Randy Strobl: Welcome to a special two-part series for Alumni Live:

The Podcast about the history of the film and video major at

Grand Valley State University.

If you want to see a video of this episode complete with archive photos and videos,

look for the link in the description.

In part one, we talked about the early years of the Arts and Media major

at William James College, which was part of Grand Valley State Colleges.

In part two, we'll talk about the transformation from Arts and Media to

the Film and Video Production major at Grand Valley State University's School

of Communications, and eventually the Department of Visual and Media Arts.

We'll also hear about the Summer Film Project, the Lip Dub, and

group experiences like bonding over late night edits or 12 hour film.

Join the conversation as former faculty member John Philbin talks about the

origin of the fall and winter showcases.

John Philbin: The showcases.

Originally they just showed their final films in final exam day in class.

And then we said, you know, let's get 'em all together and do it

in a public venue, invite all the actors and family and everybody.

And, and I remember first we had just a once a year showcase and

then there was just too many films.

And so we had, now let's have one every semester.

There's still too many films, you know?

And then we say, Well, let's have one each season.

We'll have a fall, a winter in a spring showcase.

And the winter showcase, we, we made it a little different because

we opened it to all class levels freshman through senior, and we had

awards and all that kind of thing.

You know, it's just a great way to get everybody together.

You know, everybody sees each other in class, but it's a real celebratory event.

And it's also great as a filmmaker to have outsiders come and watch

your work and, laugh in the right place and applaud and so on.

That exhibition part of the process is important.

Everyone focuses on the writing and the, the production and the editing,

but then you gotta show it and get together with your fellow filmmakers.

Randy Strobl: Former faculty member Toni Perrine talks about the need

to showcase film studies work.

Toni Perrine: I do wanna just mention too, that we've had a lot of

successful students, obviously a lot of successful, student work, working

through a lot of different media.

And that includes film and video and audio and writing, and also film studies.

And so, we started doing showcases of student work.

Well, we, we always did it in various ways, , but became more

formalized starting in the nineties.

And part of that was, premiering the summer film, which my colleague John

Philbin will be talking about in a minute.

But, some of it was to provide an audience for the work that students

produced in a more, formal setting.

So we would have a big auditorium invite families, friends, of course,

cast and crew members to come.

These showcases became kind of a big part of the end of each semester.

But what the showcases didn't provide was a place for all of the

history, theory, criticism type work.

The film studies part of the curriculum.

And so about 10 years ago, it was actually a group of students who had the idea

of starting a student run film journal.

And that, eventually after like a semester or so of planning became,

Cinesthesia, which has now been publishing for about 10 years.

And I just wanted to share a couple of statistics.

Volume one was published in 2013.

We've published about 20 issues since then, a total of 86 papers.

There have been, 95,000 downloads of papers published

in Cinesthesia around the world.

So that's one thing that's really cool, that students have the ability

to share their written scholarly, critical work with not just, the

Grand Valley audience, but also, interested people around the world.

So if you get a chance to go to that website and take a look at all the

places where these, papers have been downloaded and appreciated and

not only scholarly work included, but also artwork and photography.

So it's been a nice venue for publishing the film studies part of the program

that compliments nicely the showcases of, the students' production work.

Randy Strobl: The Summer Film Project is a treasured experience for the program.

Alumni and former faculty member, Girbe Eefsting talks

about the origin of the project.

Girbe Eefsting: We'll get back to the beginning, the origins.

You know, I was asked to teach the film classes, which

was Sixteen 1 and Sixteen 2.

And so I started that, with the 16 one class, and that's the basics, uh, how

to run a Bolex and, but you know, I just was feeling a lot of energy for this

opportunity for me to, to talk to young people to teach them about filmmaking

and, uh, it got this sense of momentum.

So, The same students would end up taking Sixteen 2.

So we already felt like a community, a tribe.

And, uh, one of the students, I think it might have been a student named Bill

Gerhardt, who's now very successful as a Director in, Los Angeles.

He works a lot on AMC series, but, he had a script called Seizure

and it was an interesting story.

