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.

So Professor Spencer Everhart, we are talking about writing and scripts,

but that's, there's this whole other world of writing that isn't just about

making the films, but also thinking about them, how they affect us, and

that world is called film studies.

Can you tell us a little bit about what film studies is and

what it means at Grand Valley?

Our idea with the curriculum for the film program at Grand Valley is sort

of that you have all of the courses where you learn the hands-on techniques.

You learn how to shoot, how to edit, how to design sound, kind of

the nuts and bolts of filmmaking.

But the other side of it is we have all these other courses where the idea is you

need to become better at watching films.

You know?

It means something to sort of be able to make these things, but it

also means something to be able to be critical of them and to analyze them.

So when people think about film analysis and they think about the

classic idea of like film school, where you go and you get to watch movies,

that's kind of what these courses are.

But the idea really is to become more literate essentially in the

language and the techniques of cinema.

And also to become aware of the history of cinema.

So we look back at what's come before us.

We look back at different schools of thought and techniques, different theories

about filmmaking, and the idea is really to imbue a sense of kind of criticality

in students and give them a better sense of what it means to watch films and

understand how they work, and how they create meaning both for ourselves and

our individual experiences, but also in the larger sense of how they are a part

of our culture and how they're cultural objects that contribute to the way

that we think and the way that we feel.

And so trying to get closer to those types of ideas is the main thing that we do

in a lot of these film studies courses.

Yeah, I used to get really excited, uh, to come into class for those

discussions, and you know, what I really took away from those is, is

nobody makes a movie in a vacuum, right?

Like, you know, like you said, we're bringing in culture, we're thinking

about issues and, you know, even if it's just about our lives, like

there's still, you know, we're tying in all these, these other things.

And so just like the films don't take place in a vacuum, the thinking about

films doesn't take place in a vacuum, and I understand you involve the students in a

lot of other extracurricular activities to talk about and think about films, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely, I mean it's, you're totally right in the context of how film is made,

but also the context of who made it, where it was made at the time is important.

And of course thinking about those things is going to come out a lot

of times, especially in how I kind of do my classes and discussion.

And a lot of the experience of these courses is related to the discussion,

but it's also in the writing.

And like writing skills and becoming a better writer is absolutely a part

of these courses too, but one of the differences is that, you know, the

production courses for a lot of the films and the projects the students

make, they get to show those off.

Because after the end of every semester, we have these showcases where a lot of

student work is shown to other students, family members who want to come join it.

There, it's kind of an exhibition, you know?

The film studies courses didn't really have the same thing for awhile, but

way back in, um, I think it, I want to say it's 2011, 2012 actually was when

I was getting ready to finish my own undergrad studies at Grand Valley, we

came up with the idea that there should be a film journal at Grand Valley.

So we came up with Cinesthesia.

And the idea there was that any sort of superlative work that

was coming out of these courses would be able to be published in

this journal as a sort of legit, academic venue for showing your work.

And it wouldn't be just for other students to see, or the faculty to see,

it would be available to the public.

And you can see on the website here that we're many, many issues in.

This has been going for a while now.

It's very, very successful.

We're super proud of the work that the students have contributed to it.

We're also super proud of the fact that apart from myself and another

colleague who are the kind of faculty editors, the actual editorial board

of the journal is all students.

So they get to have that experience too, of like taking in submissions,

reading them, copy editing, and kind of judging how a journal issue

could come together with a theme.

But, uh, yeah, it's really great.

And if, and if you scroll down a little bit on the site, you can see too that

there's a map that shows you that this stuff is read all over the world.

There's like many, many countries around the world where these papers

and these, these writings, or even sometimes video essays, we encourage

video essays to be published here too, can be So that's another avenue that

we're really proud of that we think is a great way to kind of extend the film

studies work out beyond the classroom.

Yeah.

I remember around 20, 2011, like you said, when it started up and students were like

really excited about it and, you know, cause we had, you know, production clubs

and we had light clubs and we had sound clubs, but all of a sudden there was

this, you know, this writing club that was about films and it tapped into an energy.

I think it's just a great example to show like how Grand Valley

doesn't leave any students behind.

Like, we're really making sure that, you know, we have a diverse way for students

to engage with, with this medium of film.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that's a whole part of it too.

I mean, anytime that I get, you know, a piece of writing that I'm

impressed by or something that's the first thing I say, I'm like, you

should submit this to Cinesthesia.

Like you got to get it in there, you know?

Right, and all of a sudden it's getting read in, in New Zealand or something.

What are some examples of, what have students been writing about?

It's all kinds of stuff, you know, sometimes the other writing will

mostly pertain to the specific assignments that are in the classes.

