Peter Hawley – Page 17 – A portfolio for my work as a filmmaker and podcaster

Collaboration part 3

We made it.

Flashpoint Academy opened its doors on Monday and welcomed their first class. Monday was orientation and as part of it we screened Dean Paula Froehle’s film, “The Collector,” and our “making of The Collector” documentary.

The similarities between making a film and building a college are remarkable. During the summer pre-production phase each of us on the Flashpoint crew had a job to do. Recruiters recruited, IT experts did their magic and faculty hammered out classes, curricula and schedules. All of us worked towards the first day of production both independently and as one- just like a film production- coming together to produce a college.

Speaking of filmmaking and collaboration I owe a big thanks to my Windy Cine partner Jim who really figured out the HD workflow and did lots of post-production work as I phoned and e-mailed changes. The making of really works and it proves even a relatively small documentary needs to have good teamwork in order to be successful. Thanks, Jim.

PeterH

Doing it Right

There was an interesting editorial in Friday’s New York Times about how the University of California-Irvine botched the hiring of the dean of their new law school scheduled to open in 2009.

This was fascinating to me in many ways. 1) Planning a school 2+ years away? Come on we built Flashpoint in a little more than 100 days! It can be done. 2) What does it say to the future professors and students at that school that the boss doesn’t have the integrity to stand by his own decisions. (The dean was offered the position, it was rescinded due to the deans left of center politics, then the position was re-offered.) Not a good start for the future law school if you ask me.

This brings me to our little school that does things the right way. Yesterday, the staff and faculty had a final walk through before the doors open tomorrow and we go live. When I walked into that building in April it was cement and plywood and studs on the wall. Today it looks like the nerve center of a high-tech business. It is -in a word I seldom use- awesome. It is clearly a place to do good work and make things happen.

As we walked through the halls Steven Berger, Flashpoint Special Projects Manager, came up to me and said, “This is going to be the best and most sought after film school in the country.” I replied, “Unless the dumb filmmaker gets in the way.”

Paula Froehle, our Academic Dean, heard this and reminded me that I was the first person she thought of when thinking about creating the film program. That made me feel very good. I think we did the right thing.

Tomorrow it’s for real.

PeterH

Circle of Life

“Old Man look at my life, I am a lot like you were.”

I heard that Neil Young song recently and those lyrics really hit home.

40 some years ago my dad and mom packed up their relatively comfortable New England lives and left their families behind to move to Kentucky (From Boston to KY even today that sounds crazy!) so my dad could help start a progressive private school called The Lexington School. A dozen years later my dad moved across town to rival Sayre School and helped shape that school. Today those are the two best schools in the state of Kentucky.

So here I am, nearly 12 years into teaching at one of the largest and best films schools in the United States and I up and leave its relative safety to move uptown and to join a progressive upstart. In a day I went from the biggest film school in the world to the smallest. One of my parent’s friends even asked if I should wait to take the job until Flashpoint became established.

What am I, nuts?

If I heard Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand” would it be different? Probably not. I think it is in my blood to challenge students and challenge myself and to look at new ways to present material. In short, old man take a look at my life I am a lot like you.

PeterH

Starting Up

Prior to Flashpoint the only previous experience I have with a start up venture was 20 years ago when I worked for the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Even then I was just a first generation hire, starting right around the day the museum opened the doors so I missed out on all the pre-launch chaos, business and excitement.

Comparing a museum devoted to archiving broadcast history to starting a new media arts college is an apt metaphor for my own experience, I think. I often say at Columbia I was teaching film history- the past and techniques of how things used to be done. Here at Flashpoint I am on the cutting edge. Not only am I on the cutting edge, I think I am actually one of the whetstones doing the sharpening.

It’s heady stuff and something I don’t take lightly.