And so we combined our resources as a class and spent the semester,

making this film in 16 millimeter.

And then we actually had a premier event at Studio 28.

And so all very successful, huge turnout.

Just the energy was fantastic.

The second year kind of followed the same thing, but this time we had a student,

Julian Boyance who had a script called "To Overlook Beauty", which was a narrative

fiction, but it was about teenage suicide.

We did that then as Sixteen 2 premiered it for two nights at, I think once

in Studio 28 and once in Muskegon.

And then the third year, what we did to create it to up the ante, so to speak,

was we shot in Super 16 and Super 16 is a format that came around to kinda,

it's the same aspect ratio as hdtv.

And it lends itself well to blowing up your final product to 35 millimeter

film, which at that time 35 millimeter film was the standard projection format.

Our previous two years, we would bring in a 16 millimeter projector

into this movie theater and project, you know, our 16 millimeter film.

Of course, it didn't match what the, you know, patrons would

usually see at the theater.

So this idea was now let's bring a 35 millimeter print.

So this was all about a comedy, called "Life Yucks" and the students each got

to do a little comedy segment and we ended up with a 35 millimeter print.

think we might have even had four nights of, screening.

And so that just every year we seemed to do something a little bit more.

You know, I have to mention this incredible support from, the,

School of Communications, faculty.

And one person in particular, Alex Nesterenko, he was the Director of the

School of Com, and he really, supported what we were doing and, and continued it.

So then that conversation says, how could, what could we do beyond that?

And that was how the Summer Film Program got to.

So instead of one semester, why not the whole summer?

So that's, that's how we developed it.

And the other part that really, you know, put a lot of energy into

it was this idea of, bringing in guest, either, you know, film people,

lectures, but we contacted her.

You know, I saw an ad in the American cinematographer for this Fuji film,

and it was this woman Irish five foot, two red haired, her name was

Brianne Murphy, and she was the first woman to ever become a member of the

American Society of Cinematographers.

And this is a huge deal.

The American Society of Cinematographers, the most prestigious organization

that you can become a member of, uh, as a hundred members.

Only opens up if somebody dies.

It takes two other members to nominate you.

Brianne had been the DP on all of the Little House on the Prairie, TV series

with, Michael Landon so Brianne agreed to become sort of a mentor to the Summer Film

Program with her connections in Hollywood.

She also asked if she could bring her sister, who was a

script supervisor for 30 years.

Her name is Jillian Murphy.

And, that Hollywood connection made a lot of things happen, which also

then connected us to Panavision who had a new program called

the, the New Filmmaker Program.

And it was the second year.

The first year they had given a Panavision package to U of M.

The camera package is free, but you have to insure the camera package,

which is about 10 cases of equipment.

And they had to be insured for a million dollars The first

year, that U of M had it, they said it has to stay in this room.

But Grand Valley put up the money, they put up the insurance and so we had this

10, 10 cases of Pan Vision equipment and, we had a great time making this film.

The program was so successful that Grand Valley said we need

a full-time tenured faculty

person to run this program.

And I didn't qualify because of a lack of advanced degrees.

So I had this sort of step out of the way, and that's how eventually John

came to be, in charge of that program.

And I think he's done a fantastic job right from the beginning.

John Philbin: I guess I would just go back and say, you can't tell the story of Grand

Valley without talking about the growth.

When I started, there was maybe 12,000 total students and I left

there was close to 30,000 every fall I would drive into the campus.

There'd be a new building, and I would, I would be like, What is that?

Where, where'd that come from?

, I remember when I came, as Tony said, I came to Grand Valley and I actually

pitched the idea of a summer film project in Southern Illinois, and

they were like, Well, it's a cool idea, but we can't afford to do that.

And then I came up and they said, Hey, we have a thing called

the Summer Film Project here.

And I was like, That's a great idea.

Which Girbe was, was the guy who launched the first one, year

after year, it just got bigger.

It's this intensive program where it's like bootcamp.

