UHWO to host Masters Series presented by Academy for Creative Media

Hollywood comes to UH West Oʻahu with legendary filmmaker and film composer

University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu
Contact:
Julie Funasaki Yuen, (808) 689-2604
Public Info Officer, University of Hawaii - West Oahu
Posted: Oct 13, 2014

John Ottman
John Ottman
Roger and Julie Corman
Roger and Julie Corman

This November, together with the University of Hawaiʻi Academy for Creative Media System, the University of Hawaiʻi – West O‘ahu will host a Creative Media Masters Series featuring presentations by an Academy Award-winning Hollywood filmmaker and a renowned Hollywood film composer and editor. The Creative Media Masters Series is part of UH West Oʻahu’s new Creative Media concentration and aims to increase student understanding of the art and business of content creation. All presentations are free and open to all students, faculty and the public.

The Creative Media Masters Series presentations at UH West Oʻahu are made possible by the generous support of EuroCinema Hawaiʻi (ECH), the "festival within a festival" at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. ECH's mission is to promote cultural exchanges between the people of Hawaiʻi and Europe through film while supporting local student filmmakers and content creators.

Film Composer John Ottman, Wednesday, Nov. 5

UH West Oʻahu Library ‘Uluʻulu Exhibition Space, First Floor

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

John Ottman holds dual distinctions as a leading film composer and an award winning film editor. He has edited and written the scores for a broad range of films, including The Usual Suspects, X-Men, X-Men 2, Superman Returns, Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Killer and Xmen: Days of Future Past. He has also held producer roles on several of these films, as well as directing, editing and scoring Urban Legends 2.

Ottman excelled at the University of Southern California (USC) film school, where he met fellow student Bryan Singer, subsequently editing and composing Singer's first feature, Public Access, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. Their second feature, The Usual Suspects, won a Best Supporting Actor award for Kevin Spacey while earning Ottman the British Academy Awards for his editing, a Saturn Award for his score, and a nomination by the American Cinema Editors. John Ottman has composed 49 film scores, edited 11 and produced three films as well as directed twice. He is visiting UH West Oʻahu as a member of the 2014 EuroCinema Hawaiʻi Jury.

Producer and Director Roger Corman and Producer Julie Corman, Nov. 6

UH West Oʻahu Library ‘Uluʻulu Exhibition Space, First Floor

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Producer and Director Roger Corman has made more than 300 feature films. The “Godfather of Independent Film,” he is best known for his guerrilla filmmaking for pictures such as Little Shop of Horrors and for his internationally acclaimed Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price. His exploitation style birthed the modern Hollywood blockbuster and influenced filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth.  

Corman also discovered a generation of Hollywood talent including Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Sandra Bullock, Will Ferrell, Mila Kunis, Sylvester Stallone, Tommy Lee Jones, Gale Anne Hurd, Ron Howard, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Joe Dante and Peter Bogdanovich.

Corman was one of the first American distributors to bring foreign cinema to the States, distributing the films of Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Frederico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Werner Herzog through his company New World Pictures. In 2009, he received the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Producer Julie Corman has producing credits on over 35 films, starting with Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha in the 1970s. She has worked with Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Martin Sheen, Catherine Hardwicke, Charles Grodin, Phil Hartman, Barbara Hershey, David Carradine and more. In 2000, Corman became chair of the Graduate Film Department at New York University. She has lectured at universities all over the world and was honored with life achievement awards at several festivals and by the USC Film School.

Roger and Julie Corman are visiting UH West Oʻahu in association with EuroCinema Hawaiʻi where both will receive the Christina Hassell Lifetime Achievement Award.

For more information about the UH West Oʻahu Creative Media Masters Series, contact Dr. Stanley Orr at sorr@hawaii.edu.

UH West Oʻahu’s Creative Media program is offered in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi Academy for Creative Media System that supports and coordinates the creative media studies efforts of all University of Hawaiʻi campuses. Taking full advantage of the system-wide approach, UH West Oʻahu’s program enables each student to develop his or her unique skill set at the community colleges and then transfer seamlessly to UH West Oʻahu for continued scholarship and professional development.

UH West O‘ahu became a four-year, regional comprehensive university when it served its first class of freshmen in fall 2007. The University offers quality education, small classes and personalized attention at convenient locations. UH West O‘ahu serves approximately 2,700 students at its brand new, state-of-the-art campus that opened in the City of Kapolei in 2012. For more information, visit www.uhwo.hawaii.edu, call (808) 689-2800 or toll-free (866) 299-8656. Find us on Facebook and Twitter.