Making a career out of wandering
Andrew Hall, a graduate student of cinema and media studies, is the 2009-2010 Director of Melnitz Movies. After graduating from University of Virginia, Hall traveled the world and aims to bring films from all over the world to UCLA for the program’s biweekly free screenings.
By Frank Shyong
March 1, 2010 9:00 p.m.
Director of Melnitz Movies Andrew Hall openly admitted what many graduating seniors are still afraid to.
“I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do after graduation,” Hall said.
Hall, currently enrolled in the cinema and media studies master program, graduated from the University of Virginia after majoring in history and minoring in astronomy in 2000. However, instead of rushing into a career, he decided to embark upon a meandering journey around the world that took him across three continents over a period of six years.
The only traveling criteria was that the next location be vastly different from the last. After graduation, he worked in a ski resort in Colorado for a year. When that got too cold, he moved to Hawaii for a month. After that he moved to New York, where he taught science to high schoolers in East Harlem for four years and conducted chemistry research at Columbia University during the summer.
“I’m always up for something new,” said Hall, who is originally from Miami. “I’ll probably be drawn to whatever is different from what I know now, eventually.”
In New York City, he discovered an interest in experimental and foreign films. Hall spent long hours in New York City’s museums and anthology film archives, where a five-hour-long film entitled “As I was Moving Ahead I Occasionally Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” awakened him to the possibilities of experimental film.
“In New York, like Los Angeles, there’s a whole world of film opportunities that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Hall said. “The more I watched, the more I was excited about what I was seeing.”
It wasn’t enough for Hall to stay though, and he moved to San Diego with a girlfriend after four years in New York. After they broke up, the wanderlust took over again. He made a living as a private tutor for a while, then left for Southeast Asia for four and a half months, and then South America for three and a half months.
“I realized I was free,” Hall said. “I had a little bit of money socked away, and I took the opportunity that’s rarely available once you get into the real world.”
He befriended strangers on a boat in Thailand, negotiated with undercover police officers in Laos, and watched a Thai horror movie dubbed into Khmer in a raucous Cambodian theater.
It is a strange dichotomy ““ Hall has had adventures like Indiana Jones but is extremely laid back by all accounts.
His assistant, third-year English student Suzannah Powell, said that Hall is one of the most approachable and even-tempered administrators she has worked with in her three years in the office of the director.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him stressed or worried; he handles everything with a lot of grace,” Powell said.
Jennifer Moorman, Hall’s girlfriend and a graduate student in the cinema and media studies program, acknowledged the contrast.
“He’s really spontaneous and adventurous, but also very genuine and kind,” Moorman said.
Hall’s experiences abroad have also guided his programming choices for the biweekly screenings at Melnitz. He’s shown films from every continent except Antarctica and invited directors from a variety of countries.
“What I’m trying to do is to represent the diversity of world cinema, show what’s out there in places beyond Hollywood,” Hall said.
When asked to ascribe a pattern to his wanderings, he thinks hard for a while, but he can not really come up with an answer. It is still unclear to Hall, a lanky, soft-spoken 32-year-old, where his wandering ends and the real world begins. He still spends most of his money on travel, and he is not sure if he wants to continue with his film studies after the Master of Arts program.
One of Hall’s favorite books is a travelogue entitled “Blue Highways: A Journey into America” by William Least Heat-Moon. Heat-Moon wanders around the country in a beat-up white van, steering clear of cities and interstates, and documenting the communities and people. Hall said he has read it several times.
“I don’t think I’m looking for something (on my travels),” Hall said. “But even if I am, I hope I never find it.”
