Improvisation

I like to joke that as a teacher I make it up as I go along. All that preparation- who needs it? If I wanted to do homework I would be a student not a teacher. I am mostly joking, but as in any joke there is a little truth to it. I prefer to think of it as being in the moment and open to the flow of the class. Like jazz musicians playing live, there is a general plan and I work within it, yet still go off on solos and come back for the big finish. It works for me, I think.

Currently I am team-teaching (a first for me) with Perry Harovas, the head of the Visual FX department, and it has been a blast. Co-teaching allows me to be both leader and observer- and I have Perry teach all the hard stuff while I sit back and watch. The class is a micro-class of four sessions geared towards opening students up to the building blocks of storytelling. Informally, I call it the attention to details class.

On Thursday I started the class and these were my only notes:

Recap- Why are we doing this?
Hustle and Flow
Sendak- Shape of Music- process
Zappa
Guitar
Fantasia

I didn't even get to Hustle and Flow- that will be saved for a later day- but those brief notes lead us into a really great 90-minute session. Briefly, for those without a syllabus, our students had read an essay by Maurice Sendak about seeing colors in music. This lead me to ask students about their own creative process. Surprise! they seemed to discover they do in fact have a process, they just hadn't called it that yet. From there we went to a brief essay by Frank Zappa about framing (placing in context) one's art.

Earlier in the day I asked Perry what he thought about me bringing my guitar to class and seeing what the students "saw" as I played. I played a minor chord- students saw generally dark, moody images- followed by a major chord- and suddenly everyone was happy. I then passed the guitar to a student who played a nice little riff using both major and minor chords. It was great- we are about to create the Flashpoint school song. All of this lead us into screening the Sorcerer's Apprentice section of Fantasia and a lively discussion about the interplay of sound and image.

We think it worked well, but only time will tell.

PeterH

Collaboration part 3

We made it.

Flashpoint Academy opened its doors on Monday and welcomed their first class. Monday was orientation and as part of it we screened Dean Paula Froehle's film, "The Collector," and our "making of The Collector" documentary.

The similarities between making a film and building a college are remarkable. During the summer pre-production phase each of us on the Flashpoint crew had a job to do. Recruiters recruited, IT experts did their magic and faculty hammered out classes, curricula and schedules. All of us worked towards the first day of production both independently and as one- just like a film production- coming together to produce a college.

Speaking of filmmaking and collaboration I owe a big thanks to my Windy Cine partner Jim who really figured out the HD workflow and did lots of post-production work as I phoned and e-mailed changes. The making of really works and it proves even a relatively small documentary needs to have good teamwork in order to be successful. Thanks, Jim.

PeterH

Doing it Right

There was an interesting editorial in Friday's New York Times about how the University of California-Irvine botched the hiring of the dean of their new law school scheduled to open in 2009.

This was fascinating to me in many ways. 1) Planning a school 2+ years away? Come on we built Flashpoint in a little more than 100 days! It can be done. 2) What does it say to the future professors and students at that school that the boss doesn't have the integrity to stand by his own decisions. (The dean was offered the position, it was rescinded due to the deans left of center politics, then the position was re-offered.) Not a good start for the future law school if you ask me.

This brings me to our little school that does things the right way. Yesterday, the staff and faculty had a final walk through before the doors open tomorrow and we go live. When I walked into that building in April it was cement and plywood and studs on the wall. Today it looks like the nerve center of a high-tech business. It is -in a word I seldom use- awesome. It is clearly a place to do good work and make things happen.

As we walked through the halls Steven Berger, Flashpoint Special Projects Manager, came up to me and said, "This is going to be the best and most sought after film school in the country." I replied, "Unless the dumb filmmaker gets in the way."

Paula Froehle, our Academic Dean, heard this and reminded me that I was the first person she thought of when thinking about creating the film program. That made me feel very good. I think we did the right thing.

Tomorrow it's for real.

PeterH

Circle of Life

"Old Man look at my life, I am a lot like you were."

I heard that Neil Young song recently and those lyrics really hit home.

40 some years ago my dad and mom packed up their relatively comfortable New England lives and left their families behind to move to Kentucky (From Boston to KY even today that sounds crazy!) so my dad could help start a progressive private school called The Lexington School. A dozen years later my dad moved across town to rival Sayre School and helped shape that school. Today those are the two best schools in the state of Kentucky.

