New addition: USU Film Society
When McKayle Law noticed there wasn’t a film club at Utah State University, she decided to make a change.
“That seems like that should be something that a university should offer,” Law said.
Law studies cultural anthropology at USU and sees film as similar to her degree in that it’s all about people and stories. So when she couldn’t find a club on campus, she decided to make one.
“I wanted to create a community where people could come together and watch film,” she said.
That idea now realized, the USU Film Society meets every other Tuesday in the Fine Art-Visual building (FAV) room 150 to watch a different film chosen by the club’s leaders: Law, fellow student Josh Dawson and associate art professor David Wall.
That idea to start the club started a year ago, but Law’s first attempt to get the USU Film Society up and running didn’t work out.
“We needed a professor adviser and I hadn’t met David at the time, so I didn’t really know who to turn to or on what path to go,” she said.
Law didn’t know it at the time, but Wall and another professor wanted to start a film club on their own, but they were told it had to be a student-oriented endeavor. They began looking for students who would be interested but didn’t immediately find any. The idea stagnated until this last summer when Wall met Law through a mutual friend and connected. Law told Wall she had been looking for a mentor to help her start a film society on campus but hadn’t had any luck.
“It was sort of a serendipitous thing really,” Wall said. “Between the two of us we sort of figured out what we should do.”
Wall said the society is true to the student-run nature of the organization, with Law and Dawson doing most of the work. He said other than providing DVDs from his large collection, he doesn’t do a lot.
“Other than booking the room and hitting the right buttons when we start I don’t really feel that I have done much,” Wall said.
“Really he does a lot more than just help us on the side,” Law disagreed. “He’s an integral part of the process. We wouldn’t be doing it without him.”
After Wall and Law met, the creation of the society moved smoothly, partly because they — and Dawson — had the same vision for the club.
“We were hoping we could open the doors to the other world of film which is huge and it so interesting and so fascinating,” Law said.
Dawson said the society offers more thought-provoking films than the general public may be used to.
“It’s an opportunity to let people watch movies on a more intellectual level,” he said.
Wall said they hope the society serves as a venue for showing the grand and powerful medium that film is.
“Millions of people see movies, that is a fantastic element of it,” he said. “It’s also a dangerous element. The uniqueness of the movie is its size and scope. It’s great that we can watch films on Netflix and Hulu, and I celebrate that, but it’s a different experience seeing it on the big screen.”
The unique thing about movies, Wall said, was the peculiar power to reach its audience.
“I think that’s because it’s a combination of three really profound human dimensions to the human consciousness: storytelling, visuals and music,” he said. “And when you put those three things together they touch people in a very profound way. When they’re done well, they are really overwhelming.”
For Wall, getting the society started is the main goal for now, but he has hopes for what it can become in the future.
“Initially our goal was just to cement it as a presence on campus for students to go to,” he said. “Then it becomes a routine part of the cultural life of the university. Once we’ve done that then hopefully it will become part of the wallpaper of the campus.”
Wall said Logan is unique because for a small town it actually has a lot of big screens.
“Logan in one way is sort of odd, because it’s a small town and there are 25 screens. Thats a lot of screens for a small population, but of course most of them are duplicating movies,” he said. “Most of them are mainstream Hollywood films, which I love, but the one thing we don’t have access to is an art cinema. That’s why we try and show that stuff that is less likely for people to have seen, and also just to turn people on to great film.”
Whereas Wall is correct there is no current art cinema in Logan, that has not always been the case. In 2012, the Logan Arthouse and Cinema on 795 N. Main St. permanently closed its doors after a short two-year run. The owners, brothers Jonathan and James Ribera reluctantly closed the doors for financial reasons.
The USU Film Society may prove to outlast the abrupt life of the Logan Arthouse and Cinema due to its connection to USU, which can provide not only a consistent space, but hopefully a consistent audience. Wall said the group currently attending the regular Tuesday events is small — only around 20 people — but he hopes that grows over time. He even has plans to teach a Utah film studies class starting in spring 2018 which will include a filmmaking class project and a small symposium at the end of the class. He and Law also hope to see the USU Film Society it become more of a community based society, with members choosing movies to watch. Wall says the current hurdle faced by the society is simply making its presence known.
“We have an Instagram and a Facebook, but that’s just not my forte,” Law said.
While the society works on its advertising, Law hopes more people hear about the group and experience its broader scope of movies.
“We’re a visual society and we connect with visual storytelling, perhaps even more than books,” she said. “We’ve moved that direction. Which isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. Most mainstream film kind of follows the same formula up, but we try to show films that people maybe haven’t seen before and introduce them to new directors and new forms of storytelling, and to show people that there is a huge world of film and the movie theaters show a tiny sliver of that world.”
—mikeburnham3@gmail.com
@mikeburnham31