I mean, you're on set for, you know, sometimes five days, sometimes, you

know, 12 days, 10, 12 hours a day, and you're really, you know, learning.

As close as you can get to what it's gonna be like in film production

if you get a career in that.

As it grew, we started to bring in Hollywood, DP Jack Anderson.

And he, he brought the Panaflex Super 16 along.

We started to bring in Hollywood actors, James Karen, Paulie

Perette from NCIS and and so on.

The screenwriting got better, the actors got better.

The crews got bigger.

And, the other thing about 20 years at Grand Valley is the,

the technology keeps changing.

You know, I started, it was we shot.

Not at the summer film, but we shot in media production classes on VHS and

then S VHS and then mini DV and the beta cam, and now it's all tapeless and

the Summer Film finally a few years ago switched from film to the Red camera

and ARRI Alexa and so on and so on.

So we follow along, with the digital revolution , in terms

of the production aspects of it.

Part of the thing that kept me doing it, and I, I think I directed 12 of the

25 summer films, was because students would, you'd watch them just change

over the course of the production into, into becoming professionals.

And many of them told me, you know, I learned so much.

Uh, that kind of feedback just makes you wanna keep doing it.

And it's always different one summer to the next, because a comedy is different

than a drama, different than a family movie, you know, they're all different

stories, so they have different elements, different locations, different characters.

So it was, it.

It was a, it was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of work, , lot of long days.

But, I enjoyed it.

Randy Strobl: Alumni Greg McNeil shared his experiences working

on multiple summer film projects.

Gregg McNeil: One of the things that I really treasure in my memories of going

to Grand Valley was my work on the several Summer Film projects that we worked on.

It was always a very intense, very, frenetic thing to do.

We were all taking our summers and just doing this project.

And the first one I worked on was an anthology film where we all wrote

scripts and we all did different jobs in each of these scripts.

And then at the end we had like a, like an assemblage film

and, that was really great.

And then the next one we did we had a partnership with Panavision.

And they brought in a big 35 millimeter camera.

And, a lady named Kelly Simpson came in and shepherded us through that.

And that was an amazing, amazing experience.

That's where I learned to be a Camera Assistant.

And, I learned to be a Camera Assistant because coming into the program

midstream as I did, I knew I wasn't going to be, a DP or a director.

So Girbe gave me a copy of the Camera Operator's manual and I went home

and I read it and, got through it and I was like, Oh, Camera Assistant,

they get to play with all the toys.

I'll do that.

And so I had, Kelly Simpson from Panavision who had been a Camera Assistant

on the X-Files and the Commish and all these other shows that were in Vancouver.

And she, taught me to be a Camera Assistant, which I started to do

professionally after I left Grand Valley.

But then the first, Summer Film Project, the next year, we shot that on the 16

millimeter, Panavision , and I DP'd that.

And, we had a partnership with, Columbia in LA.

And Brianne Murphy came over and helped us with that, and she tutored me personally

and took me back to LA with her.

And that was an amazing experience.

It was, it's a brilliant program and it's one of the, it's one of the foundations

of what really helped me to understand exactly what it takes to make a film.

It's one of my favorite things I've ever done.

Randy Strobl: Creating a film demands, long hours, creative problem

solving, and a lot of collaboration.

Alumni Katie Dehn shares her experiences working on a senior thesis project.

Katie Dehn: One of my favorite memories from Grand Valley's

film program was actually working on a peer's senior thesis.

We were a big crew that got together to help out on this big project, and it

really felt like we were just part of a real film crew without any supervision.

Kind of different from the Summer Film.

We had all done the Summer Film before, so we kind of knew what we

were doing and we were all able to just feel like, This is the real deal

now, you know, And we had so much fun.

I remember shooting in the middle of the night and in, in a graveyard.

And then at a grocery store in the middle of the night, like lots of night shoots.

But it was just so much fun and the product ended up being great and we

all were really, really proud of it.

Randy Strobl: When Kirie Quackenbush was a senior, she had the idea to

create a campus wide Student Academy Awards event that included an

entertainment filled awards ceremony.