Later this week we are going to shift our work space from a satellite office to the main campus in downtown Chicago. When we leave this office- and the Post It notes on the wall and the bad lighting and the spotty internet, and the iffy food place downstairs- I am going to be a little sad. Much like the astronauts of Apollo 13 who saw the LEM as their life raft, I see our temporary office as the mother ship where all the ideas we will execute over the next couple of years took seed. Soon we will jettison the space and gravity will bring us back to earth and the real world.

As comparisons go I think the opening of Flashpoint Academy, the first new college in Chicago in 4o years, is more like the release of a hot new product. Think of Flashpoint as an iphone or the release of the hot new video game or the Super Bowl or a new CD by your favorite musician. We are like that.

Ready or not here we come.

PeterH

Post It!

Who would have thought that the most valuable tool in building a college curriculum would be Post It Notes?

In the Flashpoint office we have a wall, much like this one, full of two-foot square month by month calendars going from September -May. On each of those calendars are Post Its with perspective classes written on them. We need a tangible and visual reference for our academic calendar so we decided on little sticky squares of paper. We spent the better part of June and early July putting classes up on that wall. When we finally locked in on a schedule we transferred the information from the wall to Excel programs and then passed that info on to Flashpoint registrar Brad Bergeron. At that point Brad did his registrarial magic and Viola! students and faculty had a schedule for the year.

In addition to Post Its the other thing that really surprises me about this college building experience is how much time we have spent with the registrar. Everything we do in terms of class schedules and credit hours must get approved by Brad. At Columbia I didn’t even know then name of the registrar. At Flashpoint he is ever present.

Here is a typical early July day. I am at my computer and Brad quietly walks over to me and says, “Excuse me Peter but you seem to have made a little mistake.”

“Huh?” the dumb filmmaker replies.

“Yes, you have 37 screenwriting sections scheduled for group A and only 3 for group B, you know they have to be equal.”

As much as I want to say a la Samuel L. Jackson, “Check out the big brain on Brad!” I say, “Sorry, I’ll fix it,” and slouch back over to the wall of Post Its.

PeterH

Drinking the Kool-Aid

On Wednesday this past week Howard Tullman, President and CEO of Flashpoint Academy, cuffed me on the back of the head. Yesterday, as we were waiting for people to arrive at a Flashpoint open house, founder and chairman Ric Landry slapped me on the forehead. Now if Paula Froehle, academic dean, slaps me across the face (inevitable) I will have hit the Flashpoint Academy beating trifecta. In all seriousness I take these whuppins’ as signs of endearment (if not I have a pretty good law suit on my hands, I think).

We are a week away from opening the doors to the first class and all is terrific. The building at 28 N. Clark Street is state of the art and for the first time in my teaching career I feel I have all the tools and resources necessary to be the best teacher I can be. In all modesty and honesty I believe Flashpoint is going to be a big success and I take great pride in helping to get it off the ground.

More on Flashpoint developments as the week progresses but for now I need to work on my bobbing and weaving and keeping my left up.

PeterH

Sentimental Education- Part 2

Flaubert’s Sentimental Education (that’s him to the left) is a ironic and pessimistic novel, but what would you expect from the man who wrote Madame Bovary. I would like to think I am not that dark (I am an Optimist’s son after all) but there are certainly some aspects of schooling that drive me mad.

As a teacher I think I draw on all the formal learning from my youth and distill it somehow into my own approach to teaching. I would like to believe I take the best of how I was taught and leave the rest behind. The following are some general things one would find in my classes. It is up to you to decide how Draconian I am.

Attendance- Come to my class. Columbia and now Flashpoint have these serious attendance polices- X number of absences means a drop of a letter grade, more means an automatic F, 15 minutes late is half an absence. (Fourteen minutes late is OK I guess?) I don’t get it and don’t care. One of the appeals of going to college for me was that I didn’t have to go to class if I didn’t want to. Just show up to my class on time and everything’s cool.

Tests- I don’t like them. I prefer oral exams and practical tests- show me you know how to do it. In the film business rarely is there one right answer, usually there are several ways to reach the same conclusion. A standard test doesn’t allow for options.

