NU RTF no 12 on The Wrap's list of 50 top film schools

https://view.flipdocs.com/html5/?id=10004691_279904&P=0#28

Proud of all we're doing, including writing, comedy, doc, sound, production, animation/VR, screen cultures.  Proud of our alums incl. my students Jenny Hagel, Jen Spyra, and Sarah Gubbins. And of course proud of our six Guggenheim winners and all who's been included on NewCity's Film 50 lists. And yes, who wouldn't want to be Zayd Dohrn and/or Sarah Gubbins!  (correction: i'm the chair not dean of the dept)

On location with True Memories and Other Falsehoods

Associate producing Debra Tolchinsky's True Memories and Other Falsehoods. Fun and very moving shoot. If you're in Chicago, grab a ticket to hear Debra talking about this film as part of the Belief Series/Chicago Humanities Festival at the Block Museum, Oct 28 at 5 p.m.:  

https://tickets.chicagohumanities.org/shows/208%20-%20true%20memories%20and%20other%20falsehoods/info

 

Strange Things Brewing

Planning the "monster" transformation scene – with artist Angela Azmitia, DP Rob Stern, special effects artist Sarah Sharp, and producer Madison Jones.
http://davidetolchinsky.com/cassandra/

Giving into a Fiction Willingly

A writer friend introduced me to this quote by Wallace Stevens:  The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.

Yes! Writing is the enactment of belief, pursuing something which may be real or which may be fiction, but even if we believe it's fiction (that is our stories are pointless or won’t have impact or are just plain stupid), we can't help ourselves. Case in point: Noah, who to me was the first screenwriter :)  - who believed it would rain, that the end of the world was coming, but at the same time must have known that was an impossibility, but still/ultimately he drove himself (and his poor family) to build that ark. So giving into a fiction willingly. Believing the impossible. Yes!  This is what it is to be a writer.

(pic by James Edwin Mcconnell)

congrats to former student anthony williams (et al)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/project-greenlight-wither-wins-clive-barker-mentorship-300k-1025152?linkId=40596729

very cool/proud prof