Kirie Quackenbush: I would have to say that my absolute favorite memory that

I can think of just off the top of my head when I was a student is, Gil.

GMC FO Sho actually showed up to be the host of the Grand

Valley Film Academy Awards.

I invited him because I was a fan and I think that he's hilarious on

YouTube, and I invited him and he actually showed up to host the event

and he was in this huge like, Egg shaped cape with feathers all over it.

And he was so funny and he like flew in singing his song . He was just a total

clown, but he was actually really chill and fancy hosting the entire event.

I won't forget that.

It's really cool to have a connection with such a popular and really cool YouTuber.

And just a great person all around

. Randy Strobl: Randy Strobel recalls the passion and comradery at the

first student run television station on campus, GVBN later named GVTV.

The office that we were in at one time, there was really just one editing bay.

And so, as people would line up to edit their shows, there was really just a

fun atmosphere and, and people joking and watching content and making suggestions

and, you know, it was a club in the way that we were all there having fun,

but it was also a club in that we were all there pushing each other's art to

the next level when we would have our meetings, it was all about, watching

the content, making suggestions.

We all cared so much to what we were putting on Channel 10 at the time.

Making sure that if a student turned on that, TV to Channel 10, they would

see something that might hook them.

Of course, there were disagreements and political struggles, but, all of

that was because we cared so much about the direction of that organization.

We understood that it was, still brand new and we were creating

something that, hopefully would last for a long time at Grand Valley.

And, I remember at, at one time I told somebody that I don't need to join a

fraternity because, I have my own letters.

And those are GVTV.

Stephanie Choriatis talks about how important her time at GVTV

was to her time at Grand Valley.

Stephanie Choriatis: I was an active member of Grand Valley

Television for all four years.

I was an active e-board member for three years of my time.

And it's hard to describe it as a professional experience because

we had so much fun with it.

We had such a blast, but it was a professional show for us, for

all of us involved with GVTV.

We were very dedicated to making content.

We, we worked on news shows all together.

It's where I met all of my best friends and my closest collaborators.

I still am very close with the people that I met and became friends with through

GVTV and we still make work together.

I think though, to me, what was the most special experience about

having a group like GVTV though was the opportunity to play and

to learn that is outside of class.

I will give a little shout out to Randy, who's behind the scenes,

pressing the buttons right now.

He was one of the first persons that I worked with on a news

show that we worked on together.

And he said, Hey, have you used a microphone before?

Have you plugged it into an explorer cable?

And I said, No, can you show me?

And he showed me, And that's how I would describe the whole experience is

that you have this opportunity to learn from each other and from people who

have different levels of experience.

It was a safe place to go where if you wanted to try something out and just

explore, that's where you could go.

But of course, you know, there were a lot of, different shows that we

made, a lot of events we hosted, we did live, Relay for Life, live streams.

It was something that I, I have very much held onto for very many years.

I'm actually very pleased to hear that it's still going, and that students are

still having the opportunity to learn and to make things with each other.

I love it.

Randy Strobl: Sometimes it's the demanding, intense work of production

that informs students that they are in the right place doing the right work.

Grayson Beras talks about having that experience during his freshman year.

Grayson Beras: One of my favorite experiences from the film video program

was for my first semester freshman year, I had two video courses and I had two

projects going on at the same time.

One of them was a stop motion animation project that I found myself working on

in the basement of Lake Superior Hall till late, well early in the morning,

and then I had to wake up early and go shoot a documentary at a zoo about where

they keep the animals in the winter time.

It was a ton of work, but, uh, just being able to get my hands dirty and

work on all these different things, it just got me really excited and looking

forward to what life would bring.

Randy Strobl: For Mary Graff Ashley, it was the culture of

supportive people and the access to equipment that was important.

Mary Graff: I really appreciated the Grand Valley Film Program for many reasons.

One of them was that we had so much access to equipment instructors

who cared, colleagues, students, everyone willing to help out.

