world premiere 13-episode comedy series for Legendary Pictures will Steven J. Kung ’04 wrote and directed A at Sundance. Netflix. The show, about the Peter Cameron ’13 co-wrote and directed Last release on August 12, 2016. Leading Man, which will be in theaters this fall. The Jay Roach ’86 directed the comedy pilot The family feud between two heirs Flight, a 3-D action/thriller starring Ed Westwick and Asian-American drama was produced by Justin Brink for HBO, starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins. Adam Stein ’05 and Sam Friedlander ’06 of a professional soccer team, Zhu Zhu. It premiered in Shanghai and stayed on Dina Gachman ’07 Bell ’08 and Jon Michael Kondrath ’05, and Roach will also executive produce Women In Space co-created the hour-long drama Flipside, with Mark will be shot entirely in Mexico. the Top Ten In China list for for wrote Brokenomics, which will be was photographed by Robert Lam ’05. with Kristen Gore for HBO. Feuerstein, which tracks three post-grad friends three weeks. published by Seal Press in spring 2015. navigating “the real world.” Judd Apatow has co-created Ken Kwapis is developing a limited series based Andrew Rothschild ’10 wrote and Ashleigh and co-written Love, a comedy Sheldon Candis ’02 David Gelb ’06 has created Chef’s Table for on the John Scalzi novel Redshirts. Phillips ’11 & ’14 produced Sequoia, which had Tim Story will direct The about the complex ups-and-downs was nominated for an Netflix, a six-part documentary series that takes its world premiere at SXSW. Black Phantom, a comedy of a relationship. The show has been picked up for MTV VMA for Best viewers into the lives and work of some of the Paul Laverty ’94 wrote the Ken Loach-directed starring Samuel L. Jackson two seasons on Netflix. Apatow will also produce a Video with a Social world’s most renowned chefs. Jimmy’s Hall, which premiered at the 2014 Cannes Ira Rubenstein ’92 is the new general manager and Kevin Hart as two feature musical from Andy Samberg’s comedy trio Message, for directing Film Festival. of PBS Digital. hitmen forced into an The Lonely Island. J.Cole’s Crooked Smile. David Goyer ’88 is producing Sandman with odd partnership. Story is Jerome Sable ’09 directed the horror comedy Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Doug Liman will helm Splinter Cell, set to star Tom also directing and executive Jon M. Chu ’03 is currently musical Stage Fright, which premiered at SXSW. Victoria Aveyard ’12 has scored a three-book Hardy. producing Ride Along 2. deal with New Leaf, which includes a film option for directing Jem and the Holograms for Universal Pictures Luke Greenfield ’94 will direct for Fox an as-yet- Jenny Sandell ’01 has been hired as Production her debut novel Red Queen, a young-adult fantasy / Hasbro / Blumhouse Productions. The film stars untitled thriller about a group of twentysomethings Katie Lovejoy ’09 has Miles Swarthout ’73 wrote The Coordinator on Marvel’s upcoming Ant-man. story set in a world where social class is divided by Juliette Lewis and was written by Ryan Landels whose abuse of their parents’ diplomatic immunity written Critical, a medical Last Shootist, a western novel published in hardcover blood color. ’03 with cinematography by Alice Brooks ’01. eventually traps them in a life-or-death scenario. drama about a Latina by Forge Books/Macmillan. doctor who takes a Ian Sander is executive producing Runner for Fox, a drama revolving around the multifaceted world of Jake Avnet ’07 and Jon Avnet have launched Ben Cresciman ‘13 has wrapped production on Grant Heslov ’86 and Dan Dubiecki will job at her hometown’s Chris Terrio ’02 is writing Warner Bros’ upcoming his feature Sun Choke that he wrote and directed. the illegal arms trade. The show has led to a first- Indigenous Media, a digital-video company. produce Jodie Foster’s Money Monster for TriStar prestigious hospital. The Batman vs. Superman film. The film was featured in an article on Fangoria.com. Pictures. show is being developed look Sander and wife/partner Kim Moses signed Joe Ballarini ’99 will adapt Cardboard, a graphic at NBC under executive with 20th Century Fox to develop and produce the David Tolchinsky ’88, the chair of Radio-TV- Karen Croner ’87 will write the adaptation for novel about cardboard monsters magically coming Ron Howard will direct and produce and producer Eva Longoria. new series. Sander has also set up a drama series Film at Northwestern University, has been awarded the Ellen Shanman novel Everything Nice. to life, for Fox Animation. Brian Grazer ’74 will produce Inferno, the Kingdoms, about the twelve Apostles, at Amazon. an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Literature (prose, poetry, scriptworks).

