EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Dodge College offers a lot of amazing interterm courses! This time around, Thomas Garber (BFA/Film Production ’15) tells us about his experience in the Big Apple for Professor David Kost’s Film Capitals of the World – New York course.

Fitting a full New York experience into two weeks is an impossible task, but we somehow managed to tackle it.  With two weeks of early mornings and late nights, a full play-by-play would be a novel. Instead, here are some highlights from the interterm class Film Capitals of the World - New York.


 

3763-revision-11

 


 

Industry Professional Panels


 

Throughout our time in New York, we had the opportunity to sit down with some really phenomenal professionals.  People like Tamara Jenkins (The Savages), Manuel Billeter (Y Tu Mama Tambien), Ramsey Farragallah (Homeland) and many, many others gave us hours of their time to sit and tell us about their careers, their journey through film, their current projects, and struggles they’d faced.


 

We met in their work spaces, on their sets, and in bars and restaurants. We got personal interactions and advice from these amazing filmmakers, artists, and professionals, many of whom had experience in the film industry in and out of New York.


 

Alumni Dinner


 

A few days into our trip, we had a great dinner with Alumni of Chapman University (along with another group of Chapman students visiting New York).  We spent the night talking with alumni in every stage of their career, from professionals like Scotty Anderson (Technical Director for Colbert Report) to Graduate Students, and more recent Alum.


 

Behind the Scenes Tours


 

Among the great tours and sight seeing spots, we managed to get behind the scenes looks at a few really amazing places: Letterman, SNL and Studio 8H, The Metropolitan Opera, The Friar’s Club, CNN, and the Player’s Club, just to name a few. In these tours and our interactions with the professionals that worked in them, we saw many avenues our careers might explore.


 

Women in Focus Tweet Capture

 


 

Exploration


 

As busy as we were (and as cold as it was), we still managed to find time to explore the city.  Some of us saw Broadway plays like Matilda and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, some went back to the Metropolitan Opera for La Boheme, and others saw Louis C.K. perform live.  We toured Graduate School campuses like Columbia and NYU, visited friends and family in the area, explored the famous comic shop Forbidden Planet and bookstore The Strand, indulged in the desserts of Serendipity, and wandered museums.  And, of course, no New York trip would be complete without exploring the culinary diversity throughout the city, from street-meat to Chelsea Market and famous bars like The Rum House and McSorley’s (for those of us of legal-drinking age).


 

A few other highlights:

Visiting Panavision, Big Fish, and Identity Media

Tours of Central Park, Museums, and 30 Rock

Radio City Music Hall

The Apollo Theater and Billy Mitchell

Jon Stewart and David Letterman Tapings


 

While we were in New York, we wrote blog posts for each day. Check out these great blogs from Gregory Bordelon and Joscie Bonneville. The Film Capitals of the World course was a great opportunity to explore film in areas other than LA, and to look into different career options in the film industry and beyond.  Our thanks to Professor Dave Kost for putting together this amazing course.


 

Women in Focus Tweet Capture