I had heard later on that people who went to Michigan State or U of M or

even UCLA had issues, getting access to equipment or all the facilities

that we had for filmmaking resources.

So I really appreciated learning that I had gone to the right place.

In addition to all the great instruction, I got.

Randy Strobl: Kelly Loughlin talks about her experience in the Fiction 1 class.

Kelly Loughlin: And one of my favorite things that I did while I was

attending was for the Fiction 1 class.

I got to build my own Russian spaceship in the bottom of the Kirkhof studio.

And we were doing that for the project that I was chosen to have the one

of the group projects in the class.

So I wrote my script and we were able to have a student's budget and we

were able to recreate what we could.

And it was so helpful, to have that experience, just

building something from scratch.

And I ended up transferring those skills over to some freelance art department

jobs that I now hold in Los Angeles.

So I am very thankful for having the opportunity at Grand Valley

while I was still a student.

Randy Strobl: The host of this conversation, Tim Sundt shares

his experience with long hours in the editing suites in the

basement of Lake Superior Hall.

Tim Sundt: One thing that I recalled back when I was going to William James to Grand

Valley and my day was, had friends who were in a similar program at Michigan

State and they were talking about how they had to sign up for an hour of edit time.

And my first response is, you can't do anything in an hour, especially

when you're first starting out.

This is a time intensive, undertaking no matter what you're doing.

I mean, I've lost hours and editing time.

So I wanna talk about that both from Gregg and Stephanie about what kind

of bond brings up, because you do spend some really intense times.

It sometimes very enclosed spaces or in a basement editing suite or

someplace else with the students.

But it really, it, it, it solidifies your community, but also prepares you

for working out in the real world.

So, I'm gonna start with Gregg.

What can you recall about that time and how do you, how does

it impact what you do now?

Gregg McNeil: Yeah.

You do spend, you do tend to spend a lot of intense time with people

and one of the things I remember is we were editing this film and

it was inspired by Apocalypse Now.

And what we ended up doing was we were editing all night doing

double system 16 mil, and we had to take a break at some point and we

just kind of got lost in the edit.

And so we went out from the, edit room into one of the auditoriums and we put in

a laser disc of Apocalypse Now and sat in the auditorium with that at full volume.

And we watched Apocalypse Now.

And it was, it was one of those experiences that you don't get to have

very often and it it was really fantastic.

And being able to come back to an edit after something like

that was, was really great.

Tim Sundt: Stephanie, how about some of your times?

Stephanie Choriatis: Yeah.

I will actually also echo a great experience that, I couldn't even tell

you how many times we like snuck into the Lake Superior, lecture halls and would

project what we thought was our final cut on it, and then we'd realize something

was messed up and we had to re export it.

But there was something about being in those edit suites at three in the

morning with everybody else there too.

Like, I can't even describe that feeling.

I think one of my fondest memories, I don't know if fond is the right word,

actually, but one of my, memories of, of one of the, most sleepless

nights that I've ever had was the week before, the thesis presentations.

And I had been working on the editing, on the sound, on everything, and a

group of us got together and said, Let's, let's finish this movie.

I'll take the color, I'll do the mix, I'll do this.

And we were all in different parts of campus.

Someone was in Kirkoff in the audio booth, someone was in Lake Superior

in the basement, someone was at home, taking on a different aspect of it.

And so it was this huge collaboration effort.

And I slept in Lake Superior for five nights in a row because we

had to get this project finished.

And, I forget who it was.

I, I, I wanna say it might have been Deb in the film office.

I was sleeping on one of those, just a, a couch.

There was this little lounge and I was sleeping on the couch and

it was like 7:00 AM and I hear like a little tap on the glass.

And I had only gotten like a two hour nap at that point.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, where am I?

, Okay, I'm still in Lake Superior.

Is the movie done?

No.

Did I dream this?.

And also, I mean, something about sleeping on the audio booth floor too, finding some

fallen pieces of audio foam that you turn into a mattress and decide to just, you

know, take a little group nap together while you're in the middle of filming.

