Cal State Movie Program Steps Into the Spotlight With Award

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. It recently was named the best film school in California by 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 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 film distributor.

“I don’t mean to call Cal State a trade school,” Collin said. “I don’t want to diminish the quality of other schools. But in integrating the arts, sciences and businesses, Northridge wins.”

Collin presented the IndiGo Award for Excellence during a small reception on campus, sans Steve Martin and all the glitz.

The award typically goes to a company that makes filmmaking easier, cheaper or more accessible for independents, Collin said.

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

Alan Baker, assistant dean of USC’s School of Cinema-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.

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 at Northridge.

Undergraduates at Northridge, 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.

“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 often unpaid, but students earn college credit.

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 at Northridge.

But the program has its difficulties, mainly a tight budget of about $1.5 million. It means that students finishing their senior film projects last week edited them on analog equipment of a type already 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 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.

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 quake. The new 200-seat theater, which has not opened yet, is already in demand as a venue for independent film releases in the San Fernando Valley.

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.