Picture start
30 years of Cinema Workshop
by Amy Ovsiew ’08
“Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.”
Those words from American film director Stanley Kubrick, explain the thinking behind Rowan University’s Cinema Workshop. This year, the group’s members celebrate 30 years of writing, producing and creating films that gave many students their first opportunities in the field.
“We always have students with a variety of experience, from freshmen with no experience to seniors ready to graduate,” said Sean O’Leary ’92, film production coordinator at Rowan and Cinema Workshop coadvisor since 1999. He was also a club member as a student.
“Cinema Workshop is a great place to learn how to take a vision and actually bring it to life,” said Allen Gottfried ’03, a full-time television management student at Drexel University and a part-time, freelance music video director and promotional DVD producer.
“It’s good for students because you get to get a leg up, so that by time you reach your first film class, you’re miles and miles ahead of everyone who hasn’t done anything in the department yet,” said Colin Weir ’08 and Cinema Workshop’s web master from 2005-2007. “It also helps you build those oh-so-important connections that will be your key to surviving in the real world.”
“I’ve always been interested in film,” said Bill Mejia ’95, who served as the group’s Bureau of Communications Organizations representative while at Rowan. Mejia is a strength and conditioning specialist and independent filmmaker.
“But when I came to Rowan freshman year,” Mejia said, “I had no idea there was a way to study it. I heard people were making films… I saw some (Cinema Workshop) previews at the end of the year… I was so impressed, I joined my sophomore year.”
Lights, camera, action
To get things started, students meet and present scripts and project ideas to one another. Projects are either green lighted and sent into production or returned to the drawing board.
Students “can compile a crew from like-minded individuals who care about making film and aren’t just fulfilling a credit requirement,” said Casey Connor ’03, a past vice president and secretary of Cinema Workshop. She is a production assistant at Oxygen Media. “They get on-set experience, whether that be as director, producer or a best boy (technical assistant).
“It’s all the best things about the film courses, distilled to the best parts—a filmmaking education, without all those pesky quizzes getting in the way,” said Connor. “If you’re good at one thing, this is the place to develop it.”
“My biggest memory from Cinema Workshop is actually an experience that hurt me,” said Mejia.
“I was very enthusiastic about a project. I pitched it to the board and they shot it down. It really hurt—but it drove me to decide, ‘I’ll make this even without [Cinema Workshop].’ So, through a field experience course, I was able to rent out equipment and make it. My senior year, I gave another proposal to Cinema Workshop for finishing funds, and they gave me the money,” Mejia said. “It was the inspiration of being rejected that got me to make my own movie.”
Students “are responsible for the success or failure of the productions,” said Joseph Bierman ’81, a radio/TV/film associate professor and club coadvisor. “In the film production classes they learn a variety of skills, but in Cinema Workshop they really get a chance to test their abilities.”
“When I first came to Cinema Workshop, I knew very little about film,” said Matthew Basile ’06, who was the club’s president from 2003 to 2005 and is assistant director of event services for presentation services at the Hyatt Regency at Penn’s Landing Philadelphia.” When I left, I felt like I understood better what goes into making a film and how I fit into that process best,” said Basile. “It also taught me that I will always have more to learn when it comes to filmmaking.”
Executive producers
Cinema Workshop founder and Rowan professor Richard Grupenhoff first conceived of the group in 1977 after learning that funds from GSC’s Student Government Association were available for clubs.
“I figured the best thing to do was to start this club so we could get some funds to make films,” said Grupenhoff. “It was an outside-of-classroom situation that gave students extra opportunities to do what they want to do.”
Since then, the club has developed through the years and hundreds of students have called themselves Cinema Workshop members. As the College of Communication developed the radio/TV/film department, more students became involved.
“When I was in the club back then, there were only 10 or so people,” said Bierman. “The department was small.”
The club’s survival was based on student interest, Grupenhoff explained. “They keep wanting to do more as they get along in their studies.”
“I learned [from Cinema Workshop] that film production only works as a collaborative effort among people that have a passion for film,” said Rick Angeli ’83, a past club vice president who is the senior director of sales and marketing for NFL Films. “This fact carried throughout my career.”