So I think there's this, there's something about the, it is an unbreakable bond.

There is no way that after these experiences that you have

making these projects together, that you can ever be unfused.

So it is something that I, again, like I look back fondly now in the moment.

I wish, like it would've been nice to eat, would've been nice

to have some sleep, but you're in film school, this is what you have

So, um, yeah, one of, again, fondest memories.

Randy Strobl: We're taking a short break to tell you about the Dirk Koning

Memorial Film and Video scholarship.

Here's Gretchen Vinnedge remembering Dirk Koning.

Gretchen Vinnedge: The Koning Scholarship enables students to get

that kind of an education, to be a good filmmaker, to be able to express their

voice and to continue Dirk's dream.

Randy Strobl: For more information, and to donate to the scholarship,

visit the link in the description.

Now, back to the show.

So a piece of Grand Valley's film history from 2010 was, the Grand Valley Lip

Dub, and that was of course directed by Greg Cort who graduated in 2011.

Greg.

Greg Cort: Hi.

Nice, nice to see you guys.

Randy Strobl: And produced in a lot of ways by Kim Roberts, who was, the faculty

then and of course is a, a Professor now.

So first of all, what, what is a lip dub?

And, and what was going on at the time and, and how did we get involved?

Greg Cort: Well, I, I guess first I'll just, I'll start with saying

that, the co-director and co-producer of it as well was, a

buddy of, at the time, , Chris Coleman.

And he actually showed me, , a lip dub for the first time.

I think it was maybe in the spring of 2010.

I think it was Calvin College's.

Calvin College did a lip up and it was pretty good.

Kim Roberts: Was it Hope?

I was thinking it was Hope but you might be.

It.

Greg Cort: They might have had one too.

Cause it was, it was a trend at the time and a lot of people were doing 'em.

But I think it was Calvin's, but regardless, it was another local college.

And it did, it did a pretty good job.

But we kind of saw it and we're like, We could do, we could do

this, We could do a better one.

And I think we got the ball rolling that end of that school year in the spring.

And we kind of planted the seed at some point in, in Kim's head.

And she was fully supportive of our crazy ambitious ideas.

And, over the course of that summer, we started lining things up.

We got, we got permission from, the president at the time, President T.

Haas.

And we just started lining up the logistics for a fall shoot..

I think we shot it early October, or late September of 2010.

Kim Roberts: Yeah.

The idea with the lip dub is, and, and I'll get let Greg talk more

about this, but it, it really had to be one shot, one continuous

shot could not be edited visually.

The video could not be edited, but the audio could be so you could dub in.

Some audio, but you had to lip sync it, in one shot.

Greg Cort: Yep, Yep.

That was the whole, the challenge and the fun of it.

It's kind of funny looking at it from today because it's kind of a

predecessor to all this TikTok stuff.

I mean, those are essentially glorified lip dub videos, you know?

But the, they were fun though.

And, and I think what we tried to do with Grand Valley's was, and we can

talk about, how we started to come up with some of the things, but, you

know, the longer, longer the better.

Right?

The more impressive is how long you can do it without cutting.

Randy Strobl: And, and what song was that and how did you end up picking that song

to represent, you know, the whole school?

Greg Cort: I think we were watching Freaks and Geeks.

The, the show, The Judd Apatow show Freaks and Geeks.

I think it's the first episode or one of the early episodes they go

to, the Prom or The Homecoming, and they dance to Come Sail Away..

And it's a really funny scene.

I think that was the, that was the inspiration.

Like, oh my God, this song's kind of perfect.

It's long, it's, it's, uh, you know, everyone kind of knows it.

It's easy to sing.

It'd be easy for performers to, to get their lyrics quickly.

And then the whole, sailing and Lakers and, you know, it

just fit Grand Valley so well.

So once we , heard that song and it popped in our heads, it just made sense.

Randy Strobl: And all of this, logistics and production all ended up

paying off this became national news.

What were people saying?

And, you know, what did that even feel like to, to have that blow up like that?

Greg Cort: Well, it was, it was crazy.

