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THURSDAY, AUGUST 18,2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 12C
COMMENTARY
Film school dean doubles as 'Smurfs' director
PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
LOS ANGELES — Veteran movie producer Jordan Kerner spent nearly 10 years finding a way to make "The Smurfs," which earned $35.6 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. But it's not his long track record in Hollywood, which includes producing everything from "Less Than Zero" to "The Mummy."
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their experiences. But Kerner felt the school needed more outside professionals on the faculty, so he recruited a host of industry pros, including producer Bob Gosse and Peter Bogdanovich, who teaches a freshman film class.
Kerner never imagined himself being a film school dean — in fact, he never went to film school himself. But after surviving a freak staph infection and enduring the
My biggest concern with today's film schools is that they tend to offer students far more instruction in technique than in actual ideas.
But the student films I watched
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Immersion project, where students gain a deeper understanding of character and story by spending several weeks at places like the Veterans Artificial Limb Hospital in Philadelphia and Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans.
"They can't take cameras or recording devices — just a pad and pen," he says. "The whole idea is to go out and get to know people, hear their stories and get under
UNCSA are getting an education not just in theory and production but in the often less-than-glamorous aspects of life in the trenches of Hollywood.
Kerner has recruited a host of faculty members who still have their day jobs, which helps give students a grounding in the kind of problem-solving necessary to survive on a film set. Through a shadowing program, students get
up to talk to an actor, our kids would be right there with him. They also got to spend time with our editors, visual effects supervisor, sound designers and other crew members. Sometimes the discussions were difficult, but that was the whole point — it's a way to learn the whys and why nots of filmmaking." (With it being 2011, students had to sign release forms promising not to blog about what
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip Wrecked," which will hit theaters this Christmas. He also has his students listen in on his conversations with his agent so they can develop an understanding of the demands of the marketplace.
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