Orson Welles once remarked half facetiously that movies are the biggest and most expensive toy train ever invented for grown-ups. More so now than ever, as today’s aspiring young filmmakers know well. At the top four film schools in the country–Columbia University; University of Southern California; University of California, Los Angeles; and New York University–tuition and related expenses can run up to $45,000 for a four-year undergraduate degree and $20,000 for a two-year MFA. And that’s not counting the cost of a thesis project, almost a requisite for any student hoping to find a desirable job. A famous local example is the Oscar-winning 35-millimeter film shot at Northwestern by a couple of North Shore students in the early 80s, which was rumored to have cost their parents and relatives close to $200,000–more than double the budget of a typical Roger Corman B movie. No wonder film teachers and critics say that only rich kids can afford to pay for a film or TV career. No wonder minority groups fear that the future image of America might be a homogenized one served up by Spielberg clones.
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“We’ve been trying to correct that by giving access to minority beginners,” says Jim Taylor of the Community Film Workshop (CFW). Taylor founded the workshop 20 years ago, at a time when similar short and inexpensive training to ethnic and minority students was available in New York, San Francisco, and other metropolitan areas. Those programs have since disbanded, but CFW is thriving–it recently moved from its cramped, run-down quarters north of the river to an airy, light-filled suite in a renovated South Loop building. Taylor runs the workshop mom-and-pop style–his wife Margaret Caples is in charge of the day-to-day administration.
CFW is not a film school, stresses Taylor. “We don’t give out degrees. We offer individualized instruction, focused learning.” Caples adds, “We like to think of ourselves as a preparatory school for people who plan to get further education or to get into the unions.” She also says that some students may have gotten scholarships at other schools because they went through CFW.
CFW has become something of a feeder outfit for local film schools, Columbia College in particular, since it accepts for credit work done at CFW. Taylor says that more than half the graduates have “gone on to big times” and notes with enthusiasm that a graduate from the early 80s won an Emmy last year for costume design on the Tracey Ullman Show. Another alum, Martin Hudson, took the course fresh out of the Navy. Through the workshop he got an internship at the Illinois Film Office, and this summer he’s working as a production assistant on the Ron Howard movie being shot in town and mapping out projects of his own.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jon Randolph.