I, I do remember we were up late getting the video ready and me and,

Chris's, naiveness, we just went ahead and posted the video without

getting it approved by Kim and everyone else that probably needed to see it.

And I remember we posted it and we went to sleep and I woke up

to like a million messages of people saying it looked awesome.

But Kim was also like, We gotta take this down.

We gotta, Cause we didn't have any, I don't think we had a thank you credits.

We didn't put on it at the time, so we ended up having

to take it down originally.

And re put some credits on there as, as we should have.

And, uh, we reposted it so it lost a little bit of momentum, but

eventually it caught steam again.

Yeah, it got, it got a lot of, at least local press and, and some

international, and it was, it was crazy.

People were impressed by it.

I think we had, a couple little interviews about it.

And, and I ultimately ended up getting a job offer over it.

So I'll, I'll take it.

Kim Roberts: Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

And then the graduation books that they have where they have a timeline of

all the cool things of Grand Valley's history, the Lip Dub is on that timeline.

Greg Cort: Oh, cool.

That's really sweet.

Kim Roberts: Mm-hmm.

Randy Strobl: So still having an effect today and, and certainly

part of Grand Valley history.

So thanks for, for talking about this.

Kim Roberts: Yeah.

Thank you Randy.

Greg Cort: Yeah.

Yeah.

Appreciate the, the little mini reunion.

It's good to see you guys.

Tim Sundt: One of the benefits of being around long enough and having

all this evolution go through is that, in 2015 we had a reunion, pulled

together a lot of the folks, who'd been involved in the program.

And it was great on my stand.

I got to meet, you know, catch up with people I hadn't seen in a long time.

But also meet some of the, faculty and students I hadn't had a chance to know.

So it was a great chance to see what people are doing and hear how

the program was developing and just was a, a great, community event.

Again, it's said that that network, the community that's been put together,

that really was a great party.

Anybody else wanted to jump in with their, their thoughts about the event?

John Philbin: I think Gregg gets the award for the longest commute, right?

, He came from Scotland.

, Gregg McNeil: Yeah.

Toni Perrine: It was a great event.

Of course a lot of planning went into it.

Again, we a shout out to Suzanne, Zack, , for doing a phenomenal amount of work.

And then, simultaneously starting the alumni chapter that same year.

So really putting more, energy and resources into formalizing some of these

connections that we've been talking about with the reunion and then also

with the alumni chapter of which this is a production, But just seeing all

the people there from all the different generations and it was a great party.

We had.

lots of fun things happening that night.

Lots of video coverage of it.

So we had, it was very well documented.

I'm not sure when we'll do another one, but it was, it was

definitely a, a wonderful and worthwhile and very fun event.

John Philbin: One, uh, funny story from the reunion where I saw Don

Sterns, one of our alum give Jim Schaub hundred dollars bill.

And I was like going, What's going on here guys?

And, Jim, back when Don was a student and he was dating Amy said,

I'll bet you a hundred dollars, you two are gonna get married.

And, and now was whatever, many years later.

And Don came up and went, Here, here's your a hundred bucks.

So they were married, so that was fun.

Tim Sundt: Well, he probably paid it off with a smile then, so it

wasn't like he lost anything really.

As the evolution of the program goes and, evolution in Grand Valley goes.

Can you talk about that?

I, I would imagine that, uh, Tony and John probably the most to, to shed

light on that, but, how does that come around and where does it go?

John Philbin: Yeah, what Tony was saying earlier, we had, you know, film,

video has had so many great faculty.

And that's not always how it is.

I've been told from other, professors at other universities that sometimes

there's, there's in fighting or there's tension and we always just had the

best luck, not only with the full-time people, but with all the visitors.

So I just wanna say that, and that that's one of my best memories of Grand

Valley is just getting along so well with the faculty, like, like a family.

But when the, the VMA thing, they decided to break up the School of

Com, I guess, was getting too big.

And, uh, they put theater off with music and dance and they put,

uh, film and video production and photography with, uh, art and design.