So here I am, nearly 12 years into teaching at one of the largest and best films schools in the United States and I up and leave its relative safety to move uptown and to join a progressive upstart. In a day I went from the biggest film school in the world to the smallest. One of my parent's friends even asked if I should wait to take the job until Flashpoint became established.

What am I, nuts?

If I heard Neil Young's "Cowgirl in the Sand" would it be different? Probably not. I think it is in my blood to challenge students and challenge myself and to look at new ways to present material. In short, old man take a look at my life I am a lot like you.

PeterH

Starting Up

Prior to Flashpoint the only previous experience I have with a start up venture was 20 years ago when I worked for the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Even then I was just a first generation hire, starting right around the day the museum opened the doors so I missed out on all the pre-launch chaos, business and excitement.

Comparing a museum devoted to archiving broadcast history to starting a new media arts college is an apt metaphor for my own experience, I think. I often say at Columbia I was teaching film history- the past and techniques of how things used to be done. Here at Flashpoint I am on the cutting edge. Not only am I on the cutting edge, I think I am actually one of the whetstones doing the sharpening.

It's heady stuff and something I don't take lightly.

Later this week we are going to shift our work space from a satellite office to the main campus in downtown Chicago. When we leave this office- and the Post It notes on the wall and the bad lighting and the spotty internet, and the iffy food place downstairs- I am going to be a little sad. Much like the astronauts of Apollo 13 who saw the LEM as their life raft, I see our temporary office as the mother ship where all the ideas we will execute over the next couple of years took seed. Soon we will jettison the space and gravity will bring us back to earth and the real world.

As comparisons go I think the opening of Flashpoint Academy, the first new college in Chicago in 4o years, is more like the release of a hot new product. Think of Flashpoint as an iphone or the release of the hot new video game or the Super Bowl or a new CD by your favorite musician. We are like that.

Ready or not here we come.

PeterH

Post It!

Who would have thought that the most valuable tool in building a college curriculum would be Post It Notes?

In the Flashpoint office we have a wall, much like this one, full of two-foot square month by month calendars going from September -May. On each of those calendars are Post Its with perspective classes written on them. We need a tangible and visual reference for our academic calendar so we decided on little sticky squares of paper. We spent the better part of June and early July putting classes up on that wall. When we finally locked in on a schedule we transferred the information from the wall to Excel programs and then passed that info on to Flashpoint registrar Brad Bergeron. At that point Brad did his registrarial magic and Viola! students and faculty had a schedule for the year.

In addition to Post Its the other thing that really surprises me about this college building experience is how much time we have spent with the registrar. Everything we do in terms of class schedules and credit hours must get approved by Brad. At Columbia I didn't even know then name of the registrar. At Flashpoint he is ever present.

Here is a typical early July day. I am at my computer and Brad quietly walks over to me and says, "Excuse me Peter but you seem to have made a little mistake."

"Huh?" the dumb filmmaker replies.

"Yes, you have 37 screenwriting sections scheduled for group A and only 3 for group B, you know they have to be equal."

As much as I want to say a la Samuel L. Jackson, "Check out the big brain on Brad!" I say, "Sorry, I'll fix it," and slouch back over to the wall of Post Its.

PeterH

Drinking the Kool-Aid

On Wednesday this past week Howard Tullman, President and CEO of Flashpoint Academy, cuffed me on the back of the head. Yesterday, as we were waiting for people to arrive at a Flashpoint open house, founder and chairman Ric Landry slapped me on the forehead. Now if Paula Froehle, academic dean, slaps me across the face (inevitable) I will have hit the Flashpoint Academy beating trifecta. In all seriousness I take these whuppins' as signs of endearment (if not I have a pretty good law suit on my hands, I think).

We are a week away from opening the doors to the first class and all is terrific. The building at 28 N. Clark Street is state of the art and for the first time in my teaching career I feel I have all the tools and resources necessary to be the best teacher I can be. In all modesty and honesty I believe Flashpoint is going to be a big success and I take great pride in helping to get it off the ground.

More on Flashpoint developments as the week progresses but for now I need to work on my bobbing and weaving and keeping my left up.

PeterH