Photo below: Director Alexander (Sandy) Mackendrick.
Photos courtesy of Courtesy of California Institute of the Arts

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]  Next: [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

It is only through the magic of the internet I have come to learn the backgrounds of my former professors.

Ed Emschwiller (1926-1990) an internationally recognized video artist was Dean of the film/video department. In the early 1950s he studied at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts. He won the Hugo award for science fiction illustration four times. This work can be seen at www.fanac.org/ProArt/Emsh-1.html

His video art can be found at Electronic Arts Intermix www.eai.org. His piece Sunstone (1979) was groundbreaking, bringing a new grammar to electronic image making. Sunstone is discussed by Alvy Ray Smith Ph.D at www.alvyray.com (Click the Art button on the left then click the golden cube with a smiling sun image).

Dr. Smith an amazingly accomplished man wrote to me about the importance Ed played in his life. Smith among a multitude of life time achievements is a co-founder of Pixar which brought us the film Toy Story a creative and technological milestone.

In 1996 and 1998 he with fellow colleagues won a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for their pioneering efforts in the development of digital image compositing and digital paint systems used in motion picture production.

The roots to these accomplishments can clearly be seen to go back to those days spent working with Ed on Sunstone, about which Dr. Smith states, “This collaboration was the most important of my artistic life.”

As a film student at Cal-Arts I remember Ed as a kind and gentle man, I had no idea about his illustrious background and find it magnificent he was such a major influence to the creativity of a person such as Dr. Smith.

My second judge was Alexander “Sandy” Mackendrick (1912-1993) the film director known for his film noire feature, "Sweet Smell of Success" starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

Sandy won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay of The Man in the White Suit starring Alec Guinness, who later starred in Star Wars as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Guinness plays the part of a young inventor intent on creating a fabric which is seemingly indestructible and never needed to be washed.

Mackendrick’s films are listed at the Internet Movie Database: www.imdb.com At the Irish website www.iol.ie they discuss how he first directed short propaganda films for the Ministry of Information and the U.S. Psychological Warfare Branch.

Also, he gave Alfred Hitchcock his first big break and produced some of his earliest films. I remember Sandy as a fountain of knowledge regarding the history of theater. I have to admit I was a bit in awe and intimidated by him.

Terry Sanders my college mentor is a noted documentary maker with two Academy Awards under his belt, one shared with his brother Denis Sanders, the other shared with his wife Freida Lee Mock.

The first film "A Time Out of War' (1954) was based on a Civil War Incident. The second film "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision" (1994) is a portrait of artist/architect Lin following the riveting story behind the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Early in his filmmaking career Terry made a documentary about the manufacture of mannequins giving us a common bond. We crossed professional paths when he was making a documentary short about Steven Spielberg for the Academy Awards when Spielberg received the Thalberg Award.

At the time I was Mr. Spielberg’s archivist, so helped select photos for the documentary. Terry and his wife Frieda Lee Mock continue to make socially relevant documentary films. Their company website is www.americanfilmfoundation.com

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]  Next: [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]