Private Film School Presents Alternative to USC and UCLA

Once again, Cahl Garingan sighs, the Academy has erred.

When the nominees for best foreign film are read tonight, the 25-year-old Canadian native will be shaking his head. It seems the Hollywood types neglected to honor a small New Zealand film called “Once Were Warriors.”

“It was a tour de force. It was the magic of filmmaking,” insisted Garingan. “If I could make a film that powerful, I’d be very happy. Very happy.”

And Garingan may do just that. He is one of 70 students enrolled in Orange County’s only graduate-level film school.

Founded three years ago, the Chapman University film program hopes to teach promising young talents such as Garingan how to break into a profession notorious for favoritism and cliquishness. And the small private university must do so without the financial resources and Oscar-winning faculty and alumni of its film school neighbors to the north, UCLA and USC.

“In some ways, it’s daunting to compete against USC, UCLA and NYU [New York University]. They are the Harvard, Princeton and Yale of film schools,” said Bob Bassett, head of Chapman’s film school. “We are a second-tier film school, but we are a viable alternative.”

In part, Chapman owes its very creation to the powerhouse film schools, which accept only a handful of students each year. Many of Chapman’s students, who pay about $8,000 per year in tuition and class fees for the three-year program, were turned down by the big programs.

But the students, who range in age from 25 to 40 and come from as far away as Taiwan, still wanted to be as near the movie-making mecca of Los Angeles as possible.

“Chapman was close to L.A., with the added advantage of not actually being in L.A.,” said Rob Collie, who was rejected by USC and UCLA and chose Chapman over a host of other film schools. “It didn’t seem cutthroat like some other schools. There seemed to be an emphasis on working together, which I liked.”

Indeed, Chapman’s 11 full-time instructors stress time and again that filmmaking is a collaborative process, and its success or failure can depend upon group cohesion. Nowhere is this more apparent, as Bassett says, than “when the faculty gets out of the way and the students make their films.”

Unlike other film schools where equipment use can be restricted, Chapman students have free reign with cameras and are required to make at least one film.

“We try to take a holistic approach,” said Pamela Ezell, a Chapman screenwriting professor. “It helps a screenwriter to know how much it costs to put a film up on the screen.”

Ezell, whose credits include working on the former television series “The Trials of Rose O’Neill,” said: “The reality today is that film is a business and an art. Film helps them learn about the business while perfecting their artistic talent.”

Students say the experience of shooting their own scripts is invaluable.

“You get to play out your mistakes. It’s an amazing process to go through,” Collie said. Before film school, the 30-year-old wrote scripts while moonlighting as a theater manager. “I became a much better screenwriter because of it.”

All the film students also are encouraged to intern at places ranging from local cable companies to large Hollywood production companies.

“You really see the business side of it,” said Derek Anderson, 33, a second-year film student and intern researcher at Turner Pictures. “You learn that it’s possible to actually make a movie. They can’t do business with Oliver Stone for everything.”

Chapman also boasts about its recent purchase of $500,000 in cutting-edge editing machines. At one of the 10 computerized editing workstations, a student can experiment with multiple versions of a scene, which encourages creativity, teachers say.

“It’s like switching from typewriters to word processing,” Bassett said. “While the technology may be more advanced in Hollywood, they use the same principles as our machines. So our students will have a real leg up in the industry.”

Chapman already is attracting Hollywood talent to campus. As part of a visiting filmmaker program, Academy Award-winners David S. Ward, screenwriter for “The Sting,” and Robert Zemeckis, director of “Forrest Gump,” have volunteered to talk to Chapman students next month.

Also, this fall, Chapman will start another graduate-level program designed to train producers.

Though pleased with the advanced technology, internships and visits from directors, some students said they are eager for the school to gain greater access to the Los Angeles film community.

“Hollywood ignores Orange County,” said Collie, who has been enamored of cinema since “Star Wars.” “We put our hearts and souls into these films, and we want more than just people outside Chapman to see them.”

It’s too soon to judge how Chapman film school graduates will fare in the Hollywood jungle. Only two students have graduated from the program, and both returned to their native countries--Japan and Taiwan--to pursue film careers.

Though film school teaches them skills, the students say they know it offers no guarantees.

“It’s kind of scary all right,” Anderson said. “I stopped working to concentrate on school, and you think to yourself, ‘Do I know what I’m doing?’ I’m really at the crap table now.”

But, he added in a refrain heard from many film students, “It’s something I had to do.”