 "Photo: Brian Tseng")
Beneath the surface of the Academy of Creative Media (ACM) is a teeming hive of ideas, experienced instructors and creative students aspiring to be heard.
For ACM majors like senior Kamakanioka‘āina T. Paikai, showing their films at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival (HIFF) is a chance to get their voices out.
“I always wanted to do something as far as art goes,” Paikai said.
He said that film is a “medium to get (my voice) out to the rest of the world,” using unique stories to tell the tale.
The Academy, which opened in 2004, offers University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa students scholarships; a media center; core curricula in Digital Cinema, Critical Studies, and Computer Animation & Game Design; and opportunities for students to submit their projects to film contests and festivals.
Assistant Professor Anne Misawa, who began working at the Academy in 2004, said the first thing students do in her Cinematic Narrative Production class is create a personal statement project. The project is meant to “convey (a student’s) personality, style and sense of aesthetics.” From there, students move to documentaries and narrative projects.
These narrative projects typically form the bulk of the entries being submitted to HIFF, like Paikai’s “Live Tonight” and Brittany Itsuno’s “Lulu.”
Misawa said that when a narrative story is meant to portray “something personally meaningful story-wise and content-wise,” directors can film something closer to their hearts and closer to home.
For Paikai, who is originally from Pearl City, closer to home means exposing the Hawaiian way of life in a culturally significant way while it changes with the world.
“I want to stay traditional,” Paikai said, “but at the same time, (Hawai‘i) is modern.”
This time, a large part of that medium is in Hawaiian. Paikai suspects that the Academy chose his film as an entrant because of its use of the Hawaiian language, and he admits that Hawaiian language films “kind of have that appeal” in today’s politically aware world.
Students who need to edit their films can check out the media labs, which have editing software like Adobe After Effects. Itsuno, a junior from Hawai‘i Kai, found this program especially helpful in the development of her four-minute animated film, which is composed of separate stills composited together in editing software and played straight through.
“You basically have to draw each movement,” Itsuno said, who recollected the 800 to 900 separate pictures she had to draw for her film. It turned out to be about four to five pictures per second.
Itsuno said she had to copy each picture onto a computer from her sketching book, a task that took at least six hours to complete. However, she said it’s rewarding to see the audience’s reaction, whether it be a smile or a chuckle, once it’s all over.
Both Itsuno and Paikai agree that composing a film involves heavy thought. For example, Paikai said that for a comedy, the joke alone won’t make the audience laugh.
“There’s the acting, timing (and) the comedy,” he said, also mentioning the right cameras and lighting.
For Itsuno, tediousness is also a factor in film creation.
The faculty pushes the prospectus along; Misawa said the professors do a lot to “encourage (the students) to tell their own story,” whether they’re working independently or in small groups.
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