Cinema Workshop also provided other opportunities to learn about the film industry. For example, members would go to the Ritz Cinema in Philadelphia and watch art films.
Through Cinema Workshop, I got my first exposure to these kinds of films,” said Mejia. “I remember going to see Like Water for Chocolate and it really amazed me. I look back and still appreciate that Cinema Workshop turned me on to films I’d never have seen otherwise.”
During that time, Cinema Workshop members also hosted events that included activities such as betting on the Academy Awards or hosting screenings with “some great piece of film that was hard to find,” said Mejia.
In 1988, Bierman returned to Rowan and became Cinema Workshop coadvisor with Grupenhoff. Already benefitted by the club, Bierman sought to inspire students the same way.
I wanted to encourage students to explore the use of film to communicate their own personal perspectives,” said Bierman. “Film is a wonderful medium for reaching people emotionally. A good short film can have a great impact on the viewer.”
“The club has survived due to the leadership that Richard and Joe provided the club,” said Angeli. “They really cared about making each student’s experience educational and enjoyable.”
Bierman would later become the club’s sole advisor from 1994 until 1999.
“As the advisor I was able to be directly involved in the production of a wide variety of student films. The experience has helped me to grow as a teacher of film and video,” explained Bierman. “It has also enriched my life through the friendships I have made with other filmmakers and Cinema Workshop members.
In 1999, Bierman and O’Leary became coadvisors. Starting this fall, O’Leary will be sole advisor while Bierman becomes department chair.
Roll film
From 1989 through 1991, students used their talents to help produce three NFL-style highlight films for the Rowan football team. Shooting the film involved taping games in all kinds of weather, said Bierman, “including the pouring rain.”
“It was hard work and long hours producing those three documentaries,” said Bierman. “But everyone enjoyed the experience.”
Dracula’s Crypt, made by Charles Currier ’91, was “a high quality film with great lighting and production design,” explained Bierman.
Trees, an experimental comedy film by Laura Carney ’93 in 1992, was accepted into the Philadelphia Film Festival. It, as well as another of Carney’s films, The OF Trilogy, played at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and both were featured on a Los Angeles Jumbotron (a large video screen used in stadiums and at concert sites).
Trees was also the start of the future for Steve Kwasnik ’93 with Cinema Workshop.
“I had been acting since I was 16 and had some small roles in professional productions,” said Kwasnik. “My roommate was a member of Cinema Workshop and convinced me to work as a production assistant on a Cinema Workshop production—it was Trees. Once I did that, I was hooked.”
Since graduating, Kwasnik has written, developed, produced, directed and edited numerous film and video productions. He also cofounded the Actors Conservatory of Philadelphia.
From the club, “I realized that filmmaking is not just a creative, artistic medium but also a business,” Kwasnik said. “In a nutshell, Cinema Workshop was the foundation which started my career as an independent filmmaker.”
A short documentary made by O’Leary as an undergrad, Exit: The Last New Jersey Drive-In, won a Director’s Choice award at the Black Maria Film Festival in Jersey City and a special Edison Award at the Young New Jersey Film and Videomakers festival.
Also in the ’90s, Bierman directed a short adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart with Cinema Workshop members acting as the crew. The film was later screened at the CineQuest Film Festival in San Jose and won a CINE Golden Eagle, which, according to CINE’s website, “acknowledges high quality professional production in a variety of content categories, as well as in student and independent works.”
Screening room
In the last decade, students have shown their films across the region, including the Atlantic City Film Festival for Decay by Lou Bottino ’01 in 2000 and A Baseball Story by Mike Drozd ’02 and Lance Udasco ’01 in 2001. In the 2006 Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival, ’06 grad Kathryn Morrison’s Scratched won third place in the experimental category.
Class of ’02 Ernie Rockelman’s zombie spoof, Dead Tired, was nominated for the Jersey Fresh award at the 2005 Red Bank International Film Festival and was featured on the horror-themed website FangoriaTV.com and was selected to play at a special Halloween screening at the Paramount Theatre at Asbury Park.
