Faculty & Staff News - August 2009

Alan Baker's Newswire

FACULTY NEWS

Thales Joins as ETC Sponsor
Thales, a technology company specializing in the areas of space, defense and security in addition to developing digital on-demand in-flight entertainment systems, has recently joined SCA's Entertainment Technology Center as a Gold Sponsor. As a Gold Sponsor, Thales will participate in ETC's Advisory Board and project working groups. In making the announcement, KC Blake, ETC's Director of Business Development, stated, "We are excited by the perspective of in-flight entertainment and mobile delivery of content that Thales will bring." Thales is a European-based company operation in 50 countries with 68,000 employees. Other Gold Sponsors include Dolby, LG, SanDisk, IDA Singapore and Audi.

Critical Studies assistant professor Kara Keeling presented a paper entitled, "'Bartleby, Or The Formula and the (Im)Possible Politics of Afrofuturism," at the Deleuze Studies Conference in Cologne, Germany on August 11.

Critical Studies professor Doe Mayer reports that The Keck School of Medicine's new Global Health Institute sent her to Thailand in July to work with Thai Health, an organization using media for anti-smoking, anti-alcohol and traffic accident messaging. Mayer  presented a series of lectures on innovative ways to get health messages into television programming. She also did the preproduction research for a series of short documentaries she will produce next year on health issues and organizations in Thailand.

This month, Interactive Media professor Anne Balsamo presented a talk based on her forthcoming book, Designing Culture: Issues for Digital Design, at the 6th Annual Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT), Designing China, in Shanghai, China. In July, Anne and her team concluded their research on the MacArthur-sponsored project called "Inspiring the Technological Imagination: Museums and Libraries in a Digital Age." The first reports from this research were published online as a eight-week series of blog postings on the site: Futures of Learning. In June, Anne collaborated with independent filmmaker Michael Kastenbaum to create documentary material for a series of short "video primers" that address topics relating to DIY culture, Maker Faire and tinkering in a digital age.

Screenwriting associate professor Mary Sweeney reports that Baraboo, a film she wrote and directed, went to the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Galway Film Festival this summer. It was runner-up for the Best First Feature award in Galway.

Production adjunct Tristan Whitman just finished shooting the feature film I Live at the House with the Blue Door.

Screenwriting adjunct Brad Riddell, who wrote Road Trip 2, notes that it was released on DVD August 11, and has since risen into the top twenty of purchased and rented films on iTunes. The film stars Danny Pudi, Julianna Guill and DJ Qualls. It was directed by Steve Rash and produced by The Montecito Picture Company and Paramount.

Emeritus Professor Herb Farmer has received the first University Film & Video Foundation's Lifetime Service Award for his years of dedicated service to the UFVA. In making the announcement, UFVA president Bill Huie noted that the award was established with Farmer in mind as its first recipient.

Critical Studies professor Marsha Kinder reports that Labyrinth had five interactive pieces on exhibition at the Downtown Digital Arts Festival that was held from August 12 to 16 in Los Angeles: "Tracing the Decay of Fiction: Encounters with a Film by Pat O'Neill" and "Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986," were at the Rowan Gallery, and three more cultural histories were at a nearby gallery: "Mysteries and Desires: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy," "Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing," and "Cultivating Pasadena: From Roses to Redevelopment." Marsha and Scott Mahoy gave a presentation on Saturday, August 15 at the Visible Evidence Conference on three projects that were part of the related exhibition: "Tracing the Decay of Fiction," "Bleeding Through," and "Cultivating Pasadena." Rosemary Comella and Kristy H.A. Kang, both members of Labyrinth, are currently in Taipei teaching a workshop at the Chengchi University on how to make interactive cultural histories. This is the third summer that they have been invited to give this workshop. Marsha also reports that The American Cinematheque has donated their collection of hundreds of Spanish films (on DVD and on cassette) to the USC Cinema library. This collection was developed in conjunction with their annual series on Recent Spanish Films, which Marsha originally helped them to launch. She has also been invited to give a talk at Scripps College in October on Women in Spanish film.

Production associate professor Midge Costin is profiled in the August 27 Hollywood Reporter as a film school educator who brings life and professional experiences to the classroom. As to why she decided to go into teaching after working on movie blockbusters, she said, "I liked being able to tell students that sound is about story, about character. It's one of the tools you can use to make your film really powerful."

The new 2011 Edition of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide has just been published by Penguin, with 350 new entries and 17,000 films altogether. This marks the book's 40th anniversary. Last week, it made the New York Times bestseller list for "Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous" books.

Screenwriting adjunct Frank Chindamo's new comedy series, Mr. Wrong,has earned his company a nomination for Best Video Company in the Mobile Entertainment Awards competition where it competed against the BBC and Sky TV.

In the campaign against film piracy, production professor Jeremy Kagan directed a spot in association with the Directors Guild to highlight the fact that literally billions of dollars are lost each year to all those working in the film and television industry due to piracy. Kagan was re-elected to the National Board of the Directors Guild and as Chairperson of the DGA Special Projects, he oversaw their Digital Day devoted to the newest inventions in the digital field. Kagan also participated in the USC Fusion Arts Program this summer and has been at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival researching short theater projects. He also established a new website for "completing conversations with those you never got the chance to." Check it out here -  the opening animation was made by USC student Bryan Young.