But oftentimes when we're assigning those types of prompts, they're pretty open.

But it can be anything.

I mean, they can be writing about contemporary films that have come out

maybe that have gotten a lot of attention in the past couple of years, but sometimes

they're more historical and they're going back to looking at cinema, you know, in

like the, the 1990s in South Korea, or maybe they're thinking about, I remember

one of the very first papers that we published in the first issue I believe

that's gotten some of the most views on there is about Little Miss Sunshine.

Which is a film that--

There's a lot to write about on that movie.

Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean, it really, in terms of the topics, it's all over

the place, it's a huge variety.

Right.

I gotta, I gotta tell you something too is, uh, this past year I was, so

I'm a documentary filmmaker myself.

I worked with one of your students, and, she, she was a recent graduate and she

would, would think about filmmaking and composing shots in a whole different

way because of, you know, what she would reference like, you know, I wrote

this thing in Spencer's class that said this, and so I, you know, I think

that's just a great example on how, like this film theory work can also

really make your productions better too.

That is, that's so great to hear actually.

That is so much a part of like why I find it important because the vast majority

of the students in these courses and in these programs want to be filmmakers

or they want to be involved in the filmmaking process at whatever level.

And yeah, for me, it's like, if you're not going to take this stuff

and become a writer, or a teacher, which many don't, that's fine.

The idea is to take it and apply it to the work you're doing.

And it doesn't matter whether you want to be a cinematographer, editor,

whatever facet of film production you want to be a part of, this stuff applies.

Like it all makes sense, it's all pertinent.

And so if you can have that stuff kind of germinating in your mind

while you're working on something, or when you're in that creative

mode, I mean, that is like, that's all I can really, you know, ask for.

Yeah.

I mean, cause you make thousands of decisions for

every film in every part of it.

And like you need a way to filter those decisions.

And I really do think this is a great foundation to make those, and it's also

a great way to, to watch films too.

I understand you also put together some film festivals?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, there's this thing that I started last year called Cinespace, which is

an online just film series on campus.

I've been at Grand Valley for a little while now and I, every semester I was

like, you know, I think any real kind of, you know, self-respecting film

program needs to have a film series where students can come and watch films

together, outside of the regular classroom environment and kind of sharing the

experience of watching films as a group and, and, and then discussing them.

So it still is an academic event in the sense that the idea is to watch the films

and then talk about them and I'm there to kind of facilitate the discussion.

But yeah, so I, I was like, we, we, we need to do this.

We need to get something going.

And so here you can see the poster for the first series that we did.

It was 10 films over the course of a fall semester.

I programmed it, I, I had some students helping me kind of organize it and get

the word out, but it really, it was this idea where like Wednesday evenings

at 6:30, if you don't have class and you don't have anything else going on,

come on over and let's sit down and watch some really fascinating works.

And let's just try to, you know, really a part of it is like practice the skills

that you're kind of learning in the film studies courses, and then trying to apply

it a little bit more, especially to films, a lot of films that sort of are not only

films that I think are interesting or like, but probably is stuff that wouldn't

necessarily be shown in class either.

Yeah.

Like those aren't even, you know, when you say it's like an academic event, these

aren't like stuffy films, like you've got some John Carpenter movies on there.

Right?

You got Shin Godzilla, like, you know, you've got really fun, fun

stuff to, to dig into and, and watch as a group and really think about.

Yeah, it's been a blast, honestly.

I mean, there, over the course of even this first time that we did it, I could

see it was building a kind of community of it and these regulars being able to come

out and it was, it was really exciting.

It was, it was a lot of fun, and you know, this, this last, the past semester where

we did it again, it was cut off a little bit because of lockdown and into now.

And so it's a little bit on, on hiatus, but like we're ready to like, get it

going again and have it going strong for as long as we can get it going.

Absolutely.

And the, the movies that you're thinking about, too, like you also have film

festivals that make sure that we're, we're highlighting stories from people

of color and also other minorities.

Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Within Grand Rapids itself, there are a number of festivals or film series

that I really try to highlight in these classes and to let students know about,

because there's a lot more going on out there, even in Grand Rapids, apart

from what's playing at the multiplex.

Something like the Chiaroscuro International Film Series,

which is a long running series--

What was that word again?

It's called Chiaroscuro.

What does that mean?

That's an Italian word that comes from painting, but it's

actually used in film a lot.

It essentially means an image that has really intense shadow play, and

oftentimes there's like one light source coming in and there's a huge contrast.

It was a theme and kind of a style of painting for awhile, but there's a lot of

films that also use this style as well.

I feel like I'm in one of your film studies classes right now.

This is going into its 15th season now.

So it's been around for a while and I'm actually, I'm on the board for

this series and I help program the specific films that are chosen for it.

