CSUN’s Movie Program Named Best in the State

UCLA gave you Francis Ford Coppola. USC, George Lucas. Cal State Northridge offers up A.C. Manzano, a former intern at Paramount Studios and DreamWorks SKG, who is learning the corporate side of the movie-making business.

While richer, slicker film schools turn out A-list talent, Northridge’s Arts, Media and Communication Department produces the administrative staffers who make movies happen. CSUN recently was named the best film school in California by an equally low-key industry group, the Assn. of Independent Feature Film Producers, beating out the likes of UCLA and USC.

“Let’s face it, the glamour area is in being a producer, actor, writer, director,” said William Toutant, dean of the Northridge film department. “But there are a lot of very fine producers, actors, writers, directors waiting tables. We know that, and we know there’s a good demand for people working behind the scenes to allow production to be possible.”

In awarding its honor, the Hollywood-based association recognized Northridge for cranking out a wide range of film professionals “who are ready to hit the ground running for filmmakers who can’t afford to start somebody off in the mail room,” said President Barry Collin, a self-employed film distributor.

“I don’t want to diminish the quality of other schools,” Collin said. “But in integrating the arts, sciences and businesses, Northridge wins.”

Northridge graduate Tom Darren, director of television operations for the school’s film department, said he considers larger programs more like trade schools because they teach narrow aspects of the business.

The IndiGo Award for Excellence is more a match between the university and the association than a coup over the more celebrated film programs. Northridge has its workaday teaching ethic while the association is made up of filmmakers who, with little acclaim, produce films all over the world. Collin presented the trophy during a small reception on campus, sans all the usual glitz.

Hands-On Training Gives CSUN an Edge

The award typically goes to a company that makes filmmaking easier, cheaper or otherwise more accessible for independents, Collin said. The association is considering presenting the next one to Sony Corp. for making a digital camera that will lower production costs.

Alan Baker, USC’s assistant dean of the School of Cinema and Television, was not familiar with the IndiGo award or its presenter, but he took exception to the idea that his university is a trade school.

“We emphasize the importance of a well-rounded education,” Baker said. “I have to say, our students have some of the highest SAT scores on a campus where they obviously have to be strong enough to qualify.”

The difference between the more famous film schools and Northridge’s spartan operation is access, said Robert Gustafson, director of the Entertainment Industry Institute, which coordinates entertainment-related studies among various departments at Northridge.

Undergraduates at CSUN, who are often first-generation college students, begin hands-on training their first year, usually learning how to use the department’s equipment, Gustafson said. More than 800 students declare television or film as their major.

“Our students bring their own humble attitudes,” Gustafson said. “Like the Valley itself--a work-ethic-related place--they’re used to not taking anything for granted.”

That may explain why the Arts, Media and Communication Department wound up with 238 local companies offering 200 internships to upper-division students. The internships are usually unpaid, but students earn college credit for their work.

“From a realistic perspective,” Manzano said, “a lot of TV and film students [at Northridge] are into internships to do gopher work because they have no misconceptions about who they are. Internships give you that foot in door.”

A 1998 survey found that 76% of the school’s alumni were working in the industry. The multimedia management concentration, which focuses on budgets, research and personnel, reports 100% placement of its graduates.

“Given this industry, that’s really quite amazing,” Toutant said.

It helps to have alumni such as Michael Klausman, president of CBS Studio Center, recruiting from Northridge.

But the blue-collar program has its setbacks, mainly a tight budget of about $1.5 million in the most expensive major on campus. It means students finishing their senior film projects last week edited them on analog equipment which has already been supplanted by digital machines at the major studios.

Jamie Hernandez, a Northridge senior and an Entertainment Tonight intern, cut a promotional video for the Directors Guild of America on one of the most modern systems at Northridge, a soon-to-be obsolete digital editor. One of the overhead lights on the sound stage was so antiquated it is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute.

But while maintaining a behind-the-scenes focus with its program, the Cal State campus is trading its drab editing suites for new high-tech digs in the sparkling Manzanita Hall, courtesy of relief funds from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Students who now squeeze into eight small rooms will be able to stretch their legs into 20 new editing bays in the new building planned by Robert Stern, the architect who designed Disney’s new animation offices in Burbank.

And, a new 200-seat theater, which has not opened yet, is already in demand as a venue for independent film releases .