"CITIZEN RUTH" "Making It: The First Feature"
series Today, 7:30 p.m. James Bridges Theater
Though they are big names in the hills of Hollywood, once upon a
time they were small-time students trudging up Bruin Walk.
Now, with the Melnitz Movies-sponsored series “Making It:
The First Feature,” former Bruin film directors are finding
themselves back where they started and inspiring current students
with their promising beginnings.
The series will showcase the first feature films of successful
and well-established UCLA alumni such as Justin Lin (“Better
Luck Tomorrow,” “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo
Drift”), Allison Anders (“Sex and the City”) and
Penelope Spheeris (“The Decline of Western
Civilization,” “Wayne’s World”), including
a follow-up question and answer session after each screening.
Tonight, Alexander Payne, director of the Oscar-winning
“Sideways,” will screen “Citizen Ruth” at
the James Bridges Theater.
“The goal of the series is to highlight some of the
initial accomplishments of the UCLA graduate filmmakers,”
said Amy Adrion, a graduate student in film directing and the
director of Melnitz Movies. “We want to screen their first
films for an audience that has seen their more popular
work.”
Payne, for example, who was too busy to conduct an interview
with the Daily Bruin, still makes time in his schedule to educate
and inspire the young UCLA community.
“Many of these filmmakers are working on big Hollywood
movies right now,” Adrion said. “We’re just
excited that they have time to come and talk to us.”
The first event of the series, on Oct. 26, featured the work of
Gil Kenan. Though Kenan could not attend the event, his short
animated film that garnered the attention of Steven Spielberg was
screened instead of the Q&A. Spielberg’s interest
eventually spawned the movie deal to make “Monster
House,” the main attraction of the night.
“I liked seeing the short because you could find the
similarities between that and the movie,” said Mary Huang, a
second-year Design | Media Arts student. “It had a house that
looked just like the one in “˜Monster House’ and they
both had a bizarre and surreal feel to it.”
While students may have seen many of the future guests’
more well-known works, the “Making It” series exposes
the thought processes of beginning filmmakers through a variety of
genres.
“We wanted a program that was diverse in types of film and
content, but we didn’t have to try too hard,” Adrion
said. “The graduates of UCLA are already so diverse that we
ended up with different kinds of film without really making an
effort.”
Spheeris, for example, graduated more than 30 years before
Kenan. Her first documentary, “The Decline of Western
Civilization,” heralded the coming of the MTV age, reflecting
and influencing the style and attitude of music in film and
television.
“This particular film has a lot of historical and
sociological value so students can really learn from it,”
Spheeris said. “They call me from all over the world ““
Austria, Sweden ““ to get me to show the film
there.”
The documentary experience is drastically different from the
experience of creating an animated film, and the series implores
students to probe the minds of the masters of each separate
craft.
“I think the program is going to be helpful and inspiring
to people but it’s important for (filmmakers) to speak
honestly about the business,” Spheeris said. “The
atmosphere of the industry when I got out of school is 180 degrees
different; it’s a lot tougher now.”
Candid conversations with directors are invaluable in an
increasingly competitive industry.
“My friends and I are looking forward to talking to the
filmmakers who come here so we can ask them how they
started,” Huang said. “This is a valuable resource for
us because we will have a connection to the alumni and people in
the business.”