Writing- We will write a lot, tear it up and write some more. You have to be able to express yourself through the written word.

Class participation- Critical. For starters it takes the pressure off the dumb teacher to fill up the time, but more importantly, when we start having a dialog in class as opposed to me talking at you, the class is better.

Presentation- Almost all of my classes have components of students making a presentation to the rest of the class and defending their position. You can not manage in today’s workplace with out being able to speak well and concisely.

As I read over these last three topics (I tend to blog in stream of consciousness) it is clear to me that developing good communication skills is a driving force behind my teaching. Being in the communication business, I guess this makes sense.

PeterH

Sentimental Education- Part 1

School resumed this week in Chicago and the big yellow buses are a reminder of just how much I hated going to school. While I was a good student and had lots of friends and did lots of extracurricular activities I just plain hated going to school. All those rules and regulations, do this and do that- who needs it? But now I am a college teacher so go figure.

From Montessori until I graduated from high school I went to school everyday with my father. Each morning we would get up and have breakfast- the same thing, cereal. After 1700 of these breakfasts before my 18th birthday I now refuse to eat cereal. (The last time was in England a few years ago when my alternative was a “healthy” full English breakfast.)

Our conversation consisted of this: Dad: Eat your flakes. Me: OK.

The sum total of 14 years of weekday morning conversation- 4 words.

Several of those years my dad had a Volkswagon I had to push to get it started and then run to catch up to the car a la Little Miss Sunshine. These moments with my dad were often the highlight of my school day. It was downhill – literally from that start- from there.

So with apologies to Gustave Flaubert below are a series of highlights (lowlights?) of my early education.

Montessori- My grandmother, Kakky, picked me up and asked me what I learned today. I said, “I don’t know.” She said you were in school all day and didn’t learn anything? Oh to have been able to shift into my adult head and say, “You know it was all that 2+2 is 4 and ABC bullshit. Give me a break grandma!.” Instead I said something like “we used crayons” and hoped for unconditional grandmotherly love.

Second grade- Luckily I was allowed to skip first grade, I don’t think I could have handled any more rudimentary education. However, skipping a grade made me forever the youngest in my class.

Fourth grade- Each weekend Mrs. Hackworth (a sometime reader of this page) made the class memorize a poem and be prepared to recite it in front of the class on Monday morning. Now as every fourth grader knows poems rhyme, that’s the definition of poetry, right? Evidently not. Mrs. H. gave us “real poetry” the crap that doesn’t rhyme or make any sense. Poetry and public speaking- I’m in fourth grade this is not Victorian England! Note to Mrs. Hackworth, thanks to you I still have trouble sleeping on Sunday nights in anticipation of failing my poetry reading.

Fifth grade- An insane woman comes to our class room and speaks only in French to us. She refuses to allow any English. This is funny for the first five minutes, then we think she is seriously disturbed. This continues for days and weeks. Finally I burst out, “Je vais a la salle de bains.” Where this comes from even surprises me but my point is made and I was allowed to escape to the bathroom. (I know it really means “I go to the bathroom” but we had covered “May I” yet.)

Seventh Grade- By now I am thoroughly ensconced in the third ring of education Hell. Our assignment is to write a science report and make an oral presentation to the rest of the seventh grade on a topic picked randomly from a hat. My pick: the reproductive process of amphibians. No, nothing safe an easy like the Big Bang (at least my school believed in that) . Being good (strict?) parents I had to rehearse my speech in front of them. I do not know what is worse, talking about frog sperm in front of my parents or in front of 50 7th graders.

Ninth Grade- What is with this incessant need for my teachers to insist on memorization and public speaking? Draconian Mr. Grunwald makes the class memorize the Declaration of Independence from the preamble through the charges section. (Even then I was certain this is something that I would never need to do at any time of my life.) Then, over the course of a month he randomly picked students to recite passages to the class. So I memorized the damn thing and he never called on me!

That’s enough for now I am having bad flashbacks.

