In her Seven jeans and black heels, Sara Jordan walks into Condom Sense searching for just one item. Single, she finds herself surrounded by couples and a large man who politely asks if she needs any help.
“Yes,” Jordan said, “I need a whip.”
Jordan doesn’t have a whip fetish nor does she have a pet lion. She has, however, acquired a prop for SMU’s latest student film, Red Velvet Jesus, a murder mystery based upon deadly artifacts in an old mansion. After the addition of some gold paint and beads, the whip will transform into one of the 13 deadly artifacts – Cleopatra’s Whip.
Because Jordan is a student filmmaker she has to do it all – writing, producing, set-up and even the clean up – all tasks that major motion picture studios employ others to handle.
Unlike a studio’s production, Jordan doesn’t have a make-up and costume department. And there’s also no prop department, so trips to Condom Sense become embarrassing necessities.
“On a professional movie set, a man exists for every job,” Jordan said. “However, as student filmmakers, and in a small class, there isn’t a person we can assign to each job. We do it all on our own and learn about the entire filmmaking process from having to be so hands on.”
Jordan follows in the footsteps of past SMU student filmmakers, scrounging for all shooting necessities and coordinating the schedules of all student crew members and actors without the help of Movie Magic, the studio execs’ favorite computer software program that does all of the scheduling for them.
“In film classes, you can read about what it’s like to make a movie, and professors will talk about how a director got this or that shot, but you never really know until you do it yourself,” Jordan said. “This class allows you to say for yourself what it’s like to make a film, and you learn more from having the actual experience. Plus, it’s really fun.”
Each semester, cinema and television professor Tom Bywaters gets a new group of 10-15 students in his film production class, and they begin brainstorming script ideas, assigning each other positions and making a film.
“From class, I learned how to work in a structured position,” said senior Elyse Turkus, the director of photography on last semester’s production, Off the Air. “I really learned to rely on other people, and to trust that they would get their job done. Just like how the real film world works.”
From writing the opening sentence of the script and coordinating the first casting call, to the shout of the first “Action!” and to cutting the final edit, the students become professional filmmakers, under Bywater’s supervision and professional guidance.
Bywaters said that the students are eager to meet a professional challenge and each semester’s film is better than the last.
“This has been the greatest learning experience I have gotten out of any class at SMU,” said senior Tyler Graham, co-director of Red Velvet Jesus. “We learn every aspect of the film business. Because it’s a student production, we have multiple jobs. I’m co-directing, but I’m also a co-producer. Our director of photography does multiple jobs, and everyone helped with the writing. We just pitch in where we can.”
Graham has also enjoyed using the cinema and television department’s brand new 24-Panasonic camera, a video camera that shoots with professional film quality.
“The new cameras have taught us a lot about the technical aspects of shooting as well,” Graham said. “They’re still video cameras, but the footage looks great and appears completely professional.”
In addition to the new cameras, the cinema and television department provides, Red Velvet Jesus features a number of elements that past SMU student films haven’t had, including a Bob Dylan song, “House of the Rising Sun.”
“Usually on student films, the score is all lousy music that you don’t have to buy the rights for,” Jordan said. “On Red Velvet Jesus, we decided to invest $500 to buy the rights of Dylan’s song for six months, just to add something special to our project, and make it more professional.”
According to Andrew Schoellkopf, Graham’s co-director on Red Velvet Jesus, the largest obstacle to making a student film is financing the project.
While the cinema and television project does reimburse the film production class up to a certain amount, a number of costs, including the rights to the Dylan song, come out of the students’ pockets.
It’s Schoellkopf’s hope that the cinema and television department will become more supportive of the student projects and offer more funding.
Upon the film’s completion, the classes looks forward to a screening of their final project in front of a live audience in the Horchow Auditorium of the Dallas Musuem of Art. It has one of a few digital projector systems in Texas.
“It’ll be really rewarding to see our semester’s work on the big screen,” Jordan said. “When you make a movie, you definitely want people to see it, and that’s our opportunity. It really completes the experience.”
In addition to having a full-length film to add to their resumé and portfolio, many of the students enter their works into film festivals, including the annual SMU Student Film Festival.
This year’s festival coordinator, sophomore Chad White, said the SMU Student Festival provides a place to exhibit student works and has always supported the film production projects, as well as the student projects from other classes.
“We’ve had a great experience, and hopefully that will show in our work, because we’ve put a lot into it,” Graham said. “We’re hoping to enter it into some festivals and get some feedback. We’re even looking into showing it at the Magnolia in June.”
