Film Outside the Frame 2009

LOS ANGELES, CA, October 5, 2009 - The School of Film and Television honored 10 students and three film industry professionals at its annual “Film Outside the Frame” festival on Thursday night, which was held in the Darryl Zanuck Theater on the Twentieth Century Fox lot in Century City. The event retained a prominent theme of storytelling, a key component of filmmaking that SFTV continually emphasizes to its students. Interim Dean Stephen Duncan said in his welcome speech that the event is to “celebrate the art and craft of storytelling.”

President Robert Lawton, S.J. was also in attendance and remarked in his speech, “This is an opportunity to praise and honor great achievement, and also great promise.”

SFTV presented awards to three professional filmmakers, two of whom are graduates of LMU. John Bailey, cinematographer of modern classics such as “Groundhog Day” and new favorites such as “He’s Just Not That Into You,” received the Distinguished Cinematography Award. Bailey, who graduated from Loyola University in 1973, the year before it merged with Marymount, spoke of how he was quite the troublemaker during his time at Loyola and actually skipped out on graduation.

“So, I don’t know whether I’m a Loyola alumnus or a dropout, but I hope this award leads me in the direction of rehabilitating my reputation in the eyes of Loyola,” Bailey said in his acceptance speech to a crowd that responded with amused laughter.

The Distinguished Editing Award went to John Gilroy, editor of films including “Miracle” and “Michael Clayton.”

“It’s a great honor, and it’s actually my first distinguished award. I’m really flattered,” Gilroy said after the event.

Brian Helgeland, who received his M.F.A. from LMU in 1986, received the Distinguished Screenwriting Award. A reel of Helgeland’s work began appropriately with a scene from “A Knight’s Tale” in which the character Geoffrey Chaucer says, “I’m a writer. I give the truth scope!” Helgeland also wrote screenplays for films such as “Mystic River” and “Man on Fire” and won an Oscar for “LA Confidential.” In his speech, Helgeland talked about the various jobs he had growing up and how each one exposed him to storytelling. He also commented on the education he received at LMU.

“[Before applying to graduate school], I didn’t even know film school existed. I thought every film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. You can draw your own conclusions about the value of my education at Loyola,” he said.

Students then received their trophies for their various awards. Following their recognition, the films that received Jury Awards or Technical Craft Awards were screened.

The Best Film, Best Director and the Dreier Family Editing Award went to Darin Read for his film “Up Under the Roof.” Read attended LMU in the early 1990s but then left when his short films were becoming too expensive to shoot. He now has returned to LMU to finish his masters.

“[These awards] are the perfect capper on a long journey to finish my degree,” Read said.
Senior Leonard Menchiari won Best Documentary for “Il Falconiere,” which he shot in Italy during his the fall 2008 semester abroad. The screenings also concluded with Menchiari’s 30-second animation film, “Drugs ‘N’ Porn.”

Menchiari, a production major and animation minor, said that he still is figuring out how he will balance his talents in animation filmmaking and live action and said, “I just want to shoot movies.”

Menchiari also explained that he is more accustomed to narrative filmmaking, but making a documentary taught him how he can “go outside the rules” with the technical aspects of filmmaking.

Senior production major Jesse Morrison received the Golden Cub Award, which honors junior-level, non-synch sound films.

“[When I found out that I would receive the award] I was pretty shocked. There were a lot of good filmmakers this past year among my class.”

Morrison, whose passions are art direction and production design, also worked as art director on multiple other films honored at the event, including “The Tin Plane,” which features a room full of crafty objects, and “Android Love,” for which Morrison achieved a believable sci-fi look on SFTV’s sound stage.

“Android Love” won the Silver Lion Award, which honors senior-level films. Its director, 2009 graduate Lee Citron, was also honored last year when he won Best Film for his junior-year project, “Idiot Box,” which featured the scandals of characters who had television sets for heads.

“I like any project that’s visually exciting, and I also like the dark and absurd,” Citron said.
Mark Chaput, a production major and a third-year graduate student, won both the Twentieth Century Fox Screenwriting Award and the Bernard Abbene Comedy Writing Award for “The Real Wiseguys of Los Angeles.” Chaput said that he’d never seen the film screened in a theater as large as Zanuck Theater.

“It’s definitely the biggest audience that’s seen it. It’s great with comedy because you get a good response from the crowd,” Chaput said.

Senior animation major Andrew Freire won Best Animation for “In My Head.” Freire also wrote and performed music for the film.

“Standing up in front was overwhelming,” Freire said. “It’s awesome to see [the film] reach so many people, including lots of talented and creative people.”

The audience that these films reached included more students this year than past years did. While only a select number of students were invited in the past, all SFTV students were encouraged to come to the event this year. The new location at the Fox lot allowed for this, as the previous location at the Director’s Guild of America was smaller. Duncan also actively worked to make this year’s Film Outside the Frame more about and for the students.

“Before, it was mostly designed for industry professionals,” Duncan said. “This year, we thought the students should be there as well.”