C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y RECORD May 3, 2002 7

SOA Student Heads to Cannes for the Chrysler ‘Extreme Filmmaking Competition’

Before her film, “A Girl’sGuide to the Galaxy,” screenedat the Columbia UniversityFilm Festival last month, Hyp-notic, an entertainment produc-tion company, pre-sold Cather-ine Tingey’s (SOA ’03) sub-mission to the Sundance Chan-nel. The short film has provena winning vehicle so far asTingey now prepares for thenext step of competition in theChrysler Million Dollar FilmFestival.

Hypnotic, which helpsemerging filmmakers distributetheir work, owns the exclusivedistribution rights to the filmas a result of Tingey’s partici-pation and semi-final berth inthe Chrysler festival, a multi-step competition in which hun-dreds of emerging filmmakerscompete for a $1,000,000 fea-ture film production and distri-bution deal, courtesy ofChrysler, Hypnotic and Uni-versal Pictures. Having beenselected as a semi-finalist inthe competition, Tingey is oneof 10 who will travel toCannes, France, in May for 10days of “extreme” filmmaking.

This phase of the festival iscalled the “Extreme Filmmak-

ing Competition” because film-makers will write, direct, shootand edit their films in a verycompressed timeframe. Thepurpose of the competition is tohave filmmakers prove theirskill in each of these filmmak-ing disciplines.

Upon notification, semi-finalists had approximately 10days to create and finalize ascript. They will have about thesame amount of time in May tocast, film, produce and edittheir one to five minute film inCannes, under the backdrop ofthe prestigious Cannes FilmFestival.

“Being part of the ChryslerMillion Dollar Film Festivalhas been a thrilling ride—muchlike the experience I hope audi-ences get from my film,” saysTingey.

The film that got Tingey tothe semi-finals, “A Girl’s Guideto the Galaxy,” is a 13.5-minutecomedy about a 16-year-oldgirl obsessed with astrology.

“The film was conceived as awild ride through a day in the lifeof a love-struck teenage girl,”says Tingey. “I wanted to capturethat sense of total abandon thatcharacterizes teen love—the wayyou’ve just got to ‘go for it,’regardless of how hard you couldfall—but also how fickle and

unstable it can be.”The inspiration for the film

stemmed from a pair of “lovecube” dice, with words predict-ing the user’s love life, whichTingey received as a gift. Thedice are also symbolic of thelove-struck protagonist, playedby Paz de la Huerta (“CiderHouse Rules,” “Riding in Carswith Boys” and most recently,“A Walk to Remember”).

As part of the quarter-finals,the public had the opportunityto view and vote on the filmsonline, while a panel of fivejudges also reviewed the filmsand made the final determina-tions for the 10 filmmakerswho would progress to thesemi-finals in Cannes.

For any filmmaker to cast,film, produce and edit in such acompressed time frame wouldbe challenging enough. But thiscompetition has the added com-ponents of being held in a for-eign country and requiringfilmmakers to seamlesslyincorporate either the ChryslerPT Cruiser or Crossfire, a 2002

sport touring coupe conceptcar, into the film.

“I was a little disappointed tolearn that you can’t do any real-ly crazy stunts with the car,”confesses Tingey, who wasenvisioning an action scenewith one of the Chrysler cars.

In dealing with the chal-lenges of working in Cannes,Tingey may have a slightadvantage over her competitionwho are all Americans. Shespent a year in Paris as a pho-tographer before beginning thefilm program at Columbia andshe speaks French. Additional-ly, Tingey led a group ofteenagers on a 50-day bike tripthrough France, Switzerlandand Italy during the summer of1998, and has a sense of thelandscape of Cannes.

Between the Chrysler com-petition and the Columbia FilmFestival, “A Girl’s Guide to theGalaxy” has generated positiveindustry response and audiencereaction, which Tingey hopeswill help her land an agent.

As she heads for Cannes on

May 12, Tingey’s thoughts arefirmly focused on creating thefilm. She looks with excitedanticipation to May 22, whenthe extreme films premiere inCannes and the five finalistsare selected.

Should Tingey be one of thelucky five, she would spendMemorial Day through LaborDay in Los Angeles, living inthe Chrysler Mansion with theother finalists and creating afeature film production pack-age, which includes a treat-ment, working script and story-boards, as well as proposedcast lists, shooting scheduleand budget and a trailer.

