Chronology

In 1995 filmmaker Rajko Grlic was approached about writing a textbook for a masters class in film directing. But his experience in the classroom showed that his students weren't reading assigned textbooks. So he decided to produce a multimedia text, enabling him to use film clips and sound to demonstrate the techniques of film and video storytelling.

Later the same year, based on a 100-page script and storyboard created by Rajko Grlic (Grlic holds the position of Eminent Scholar in Film at Ohio University), Ohio University and multimedia developer Electronic Vision agreed to co-produce a CD-ROM program called "How to Make Your Movie: An Interactive Film School." In 1996, Rajko Grlic went on to write the final script, which was 2000 pages in length.

Next, a short film was written and produced for the CD-ROM: "Pasta Paolo," was shot near Athens, Ohio by Grlic, Ed Talavera, and students from Ohio University. From the original premise to the final cut, each step in the production of "Pasta Paolo" is used to demonstrate the concepts and techniques of filmmaking. Throughout the program, the user can discover notes from the actual crew on the problems they encountered during the production.

Electronic Vision's Tom Erlewine became the Art Director and Program Designer of the project. Daric Christian, now a professor at Northern Michigan University, became Lead Programmer. Erlewine and Grlic agreed to base the film school environment on a dilapidated mental institution built in the1800's. The institution is high on a hill in Athens, Ohio and now houses the Kennedy Museum of Art.

To create the film school environment, the team first photographed the institution's empty rooms and litter-strewn halls. They then "painted" in, one at a time, each of the papers, posters and objects that belong in the school using Adobe Photoshop on Macintosh computers. Animations were added, and over two thousand graphics were created to bring the School to life. The film school's course content is found in twelve interactive rooms on four floors. It's made up of about 1200 pages of information on-screen, and over 100 QuickTime movies.

Rajko Grlic also contacted respected professional filmmakers and instructors from the world's most famous film schools. They agreed to write "guest lectures" (some sent video clips) which are featured throughout the school.

The package contains three discs and a production notebook. Discs one and two hold the film school building, and disc number three is a footage disc. It holds 40 minutes of digital footage from the student film featured in the program. Music and sound files are also included, allowing the user to edit his own version of the film with any desktop editing software. Also on disc three is a detailed academic syllabus for educators who wish to use the program to teach a one-year production course.

To date, the program has been shown to enthusiastic crowds in Denmark, Mexico, Slovenia, Great Britain, Finland, Israel, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the spring of 1998 it was presented on the big screen by the San Francisco International Film Festival. It will be exhibited in the fall of 1998 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.