UH media program
holds its first classes
The first students began classes this week in what is likely to become a film, television and digital media degree program at the University of Hawaii. If the Board of Regents approves the program as expected Friday, the first Bachelor of Arts degrees could be awarded in 2008.
About 75 students have registered for three classes offered through the new Academy for Creative Media at UH-Manoa.
Chairman Chris Lee, an Iolani High School graduate and the former president of production for TriStar and Columbia Pictures, has been working for a year to establish the academy.
"I think it's a (film director Steven) Spielberg nation," Lee said. "The kids today have access to small digital cameras."
The university and community colleges can teach them how to use film, video and computers to tell stories, he added.
The program is vocational, but students will be required to take philosophy, literature and other liberal arts classes.
"There's this whole other side to it. You're not just pushing buttons," he said. "There's a difference between having the equipment and knowing how to tell a story with it. That's where we come in."
UH expects the program to cost about $1 million annually and has requested funding of $767,000 from the state Legislature for the academy. The program has already attracted $450,000 in grants.
The official launch of the program would come this fall, and the university plans to offer a degree in interdisciplinary studies -- creative media along three tracks -- cinematic and digital production, critical studies, and animation and computer games.
Eventually there could be six tracks including writing for visual media, innovation technologies and creative media and producing.
Lee hopes to be able to offer a master's and Ph.D. program and have a fully accredited media school by 2012.
The academy will be based at Manoa, but Lee hopes to help the community colleges, UH-Hilo and UH-West Oahu develop associate and other degree and certificate programs.
The academy is also looking at reaching out to high school, intermediate and elementary school students and getting them interested in taking college-level classes.
"We should be the place where people want to go to school to when graduating from high school," Lee said.
Hawaii is the only state that does not have a film program, Lee said.