Trey Chace molds future filmmakers

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-When graduates of Trey Chace’s film class hit the bricks, they are ready for anything Hollywood can throw at them, except, maybe, the wheatgrass juice. Chace hammers home the basics of filmmaking … every one of them. From pitch to post-editing, props to publicity, film students get a handle on what it takes to carve out a niche in today’s motion picture industry.

“We start with film history, then go over storytelling, character development,” said Chace, who began teaching the special class on the art of filmmaking three years ago at the Journeys School. “We cover everything from the beginning with silent films then ‘talkies,’ and classics like ‘Birth of a Nation’ and ‘Citizen Kane.’ It’s just like any art form: you have to learn classical art before you can understand other things, like when you should go handheld, when to do a push, when to rack focus. They should start thinking about why people do what they do when they are making movies.”
Chace, 30, insists his subjects study different styles and mimic them until they find their own voice.

“Take [Quentin] Tarantino. He knows so much about movies from watching them for 10 or 15 years while he worked at a video store,” Chace said, referring to the influential director’s first job at the now defunct Manhattan Beach Video Archives.
It was an auspicious start for Tarantino, and it’s not all glamour for Chace’s kids, either. His students are required to go through the drudgery of pitching their scripts to the class, who fill the role of unimpressed studio executives. They must get location clearance and actor releases signed. Then complete storyboards and shoot their final project in one day.

Chace said he is not interested in taking on pupils who are just looking for some cool extra credit. Since he began the Jackson Hole Film Institute’s advanced production class, he maintains a class size of five to seven students. Each must interview with Chace to get into the program. This year, the Jackson Hole High School is taking part in the class for the first time. There are 10 Broncs enrolled in the program. Five kids are in class from the JH Community School, and the Journeys School fields two classes this year with a few returnees.

Students trade off the various jobs found on any location shoot. All film scholars are required to serve as the crew for fellow classmates’ films - cycling through the roles of grips, camera operators and unit production managers. The class culminates with each student’s finished movie - which was screened before the public on June 2. It’s the final project but not the final exam.
“The point of the course is not coming up with a neat film. It’s learning how to make a film,” Chace said.

To that end, Chace allows the kids to make mistakes.
But every year the short films get better and the program expands. Chace was able to hammer out a deal with Wexler Video of Los Angeles for the rental of camera gear, and a grant has also made it possible to secure quality audio equipment. His students shoot in DV or HDV and edit using Final Cut Pro.

Chace would like to see the program expand to the point where every high school department is utilized and integrated into a production. “I would like to see the art department doing the movie posters and the drama class acting in the films, and the band doing the music score,” he said.

As a filmmaker, the Florida native has shot and produced five films, from sports documentaries to TV comedies to 35 mm dramas. His contribution to the Jackson Hole Film Festival (JHFF) this year is “The Linkup.”

He is currently shopping a script for a movie he wrote set in Pinedale, Wyo., about an adjudicated youth program where problem teenagers learn to become adults by working with horses. “It’s ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ meets ‘Black Beauty.’”
Chace said he has a well-respected director of photography who has been to Sundance a few times already lined up. He just needs about $1 million.
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Trey Chace molds future filmmakers | Planet JH News Article: Jackson Hole High School

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