Over the years, Oakland University’s Department of Theatre and the Film Studies and Production program in the Department of English, Creative Writing, and Film have collaborated to create unique, team-taught courses for OU students. Some of their latest offerings have included courses on creating a web series, scene study, and fighting in film.
“Bringing film and theatre students together to collaborate on class projects and student films has been hugely successful for both departments,” said Anthony Guest, associate professor of theatre at OU.
Guest began working with Adam Gould, associate professor of film studies and production, a few years ago to create unique, collaborative classes for film and theatre students.
“It started with the Actor’s Lab, the Acting Program’s weekly gatherings,” Guest said. “Through that, Adam contacted me about wanting actors, so we started bringing some of his film students into the Actor’s Lab to pitch their projects. That sort of planted the seeds of it, and we started talking about sharing some course unit. I was teaching Auditions at the time, and he was teaching Directing Actors, so we started meeting regularly about how to share resources so actors could receive some training on a film set and film students could work with trained actors. We provided sides, which are basically short scenes, that we gave to the actors. We set up cameras, and then the directors — Adam’s students — directed the actors as if it was an audition.”
For Gould, having his film students working with trained actors was a great opportunity for all involved.
“At that point, the (film) students were working and making films, but they were usually working with their roommates or their little sister or their mom, which is great, but you can’t direct very well someone who isn’t trained because there’s not much more to get,” Gould said.
As the acting students and film students worked together, Guest and Gould noticed something — their films were getting better.
“I think the students started to recognize how actors in filmmaking are as important as the cinematographers, the recordists, and the filmmakers themselves,” Gould said. “They’re so important, so you need people in the acting roles who are as committed to it and as serious about it as you are as the director. Once they realize that, there’s no going back.”
Based on their initial success, Guest and Gould decided to continue to find new ways to collaborate.
“We have a course called a Company Class, which usually has a theatrical production that focuses on performance, but we decided to try a film project,” Guest said. “David (Shaerf, associate professor), Adam (Gould), and I devised the project as three webisodes, which were roughly five minutes each.
“The first part of the course was brainstorming the story,” Guest said. “It kind of felt like you were writing a series under a tight deadline. We had to do everything on site and there were times the writing team was writing the third episode while we were filming the second episode. The students were afforded the opportunity to feel what it was really like being on set of a series. The atmosphere was demanding yet creative. It almost felt like you were really creating a series and were actually on set. It was a pretty crazy atmosphere but it was good for the students.”
While working on the webisodes, the film and theatre students were able to collaborate with some of the other units in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance (SMTD), including costumes, stage makeup, tech crew, and composition.
“We collaborated with Terry Herald (a music audio technology lecturer and composition mentor at OU) and one of his composition students scored original music for all three episodes,” Guest said. “The final package was three episodes with acting students, filmmaking students, wardrobe, costumes, and a music student composing everything. It was quite a collaboration.”
The webisodes project was so well-received that it has become a staple of the Company Class, Guest said.
“So much so that we’re in the process of re-writing the degree to create a BFA in Acting: Stage and Screen,” he said. “Instead of it being Company Class, it’s going to be a new course that’s dedicated to this project.”
Collaborating on the webisodes project also inspired Guest and Gould to create another combined course — “Fighting in Film” — based on Guest’s experience with stage combat.
“The experience level (of the students) was starting to rise to the point where we didn’t feel like we had to do as much in-class modeling, so we switched it to the first half of the semester and each week we would introduce different ways to film a fight scene and things to consider, whether it was camera angles, camera movement, etc.,” Gould said. “Each week, we would focus on one of these elements.
“Tony (Guest) would give the actors some choreography, and we would go over the exercise we wanted them to do,” Gould added. “Then we would send them out on campus to shoot this choreography, while implementing a particular filmmaking challenge, such as shooting it all in one scene or shooting it with lots of camera movement. The next week we would come in and watch the results from the previous week, and talk about what we learned, and what worked and what didn’t work.”
During the second half of the semester, the students were tasked with writing their final projects and doing the pre-production, which includes things like selecting the locations.
“It was not only film and acting students, but theatre tech and design students who designed makeup; and music students who composed music,” Guest said. “The students all shot on location, locations that they acquired themselves, like the Pontiac Little Art Theatre or the Mirror Maze in Frankenmuth. The excitement of the students was contagious and we knew before the end of the semester that we would have to do this again.”
The “Fighting in Film” course has proven to be immensely popular among students, Guest said, and with only 12 spots available, it fills up quickly.
“It’s one of the most rewarding classes I’ve taught in 25 years of teaching,” he said. “It’s the atmosphere, and the things they learn are real techniques. At the same time, it gives the students a framework to create something unique.
“I was so impressed when we had our breakdown at the end of the semester and the students were talking about their work,” Guest added. “The film majors were talking about how the actors were so creative and brought so much to the work, and the actors talked about how some of the techniques the filmmakers used were pretty fabulous. I think it actually lit a spark in some of our students. Some of the acting students are talking about how they want to try a hand at film directing.”
Gould said the course provides a unique opportunity for OU students.
“The collaboration is great and the creative aspect is great, and I think the combat aspect of it excites the students because that genre is very popular right now in television and movies,” he said. “All of the elements are there to make it a great course.
“I also feel like the combat adds another level that helps the class because there’s safety; you’re not messing around, this is serious,” Gould added. “It adds a level of thoughtfulness and care that you like to think would be there in a comedy or a drama, but it has to be there in combat, as well. We make that very clear and all of the students recognize that. I think that’s part of why our students take it so seriously and are so thoughtful.”
Guest agreed, noting that the course explores the “why” of stage combat, as much as the act of simulated violence itself.
“We talk about the responsibility of writing combat into a scene and how fighting just for fighting’s sake isn’t going to work,” he said. “You need the story first, and that story could be told in any number of ways, but we’re going to use combat to communicate some emotion that just can’t be conveyed through words.”
Looking toward the future, Guest and Gould said they hope to continue to collaborate and create more unique, team-taught courses for OU students.
“I think we’re going to keep doing this class (Fighting in Film) every fall,” Gould said. “At least certainly every other year it will be combat, and it could be comedy or something else in alternate years. Looking further down the pipeline, we would love to do advanced combat.
“We would also love to have even more collaboration with different aspects of SMTD, such as set building, set design, etc.,” he added. “The fact is we learn something new every time we do this, and we’re looking forward to what our next collaboration will be.”
To learn more about these and other courses, visit www.oakland.edu/english/academic-programs/film or www.oakland.edu/smtd/programs-and-majors/theatre.