PeterH

Hard at Work

Labor Day got me thinking about hard work- something I try to avoid at all costs. Aren’t p.a.s and t.a.s supposed to do the hard stuff while directors and “professors” do the “Big Picture” work?

One of those cliches (if I knew how to do one of those accent things over the e in cliche I would do it, so you grammar police leave me alone) every bad football coach likes to trot out is “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” Yuck! As bad sports cliches go I much prefer “There is no ‘I’ in team,”but that is for another post.

But those bad coaches are on to something and I have seen first hand truly great performers bust their butts rehearsing when other mere mortals (or dumb filmmakers) would have been off doing something more fun. I am going to share a few of those stories here and you can infer what you want.

1) In 2001 I was making a TV show for kids called Rainbow Soup about art and world culture and got to observe a lot of different artists in their process. As part of this I had the chance to see and interview Peter Gabriel (pictured here) as he played his first concert in eight years. It was a rather sudden appearance- he was going to headline the Womad Festival in Seattle after Robert Plant had to back out. Originally Peter was going to place a simple acoustic set, but two days before the show he decided to go all out with a band. At 7am on a Sunday morning, twelve hours before he was to go on stage, there is Gabriel and band in a park in Seattle working their assess off rehearsing for the show. At 7 that night he walked on stage and 30,000 people went crazy. He proceeded to play, by his own admission, a very mediocre set. As part of our arrangement I spoke with him on camera just after he walked off stage. He shook his head and looked into the camera and said, “That’s what you get when you only rehearse for two days.” I’ll never forget it, or him really working hard when he didn’t have to. The crowd loved him anyway.

2) At the end of our commercial reel there is a spot for MVP.com where Michael Jordan looks into the camera and asks, “Any Questions?” Jim shot him at a Bulls practice, Michael was staying late, by himself shooting free throws. The six-time NBA champ and MVP was in the gym by himself practicing. Did he need to do that? He thought so.

3) Years ago I had to go on a location scout at a local Chicago nightclub. When the manager met us at the door and let us in and in there was loud music playing in the background. It sounded like Elvis Costello to me- he was in the middle of a three or four day stop in Chicago. We round the corner and there on stage was Elvis and the Attractions rehearsing. The manager of the venue asked me if I minded them rehearsing while we were there. What was I going to say, “No! Elvis give it a rest we need to talk here.” Of course he could play, however I needed to get on the stage so Elvis stopped what he was doing and invited us up. He was very gentlemanly, asked us what we were about to shoot and if it was OK if he could continue his rehearsal. When I was finished with my work he paused and asked if everything was OK. I said sure and asked if I could watch for a while. He said yes, and proceeded to tear into Pump it Up. My question is this. In the thousands of shows Elvis has played since the mid 1970s how many times has he played Pump it Up? Thousands? Did they really need to rehearse that badly? I guess so.

Practice makes perfect. (Sorry for the cliche.)

PeterH

Laboring On

It is Labor Day weekend and for most of us that means a work holiday on Monday. Those of us in the freelance filmmaking or college building businesses never seem to get a day off, there is always something to do or something to think about, but at least I don’t need to go into the office. I am splitting my work time this weekend imagining my first few weeks of teaching and then writing a proposal for the city of Aspen, CO which wants a documentary on their historic preservation program.

I joke frequently with my colleagues that I don’t like to work and I really don’t like teaching (if it wasn’t for the students teaching would be great!) But that’s not true I love both jobs and being a working filmmaker makes me a better teacher and vice versa.

My work time is generally filled creating things and making something (a college, a film, a class schedule) out of nothing. I get to work with clever and creative people who never fail to surprise me with their ingenuity and good humor. My big work complaints these days are along the lines of “Dan, the internet is down ” and “What do you mean a January start- it can’t be done!”

No, my job is easy and positively cushy compared to coal miners and firemen, and single welfare moms and day field laborers. They are the ones who deserve a day off with pay, so happy Labor Day and thank you for your hard work.

PeterH