The winner of the ChryslerMillion Dollar Film Festivalwill be determined by a panelof industry professionals basedon quality of the productionpackage, ability to direct a fea-ture length motion picture andthe feasibility of producing thepicture on a $1 million budget.The winner will be announcedduring the Toronto Film Festi-val in September.

Catherine Tingey, center, directing actress Paz de la Huerta, right,during the filming of “A Girl’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Paz de la Huerta in a scene from the Columbia student film “A Girl’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which isa semi-finalist in the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival.

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PHOTO BY SERKO ARTINIAN

BY KRISTIN STERLING

Senate Receives Online Learning Report, School of Continuing Education Proposal

Honoring George Rupp onApril 26 with a special resolu-tion at the last meeting of hisColumbia presidency, the Uni-versity Senate also approved therecommendation for the newSchool of Continuing Education(which will now be submitted tothe Trustees for approval) andreceived annual reports from itscommittees, including a substan-tial study from its Online Learn-ing and Digital Media InitiativesCommittee.

Sen. Paul Duby, chairman ofthe Senate Executive Committeeand a member of the search com-mittee that selected Rupp aspresident in 1993, introduced thetribute with some remarks of hisown, stressing the president'sfulfillment of the pledge hemade at the start of his adminis-tration to generate a strongersense of the University as awhole greater than the sum of its

parts. The written resolutionfocused on Rupp's stewardshipof the Senate through 71 plenarymeetings over nine full sessions,acknowledging the "impatienceand acerbity of some of hiswords about the Senate and itsinefficiencies" but also praisinghis skill and sensitivity as chair-man.

The most ambitious of the Sen-ate's annual presentations, aninterim report from the onlinelearning committee formed ayear ago, surveys Columbia'scurrent digital media initiatives,which have been funded from apool of discretionary funds worthsome $63 million in 2001 alone.The report expects the patent rev-enues that have provided thesediscretionary funds to declineduring the next few years, andrecommends five responses tothe new environment: rationalizeand eliminate competingresource centers; fund initiativesthat either make a profit, provideinfrastructure for those that do,

or reinforce Columbia's coremission; view online learning asan extension of the traditionalclassroom experience; reinstateand staff the now dormant Inno-vation Advisory Council, withmembers drawn from the admin-istration, the faculty and the Sen-ate; and continue to fund Fath-om.com but only at a minimallevel, to maintain basic opera-tions, focusing efforts onincreasing the value of the con-sortium of institutions that com-prise it.

Sen. Herve Varenne, a mem-ber of the online learning com-mittee and a tenured professor atTeachers College, said that Sen.Sharyn O'Halloran (Ten., Politi-cal Science), the committeechair and principal author of theinterim report, was away at aconference, but will give a com-prehensive presentation to theSenate in the fall. The only com-ment was from President Rupp,who said the interim report hadalready garnered attention that

was mainly unhelpful to the Uni-versity; he said "one report thatdoes its damage once, rather thanpiecemeal" would be preferable.

In the absence of a writtenreport from Faculty Affairs,chairman Eugene Litwak sum-marized the committee's workthis year. He raised the questionof how the committee shouldproceed in cases of unresolveddisagreements with the adminis-tration over grievances, and hecalled attention to changes in theguidelines for appointing andpromoting language lecturersthat the vice president for Artsand Sciences has recently madeover the protests of his commit-tee. Since the Senate originallyapproved this category of non-tenure-track appointments in the1980s, he said, Faculty Affairsmay review the status of lan-guage lecturers next year. Sen.Litwak also mentioned a recent“New York Times” article listingColumbia as last among the top10 institutions in average

salaries for senior professors; hesaid the faculty caucuses arethinking about ways in whichColumbia can raise its standingand at the same time reduce dis-parities among faculty salaries.

The Senate heard from Profes-sor Harvey Goldschmidt, whogave his last report as chair ofthe Advisory Committee onSocially Responsible Investing.

In other actions, the Senateextended the life of the Ad HocCommittee on Research StaffAffairs for one year, approvedthe M.S. degree in StrategicCommunications in the Schoolof Continuing Education that ithad just established, approvedguidelines for the administrationof dual degree programs, andapproved the M.Phil and Ph.D.degrees in the Department ofBiomedical Engineering.

All documents discussed at themeeting, along with informationabout next year's session, will beavailable on the Senate web site,at www.columbia.edu/cu/senate.

FROM the SENATE

BY THOMAS J. MATHEWSON