As the expression goes: LIGHTS. … CAMERA. … And a whole lot of creative, intellectual, imaginative, inspiring, career-focused, professionally guided, real-world ACTION.
Or just say: UNLV Film.
“[A UNLV film education] is all about, ‘What are you going to do in this industry?’” says Heather Addison, film department chair.
The answer to that question, as the department barrels forward with renewed focus on the campus-to-career trajectory, is clear: Build long careers in the industry.
That begins with a factor that makes UNLV unique among universities.
“UNLV is incredibly diverse. We represent the future in terms of what the United States is, and can be. We want our students to be in those positions of power in the film industry, making decisions about what's being made, getting their vision up on screen, whether that involves being a crew member or a head of a department. We have that dual focus.”
If it was a movie trailer, it might go like this (cue the ultra-dramatic, booming-voiced narrator at a theater-rattling Dolby decibel level): IN A WORLD of film schools sending budding filmmakers to compete to make screen magic, one school — forged in the heat of the creative fire raging in the heart of the Entertainment Capital of the World — is about to climb toward CINEMATIC SUPERSTARDOM!
But, this isn't an overnight success story. “I want to give all props to people who have been here — preparing for this moment for 30 years,” says Warren Cobb, associate chair and director of production operations. “We're really good at finding out what the student wants to do and then helping them achieve that.”
Casting Faculty Stars
Determined to rise steadily to the top of the marquee of American university film schools, UNLV has enhanced its already esteemed cast of expert instructors with new hires who can help widen and accelerate the pathways from film classes to industry positions.
“It's about cultivating them so that over the time that students are with us — when they step off, it's not into a void,” Addison says.
The new additions of industry veterans Andi Isaacs and Thomas Bjelic are key to that. They build on a staff foundation that has boasted Hollywood expertise for many years.
“We have had top industry figures, so it's about keeping that engine going,” Addison says. “I do think that professor Bjelic and professor Isaacs are particularly fortuitous and lucky hires for us, but we've had that vision in place for quite some time. UNLV’s growth, and the department of film’s growth have propelled us to a moment where I think we can enter a new era.”
Andi Isaacs
Highlighted by her tenure as executive vice president and head of physical production for independent studio Summit Entertainment, Isaacs’ resume preceding that position includes nearly two decades in all areas of production, both domestically and internationally. Admired as an industry “go-to” person who was tapped to handle challenging film projects and those needing an experienced guide during shoots, her credits are numerous and impressive.
They include: Now You see Me, The Twilight Saga, Perks of Being a Wallflower, In the Valley of Elah, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, National Treasure, There’s Something About Mary, Quiz Show, Philadelphia, and Scent of a Woman.
“When I decided to come out of retirement and met with the people at UNLV, I saw that their facilities, production classes, and the well-rounded curriculum were better than many of the other schools that I had spoken with. I was surprised that the film department was not more well-known,” says Isaacs.
She also was drawn to the diversity of the student population.
“There are a lot of [first-generation] students here, and many students are getting financial aid. There's a tremendous amount of diversity in the program, and I think that’s a voice Hollywood doesn’t get to hear very often. It's a population that I would love to see represented more in film.”
Thomas Bjelic
Respected for his mastery of post-production and sound design, Bjelic has logged more than three decades in film and TV work, amassing hundreds of screen credits and picking up an Emmy Award and repeated recognition from the Directors Guild of Canada and the Canadian Screen Award, among others. He is also a founding partner of Urban Post, one of Canada’s largest sound and picture post-production studios.
The Toronto native arrived at UNLV in 2021.
“Once I met everybody here and saw the vision of the school and how open they were to allowing me to steer the ship and what I wanted to do and how much freedom they gave me in building that, it made the decision pretty easy. They were very open to me designing a curriculum that I think would lead to some very, very strong student filmmaking, which is what it's all about for me. And the leadership here is amazing. I was happy to hang my hat here.”
Grounded in the Business of Hollywood as well as the Craft
A new core course called The Business of Hollywood is a key element to the department's “pathways to careers” focus. The course is taught by Isaacs, who joined the faculty for the fall 2022 semester.
