NewEnglandFilm.com

Part production company, part film school, Cityscape Motion Picture Education launches this month as a place for emerging filmmakers to learn their craft using the best method available — doing it.

Cityscape’s founder and director Laura Wilson recently talked with NewEnglandFilm.com about Cityscape, educating filmmakers and total-immersion filmmaking.

TP: What inspired you to start Cityscape?

WILSON: The idea can be traced back to the mid-90s, when I was a student, and then a colleague, of the now-late filmmaker Richard Broadman. I was in film school and enrolled in an innovative class designed and run by Richard. The class taught film production skills by engaging students in a real-life film projects intended to be several cuts above typical student work. In this workshop, participants — some complete beginners, like myself — collaborated to produce a movie using the traditional production filmmaking model of most commercial American films, i.e., the Hollywood model. Ironically, in the highly individualized, personal filmmaking environment of the Museum School, this was almost revolutionary.

Over the years, Richard and I would have conversations about further using this collaborative, craft-based model. We both had a dream that this kind of learning and teaching model would translate into movies that could eventually be screened and sold.

When I went to work as the education director at the Boston Film/Video Foundation in 1997, Richard, Rob Todd, another local filmmaker, and I designed a similar collaborative class to run there. After a couple of years at BF/VF we started to wonder if it was possible to run an entire program based on this concept.

In January Robert Patton-Spruill and Patti Moreno of the FilmShack agreed to lease space and equipment to Cityscape at affordable rates. It was also in January that Richard suffered an unexpected heart attack and died. A local investor who believed in the concept put up money on generous terms. Finally, the legendary movie producer Roger Corman expressed an interest in working with Cityscape to help finance and distribute a feature film as part of an educational process. Suddenly, a rather vague dream had become viable.

TP: What is Cityscape’s mission?

WILSON: Cityscape is literally part film production company, part education program. We firmly believe that people learn filmmaking best by working collaboratively on real projects with real commercial potential. Our programs are almost exclusively vocational, craft-based, and collaborative. We aim to demystify moviemaking and make it accessible to people from all walks of life. We’re especially interested in providing training to new and emerging filmmakers and film professionals. We hope to create a guild-like training/production center that brings teacher-professionals and beginners together to make and sell movies.

TP: I have to ask, what is the FilmShack?

WILSON: You can visit FilmShack’s Web site at www.filmshack.com to learn more about them, but my short explanation is that FS is a new film production facility in town run by director Rob Patton-Spruill and producer Patti Moreno. They are committed to supporting, training and equipping a new generation of filmmakers right here in New England. They’re working to provide an infrastructure for local filmmakers, whether that means renting affordable equipment, co-financing for selected movies, or affordable production and office space.

TP: Describe the type of classes you offer.

WILSON: There are three kinds of classes we offer at Cityscape. (Specific descriptions are available online at www.cityscapefilm.com). First, the cornerstone of our teaching and learning model is our five production programs. These are intensive programs, usually over a five- to seven-week period, meeting two nights a week or more, in dramatic film, documentary production, directing actors on camera, editing and shooting on digital video. The programs are all structured around making actual movies.

Second, we offer 16 skills-training workshops. These sessions are held over weekends or long weekends and provide in-depth, hands-on exposure to a broad range of motion picture industry roles, such as cinematography, production design, sound, continuity or editing.

Finally, we offer two individual programs in 16mm and digital video, designed for more advanced students who are prepared to commit significant time and money to making short film projects. Almost all of our classes are held on nights and weekends.

TP: How is the Cityscape experience different from film school?

WILSON: First, it’s cheaper. The average annual cost of a matriculated film education program lies somewhere between $16,000 and $22,000. And most of the time, tuition doesn’t cover the cost of an individual thesis project, which is often the only opportunity students get to work under conditions that look anything like real film production. Second, we go beyond classroom instruction. Especially in our production programs, students work on real movies, working with real deadlines. Students can leave with real movie credits under their belts. At Cityscape, we teach skills and build careers simultaneously.

TP: How did Roger Corman get involved with Cityscape?

WILSON: Last year, I met Mr. Corman when he came to Boston to screen a couple of his films and give a talk. At the time, he expressed general interest in the idea of combining commercial production and education. When Cityscape got off the ground, Corman let us know he’d be interested in helping to finance and distribute a picture involving our students.

TP: You have developed an interesting student apprentice program with Mr. Corman for film production. Can you tell me about it?

WILSON: Our goal with the Roger Corman movie is to provide highly practical, vocational training on a low-budget movie that has a very good chance of finding distribution through our connection with Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons.

Students will apply — and pay — to apprentice with our professional personnel associated with the Corman movie. For example, if a student knows that she or he is interested in production design, they will apply for a slot working with the production designer. That means that the apprentice will not only receive comprehensive, individualized training from the production designer, but will actually do the production design — under the guidance of the teacher professional. The same is true of the other roles, such as director of photography, sound designer and recordist, director, line producer, continuity person, etc.

TP: Is the program open to anyone?

WILSON: The program will be open to applicants 16 years old or older who have some film production training or experience, such as in a classroom setting or on a movie set, even if only once.

TP: When will the program begin?

WILSON: Cityscape’s regular programs are beginning in June. [We had] a series of free career nights and mini-courses at the end of May…designed to give aspiring filmmakers a chance to learn about the industry from the pros and also to provide a sample of our classes and teachers before they start[ed]. The Corman movie will take place over the next ten months or so. The intensive, student part of the program will begin around April of 2001. But starting this summer, we’ll be selecting and developing a script.

TP: What type of film are you and Mr. Corman looking to produce with the first class of apprentices?

WILSON: We’re generally sticking with the Corman "sensibility," although there’s a lot of leeway there. We’re looking for horror, thriller, suspense, supernatural or action movies that can be modified for an extremely low budget.

TP: Tell me about the instructors that you have teaching at Cityscape.

WILSON: Cityscape’s teacher-professionals are all accomplished film professionals who are committed to training a new generation of filmmakers.…They have all played an important role in shaping Cityscape’s programs.

At Cityscape, we are hoping to build a sort of "cadre" of local film professionals who can, through teaching, make us a base for their own freelance businesses and projects.

TP: How would you describe the independent filmmaking experience being offered by Cityscape and its instructors?

WILSON: At Cityscape, we’re not that enamored of the phrase, or even the overall concept of "independent filmmaking." First, as you know, the line between independent and commercial movies (i.e., movies made by what’s left of the major studios) is so blurred that it’s not even a real line anymore.

Second, while we support the concept of independent or distinctive ideas for movies, we DON’T believe that filmmaking itself — at least good filmmaking — can or should be independent. Some of the very best American movies are the result of a production filmmaking process that, for all its rigidity, is highly collaborative and, in fact, interdependent. And that’s what Cityscape’s about, working together — not "independently" to make movies with strong production value that people will want to see.

TP: What do you hope to contribute to the New England film community with Cityscape?

WILSON: There’s been a lot of talk in Boston — and in New England — over the last decade about building a local and regional film community or industry. At Cityscape, we think we can help make this happen by training and cultivating a new generation of filmmakers and film professionals, providing the projects on which they cut their teeth and build careers, and increasing the numbers of film projects produced in the area.