Welcome to a 13-part special series for Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and

video students, faculty, and alumni about the film and video major.

Hello, prospective Grand Valley film students.

My name is Joel Potrykus.

I'm a professor here at Grand Valley.

I teach script writing and fiction filmmaking.

I am a professional filmmaker in my own right as well.

I've made a handful of feature films, Buzzard, Relaxer, Alchemist Cookbook.

And I'm going to quickly tell you about two things that makes Grand Valley's

film program unique compared to others.

First off, we teach digital filmmaking.

We have black magic cameras, and Premiere you're going to edit on, and

all the bells and whistles of that.

But we also teach on actual film, 16 millimeter film.

So you're going to have a chance to load these cameras, shoot on this film

and touch actual celluloid and smell it, all the great things that come

along with being an actual film maker.

Now, the other thing that makes us unique is every summer for the last

25 summers we put on what's called the Grand Valley Summer Film project.

We get a big group of students together and we make a film.

We spend four or five weeks in preproduction and then a week or

two actually on set, making a movie with a professional writer/director.

I'm going to be writing and directing next summer's project, along with

a professional cinematographer, professional sound operator.

You can sit in class for four years and analyze clips and read textbooks.

There's only one way you can truly learn how to make a film.

And that's by making a film.

So, the students fill out the crew from production designers to

script supervisors, to production assistants, whatever it may

be, depending on your level of experience, your level of interest.

But I would love to see you, uh, on set next summer for

the 26th summer film project.

So I'm around if you have questions.

All right.

See you guys.

Those are such important, just important experiences.

I did a summer film in 2010 when I was a student.

And, you know, you really do.

You, you work alongside, you know, directors from Hollywood who come in

and, I was in the sound department.

So I got to kind of, you know, buzz around and, and be part of just

all the action that was happening.

Just an incredible experience.

And I, you know, I've taken that forward in my, in my experience

as a professional now today.

So we're gonna bring some students back and we're actually going to talk

about some of that fiction filmmaking that we can do here at Grand Valley.

So we got Ariel, Josh and Jordan here.

Have you ever worked on a crew, the three of you all together?

No, but I've worked with Ariel and I've worked with Josh separately.

I see.

Okay.

So those, those teams do happen and, uh, we're solving some problems on set.

Do you have any stories, Ariel, about being on set and you know,

maybe something went wrong, but she had to make it go right?

Well, that happens quite a lot in filmmaking.

As a professor, once said, like, filmmakers are just problem

solvers and you come across tons of problems when making a film, but

that's the kind of the fun in it.

You find ways to kind of go around it and to solve it as a group.

I guess, uh, one of the main things on my most recent fiction film that

we did for, uh, for class, I was, uh, directing it and we had to film at, like

an auditorium, like a performance hall.

The main shot, the main prop was a piano, a grand piano on a stage and there was

tons of logistic issues with COVID-19.

Every performance hall was closed.

We had one that was open that was going to allow us to, and then on the

day that we were going to go, they last minute canceled on us and time

was ticking to get this project done.

Thankfully, uh, we got the Forest Hills Fine Arts Center to allow us

to be there at their, uh, performance hall and actually film there, but

they only gave us a three hour window to get everything that we needed.

So we found out the problem, or we solved the problem of the location, but now

we needed to film everything we needed to film in such a short amount of time.

So we, we planned it, we got all the gear packed and ready to go.

And then once we actually were on location, we shot it and ended up being

really a successful, so tons of problems, but the fun in it is kind of solving it.

Right.

And that's exactly the type of thing that's going to happen on a, you

know, real world set, you know, when you're out there in the real world.

Josh, can you tell me about a time maybe that something turned out way

better than you expected, or, you know, just like, you know, something

that like really got your, your heart beating and when you, when you saw it?

I'm in Fiction 1 right now actually, with Ariel.

And so I just got to direct and write a project of my own.

It was the first time I'd ever really gotten a chance to direct.

And it was a lot of fun.

And like seeing the actual film come back, we did experience problems on set.

There were logistical challenges.

We were rushing around.

We were racing the sun and, you know, everything is just kind of

coming together at the last minute.

But then when you actually get back and you see how it came out, you see that,

oh man, I actually made this entire film.

And you think about all the work that you put into that over time.

It's a pretty amazing thing to think about.

And also Joel had mentioned shooting on 16 millimeter.

I got to shoot a 16 millimeter project for Fiction 1 as well.

And I shot it on the Bolex, which is just this like hand crank, turn

powered film camera, and seeing that film come back kind of just

blew me away because of the color.

And, yeah, it really gave me an appreciation for film

that I never had before.

That's amazing.

Jordan, so of course, making the films are important, but also, you know,

sitting back and watching them are too.

You know, can you tell us maybe about, uh, you know, seeing

your film with an audience?

Grand Valley offers some of those opportunities.

Yeah, so we have what are called showcases at the end of each semester.

We have two upper level ones and one lower level showcase.

And there's just nothing like it.

Getting to see your film on the big screen, because we film-- we show it

on a big projected screen on campus and everyone comes and they dress nice,

and, you know, just to share that with an audience and see your work, like

on the screen like that is so cool.

It's kind of like your dream realized, like, this is why I'm

here, right, is to share my story.

Ah, that is the true magic of filmmaking.

It's experiencing that in a darkened room with lots of other people, which we'll

all be able to do again someday soon.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Alumni Live: The Podcast special

series about the film and video major.

Be sure to listen to the next episode in the series and subscribe to our

podcast to hear even more from our alumni as they talk about their work

in different parts of the industry.

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conversations and networking.

Let us know what topics you want to hear our alumni talk about.

The Grand Valley State University Film and Video Alumni Network is here for you.

And we're glad that you're here.

Thank you for listening.