Duke alumnus makes aspiring filmmakers' dreams come true

Anyone who has stood behind a camera understands the difficulty of making a movie. Managing every aspect of a film--including actors' performances, costume design and locations--makes even the most basic production very straining, and young directors have to learn about these essential ingredients on the fly. Students shoot on minuscule budgets (or no budget at all) and with only the most meager of crews. All of this can make for great anecdotes (cramming eight actors into your mom's minivan to sneak into your high school gymnasium at three in the morning, for example), but sadly it's not the best way to make a film. NexGen Entertainment, started by Fuqua School of Business alum Terry Tucker, is, however, changing the way aspiring filmmakers learn their craft.

Tucker takes a progressive approach to helping students get their films on the big screen. He first saw an opportunity for a new method of teaching filmmaking while planning a class on feature film production and finance at Duke Law School. His course focused on the functions performed by lawyers and producers to support the creative process; i.e., drawing up contracts, securing permits, scheduling, budgeting, etc. His vision: Establish a system that would assist Duke's young filmmakers in developing their craft through practical, hands-on experience. Tucker and his colleagues work with directors to cast the film, find a crew and make the necessary plans. Named the Director's Challenge, this new program allows filmmakers to concentrate on the art of cinema, without having to worry about the procedural issues that kill many small productions.

"Guerilla filmmaking works on a level, but not when you really want to make film," Tucker explained. "What we wanted to do was create something that would help directors learn more about working on a studio-style production, a more formal production environment." To take advantage of this opportunity, an applicant must submit samples of his work as well as a proposed screenplay to NexGen Entertainment. Then, working with an adviser through Duke's Program in Film and Video, the student earns credit for his work while producing a professional-quality short feature.

The pioneer of this new program was Duke senior Andrew Fazekas. Working with NexGen, Fazekas wrote, shot and edited a twenty-seven-minute feature, Odd Man Out. The film will debut at Film and Video's annual student screening in late April before heading off to film festivals nationwide. Also finishing up pre-production this spring is a short by senior Matt Simon, which won NexGen's first Director's Challenge. As the program continues, the hope is that Duke students will continue to gain the invaluable knowledge and experience that will better prepare them for a career in feature film production.