Although it’s more than 100 miles south of Los Angeles, students in the San Diego State School of Television, Film and New Media showed they have the talent to make it in Hollywood.
More than 100 students worked to complete “Hollywood Heights,” a 60-minute pilot, last spring. The pilot won the Emmy for Best Student Production in June at the 35th Annual Pacific Southwest Emmy Awards.
“Students really rose to the occasion,” Lee Marshall, a full-time lecturer for the SDSU School of TFM, said. “When given the opportunity to step it up a notch and produce a professional project, they did.”
Marshall, a professional screenwriter for 23 years, said film students often have the talent to create professional quality work, but typically fall short in the areas of writing and acting.
“We thought, if we can sure up the acting by bringing in SAG (Screen Actors Guild) actors and we have a professional like myself overseeing the script, we think we can pull this off,” Marshall said. “And we think we did.”
The pilot cost $23,000 and took almost a year to complete, with production beginning in Fall 2008 and post-production finishing in May 2009.
The pilot centers around struggling actors who live in the same building, Hollywood Heights, who all share the same hope of making it big in the film industry.
Iris Caffin, a graduate TFM student, was one of the directors of the pilot. Caffin said the project involved five faculty members and 150 students, who received academic credit. The cast was comprised of roughly half SAG actors and half SDSU students.
The majority of the film was shot on location in Los Angeles, with scenes on Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame.
Caffin said the faculty decided to run the project according to the real-life work model in Hollywood, which gave it a “professional vibe.”
She called the pilot, “the most valuable experience I’ve had the opportunity to be part of.”
Marshall said the ultimate success of the project was the experience drawn from the students.
“The bottom-line result was a professional project that students could attach their names to, and could enhance their ability to get a job in the business,” he said.
After the success of “Hollywood Heights,” Marshall said he and other TFM faculty are reviewing their options, and might pursue a similar project again.
“It’s been an amazing journey,” Caffin said. “I’ve been truly blessed to work with amazing classmates, crew, cast and faculty. It definitely has enriched my life as a person and as a filmmaker.”
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