I think what you're seeing is the difference between a truly powerful, authentic education
and one that is, well, you know, more frivolous.
And I have nothing against students who want to take a, you know, a more lighthearted approach
to their education.
But if you choose any path in education with seriousness, if to you it's necessary, whether
it's film or whether it's history or engineering, then, yeah, there are moments of happiness,
but it is, it's work, it's very hard work.
It's concentration.
It's more like it.
We're delighted to have you with us and we extend the cordial welcome to you.
We've lined up the top stars from Hollywood and from all over the world to entertain you
on our giant screen with the new colorful motion pictures you've been hearing about
and reading about.
To add to your enjoyment, we'll all wound up to bowl you over at intermission time with
live wire service at our snack bar, where you'll find an tempting variety of favorite
foods and beverages, your continued patronage is very, very welcome.
My name is Emily Tomasic.
Christian Michael Sebastian Frayn.
Minou's Con Lawong Sai Allen, most commonly known as Minou, and I go to school at SUNY
Purchase.
I am a student, senior student of the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory.
State University of New York at Purchase College.
I've pretty much shot my film and it's like, well now what are you gonna do for the next
couple months?
That's great.
Now it's all done, right?
That's like, no, actually it's gonna take a really, really long time to finish it.
I feel already pressed for time and it's only mid-March.
My senior film is about two children who, a boy and a girl, who have this really great
and innocent relationship as they're both very young and they develop this relationship
and the majority of the film is them developing the relationship and then towards the end,
the boy decides to kiss the girl and she runs away from him and the final scene is like,
the dynamic has changed and it just kind of shows like the effect of gender roles in
society.
Well, can we move the camera this way since she's not walking then?
Yeah, there's a TV.
Yeah, but that's fine.
There is a TV.
Stephen, can you move back too?
Cool.
I'm ready.
Okay.
It relates to my upbringing because, what was it, like a couple years ago, maybe like
a year or two ago I went home and like I said, I have a little brother who was, he was nine
years old at the time and he has, our next-door neighbor is a girl and they're around the
same age and like they get along really well and they're just like buddies and they were
dancing like downstairs in our basement for like, you know, some crappy music and my little
brother Luke kissed her like out of like just pure excitement and like joy of the moment.
The way I found out about this was that Alex was talking about it at dinner and he was
like, Luke, like you should tell everyone like about like you and Vivian and my little
brother was just like, what?
He's like, no, what, nothing, nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
And so like, of course, like as brothers do and all siblings do, like they were teasing,
like Alex was teasing him and they're just thinking like the whole time in my mind I
was just like, oh my God, like this is like going to affect the rest of his life.
Like the way that like he's feeling right now, like he should not be feeling like if
he kissed a girl like good for him, like he's nine years old, he should kiss a girl if he
wants to.
Loser.
Um.
Um.
So I fantasize a lot about girls that I liked.
Um, talk about my senior film.
Okay, Midnight Rider.
Oh boy.
I conceived of this beast over a two week period in this past summer, the summer of 2011.
When I'd gotten my first pro film job as a production assistant in Cragsmore, New York
on this independent shoot.
First off, it was a lot of driving.
And when I would drive, I'd listen to my music, I'd bring my CDs in the car, um, and finish
around six or seven in the morning.
And I'd have to go on like diesel fuel runs half an hour away, um, taking the highways.
So anyway, a lot of driving around at night in this rural area and on these deserted highways,
and I would get naturally creeped out.
And a big thing with me when I make horror movies, like where it all starts is when I'm
creeped out by an environment or a situation, I instinctively say, how can I make this into
a movie?
And it was like, that's essentially what it is, at least for me, not so much wanting
to come up with ways to scare people, but to share what scares me.
Um, what's, then same setup, but now Julia is lying in the road, is like sitting up in
the road, um, facing away, she is going to be cold.
So I said, like, how can I make this creepy?
And I combined the whole like, you know, daydreaming about girls, I just like combined like every
element about this experience, and like kind of like, I try to get myself uncreeped out
by thinking about Taylor Swift, because like, you know, you can't be creeped out thinking
about Taylor Swift, she's still like son of a shiny.
And I said, okay, talking to girls aren't there, or maybe just people that aren't there.
There was a time when like, I think maybe like his father was going to sit in the car
with him for a while.
And then I said, okay, what if not only aren't they there, I don't think I want them to be
ghosts, I want them to be hallucinations, constructs of his imagination, and what if
they're people that he's killed?
And I said, now you've got something.
Watch my senior film, A, that'll give you a little bit, people out there in audience
land.
My senior film is pretty personal, kind of wish I didn't make it this personal, to be
honest.
It just makes editing a bitch, forced growth as I like to call it, because that's why I'm
doing it.
So my senior film started off as an experimental documentary exploring how the connotations
of basically how physical distance, emotional distance, and mental distance all intertwine.
And it started out wanting to explore that, and then I realized, okay, that's very blah,
it's obvious.
So now it's, and now the term I kind of use is personal journey essay film with the focus
of the personal journey around the filmmaker herself.
If you had the chance to be a little kid one more time.
I mean, it depends on like, oh, which stage in my life, I mean, here, like, fuck yeah,
like, it's like fun as hell, I'm just a little kid, I have no responsibilities, I'm just
like being thrown up in the air and caught, you know, like at my foster parents, yeah.
I mean, like probably like, like other certain times in my childhood, like hell no, I would
never want to go through that again, but like this was a lot of fun.
I interviewed people who I had long distance relationships with, be it like my foster parents,
my ex-boyfriend, I interviewed him because we had a long distance relationship.
I was here at Purchase, he was in the Binghamton area, and then I interviewed this guy, my
name Tom, who was in my film last year, he's more known as Train Guy, because of my film
last year, and he's just someone who has also moved around a lot.
And then upon all of that, it's also exploring how they view distance because three of them
were in the military, and then how the distance affected our own relationships.
I learned a lot of information about my past that I didn't necessarily know.
Not all of it, obviously I want to include all of it in the film, because some of it's
like really personal.
So that was probably like the biggest thing, like just for like personal growth.
Mark.
Sound speed.
So, the future.
Oh, the future.
Oh, the future.
When do we begin?
In 10 years, I will be 32, and life in general, like I think I'll be, I think I'll be living
like, I don't know, somewhere, somewhere in the west side of the country, because I'm
really stuck on that right now.
I'm stuck on getting out of the east side, and I just, I think I'll be 32.
I will have invented a time machine that takes me back to 1968.
No, not 1968, we'll make it 1965, and I will, I see myself in 10 years, um, famous, I've
never envisioned my life going any other way, um, I intend to be making movies, and being
in them, and being in a household, hopefully in 10 years, um, it takes a little longer,
so be it Jedi.
Uh, I don't know if I'll be based in New York, or I'll be based in LA.
Many of the films that, uh, seduce us are the works of a personal vision, and a personal
vision comes from an imagination, you know, in contact with other people, uh, in contact
with peers, uh, who also have similar, you know, imaginative concentrations, and so this
conversation has to happen.
If it's not on offer at some point, you know, in our formal educational institutions, it
will most likely form itself.