Jon Turteltaub is executive producing Letters To My Daughters’ Future Therapist for CBS, a multi- cam/hybrid comedy which has received a scripted 2014 ALUMNI QUICKTAKES commitment from CBS TV Studios. Matthew Weiner ’90 will be presented with Lorenzo De Maio ’01 will executive produce Jason Lust ’00 is co-executive producing the Joshua Bell ’05 has produced and directed third installment in Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon Kerem Sanga ’10 has the 2014 International Emmy Founders Award Gateway for Entertainment One Television and De Christopher Wheeler-penned script Nemesis In Between Songs, a feature-length documentary franchise, for Sony Pictures. through Warner Bros. written and directed Young during the awards ceremony on November 24. narrated by James Cromwell, which intimately Laurentiis Co. Kieslowski, produced by explores an Australian Aboriginal clan’s fight to save Aaron Kaplan ’90 will executive produce a Ross Putman ’10 David Weiss ’87 has been hired by Disney to Sam Dickerman ’94 has become Executive Vice Andrew Marlowe ’92 will executive produce a their community. family comedy for ABC that reunites Chevy Chase and Dave Hunter write Enchanted 2. President of Production for Disney Studios. drama series for ABC based on the mystery novels and Beverly D’Angelo as two selfish grandparents by Richard Castle, the fictional author whose work is ’11. The film won the Jason Michael Berman ’06 produced and Sean E. Williams ’04 co-created and co-wrote Ross Dinerstein ’05 executive produced the who are forced to raise their grandchildren. the subject of the ABC drama Castle. Audience Award for Sheldon Candis ’03 directed The Jermicy School. the comic book series, Artful Daggers by IDW Amazon original pilot with Ice Cube and Michael Best Narrative Feature The short film celebrates the 40-year history of the Evan Katz ’86 has written and sold to Fox an Publishing. He also wrote Fairest: The Return of the Strahan The Rebels. Moira McMahon ‘02 wrote A Light Beneath Their at the LA Film Festival. nation’s leading school for students with dyslexia and untitled supernatural drama about an Iraq War Feet. The film will star Taryn Manning, Kurt Fuller, and Maharaja for DC/Vertigo, and several issues of DC other learning differences. Berman is also producing Josh Donen ’79 will executive produce the veteran who experiences a strange attack that Nora Dunn. Jeffrey Waldron ‘03 is the Director Josh Schwartz will write and produce Comics’ The Vampire Diaries. the upcoming films Little Accidents, Chu and Blossom, upcoming series adaptation Utopia for HBO. inexplicably leaves his wife in a coma. of Photography. a live-action movie based on the Mattel doll franchise X/Y and Franny. Monster High through his production company Fake Robert Zemeckis ’73 and Bob Gale ’73 David Ellison will produce Africa, an Angelina- Nahnatchka Khan ’94 Neal Moritz ’85 has sold Wife of Crime, a multi- Empire. will write the musical for Back to the Future for David Bezmozgis ’99 is currently touring in Jolie-directed drama based on the battles over ivory has written and will cam sitcom about a straight-laced man who marries the London stage. Zemeckis has also co-written support of his new novel, The Betrayers. poaching in Kenya in the late 1980s. executive produce the into a mob family, to CBS. Moritz will also produce Peter Segal ’84 will direct MTV’s comedy pilot and will direct a film for Sony about the French comedy Fresh Off The Sony Pictures’ reboot of I Know What You Did Last Ken Jeong Made Me Do It. high-wire artist Phillip Petit. Zemeckis also inked a Corbin Billings ‘09 directed Bitesize! which won David Erickson ’97 will co-write and Boat for ABC. Summer. two-year, first-look television deal with Paramount Best Feature Documentary at the CINEQUEST executive produce AMC’s untitled Walking Dead Ken Segna ’07 has been promoted to VP of Television, and will produce a drama series inspired Awards. companion series. David Klass ’89 will Don Murphy ’88 is executive producing The Day Original Programming