Movies
Cityscape
Located a couple of blocks from the Roxbury Crossing T-stop Cityscape is a new film school here in the area that's focusing on teaching real world skills. Unlike some university film programs where you may spend more time watching Un Chien Andalou than actually learning skills that will help you actually make a movie, Cityscape is going to engage students in real world projects with real world deadlines. To sweeten the deal, one of those real world projects is going to be a feature produced by Roger Corman.
Repeat after me: A feature produced by Roger Corman.
Cool.
As you can imagine it didn't take me very long to get down there to check the place out. I met with Laura Wilson, Founder and Director, got a tour and the skinny on the program, their philosophy and, yes, Roger Corman.
Located in a space at the Film Shack, a production facility that provides one-stop shopping, Cityscape owes it's philosophy to Wilson's own experience as a film student. At the Museum School Laura, as she puts it, "lucked into an instructor," Richard Broadman (who sadly passed away recently and to whom the program is dedicated) who was teaching a class called The Collaborative Film Workshop. The idea was simple, students would work together to make a film and provide practical experience. The idea continued with a similar class at the Boston Film & Video Foundation where Wilson served as Education Director. She brought Broadman in to teach a similar class and has now, with Cityscape, brought the idea to complete fruition.
This cornerstone idea behind the program also provides it's own challenges. The first is for the instructors themselves who must find a balance between making the dual goals of making good films and teaching. Another, more daunting challenge, is the real world aspect of it all. I.E., if you make a feature, people need to see it. That means selling it and that's sometimes easier said than done. That's where Roger Corman, whom Wilson met when he lectured at BFVF last year, comes in.
Corman, who as Wilson says, "has been doing this sort of thing informally for years", approached her and asked if she'd be interested in producing a feature. Rightly answering yes, Cityscape all of a sudden had a flagship project and a distributor for the film.
"He's given people a chance when no one would," Wilson says of Corman and she's certainly right. The legendary producer has fostered the careers of some of American cinemas brightest lights, a stunning roster which includes Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper (and what kind of place would the world be without Dennis Hopper?)
As for the feature, they're currently searching for a screenplay.* Concorde-New Horizons (Corman's company) will have to approve of it and pre-production would then commence in Dec/ Jan with a goal of shooting next April. A schedule which allows "time to develop it and really do it right."
Also, in line with the programs goal of doing the above collaborative effort "many times over with local filmmakers, " they've got a another deal with the Art Car Project in Jamaica Plain to develop a documentary based on their activities. This project will be a class in the fall.
All this and classes have just begun. Should be interesting over there in the coming months/ interesting. I'll make sure to keep you updated.
*Incidentally, they're leaning towards "Art Exploitation." This'll be my kind of movie.