"The development of a competitive film industry in Kentucky is taking an important step forward. Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC) in Lexington will fully fund a new Certificate in Filmmaking program, set to begin in January. Master classes and projects will cover everything from treatment and screenplay to directing, cinematography, lighting, audio and editing.
The program was developed by Arthur Rouse, director of the Kentucky Film Lab and owner of Video Editing Services, in collaboration with Teresa Tope, associate dean of academic affairs at BCTC. As director of the program, Rouse modeled the curriculum on his master's degree studies at Pepperdine University. "Students learn best when they participate in the learning experience. Filmmaking is the perfect opportunity to incorporate constructionist teaching/learning models since the filmmaking process requires collaboration and multiple projects across almost every discipline," Rouse described.
The program is an innovative, project-based series of master classes taught by industry professionals from Hollywood, New York and the pool of professional talent residing in Central Kentucky. Goals include increasing the skilled filmmaking workforce in Kentucky, creating momentum for more Kentucky-based film and media products and offering the study of filmmaking as a method to increase communication and collaboration skills.
In the process, BCTC, with an enrollment of 12,000, is stepping up the institution's efforts to attract more non-traditional students with fusions of academic and technical course work.
"Some people may not want to go to a college," said Rouse. "They want to go into a technical field, and we're offering filmmaking as a technical field with tremendous potential in Kentucky and beyond." Rouse noted that careers in film draw from the spectrum of traditional technical fields. Students in carpentry, for example, can find career opportunities in set design. "And we'll be able to show the people in electric trades that they can go to work in filmmaking as a gaffer."
Kentucky has lagged behind other more aggressive states in competing for film business, according to former Commerce Secretary Jim Host. "We have missed many business opportunities by not having a consistent education program centered on the filmmaking business and an incentive program aimed at attracting films to be made in the commonwealth," he said. "The benefits are obvious -selling our state to the world, attracting more tourists because of the films or video shows and luring more industry and corporate offices because of the exposure."
In response, Rouse and the members of the Kentucky Film Lab (www.kyfilmlab.com) looked to provide an immediate solution.
"I presented a plan to (BCTC president) Jim Kerley because I knew they would have the flexibility to address the need quickly and because it is a natural fit with their newly combined technical and academic programs under the BCTC banner," noted Rouse. An impressed Kerley appointed Rouse chair of a Filmmaking Program Task Force, and Rouse immediately went about reaching out to the pros, presenting the concept and building support, arranging deals with equipment vendors and finding ways to publicize the program.
Kerley said the college will purchase all of the necessary production equipment. It's in the approach to instruction where the program departs from the norm. "We'll have people coming in from Hollywood teaching two weeks. Some might be coming here to work on a film and could be a guest lecturer. So it's not just one or two people teaching all of these classes, it's bringing in the experts from the field. That's the fun part of it. They're (students) going to get some great hands-on expertise. I don't think anyone's doing it exactly the way we're doing it."
Industry professionals expressing interest include Kentucky Film Lab co-director and screenwriter Brad Riddell; story consultant Michael Dougan, a graduate of the University of Southern California Film program who has developed 25 separate three-hour multimedia lectures and has a Sundance Film Festival "Best Picture" award (Public Access) to his credit as a co-writer; and Lexington native Kinny Landrum, a New York-based composer whose works include collaboration with Angelo Badalamente on all of the scores for David Lynch's groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks. "I'll come in for a week and demonstrate how I write and come up with music for a picture. The main thing is seeing a picture and having some kind of reaction and then knowing how to translate that in musical terms. If nothing else, if I can teach people how to better explain and talk to musicians about what they want in music for their film, the better it will be."
Among those striving to establish an industry infrastructure in Kentucky is former Midway College President Allyson Handley, now the governor's senior policy advisor on economic development in secondary education and a former president of Cogswell Polytechnical College in California -a model for the fusion of the academic and the applied in film studies. "The downside right now of making films in Kentucky is that we don't have the capacity in terms of technical crews," she agreed. "So this certificate is tailor-made for somebody who is changing careers or has always been interested in this area. It will be very important as we strategically attract more filmmaking to Kentucky."
Handley emphasized that while an educational component is critical in successfully nurturing an industry, a competitive business climate is equally important. She is a proponent of the tax incentive packages that have drawn major film productions to New Mexico, North Carolina and Louisiana. Such a package made little headway in the 2006 Kentucky General Assembly, but she hasn't given up. "My understanding is that we're going to go back and revisit those and hopefully make film production much more competitive and appealing here in Kentucky."
While a career in filmmaking may, for many, be the main attraction to the BCTC program, colleges across the nation are finding that film studies also draw students who understand that cinema isn't so much a profession as it is the professional language of the future.
"We're trying to emphasize that, not only are we able to teach people entry-level skills in the filmmaking industry, and the confidence to say 'I'm prepared, I can do this,' we're also creating an opportunity for people who simply want to improve their communication skills," said Rouse. "Filmmaking is the 'pencil' of the 21st century. People nowadays communicate with the whole brain, graphically, linguistically, musically, visually, orally -young people especially have done that since birth -and filmmaking incorporates everything; all the disciplines are there."
The Filmmaking Certificate Program at Bluegrass Community and Technical College will be offered for the first time in January 2007.