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By Nick Roman
How many cultural institutions reap the benefits of 45,000 steps of foot traffic every day? Lyric Opera of Chicago is uniquely set apart from other opera and cultural institutions because of its location in the heart of downtown Chicago.
MSLCE students got an exclusive look into the organization on a site visit with Lyric’s top management that included a rare opportunity to see backstage.
By Jacob Nelson
Deana Haggag is the president and CEO of United States Artists (USA), a fundraising organization that grants fellowships to artists in different fields and from different backgrounds across the country. (USA recently announced its 2018 awards.)
During Thursday night’s first Speaker Series event of 2018, Haggag described the origins of USA. The nonprofit began in 2006 as a response to conservative politicians threatening to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
“The government wanted them to defund the artists entirely,” Haggag said, “And foundations were really disturbed.” (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
What makes an arts organization successful? According to Joffrey Ballet Executive Director Greg Cameron, an organization’s success depends on three points: leaning towards the mission, developing an aligned team, and creating collaborations with external partners.
“The minute the mission of the organization becomes compromised in anyway is when trouble creeps in,” Cameron said during last Thursday’s MSLCE Speaker Series event. “Developing an aligned team is not always as easy as it may sound.” (more…)
By Charlie Wein
By Minda Cerva
Students met with the Executive Director David Schmitz, Artistic Producer Jonathan Berry, and Professional Leadership Assistant John Rooney. The conversation started with an overview of the work history of both Schmitz and Berry, which served as inspiration for many of the students in the group who are pursuing careers in theatre management and administration. Both of their paths started with masters degrees in directing, and led them to leadership positions at one of the most renowned regional theatres in the country.
By Nick Roman
By Jacob Nelson
Rob Luchow’s first break didn’t happen in Hollywood. It happened in Evanston.
As the Vice President of Drama Development for CBS TV Studio explained during the first MSLCE Speaker Series event of the academic year, Luchow was a Northwestern undergraduate working as a waiter at a pizza place near campus when he first opened the door to his career. He was waiting on a table of Northwestern alums who he had just seen at panel where they discussed their jobs as television writers.
“I told them, ‘It was really cool for you to come to campus, I loved hearing you speak, and I’m thinking of moving to L.A.’ They said, ‘Why don’t you come sit with us?’”
To which Luchow replied, “I can’t. I’m your waiter.” (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Before Rob Luchow worked in television, he watched it. Lots of it.
“This was the common routine in my house growing up: At 6 o’clock, my family would put on local news and start cooking dinner. At 6:30, Tom Brokaw. 7 was Jeopardy, and 7:30 was Wheel of Fortune,” Luchow said during an interview last week. He added, with a laugh, “I don’t know when I did homework as a kid.”
Years later, Luchow now works as the Vice President of Drama Development for CBS TV Studio. He will be discussing his career in television at the first MSLCE Speaker Series event of the 2017-2018 year, on Thursday, Oct. 5. (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
The third cohort of MSLCE students crossed the stage to accept diplomas during the MSLCE Convocation Ceremony, held on August 24 in the Alice Millar Chapel in Evanston.
Families and friends in the audience cheered as one by one the names were called by MSLCE Associate Director Kathryn Lawson and the students, dressed in purple gowns, walked towards Northwestern’s Communication Studies Department Chair Ellen Wartella to receive their degrees.
“It’s amazing how quickly this year went past!” MSLCE graduate Quinton Sprull said after the ceremony. He explained that, throughout the program, students “evolved to richer, more analytical creative leaders… It was a great year of growth, accomplishment, and promise.” (more…)
By Leslie Zhu
“Why not have a guy who made The Evil Dead for $350,000 do Spider-Man?” Bruce Campbell wondered jokingly from the the set of Spider Man 2.
This memory was one of many that director Sam Raimi shared with Northwestern students during a talk at Harris Hall on May 2. Raimi’s eclectic career has seen him directing small-budget cult hits like The Evil Dead to huge comic book blockbusters like the original Spider-Man trilogy.
As he discussed making independent films in Michigan as a kid, making blockbuster, big budget movies with huge film studios, or producing work to help budding filmmakers, one pattern became clear: What matters most to Raimi is telling a good story.
While Sam Raimi was first known for his horror film The Evil Dead, he told students that he actually didn’t initially like horror films because he was too scared watching them when he was young. But once he started making Evil Dead, he found the suspense sequence of a horror film similar to what he had done in comedies. That inspired him mix comedy into his horror films, which paid off at the box office.
When making the multi-million dollar trilogy Spider-Man, although Raimi felt like there was less creative control for him and had the added burden of comic book fan expectations, he still tried his best to focus on telling the story well. He blended in an indie production feel and kept comedy elements to make Spider-Man a successful hit during a “low time” of superhero movies.
A Simple Plan was also a turning point for Raimi’s career. After all the experiments with different action-sequence-oriented camera techniques, he took a step back and presented a story with the most basic of camera languages. He also got help from his life-time friends, the Coen brothers, who had just released Fargo.
By working with different genres, mixing all the elements, collaborating with other filmmakers in the industry, Sam Raimi is putting every effort in delivering a good story to the audience. He shared very valuable experiences and suggestions to students for their careers in filmmaking, and encouraged them to believe that every idea is a seed to grow.
