In the midst of the Chicago Marathon, a major heat wave (especially inside our building on a Sunday), and the Chicago Film Festival where he showed his new film STUCK (with Mena Suvari) last night, Stu Gordon made time (at the request and urging of Barbara Pollack) to come by Flashpoint Academy for a tour and a video interview with Perry Havoras who’s a huge Gordon fan and HAT. If you think that this was easy for Barb (or anyone) to pull off (unlike the recent IFP snatch of Robert Townsend), think again and take a look at Stuart’s shirt. Nothing happens at Flashpoint that isn’t the result of hard work and a passion to create a special set of opportunities for all of our students. And nothing good happens by accident or without careful preparation.

Stuart was a terrific sport to sit for an hour session; he was, of course, blown away by his tour of the facilities and said that he hadn’t seen anything in Los Angeles to equal our equipment, technology and environment; and he said he would be back to meet with our students. He also wants to come back to take notes on some of the more aggressive art work which he admired throughout his tour.

We will have his whole interview up shortly, but I was struck by a couple of his basic rules that he shared with us: (1) Be nice – you never know who will be able to help you out; (2) Never quit; (3) Be on time – time is money and punctuality matters; and (4) make sure you tell a good story – it all flows from the script and the writing.

He also said that everyone wants to direct because there’s really nothing to learn about directing and therefore everyone thinks that they can direct as opposed to learning to be a plumber which takes years. He said learning the tools of directing is nothing – the skill that is crucial is making decision after decision in real time – day after day – and making every one of them in the best interests of the project.

To view pictures, click here.

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Prior to Flashpoint the only previous experience I have with a start up venture was 20 years ago when I worked for the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Even then I was just a first generation hire, starting right around the day the museum opened the doors so I missed out on all the pre-launch chaos, business and excitement.

Comparing a museum devoted to archiving broadcast history to starting a new media arts college is an apt metaphor for my own experience, I think. I often say at Columbia I was teaching film history- the past and techniques of how things used to be done. Here at Flashpoint I am on the cutting edge. Not only am I on the cutting edge, I think I am actually one of the whetstones doing the sharpening.

It’s heady stuff and something I don’t take lightly.

Later this week we are going to shift our work space from a satellite office to the main campus in downtown Chicago. When we leave this office- and the Post It notes on the wall and the bad lighting and the spotty internet, and the iffy food place downstairs- I am going to be a little sad. Much like the astronauts of Apollo 13 who saw the LEM as their life raft, I see our temporary office as the mother ship where all the ideas we will execute over the next couple of years took seed. Soon we will jettison the space and gravity will bring us back to earth and the real world.

As comparisons go I think the opening of Flashpoint Academy, the first new college in Chicago in 40 years, is more like the release of a hot new product. Think of Flashpoint as an iphone or the release of the hot new video game or the Super Bowl or a new CD by your favorite musician. We are like that.

Ready or not here we come.

PeterH