Rockelman, who teaches English at Absegami High School in Galloway Township, was Cinema Workshop’s secretary in 2001. He said the club offered him exciting opportunities, such as taking Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero out to dinner. Romero also screened a rough cut of Romero’s then-unreleased film Bruiser.
“Meeting Romero was a big highlight,” said Rockelman.
For the past four years, Cinema Workshop competed in Philadelphia’s 48 Hour Film Project, which O’Leary described as “a traveling filmmaking competition where teams are formed and a complete film is produced from concept to finished product in a sleepless 48-hour period.”
Cinema Workshop has won numerous awards at the competition, including Best Use of Prop, Best Costume and Audience Favorite. Workshop films were featured several times in the “Best of” screening during the Philadelphia Film Festival, and their 2005 entry, Nights at the Round Table, was featured on a short-films DVD.
“My favorite memory from Cinema Workshop was my final year as a member, when we did the 48 Hour Film Project for the second time,” said Basile. “Cinema Workshop had a huge team that year. Practically the whole club was involved. The entire crew came together and unselfishly gave their all to the competition. In the end, the film [Nights at the Roundtable] was praised as one of the best films that came out of Rowan in a long time and it won several awards,” added Basile.
With a consistent stream of films being created and a variety of positions available within them, students have many choices. Which is good, explained Doug Seidel ’04, because “the more films a person works on, the more ideas they have for the next one and the more chances to learn more parts of the overall filmmaking experience.” Seidel is a program manager at ATA Black Belt Academy. He is also the assistant director and is acting in an independently produced martial arts film titled The League.
“I didn’t want to wait until junior year to be making movies,” said Weir. “So when I first heard about it at orientation, I said, ‘Wow, this is great’ and made sure to attend the first meeting. After that I never stopped.”
“Everybody loves movies—whether RTF majors or otherwise. In Cinema Workshop, they can share ideas freely,” said Rockelman. “People work together toward a common goal—making quality projects. Making a movie in Cinema Workshop is a rewarding, healthy experience.”
“Cinema Workshop gave me experience that I apply toward many of my real-world projects today,” said Gottfried. “Would I have learned without Cinema Workshop? Most likely, but I would much rather be in this highly competitive market being smarter and further educated on the equipment and industry. Cinema Workshop made that happen.”
It’s a wrap
After 30 years, “we’ve gone a long way,” said Grupenhoff. “We’re now one of the premier undergrad radio/TV/film departments on the East Coast.”
The combination of “the hardworking faculty advisors, the enthusiastic students and the power of film as a medium have brought people together in the only true collaborative art form,” said Seidel.
O’Leary attributes Cinema Workshop’s success to the many students who took part over the years.
“When you’re a student, you’re fearless. You’re willing to try new things. You’re not hampered by convention,” said O’Leary. “You keep experimenting.”
“When I told my parents I was taking up a radio/TV/film degree, their main worry was that I was wasting my education and wouldn’t be able to get a job after graduation,” said Connor. “While the film and television industries are difficult to get into, I think the skills and contacts made as part of Cinema Workshop are incredibly worthwhile. Cinema Workshop really helps students develop their skills and work on them so that they understand both the practice and the theory,” said Connor.
“I feel my projects have continually improved as a result of what I learned in Cinema Workshop,” said Rockelman. “The relationships formed there have built into lasting friendships that aid in keeping my passion alive.”
“Filmmakers always seem to stick together,” said Gottfried. “Thirty years is a long time for anything, but when you have something good it lasts.”
Post-production
To celebrate the club’s 30th anniversary, students, alumni and professors gathered in April for a banquet. They shared stories, viewed old films and honored advisors Grupenhoff, Bierman and O’Leary for their commitment to the club.
“When you’ve got people flying in from California for the 30th anniversary party, that’s all you really need to show what kind of community this is,” said Weir.
It all comes down to this: “Cinema Workshop allows the students to be the filmmakers,” said Bierman. “We give them the film, processing and equipment; they provide the imagination. It’s a terrific combination, one that will continue to draw students for a long time to come.”
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Amy Ovsiew ’08 is a dual major in public relations and journalism. She is also a production assistant at University Publications and Rowan PRSSA’s publications coordinator. Contact her at aovsiew@gmail.com.
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