Announcing the 2012 screening of our most recent First Cut films!  The films will be playing in the prestigious Director’s Guild Theater once again, on September 27th, so make sure to save the date if you love to celebrate new talent, indie filmmaking, and spread your Dodge College pride!




Every year, we curate our students’ final projects, arriving with a handful of the very best works the Dodge College community has produced.  This selection is projected live in two venues: the Director’s Guild Theaters located in Los Angeles and New York.  The films are also memorialized in a DVD, which is a hot commodity at many of our national events, meetings, and booths.

The films are selected from the entire pool of student works, including film production, documentary, digital arts, TV, and so on, and it’s a notoriously challenging process for everyone involved to cull the hard work of our students down into a manageable size.  Last year, we had nearly 100 thesis projects considered in the process.  Dean Bob Bassett, administrators, and every full-time faculty member are included in the group of people tasked with paring down the list, and this year we began a new initiative to seek feedback from alumni as well.

So all in all, nearly every member of the Dodge community has a hand in producing this superlative screening series and DVD, whether it’s the students who make (and own!) these incredible films, the faculty who provide seasoned insight into the success of the films, the administrators who bring the national events to life, and even Dean Bassett, who agonizes for months over which films best represent our school.

Without further ado, here are this year’s selections:

Amos

Amos Poster, Graduate Thesis

After a run in with a college girl, a young hood gets more than he bargained for. (27 minutes, dir. Taylor Maxwell)


Boom Box Kids

Boom Box Kids official still

There is a movement sweeping the nation. Before boy bands were boy bands, these boys were boys. They are the Boom Box Kids, and they’re here to stay. (21 mins, dir. Taylor Gledhill)


Green Acres

Green Acres, Official still, DA Thesis Film

A parched tortoise wanders through a vast desert desperately in search of water. He comes across an oasis only to find that trespassers are unwelcome. Somehow he must slip past the defenses to quench his thirst. (6 mins, dir. James Beck)


Light Me Up

Light Me Up official film still

The Wattsons are your typical American family… of light bulbs. Frank, a fluorescent, and Linda, a decorative bulb, run the family business of managing all the lights in an antique store. When they ask their son, Louie, to take over, they find out he has bigger dreams of becoming a spotlight in the local theater. (7 min, dirs. Derek Dolechek & Ryan Walton)


Picture.  Perfect.

Picture Perfect Thesis Poster

Sometimes ugly things ain’t so bad…as long as you can bring the beauty out of ’em. (23 mins, dir. Winston Tao)


 

You can see some images of the last First Cut event, which took place in New York,
on our Flickr photostream
, and
see films from past years on our Vimeo album
.  (We don’t make the current selection of films available just yet, as the filmmakers are currently entering them into film festivals!)

Excited?  You should be.  Head over to
the Chapman University website to register for the event
.