And then they renamed it, the Department of Visual and Media Arts.

And that's sort of where it's at now.

And they're still trying to sort out, film, video brought, I think,

like 300 majors into the program.

So, it was a big change for art and design and I think, they're, they're

still figuring out the best way to make it all work and be cohesive and so on.

I don't know if Tony wants to add to that, but-

Toni Perrine: Yeah, I don't know that I have much more to add except

that it is still a work in progress.

I would say.

There's some, growing pains happening there.

And, the pandemic hasn't helped anything in that regard.

Just in terms of this, uh, transition, but a lot of positive

energy on the part of the faculty.

Hopefully they will, make an even stronger program than what has,

evolved over the years up till now.

I would say that, in terms of the growth, so kind of getting back to what it was

John was saying was like, we've had such a fabulous experience with our, faculty

members, with our colleagues, that I really think is a rare thing, that we

really love one another and, We've been so fortunate that way to have people to

work with that we really, really admire and have fun with and enjoy being with,

and we disagree and we fight but it's all to, to make the program better.

And we've had that kind of, you know, extraordinary, I would

say, kind of relationship over the whole time that I was there.

And so I'm, I'm hoping that, that going into the future that will continue.

and we'll see how, how it evolves going from here because we've left

the, the younger generation now to, to work on some of the, the changes

and the challenges which are striking, or you mean they're hitting the

university in general and not just Grand Valley, but all around the country.

But , it's been a great experience in terms of my, my 30 years.

Tim Sundt: Well, I think we are collectively just a, a representative

group of a lot of people out there who look back on the film and video program

and our days with a lot of, uh, a lot of pride and, just great memories and, a

lot of faith that the program will go forward and surprise us in new ways.

Is there anybody else who wants to add a closing thought before we sign off?

Gregg McNeil: I'd just like to say that my time at Grand Valley was some of the

most formative parts of my education and that I was incredibly close with

all of my instructors and all of the students that I either worked with as

a Teacher Assistant or as a a maker and collaborator, and I'm really proud

to have been a part of this program.

Alumni Michael Piotrowski talks about the enduring impact of his time as a

film and video major at Grand Valley.

Michael Piotrowski: I have a lot of fond memories from there, from,

the great teachers, Tony, Barb, Deanna Girbe, Scott, All, I mean,

they were all awesome teachers.

They taught me what I need to know now, for what I do.

I'm a sound mixer prepping for Michael Bay's new movie

starting up here, uh, next week.

And I wouldn't be here where I am today without,, all those guys.

And I bump into people.

My classmates too.

I mean, your classmates are a huge part of it.

I bump into people that I went to school with out here, Chris Bema

and I, see each other on film sets for the past 20 years now here.

Stephanie Choriatis: I am such a proud alumni.

I was actually getting chills watching some of the clips that, you were

sharing on screen and, Laker for Life.

That's all I'll say is that I'm a Laker for Lifetime.

Hmm,

Tim Sundt: John.

John Philbin: I had a great experience.

When I came to Grand Valley, I don't think I necessarily thought I

would spend my entire career there.

I figured I'll do, I'll do a few years here and then maybe

see what else is out there.

And I just, just, it was a great fit and the students were great.

And, as Tony says, I'm still watching how it will evolve in the

new department, but I'm watching from home instead of from my office.

It was, it was, it was, I had a blast.

Tim Sundt: Well, great.

I wanna thank everybody for the time you've put in today thank you for

your thoughts as, uh, just one more session in the ongoing conversation.

Multiple voices: Thanks again.

Thank you, Tim.

Love you Greg, . Guys, everybody.

Bye guys.

Bye.

. Randy Strobl: Thank you for joining us for this special two-part series

of Alumni Live the podcast about the history of the Film and Video major.

Be sure to listen to our next episode and subscribe to our podcast to hear more

from our alumni as they talk about their work in different parts of the industry.

Check out Alumni Live on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for more

conversations and let us know what topics you wanna hear our alumni talk.

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

you, and we're glad that you're here too.

Thanks for listening.