at Starz. In his new role he by Nicholson Baker’s novel The Fermata. co-write Austen’s Razor, a of the Triffids for Ghost House Pictures. The film is an will lead development as well as current productions. Lane Shefter Bishop ’93 directed the Jen Andre Fabrizio ’02 and Jeremy Passmore medical drama for CBS. adaptation of a John Wyndham sci-fi book. Stu Zicherman ’93 has created a thirty-minute Klein-penned telepic The Choking Game, for Lifetime. ’04 wrote the script for Vice, a futuristic thriller Ian Shorr ’08, made the 2013 Blacklist with his anthology comedy series for Showtime centering on based around a resort where the rich explore their Sasha Knezev ’02 & ’07 has produced the Cyrus Nowrasteh ’77 will direct Christ the Lord, script Capsule. a recently-divorced man who tries to navigate the Robert Borden ‘91 and Dan Fogelman have most perverse fantasies using synthetic humanoids. documentary American Addict, now available on an adaptation of Anne Rice’s fictional novel about a modern dating scene. created an untitled comedy project for ABC Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu. young Jesus Christ coming to terms with his identity. Joni Sighvatsson ’85 is producing Z for following the lives of three long-lost friends who Paul Feig ’84 is producing the first attempt at a Zachariah, an adaptation of the post-apocalyptic We apologize if we missed anyone. Please contact reconnect in their 60s. CGI-version of Charles Schulz’s iconic Peanuts for Andrew Kortschak ’13 (Co-Producer) Justin Ostensen ’04 is currently the Staff Post novel by Robert C. O’Brien. Justin Wilson at 213.740.2804 or [email protected] Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios. Feig’s company and Luis Lopez ’96 (Director) have sold the Supervisor at Dreamworks Studios (Live Action). for more information or updates.

40 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 41 22 Jump Street — Neal Moritz ’85, Producer Gone Girl — Jeff Cronenweth ’84, Director of Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb TV&FILM Photography; Josh Donen ’79, Producer — Shawn Levy ’94, Producer/Director Addicted — Joseph White ’04, Director of Photography The Good Lie — Brian Grazer ‘74, Producer; Nightcrawler — Robert Elswit ’75, Director of RELEASES Ron Howard, Producer Photography Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, ALUMNI No Good, Very Bad Day — Shawn Levy ’94, The Grand Budapest Hotel — Bob Yeoman Non-Stop — Ryan Engle ‘01, Writer Producer; Jason Lust ’00, Executive Producer ‘79, Director of Photography The Other Woman — Melissa Stack ‘04, Writer The Amazing Spider Man — Guardians of the Galaxy — Kevin Feige ’95, Addison Teague ‘02, Supervising Sound Editor; Producer Ouija — Juliet Snowden ’95, Writer James Vanderbilt ’99, Story Hank and Asha — James Duff ’99, Writer/ Rich Hill — Tracy Droz Tragos ‘93, Producer/Co- Annie — Tia Nolan ’91, Editor Producer/Director Director

Are You Here — Marcy Patterson ’02, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 Ride Along — Tim Story, Director Co-Producer; Matthew Weiner ’90, Writer/ — Danny Strong ‘96, Writer Producer/Director Search Party — Neal Moritz ’85, Producer If I Stay — RJ Cutler, Director Bad Words — Andrew Dodge ‘97, Writer Think Like A Man Too — Tim Story, Director The Immigrant — James Gray ’91, Writer/ Beyond The Lights — Terrilyn Shropshire ’85, Producer/Director This Is Where I Leave You — Shawn Levy ’94, Editor Producer/Director Inherent Vice — Robert Elswit ’75, Director of Captain America: The Winter Solider — Photography Transformers: Age of Extinction — Kevin Feige ‘95, Producer; Jeffrey Ford ‘91, Editor Don Murphy ’88, Producer Into the Storm — Steven Quale, Director; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes — Eric Sears ’75, Editor Vampire Academy — Don Murphy ‘88, Matt Reeves ’88, Director; Amanda Silver ’89, Producer Writer/Producer Jessabelle — Kevin Greutert ’88, Director/Editor; Michael Fimognari ’01, Director of Photography A Walk Among The Tombstones — Dolphin Tale 2 — Steve Wegner ’93, Producer Stacey Sher ’85, Producer The Judge — Susan Downey ’95, Producer White Bird In a Blizzard — Gregg Araki ’85, 24: Live Another Day — Evan Katz ’86, Helix — Steven Maeda ’92, Writer/Executive Person of Interest — Bryan Burk ‘91, Executive Dracula Untold — John Schwartzman, Director Kelly & Cal — Jen McGowan ’05, Director; Writer/Producer/Director Writer/Executive Producer Producer; Javier Grillo-Marxuach ’93, Writer/Co- Producer; Athena Wickham ‘02, Producer of Photography Amy Lowe Starbin ’98, Writer Executive Producer Winter’s Tale — Caleb Deschanel ’69, Director A to Z — Ben Queen ’96, Writer/Executive Reckless — Ian Sander, Executive Producer Edge of Tomorrow — Doug Liman, Director Let’s Be Cops — Luke Greenfield ’94, Writer/ of Photography Producer House of Cards — James Foley ’79, Director; Endless Love — Josh Schwartz, Producer Producer/Director Joshua Donen ’79, Executive Producer Red Band Society — Jason Ensler ’97, X-Men: Days of Future Past — Banshee — Greg Yaitanes, Executive Producer/ Director/Executive Producer The Equalizer — Todd Black ‘82, Producer Men, Women, & Children — Jason Reitman ’99, Bryan Singer ‘89, Producer/Director; Director How to Get Away With Murder — John Ottman ‘88, Composer/Editor Rizzoli & Isles — Sasha Alexander ‘97, Actor Writer/Producer/Director Shonda Rhimes ’94, Executive Producer Foxcatcher — Megan Ellison, Producer The Blacklist — Jon Bokenkamp ‘95, Scandal — Shonda Rhimes ‘94, Writer/Executive Million Dollar Arm — Gordon Gray, Producer Writer/Executive Producer Legends — Jeffrey Nachmanoff ‘94, Writer/ Godzilla — Bob Ducsay ‘86, Editor Producer; Vahan Moosekian ‘75, Co-Executive Producer Castle — Andrew W. Marlowe ’92, Producer Writer/Executive Producer Shameless — John Wells ’82, Writer /Executive Mad Men — Matthew Weiner ’90, Executive Producer Constantine — David Goyer ’88, Producer; Marcy Patterson ’02, Co-Producer; Writer/Executive Producer Erin Levy ’05, Writer/Producer; Jonathan Igla ’05, Silicon Valley — Matteo Borghese ‘11, Writer; Writer (for more alumni, see article on page18) Rob Turbovsky ‘11, Writer Cristela — Shawn Levy ’94, Executive Producer Manhattan — David Ellison, Executive Producer Sleepy Hollow — Heather Regnier ’08, Writer; Crossbones — Christopher Baffa, Director of Aaron R. Thomas ’02, Writer/Co-Executive Producer Photography; Riyoko Tanaka ’00, Co-Producer Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. — Bobby Roth ‘72, Director Sons of Anarchy — Paul Maibaum ‘75, Director Dominion — Todd Slavkin ’87, Writer/Executive of Photography Producer The McCarthy’s — Tia Nolan ’91, Editor Turn — Andrew Colville, Writer/Supervising Finding Carter — Scott Speer ’04, Director Mighty Med — Jim Bernstein ‘91, Producer Executive Producer Franklin & Bash — Jason Ensler ’97, Tyrant — Michael Lehmann ’85, Director/ Executive Producer/Director The Mysteries of Laura — Aaron Kaplan ’90, Executive Producer Executive Producer Grey’s Anatomy — Shonda Rhimes ’94, Writer/ Undateable — Adam Sztykiel ’99, Writer/ Executive Producer; Bobby Roth ‘72, Director Nashville — RJ Cutler, Executive Producer/ Executive Producer Director; Dana Greenblatt ‘02, Writer Halt and Catch Fire — Chris Cantwell ‘04, Under the Dome — Brian Wayne Peterson Writer/Co-Executive Producer; Nelson Cragg’03, New Girl — Brett Baer ’88, Executive Producer; ’97, Writer/Producer; Kelly Souders ’97, Writer/ Director of Photography; Kevin Ross ‘90, Editor Erin O’Malley ’96, Producer Producer

Hart of Dixie — Jason Ensler ’97, Director/ Night Shift — Gabe Sachs ‘84, Writer/Executive Vikings — Sherry Marsh ‘83, Executive Producer Executive Producer; Josh Schwartz, Executive Producer Producer

42 • IN MOTION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS cinema.usc.edu • IN MOTION • 43 University of Southern California Non-Profit Org School of Cinematic Arts, SCA 370 U.S. Postage Los Angeles, California 90089-2211 PAID University of Southern California RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

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