Described as a set-by-step guide to industry employment and the strategies to obtain it, the course addresses all the different jobs in the industry; networking and outreach; understanding long form contracts; the ins and outs of film industry unions; how to send an attention-getting email and pitch a project to studios or investors; as well as scheduling and budgeting.
“Understanding the business of any industry is necessary if you are going to work in that industry,” says Isaacs, noting that many students think of film in terms of producers and directors – when in fact, there is an average of around 400 unique jobs on any given film.
“The majority of the movies that I worked on in my career were big budget, Hollywood studio films. Some of them had as many as 3,500 employees on the film,” says Isaacs, who certainly knows that range. She began her career as a Craft service employee on the set of The Bonfire of the Vanities – fetching coffee and Dunkin’ Donuts. Her climb up the ladder included working in the accounting departments on Philadelphia and There’s Something About Mary, where she learned about the intricacies of union rules and budgetary costs before moving on to production management and ultimately her production executive work at Disney and later Summit Entertainment.
“One of the things that I love about UNLV is that we teach critique, theory, history, and all the creative aspects of film. But you need to understand the terminology of the business and how you get a job in that business, as well,” she says.
“It's understanding scheduling and budgeting, tax incentives, and production centers. Where are movies being made? What are the entry-level jobs that are available on set, at the studio, or in production offices? How do you get those jobs? How do you network? I even teach students how to shake hands and introduce themselves.”
Some film students, Isaacs adds, leave a film program and, after a few years, leave the industry because they’re at a loss on how to create opportunities for themselves. “I look at film as a profession. Just like if you went to business or medical school, they teach you how to start and continue working in that world, and that's what I teach here at UNLV film.”
Coupled with existing internships, the course sets students up for future success. “It’s helping students make those contacts from an early stage in their tenure with us, so that by the time they leave, they have a virtual Rolodex full of people. So they can say, ‘Hey, here I am,’” Addison adds.
Building Students’ Knowledge of the Industry
Post-production knowledge is critical to equipping filmmaking students with skills to enhance their future employability and their films’ saleability. To differentiate itself from other programs, UNLV Film is tapping a strength of Bjelic, who, with partners, built a production studio with 60 employees in Canada.
“I've worked on developing curriculum for six or seven schools now, and across the board, consistently, I just see that post production takes a bit of a back seat, and student films suffer,” says Bjelic.
“They're well-acted, well-written, well-shot. When it comes to post production, which is complicated, they all fall short. That is a tragedy, because there's so much work that's put into these things that they can't get it across the finish line to a place where I would consider it presentable on a stage, whether it's at a festival, whether it's in a theater, regardless of what it is. My mandate here is to change that.”
That mandate is already rolling down the tracks thanks to Bjelic’s curriculum revamps, particularly regarding sound design, which includes sound effects, proper dialogue audio, ADR (automated dialogue replacement/rerecording), audio editing, mixing, music score editing, and surround sound systems.
“I keep tweaking the program so it's evolving very quickly. When I walked in, we had very little capacity to do anything in terms of post-sound. Now we've increased our capacity greatly. We're starting to see those effects in the quality of the student films that are coming down here.”
Bjelic also peppers his classes with a sprawling litany of information and guidance from his adventures in the industry. “I’ll say, ‘Well, here was my pathway, and here's what you're going to kind of need to know, and here's how you navigate the union structure, here's how you navigate the post production industry within Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York, and why these things happen,’” he says.
“And I give them an inside look as to how I'm dealing with budgets and costs and the infrastructure because I'm still super active in the industry. It's a weird world with lots of moving parts. A lot of schools don't strip apart all those layers and teach them. It's very interdisciplinary and we have all the disciplines here at UNLV, which is very rare.”
Adapting to the Industry Realities
Another unique new production taught by Isaacs focuses on the adaptation of intellectual properties from other mediums. She estimates that more than 85 percent of all films are based on an intellectual property – making this class a critical component for understanding the business.
