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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Thought this made for good reading material… 

By Michelle Meyers, News.com
Published on ZDNet News: Aug 10, 2007 4:00:00 AM

Charles Ferguson’s tech industry career ended a decade ago with the sale of his company, Vermeer Technologies–maker of a visual Web site development tool called FrontPage–to Microsoft for a whopping $133 million.

But while he has since forged a completely different path as an author, self-described “policy wonk” and life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ferguson still reflects on those formative years running a software start-up, a job he says is not too different from his latest venture as a documentary filmmaker.

Ferguson’s first film, No End In Sight, hits theaters in major U.S. cities Friday. He sees his documentary, which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, as a nonpartisan analysis of how the U.S. occupation in Iraq evolved into a violent quagmire.

On the eve of his film’s theatrical debut, Ferguson talked to CNET News.com about how traveled in Baghdad with body guards in armored vehicles, what he hopes to accomplish with his film, and how technology played a role in his moviemaking.

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At FLASHPOINT we take what we do seriously, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously. Never confuse the two. We operate on the simple principle of earned respect. Each and every person at FLASHPOINT is accorded the deference and respect which they have earned through their own efforts and the demonstrable results of those efforts. A job is measured in hours, while a career is measured in results. Respect at FLASHPOINT is far more important than popularity.

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