LAFSC faculty member Michael Smith was recently accepted into the Educational Leadership Program at UCLA, which will culminate in an Ed.D. degree. One of the program faculty is Dr. Sylvia Hurtado, director of the nationally-acclaimed Higher Education Research Institute. Smith is currently exploring two research options for the program: 1) better integrating cinema studies into liberal arts education, and 2) improving the value of off-campus study programs at sending institutions by maximizing the potential leadership of students returning from study abroad.
Monica Jimenez-Grillo, also LAFSC faculty, will be producing a short film which will shoot this summer. The project is funded and supervised by Act One, a three-month program which places Christians in entertainment internships and hosts lectures by industry professionals. Jimenez-Grillo graduated from the Act One Executive program in the summer of 2005. (Act One’s executive director, Barbara Nicolosi, is serving with LAFSC this year as adjunct faculty. Nicolosi is also one of the editors of Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, And Culture, released in November 2005.)
LAFSC program director Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran has become a major sponsor and leader for the City of Angels Film Festival, a retrospective film festival which takes place each year at the Director’s Guild of America. Ver Straten-McSparran is now the director of the festival after six years of serving on its executive committee. Smith produced last year’s festival and Jimenez-Gillo is this year’s producer.
Other staff members are also pursuing outside endeavors:
- Industry & alumni relations director Christine Kresbach is an actress, a member of The Eclectic Company Theatre in North Hollywood and the producer of its 2006 Hurricane Season One Act Play Festival.
- Administrative assistant Nathan White teaches a professional acting class and writes/directs comedy short films for Highway Video. White won the 48-hour Film Festival Audience Award for his film two years in a row.
- Technical director Patrick Duff is camera operator and editor for two international productions this summer.
- Residence & student life director Sarah Duff, begins the Theology and the Arts masters program at Fuller Theological Seminary this summer.
“The staff at LAFSC constantly pushes the envelope of excellence. It is interesting to me that, as we each pursue our interests, we bring an array of new skills to the program, and through City of the Angels Film Festival, are connecting and educating industry professionals and religious communities,” says Ver Straten-McSparran. “These skills and relationships, joined with state-of-the-art equipment and high profile industry adjuncts are opening more doors for our students and alumni than ever before. We are moving into a position in the both academics and the entertainment industry that we did not imagine a couple of years ago.”
LAFSC recently received a $100,000 grant which is being used to develop the program’s new sound studio and to update and expand production and post-production technology. The Film Studies Center is in the process of renting, designing and building additional space in its facility for a new sound recording and mixing studio. The studio will have a recording booth, mixing room, music composition studio and foley stage.
“Sound is fully 50 percent of the cinema experience,” says Smith. “We want LAFSC alumni to understand how to design and execute a soundtrack professionally. This new studio will enable students to do just that.” The program also purchased a music library of 50,000 tracks to help overcome the obstacle of music licensing for the student films.
Another major milestone was reached in the program this year when all films were shot and edited in HDV using Sony HDV cameras and Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems. And for the first time this April, students will enjoy a Hollywood premiere of their final film projects in the historic Silent Movie Theatre. Students will invite their actors and crew members as well as their newly-made industry contacts from internships to view their films on the big screen. An on-site reception will follow.
LAFSC is one of 12 semester- or summer-long student programs offered by the CCCU through BestSemester. Culture-shaping programs are: American Studies Program (Washington, D.C.); Contemporary Music Center (Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.); Los Angeles Film Studies Center (L.A., Calif.); and Washington Journalism Center (Washington, D.C.), which is scheduled to launch in Fall 2006. Included in the culture-crossing programs are: Australia Studies Centre; China Studies Program; Latin American Studies Program; Middle East Studies Program; Programmes in Oxford; Russian Studies Program; and Uganda Studies Program. All programs undergo regular site visit evaluations by the Student Academic Programs Commission (SAPC).
The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities is a higher education association of more than 170 intentionally Christ-centered institutions around the world. There are now 105 member campuses in North America and all are fully-accredited, comprehensive colleges and universities with curricula rooted in the arts and sciences. In addition, 74 affiliate campuses from 25 countries are part of the CCCU. The Council’s mission is to advance the cause of Christ-centered higher education and to help its institutions transform lives by faithfully relating scholarship and service to biblical truth.