Production Senior Lecturer Chris Chomyn recently shot "Ghost Magic," an interactive music video featuring Keaton Simons performing his song, "Without Your Skin," using the HD recording capabilities of Canon 5DMarkII DSLR. The video was directed by SCA alumnus Vince Marcello and was produced by Nichelle Protho, VP of Sander/Moses Productions as an online promotional piece for the television series Ghost Whisperer.

In June, associate dean Michael Renov delivered the keynote address at a conference entitled "Beyond the Politics of Identity" at the Department of Film and Visual Culture of the University of Aberdeen (Scotland).

Screenwriting professor Howard A. Rodman participated in a screenwriting seminar to benefit the literacy organization 826LA on August 6. He was joined by screenwriters Dan Futterman (Capote), Melissa Mathison (E.T.), Glasgow Phillips (South Park) and James Ponsoldt (Off the Black).

Post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy Patricia G. Lange recently published the book chapter, "Videos of Affinity on YouTube," in The YouTube Reader (Patrick Vonderau and Pelle Snickars, Eds. Pp. 228-247. Swedish National Library Press, distributed by Wallflower Press, 2009). It is one of the first full length books treating YouTube as a scholarly object of study and as a cultural form.

Los Angeles PBS affiliate KCET ran a commentary by the Institute for Multimedia Literacy director Holly Willis on the future of arts journalism. The IML is collaborating with the USC Annenberg School and the National Arts Journalism Program on the National Summit on Arts Journalism, a showcase for new projects that advance the field. The IML will create video presentations on the selected projects. "We wanted to tackle this kind of assignment because we're interested in methods for conveying information through images, sound and text, and we wanted to create videos that point to these new modes," Willis wrote. L.A. Observed highlighted Willis' commentary.

The San Francisco Examiner cited Critical Studies professor Todd Boyd's comments regarding African American filmmaker Tyler Perry. "Tyler Perry's films are rooted in some of the worst stereotypes that have ever existed," Boyd said.

Hench-DADA professor Christine Panushka and artist Alberto Araizia will present Mosca and the Meaning of Life at the Redcat Theater on Monday, October 26 at 8:30 P.M. Mosca and the Meaning of Life  is a groundbreaking multimedia piece in which animated characters leap off the screen and join up with a live performance crafted by award-winning filmmaker and animator Christine Panushka and theater and spoken word artist Beto Araiza. The program also includes The Sum of Them, Singing Sticks and other films by Panushka, as well as an excerpt of Biting the Pillow, a performance by Araizia.

Portfolio quoted production chair Michael Taylor about libertarian media magnate John Malone backing the new film by liberal documentarian Michael Moore. Relationships between populist rabble-rousers and captains of finance aren't unusual in Hollywood, the story stated. "That's more the norm than not," Taylor said. Titans of industry tend not to micromanage films or get in the way, he added.

Washington City Paper cited Critical Studies associate professor Priya Jaikumar about Bollywood producer Vijay Taneja. Two films Taneja produced in 2006 and 2007 — Humko Tumse Pyaar Hai and Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee — The Real Luv Story — were major Bollywood releases that featured established stars, Jaikumar said.

In a review of LIQUID, a new play by Brenda Varda, Sandra Ross of the LA Weekly wrote: "Perry Hoberman's video and visuals are creatively delightful--and downright scary in other places." LIQUID is an ecological fable about global warming, rising oceans, genetic alterations that turn human beings into fish, a tsunami, contemporary piracy, terrorism, oil spills, corporate espionage, etc. Hoberman says it is hilarious and very entertaining. He is a research associate professor in the Interactive Media Division. It runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (at 8) and Sundays (at 6) until October 3 at the Unknown Theatre, 1110 N. Seward Street in Hollywood. Tickets available here.

Instructor of Cinema Practice Jason E. Squire was interviewed on "Marketplace" about the Paramount tentpole film, G.I. Joe as to why it was being screened on Army bases rather than premiered in New York or Los Angeles; also about the emergence of toymaker Hasbro as a movie presence as it re-invigorates brands such as THE TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE among multimedia platforms beyond theatrical to the Internet, interactive gaming and, of course, toys. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/08/05/am-gi-joe/

Screenwriting adjunct David Scott Milton reports that a special production of the play he wrote, Duet For Solo Voice, will play at Theater for the New City from September 24 to October 11. David says the play is a "dark comedy about Leonard Pelican, a paranoid night clerk in a seedy Times Square hotel, circa 1970, who thinks that the Russians are coming...for him! He is pursued throughout the play by his paranoid fantasy: a KGB agent named Vassily Ilianovich Chort. The play, then, is the eccentric whirl of Leonard's entrapment of Chort while the gravelly-voiced Bolshevik is zeroing in for the kill. One actor plays both parts. For information about the play, theater location and show times, go to http://www.duetforsolovoice.com.

The Washington Times quoted Summer Program director David Weitzner about this summer's movie slate. Mixed in with the usual big studio blockbusters, independent movies are doing well, the story reported. Blockbusters "tend, with few exceptions, to go through their audiences really quickly," Weitzner said. "The quality of certain independent films has just been terrific," he added. "Quality always will win the day."

Associated Person:

Alan Baker