DePaul’s digital cinema students know all about the self-doubt one feels as an artist, which happens to be the topic of “The Art Police,” a film recently produced by students in DePaul’s Project Bluelight and filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios.
The film will make its premiere at the Washington D.C. Independent Film Festival at the end of February, and at the Taos Shortz Film Fest in Taos, New Mexico and Worldfest in Houston, Texas, which has already honored “The Art Police” with a Remi Award.
The film follows a screenwriter’s progress on an action piece. As he critiques himself, his imagination puts him in a false reality filled with characters from his script. Two detectives apprehend him at his apartment, charging him with being a bad writer. The two heroes in his script rescue him from the detectives and, by the end of the film, help him create successful conclusion for his script.
While it covers a thought-provoking subject, “The Art Police,” Jonah Zeiger, directing and cinema production instructor, said he made a point to ensure that the film was fun and entertaining.
“The Art Police” is less than 15 minutes in length, but students began filming during the 2011 December term. The film’s first screening was Jan. 30 at the CDM theater. Savvas Paritsis, post-production instructor and post-supervisor, said it took so long because of scheduling issues.
“The Art Police” was the first Project Bluelight film to be produced in Cinespace Studios. While DePaul instructors and industry professionals oversee and direct the film, the students actually made it, creating a hands-on experience. But Zeiger said that being on set was a new experience for many of his students, and there was a learning curve.
“By day two, everyone knew what they were doing,” Zeiger said.
“The real learning comes from being out in the field and experiencing it,” Caullen Hudson, second assistant director, said. Since graduating in 2013, he went on to start his own production company, Soapbox Productions & Organizing.
After the production, students also worked on the editing. Holly Butz was assistant editor on the film. Although she finished graduate school in 2012, Butz continued her work with Project Bluelight. “With me graduating, it became a tricky situation for me to get clearance at DePaul,” Butz said. “It was that important to me to finish it.”
In the future, there will be more coming from Project Bluelight. According to Zeiger, they worked on a couple of films over December and “another faculty project got approved for the summer.” However, it will be about a year before anything else is ready to be screened.