UPIX the pros: Yale's amateur films

Some student filmmakers feel so strapped for companionship that they take to recording depressed girls though their bedroom windows and plastic bags blowing in the wind. Others turn to University Pictures (UPIX).

According to Elizabeth Newman, TD '02, who, along with Ross Wachsman, ES '02, is a co-chair of UPIX, the main goal of the organization is "to support the growing involvement and enthusiasm in film at Yale, and to spark even more." The members of UPIX work on writing, directing, and producing short movies using 16-millimeter and Super-8 film. UPIX hosts semi-annual film festivals to screen their productions alongside other works by student filmmakers.

KATHERINE ALDRICH/YH Ross Wachsman, ES '02, and Elizabeth Newman, TD '02, say SFW to YFS (and prepare for more moonlit nights together).

UPIX will screen nine student films at this weekend's festival, varying in length from two to 15 minutes and averaging four. "Some of the films are ones that we've worked on collaboratively," Newman said. "Others are films that people associated with UPIX or simply interested in film have submitted that they have worked on last semester or in classes. We hope not only to be a group of filmmakers in and of ourselves, but to branch out to others who are not necessarily directly related to us but want to be involved in film at Yale, and to celebrate them."

During the fall, UPIX concentrated on producing Poster Wars, an 11-minute film that involved most of the students in the organization. This term, in an effort to allow its members to actively participate in all aspects of filmmaking, including screenwriting, directing, and camerawork, UPIX has produced a number of shorter films that will be screened at the festival. These include Thursday 5:30, directed by Caitlin Taylor, PC '03, and Faultline, a four-minute music video directed by Wachsman and Newman.

Taylor shot Thursday 5:30 in the Blair Room in Pierson, which, in the film, doubles as a restaurant, using black-and-white 16-millimeter film. "Thursday 5:30 is the simple story of a family out to dinner in which you can see the very complex relationship between the characters in the family in the way they deal with their food," Newman said. "It's really about the mental deterioration of the young daughter in the family."

Faultline was written by four members of UPIX, and is based on a song Wachsman recorded a year ago. "We worked over a period of a few weeks to determine what images the song, a distorted love story, brought into our minds," Newman said. "We sat together in a couple of different sessions and wove the different images together that were inherent in the music," Newman said. The team shot part of the film on campus on Crown Street, and then traveled to an old train yard in Essex County, NJ, that was converted into a museum to shoot the remainder. "Once we got on location, it was really visually interesting—we take advantage of that in the film," Newman said. "The place brought back a lot of spontaneity to our production, inspired new ideas, and refreshed us. We really used the place to place the story."

UPIX is currently working on other projects, including an Internet film festival and an intercollegiate film festival. And what of the rumored competition between UPIX and the fledgling Yale Film Society production company, which recently produced the popular feature-length film Blue Devil?

"We're very happy that they've managed to pull of such a long film, but it was shot on video and we've been working in film," Newman said. "There are several people who are involved in both organizations, and we hope that both will be able to bring more film to Yale, whether it be through people making more films themselves or going to more screenings."

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