Breaking and entertaining

The script of “Little Miss Sunshine” called for “violent pelvic thrusts.” And that’s exactly what Valerie Feris and Jonathan Dayton, codirectors of the movie, demonstrated for Career Development 181, amid appreciative chuckles. As guests of the class, they had also a few moves to show the students about balancing creativity with business in Hollywood.

Sandra Caruso, professor of the class since its inception six years ago, first suggested the class to the dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television after receiving too many phone calls from disillusioned theater graduates who weren’t prepared to market themselves in a business setting.

At the beginning of the quarter, students choose a challenging but reachable goal to work toward. This could include getting headshots, signing with an agent or landing a job as an extra for a day.

Emmalinda MacLean, a third-year theater student, believes the class gives students the tools necessary to break into the theater and film industries.

“You have to find your own work, and it requires you to be self-driven. That’s really hard to motivate yourself to do, and it’s scary. This class is, for one thing, a way to force you to get your headshots and resumes and find an agent,” MacLean said.

“The other piece of this class that makes it so great is it exposes you to opportunities to accomplish those goals.”

Normally a host to local casting directors and agents, the class ran into a scheduling snag when overburdened casting directors recovering from the writer’s strike could not find time to participate.

Luckily for Caruso and her students, UCLA alumni have put the professor in touch with top names in the film industry to fill the gap.

This quarter’s guests included, among others, Marc Hirschfeld, executive vice president of casting for NBC, and Rick Kurtzman, agent to Will Smith and Greg Kinnear.

Seated casually in a semicircle, students asked the guest speakers questions about the nature of the industry and the work that they had produced.

Guest speaker Oren Aviv, president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, did not soften the frustrations of the industry when he spoke to the students.

“The marketing side only cares about commerce, and the creative side only cares about art. There’s a classic clash of commerce and art,” he said.

Dayton urged students to resist the stifling restrictions that business puts on their creativity by remaining true to their passion.

“Make sure you find time to do what you love and stay connected to that love. You will have it drilled out of you by various experiences. If you find pure moments where you’re constantly renewing that, then that flame won’t be extinguished,” he said.

Hearing from the guest speakers has affirmed MacLean’s fears about the difficulty of standing out in a city teeming with talent. But through the wisdom of seasoned professionals, she is learning to find comfort in the uncertainty that her future career promises.

“It was kind of reassuring in a way when (Dayton and Feris) said the nature of a creative job is that you’re never going to feel like you know exactly what you’re doing ““ that they’re just as green as (the students) are because we’re always doing something for the first time,” she said.

Novelty extends into the business side of entertainment as well. Monique Leon, a fourth-year sociology student, is using YouTube and MySpace, Web sites that Dayton dubs the “calling card” of this generation.

“What we did is we started watching videos on YouTube and seeing what types of videos get the most hits. We’re trying to film similar stuff that shows our talents, gets a lot of hits, and is appealing to directors and agents,” Leon said.

Though Caruso prefers her students to be seniors, juniors may petition for the class. She welcomes students majoring in any field into her class but warns that Career Development 181 is not formatted for passive students who wish to be entertained by guests.

“They have to actively have questions for the guests, and part of their job is to follow up with these leads. I have certainly seen through the years the students who have contacted the guests and stayed on it have almost all gone somewhere and been successful and gotten jobs,” she said.

Past students who have gone on to success include Blake Berris of “Days of Our Lives” and Leslie Lewis Sword, who performed her one-woman revue, Leslieland, to a sold-out off-Broadway audience.

“Just being talented is not enough. It’s just a small part of it, really,” Caruso said. “They have to be creative about getting jobs and not miss opportunities.”