Two new student-produced digital film productions are examples of campus-wide cooperation that underpin the university's success the past 50 years.
David Nelson, professor and chair, Department of Communication, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, served as executive producer of the two student projects, "The Bluffs" and "Lady and the Phantom." The projects will premiere at 7 p.m. March 14 in Centennial Hall and are part of UCCS 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Beyond their entertainment and educational value (both Associate Dean Rex Welshon and Nelson's fellow communication faculty member Chris Bell have roles in "The Bluffs"), Nelson believes the productions provided important hands-on student learning experiences. Students enrolled in two of Nelson's fall semester courses devoted to writing for television and digital production created the shows. But Nelson believes the productions also demonstrate a key facet of the campus.
"It became a very interdepartmental cooperative venture," Nelson said recently of the production, particularly of the campus-set science fiction spoof "The Bluffs." "People from the theater department were involved, music students were involved, the physics department helped us out, the public safety folks were helpful and the library let us shoot several scenes." "It made make me think that, as we're celebrating the 50th anniversary, that one of the things that has made this university grow and become strong is this cooperation that everyone feels."
Nelson set out to create a student experience that mimicked his own experiences working in Los Angeles on the set of "Star Trek Deep Space 9" and other TV productions. Traditional skills such as research, writing and theater arts were combined with digital production techniques and other modern tools including a drone, initially piloted only by Nelson. Later, the students took control, obtaining footage that would have been prohibitively expensive only a few years ago.
"I was very protective and took it upon myself to learn how to operate the drone and getting it to do things like rotate smoothly in the winds we have on campus," Nelson said. "After I crashed it – I was really lucky it landed in some mulch near a fire hydrant – I decided the students should learn how to fly it. They learned far more quickly than I."
"The Bluffs" is a science-fiction themed drama set in current time. Three 15-minute TV-series style episodes trace the exploits of four students on campus including the mysterious disappearance of another student. In producing the episodes, students learned valuable lessons such as the difficulty of filming over three or four months while staying true to the storyline that occurred over two weeks.
"We were filming in an empty warehouse in December," Nelson recounted. "It was freezing cold. But everyone had to dress like it was still September. I think everyone learned that TV production isn't nearly as glamorous as it looks. It's a lot of long hours in sometimes uncomfortable places."
"Lady and the Phantom" is set in the 1960s in the style of "To Catch a Thief," a 1955 Alfred Hitchcock classic. The production was filmed at a home on the campus of Colorado College and offered students a different set of challenges, Nelson said. Among them were finding period correct props as well as an estimated 17 revisions to the script.
When shooting "Lady and the Phantom," students often worked from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. and spent hours tracking down things like record players, typewriters or even a pack of cigarettes authentic to the time period.
"Those kinds of details, and a lot of hard work, really contribute to a film that came out really well," Nelson said.
Full versions now available online:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
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