COURTESY OF LVHIFF "Gemini's Effect," by Andrew Gregor, is an ode to Japanese horror.

UH Creative Media
students praised

The chairman of the University of Hawaii's year-old Academy of Creative Media, which completed its first semester last spring with 23 students, is acting a bit like what Mom Spielberg must have done when son Steven completed his first indie film "Duel."

Students' films » "Gemini's Effect" (Andrew Gregor): An ode to Japanese horror where a young doctor is haunted by a tormented spirit. » "Still" (Jay Hubert): A photographer is tormented by the photographs of an ex-lover. » "The Learning Process" (Chrystal Jameson): A documentary on a teacher-in-training in Hawaii's public school system. » "Every Night Spent Alone" (Christopher Yogi) » "The Tale of Haiku Jones" (Kevin Inouye): A master slam poet prepares for his next competition. » "Game Over" (Andrew Ma): A career thug faces a crossroads in his life. » "Humble Beginnings" (Nelson Quan): A personal documentary on basketball hero Derrick Low, shot "MTV Cribs" style. » "Steve Ma'i'i" (Kaliko Palmiera): An engaging documentary on the life of the local music legend. » "Dniwer" (Seong Whang): A young man with special powers learns to cope with his existence and perhaps help others with his newfound skill.

"I'm very pleased at what the students and Academy have accomplished in just one semester," said Chris Lee, former president of production for Columbia-TriStar.

So apparently is the Louis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival, which has selected nine of the digital video shorts written, directed and produced by the students to premiere at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Dole Cannery cineplex.

The filmmakers, who range from freshmen to graduate students, had to complete their films by semester's end. They also had as many as five other projects each.

"Each person was responsible for the primary work on his or her film, meaning they had to write, produce, direct, edit, design camera shoots, or operate the camera," Lee said.

Each project leader had as many as four other students as a support team, but "the prime creative and physical work is done by the director," Lee said.

There was never a question of motivating the students who turned in "more than enough work" by semester's end, Lee said. Helping make the students work "so vigorously" are the advances in technology.

"If I had started this school five years ago, we would have had to have all these $200,000 Avid digital editing machines, and the students would have to come to school using traditional lab space with Final Cut Pro," he said.

But with a sizable financial gift from a donor, the Academy purchased Apple laptops equipped with editing software. The computers and software allowed the students to complete a project every three to five weeks.

"If they have to come to UH, they're not going to get much done, since 90 percent of our students have jobs and all are commuters," Lee said. "A brick and mortar facility for this work is unnecessary. The best ideas tend to come up at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m."

Each student seems to possess specific skills, whether it be as a writer, photographer, editor, or director.

"There is a diversity to storytelling here than can only come out of this university," he said. "There are 200 film schools in the U.S., so how do we create one which can compete. We strive for something different."

At many mainland film schools, students in their first two years don't even get to write dialogue.

"This academy doesn't have a legacy issue," Lee explains. "We have a great empty tablet for them to work on and create a legacy.

"The quality of work is as good as a USC or UCLA at a fraction of the cost, where they do it on film $100,000 a piece," he said. "Here we started without any infrastructure, but it didn't stop them from being creative."