Life, camera, action

Award winning filmmaker Ken Burns visits campus, touts new film studies major

---

Tweet

In a crowd overflowing with students ready to try their talents in the movie industry, a 30-year film veteran gave insight Wednesday afternoon on how to find your voice and create a story and how determination will breed success, not only in their careers, but in one of MSU’s newest majors.

Ken Burns, an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, was brought to the Union Ballroom to commemorate the closing of the first semester of the university’s new film studies major.

Offered by the Department of English, the major was introduced this fall alongside a film studies minor in conjunction with the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media.

Both departments are collaborating to offer a complete filmmaking experience and it is a great sign for the state of Michigan and its film industry, Burns said.

“It’s thrilling and particularly honoring for me to be in Michigan, because it’s my home state and to come back and see people excited about filmmaking, excited about what I’ve done, excited about the possibility — particularly in tough times — about a film initiative at the state level that I think could really transform things,” he said. “To see the university revitalized by ramping up the film program — all of that has added energy and enthusiasm in what otherwise are relatively dark times.”

Michigan began offering tax incentives to production companies in April 2008 and brought in about 35 movies that year, spending more than $216 million in the state and creating about 2,700 jobs.

“The fact that the university has now expanded its film specialization degrees is a compliment to what the state’s trying to do at a larger level,” Burns said. “If we’re going to encourage people to make films here and encourage people to hire us here, then we’re going to have to have people that are skilled and talented and know how to do it.”

Film classes have existed at MSU for about seven years, but mainly focused on film theory, screenwriting and history as opposed to filmmaking itself, said Jennifer Fay, director of film studies.

With the Department of English helping teach film theory and the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media instructing the technical aspects of film, MSU students finally can learn how to write, shoot, edit and produce their own films, Fay said.

“To make a film and to have really good ideas and to know a lot about the history about film — those are two very different propositions,” she said. “Our hope is to channel these energies in productive, viable ways.”

In a time when MSU is scaling down its expenses and cutting programs, the departments found a way to bring film study to MSU without any extra cost to the university, Fay said. MSU only has added three classes to the courseload and has assembled the rest of the requirements from existing film classes.

“We created this not because the faculty said, ‘Hey, let’s have a specialization,’” she said. “We did this because we had our students who were doing it anyway. … We have really been putting in a lot of our own time and effort and resources that haven’t asked much of the university to try and make this happen.”

Telecommunication, information studies and media sophomore Andy Zeko wanted to create movies since he was in high school and was taking film classes at MSU prior to the new specialization. When Zeko found the classes he was taking would help satisfy his major’s specialization, he said he was excited his passion would now help him earn a degree.

“It was such an eye-opening, ‘Wow, that’s awesome. Now they’re creating a program specifically toward what I want to do,’” he said. “I can write pretty well, but it gets boring. I can draw OK, but I’m not awesome at drawing. I can really create on film what’s in my head easier than any other method.”

English sophomore Nate Smith grew up filming movies about frontiersman Daniel Boone and fake drug deals at the local docks, but never knew what it took to become a professional director until he started film studies.

“The university does a good job of trying to get you exposed to what’s out there, as well as teach you all that you would need to know to succeed,” Smith said. “(Now) I understand how much work actually goes into making a film. There is more than just turning on a camera and saying lines.”

Zeko said before he attended Burns’ presentation Wednesday, he had been struggling to finish projects for the end of the semester. But Burns’ love for his work renewed Zeko’s enthusiasm toward his career, he said.

“(Burns) picked me right back up there,” he said “He was strong in his convictions of what it could mean to really love what you do and I really do love what I do.”

---