But the idea here is that it's an international film series.

So there are sometimes English language films, but they're

not from the United States.

They would probably be from say like, you know, from New Zealand, which

was mentioned earlier or from the UK, but in general, it's, uh, from

other places in Europe, Africa, Asia, it's trying to kind of cast the net

as wide as possible to bring these international films to Grand Rapids.

And part of the idea is, and this kind of goes along with a film series

idea that I've created, but with Chiaroscuro, we bring in a panel of

people to discuss the film afterwards.

So we bring in like a film expert or scholar to talk about the kind

of cinematic aspects of the film, and then we also bring in a cultural

panelist to give us a little bit better sense of the country and

the culture that produced the film.

And then we kind of do like a discussion and Q&A with the audience,

and then afterwards we have a reception where we have food from

the country of origin of the film.

And so it's this, and it's all free too.

That's the other thing that's great about it is it's free.

So, yeah, it's, it's really great.

I've been a part of it for a couple of years, and I'm really

proud of the work we do there.

And it's something that I'm always trying to extend an invitation to students

to, to come and experience it, because the idea really is to get them exposed

to the types of filmmaking that is being done in other parts of the world.

And of course, when you do that and you expand outside of the Hollywood

model, you're of course going to encounter other types of filmmaking

that doesn't necessarily correspond to the norms of American cinema,

which is always a good thing.

Sure.

And I think that's, you know, like you said, a great example of like,

you know, Grand Valley is, is in this, region of Michigan where

we do have these film showings.

When I was a student, I would go to film showings at the Wealthy Theater

and later at the UICA, you do just, you know, you get to pull stuff in.

And the fun thing about that too, is I had friends who weren't just filmmakers,

but they would always come to my events.

You know, we would like, you know, I'd have a friend who was a history

major come, and, you know, we would talk about a movie there, you know,

a friend who was a sociology major and we talk about stuff there.

So I think it's just a great way to, you know, really connect with other people.

Absolutely, yeah.

And that's the thing too, is like when you go to this or speaking to Wealthy

Theater, which is, you know, wonderful venue in Grand Rapids that I also try to

push students to go to all the time 'cause it's beautiful, an incredible venue.

Um, even that's theater hosts, like the Grand Rapids Latin American Film Festival,

which is another festival in town that, you know, has a similar kind of impulse

or mandate as Chiaroscuro, except it's just focused on Latin American cinema.

And they actually are often involved in bringing filmmakers to Grand Rapids to,

you know, participate in discussions and Q&A's about their films that are shown.

It's a similar idea and kind of going along with what you said, like

with this and Chiaroscuro, it's not just, you know, film people or film

students that are coming to these.

It really is drawing people from all parts of Grand Rapids and different communities.

And it's, it's, it's wild to see how many different people can kind of show up at

these and contribute to the discussion and bring their own perspectives.

And yeah, exactly what you're describing, where you've got even like students

or people from other departments or majors can come in and bring a kind of

perspective to the films that are shown.

Yeah.

And those events, also like help really launch a career because

those are networking events.

Like you're talking about bringing in, you know, filmmakers from around

the world, you know, all of a sudden that that's an internship, right?

Like that, that turns into real-world careers.

Absolutely.

And being able to talk to some of the filmmakers that are brought or talk to

even the, where I mentioned, like the film experts that we bring in for Chiaroscuro,

it is a way to connect, you know?

And even these, these festivals often will have internship

opportunities for students too.

I mean, I know like right now we have an intern for Chiaroscuro who, who's

helping us figure out our current season or the season that's coming up rather.

So even on that level, there's an extension to the university, and an

extension to the idea of the students can not just participate in terms of being

a spectator and being an attendee, but they can also participate by becoming

a part of the organization itself.

Yeah.

So, so important.

A lot, lot of great things here.

Well, thank you so much, Spencer.

Great talking to you again.

I'm going to put you on the spot real quick.

What is one movie that a prospective student might not know that maybe

they should watch before coming?

Oh, wow.

That is on the spot.

Before coming to university, you mean?

Sure.

Oh, wow.

If there-- I can think of a filmmaker, I guess I would say.

There's a filmmaker from Argentina.

Her name is, speaking of Latin American cinema, her name is Lucretia Martel.

She's only made a couple movies over the past 20 years or so, but I think

if there's anything to be found in a filmmaker who is doing, you know, like

narrative films but is pushing the form forward and thinking about how

to design sound and design images in new ways, she's an absolute genius.

Right.

So that will give you students a little head start before you come.

Thanks so much, Spencer.

Great talking to you.

Thank you, Randy.

Yeah, this was a pleasure.

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

series about the film and video major.

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