WRITTEN BY MARINA GOMBERG

(Left to right) Film & Media Arts Chair, Andrew Patrick Nelson, alumnus and award-winning filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, Associate Professor Kevin Hansen, Dean John Scheib at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where Chung's film "Minari" won big.

When one of your alums is dubbed by media as “the toast of the Sundance” after taking home the international film festival’s Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, and then goes on to win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in a Foreign Language, and is (at the time of writing this) up for six Academy Awards, more and more people begin to take note.

The truth is, even before Lee Isaac Chung’s stunning film “Minari” became a global blockbuster, the University of Utah Department of Film & Media Arts had been emerging as a less-well-kept secret for some time, and now ranks among the top film departments in the nation.

Part of it is probably due to increasing consumption of film and media in our modern lives, and the other part is that our programs — especially the undergraduate programs — provide something almost no others do.

“What separates us from most other leading film programs and puts us ahead of the curve is our approach,” said Chair Andrew Patrick Nelson. “Because it’s one that recognizes the fluidity between different media practices and is reflective of where we are today in terms of the media we consume.”

In other words, as the boundaries between conventional media blur (the dissolving lines between television and movies being a prime example), so too has the way the department delivers education in film and media production.

“Our curriculum is not strictly siloed into disciplines in the way other films schools are,” he went on to say.

“Sure, a student can specialize in animation or immersive reality, but they can also customize their coursework to have the opportunity to try everything. And it’s this interdisciplinary approach that has attracted so many to our department.”

Bella Parkinson, a recent graduate of the BA program in Film & Media Arts, can attest to this benefit. With the chance to explore different ways of making work, she shifted her focus from video game art to animation and 3D graphics. She then had what she describes as a “game-changing internship” with the Utah Division of State History and PBS Utah that introduced her to photogrammetry: the creation of 3D models from photographs. 

Still from film by TWIG Media Lab Student Bella Parkinson adjusts the model owl she's working to recreate digitally.

Image courtesy of Bella Parkinson Digital recreations of objects photographed at Antelope Island State Park.

Being practiced at learning new technologies and processes, Parkinson was able to adapt to and absorb the new techniques quickly, and found value in her skills and perspective even though she’s not applying them in the ways she originally thought she might. Her professor Ha Na Lee even invited Parkinson to share her photogrammetry work with her fellow students, an impactful moment in her undergraduate career.

Lee, who specializes in new media which includes virtual, immersive, and augmented reality, is one of the four new faculty members to join the growing department in recent years, another sign of its recent growth. She is joined by Producer-in-Residence Emelie Mahdavian, Assistant Professor of Animation Michael Edwards, and Morales Fellow Paloma Martinez. This coming fall, the department will welcome another new colleague, Utah native and brilliant screenwriter Hubbel Palmer.

“Our faculty are in large part what make our programs so dynamic,” Nelson said. “We have a cadre of folks who have been here for some time, building the foundation on which we’re now rapidly growing. It’s because of their hard work that we’ve been able to welcome this cohort of more recent hires that complement and expand our offerings.”

More faculty means more classes, and that lends itself to the department’s greatest strength: its flexibility and breadth. 

“We embrace and nurture an independent spirit,” said Nelson. “Not just what kind of films we make, but in how students navigate their education with us. We’re there to help them every step of the way, but we put the onus on the students to do the self-exploration and self-reflection that will best define their path through our curricular offerings.” 

Student Xiaocong Zhu with clapboard.

The results are alumni like Chung and Parkinson who find success in highly competitive industries because they can do many different things well autonomously. They know lighting, they know scriptwriting, they know production, post-production, and all the stops along the way.

Some alumni work in Utah’s vibrant film industry, like alumna Taylor Mott, who is a freelance filmmaker working both in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. She’s currently an editor with local production house, TWIG Media Lab. Nikki Bullock who just finished her BA in Film & Media Arts has joined Mott at TWIG as Assistant Camera Operator. And Stephané Glynn, who now serves as the SVP of Operations and Post-production at the prosocial film production company, Vavani Productions.

Others, like Dean Hoff, the Vice President of Animation at Nickelodeon, Anayat Fakhraie, a writer on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and Ana Bretón, twice Emmy-nominated producer who recently started a new role as a Social Producer for “The Drew Berrymore Show,” have gone on to flourish in some of the world’s largest film- and media-making destinations.

Among the next phases of development for the department is the renovation of the Film & Media Arts Building on campus, which you can read more about in the story called “Arts Re:Generation” in this publication.

So, like a well-lit set, the future is bright for the Department of Film & Media Arts. ■