Monday, May 11, 1998
Student finds a new normal at UCLA
FILM: O’Dea completes graduate school with documentary
screening
By Danielle Myer
Daily Bruin Contributor
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It’s a cliche, but
for Chris O’Dea, a graduate student in UCLA’s school of film and
television, it’s also a way of life.
Having to drop out of NYU’s film school for financial reasons,
O’Dea moved to California in hopes of transferring to UCLA as an
undergraduate filmmaker.
To his surprise, he could not transfer as a sophomore, so he
changed his major to English and spent time at a community college
until arriving at UCLA his junior year. After receiving his English
degree, O’Dea was accepted into the graduate film school and is now
finishing his graduate school career with a screening of his film,
"A New Normal," at Melnitz tonight.
As an undergraduate English student, O’Dea was able to draw on
his literary experiences and paint more of a story for his
viewers.
"Film," O’Dea says, "is about metaphor and creating
connections."
This is something he learned from reading poets like Joseph
Campbell, who is accredited as part of the inspiration for "A New
Normal."
"This documentary idea was from ‘The Power of Myths,’" O’Dea
explains, "which is a Joseph Campbell book (I was reading) at the
time when I was deciding what to do and that’s what gave me an idea
about doing a documentary about motherhood and becoming
parents."
As his final project, O’Dea and his Cedar Rain Productions
documented the lives of a couple during the last two months of
their pregnancy.
In order to find a couple to film, O’Dea attended Lamaze classes
looking for a pair who would open their lives to the camera and to
himself. O’Dea met Tussanee and Paul Luebbers who were experiencing
both the joys and trials of pregnancy. O’Dea visited and filmed the
Luebbers on a daily basis in order to experience everything they
did firsthand.
"I spent four to six days a week with them, two to four hours a
day every day," O’Dea says. "They saw me nearly every day.
Sometimes it was just for the doctors appointments and then other
times it would be for eight hours. We had withdrawal symptoms from
each other after we finished shooting ’cause we didn’t see each
other a lot."
Because O’Dea spent so much time with the Luebbers, filming this
35-minute movie on a standard video camera rather than on high tech
film equipment proved to be a good choice.
According to O’Dea, "filming on a small camera allowed me to
shoot all the footage in order to get the stuff that was really
good. If I had shot film I would never have been able to afford
finishing the documentary."
Because this is not a feature-length film, O’Dea had to
carefully decide what parts of the footage would make the final cut
and what parts would be left on the cutting room floor.
"I filmed a lot that I didn’t use," O’Dea recalls. "There’s
whole other story lines … It’s very difficult when you’re making
a film to say, ‘OK, I got to make everything, my entire story, to
be 27 minutes.’ So I kept it at 35. Anything longer kinda made it
flounder, like you either became bored with it or whatever."
With other short films to his credit, O’Dea has worked with
specific time frames but has not made any feature length films yet.
However, he has had a taste of Hollywood as an intern at Paramount
studios. An assistant to a producer last year, O’Dea’s experience
there was beneficial, but reaffirmed his decision to remain on the
independent film circuit.
"They don’t care about quality, they care about product," O’Dea
says. "At least I can understand it and appreciate it now. It
satisfies a certain part of the environment, just not a part I want
to be part of."
O’Dea plans to continue with his grassroots approach, and after
graduating, he will enter "A New Normal" into various film
festivals, both international and domestic. He’s also thinking
about selling it to a television network like PBS or Lifetime.
"I expect greater interest in foreign countries," O’Dea says.
"America’s always the tougher sell because there’s always so much
product here, whereas in Germany or Japan, they just want American
products."
O’Dea wants to pursue his talents in Los Angeles making fiction
films; however, he was recently approached by his brother to travel
to Northern Ireland and film a documentary about the peace talks in
Belfast.
"I’m more interested in the long run with doing fiction film as
opposed to non-fiction film – a narrative story vs. a documentary.
But I make the films I want to make when I want to make them. To me
a story about Northern Ireland, the peace process, having insight
into it, to me and (my brother), works more dynamically as a
documentary."
Whatever plans he has for the future, O’Dea is confident about
his qualifications. When asked if he is satisfied with the choice
he made to be an undergraduate English student before pursuing
film, O’Dea replies, "I can speak English and teach English
wherever I go, and I do film. So I’m thinking I can easily survive
doing something somewhere."
Looks like O’Dea’s got his film and his lemonade.
FILM: "A New Normal" will screen at 7:30 p.m. at the James
Bridges Theater along with "The Zoo" and "Que Mana se Mejor: May
Tomorrow be Better."