“Film schools spend a great deal of time teaching screenwriting, which is highly important, but so often a movie is based on a book, someone’s life story, or even a newspaper article,” Isaacs says. “This class will really focus not as much on the creative screenwriting aspect, but about how do you get the rights to this property? Will the story translate well to film? What are the challenges involved? Take Bonfire of the Vanities, for example: It was a multimillion-dollar bestselling book, but the film was very unsuccessful. Why didn't it work? Or take something like Silence of the Lambs, which is an extraordinary book and an extraordinary movie. Why did it translate so well?”
Soliciting student feedback is important to advancing the department’s pathways-to-careers mission. That has led to the department working on how to build on its animation curriculum, which right now features two classes: one on animation history and another about animated filmmaking.
Staying atop the crest of the technology wave is another priority, the latest advance being the creation of an LED wall, scheduled to be installed shortly. “So they want to set one of their films on Mars? Hey! We’ll have that capability!” Addison enthuses.
“You can do a virtual production so you still have a physical set in front of an LED wall, and it's like the updated version of a green screen, but the camera can move and basically compute how the perspective should change in that background as the camera is moving.”
Addison points to founding artistic director and former department chair Francisco Menendez as laying the groundwork for the department.
“He has been a driving force for getting our students experiences beyond the classroom,” she says. “That involved festivals and international travel and presenting workshops. He made sure our students had the most support.”
Integrating into industry organizations is a major component, such as joining the International Association of Film and Television Schools in 2018.
“It’s like the United Nations of film education, so I think it is a turning point for us in terms of our place on the national and the world stage,” Addison says, explaining that association officials conduct site visits and evaluate curriculum before inviting membership. She and Cobb also recently attended the All-American High School Film Festival in New York City to recruit future students.
Las Vegas' Growing Film Hub
UNLV film students have always benefited from Southern Nevada’s favor as a setting for film and television, but there is now more efforts to elevate Las Vegas to a production hub as well. The efforts got a boost when actor/director Mark Wahlberg moved to Las Vegas recently, and was quoted as saying he wants to build a film studio in the city.
“We want to create a lot of jobs, and a lot of excitement. Hollywood 2.0,” Wahlberg told media outlets.
And UNLV Film is part of those conversations. “We are working with the Las Vegas Film Office and the State Economic and Development Office to help form a tax incentive that will bring production to Las Vegas,” Addison says.
Cobb adds that numerous business entities interested in bringing studio stages to the area. And if tax incentives are passed by the state Legislature? J-O-B-S for well-schooled, impeccably and practically trained UNLV film graduates.
“They’ll ask, ‘If this happens, can you guys supply the workforce?” Cobb says. “And we're ready to do it, we're eager to do it, and our students would love to stay here and work. Lots of them love to go to L.A. and New York and Georgia and New Mexico, but a large number of them would love to stay here and work. If all of this happens then they can have their wish, and we can all make this a wonderful production home.”
That’s a widely shared prognostication.
“I think the potential for Las Vegas is great because the cost of living in California has been increasing steadily for some time now,” Isaacs says. “If there was more production we would likely have a lot of crew moving here, just like when Georgia became popular and crew moved there from North Carolina. I also think for actors and directors, it's an easy 45-minute flight from L.A., with wonderful hotels and fantastic restaurants. There's so much potential for Las Vegas. It’s an exciting place to be right now.”
Adds Bjelic: “It's a film-friendly town. It’s a cheaper town to operate in, as opposed to Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles. I think the start of the seed will be to just modify our film tax credits to better represent what the other cities are providing producers. It has a lot going for it. And I think there's probably more than one Mark Wahlberg out there thinking about doing the same thing.”
All these encouraging steps add up to an anticipated giant leap forward for UNLV film department students, poised for an outstanding future. “We’re trying to offer our students a framework for studying cinema, and we’re at a very exciting moment for our program,” Addison says.
“They are going to have a clear path to creatively, intellectually, and financially satisfying careers. At this moment in the world, empathy is so critical, and cinema is an essential piece of that, not only for us, but for the world. I think our students can lead that wave of empathy through what they create on the screen.”
