What’s your Top 3 Movies for Halloween?

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982). I am a huge fan of the director John Carpenter, as well as the main actor, Kurt Russell. They made numerous films together, such as Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from New York, and others, but The Thing, for me, is the best.

Halloween (1978), another John Carpenter film, the original Halloween is a penultimate classic in the ‘slasher’ genre. The film, though not the first slasher film ever made, combined all the elements that were developing years prior and incorporated them in the most complete, artistically satisfying way that set the direction for the horror slasher genre that peaked in the 1980s.

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980). Based on Stephen King’s novel, the director Stanley Kubrick completely transformed the story and method of telling it, to his own filmmaking vision. As such, it is really difficult to compare the book to the film because they are so different, and polarizing to some, but I love them both. The film is over the top in its performances, grand in its use of music and location, and the camerawork is perfectly constructed. It’s a great movie, not scary really, but highly atmospheric.

How did you start as a filmmaker?

My first undergraduate film course at UC Davis, California was a cowboy western class that examined the reoccurring patterns and tropes of the male and female characters within cowboy narratives. I loved that class—it completely changed the course of my life. In fact, I often tell students that the subjects they chose to study may completely and unexpectedly alter the trajectory of their life path. Ideas can create seismic shifts if we allow them to and drive us into new and unexplored territories. That one film class stimulated a life-long desire and insatiable thirst to watch every film I possibly could, within all genres and it still continues to this day 25 years later.

How does MUIC’s Fine and Applied Arts Division prepare students to become future media creators?

I feel the key element to studying media is passion. If you have passionate teachers who create an environment that fosters a student’s desire to continually learn, so much so that the more a student learns the more they want to know, then the teacher is doing their job well.

A great teacher—and a great program—elevates information and knowledge to a place where students incorporate that learning into their own work and feel comfortable to take risks, and test their ideas. I feel that MUIC’s Media and Communication program, as well as the Film Arts minor, which is found within the Communication Design Program, does just that.

As MUIC students, you will find a generous faculty and an inviting community here that fosters positive personal development and life-long learning.

There you have it! MUIC’s Film and Applied Arts Division could be the place you’ve been looking for where you can grow your creative ideas while being equipped with the necessary technical skills in all aspects of filmmaking (or media content creation in general).