Jehad “JJ” Khateeb, a senior in the Film School, has had a busy and incredibly ambitious senior year.

Amidst the senior graphic design thesis displays in the center of the Fogelson Library, the performing arts students in the musical theater workshop class will be presenting pieces from the “classics” in Lost and Found: The Journey We All Take. Hosting a variety of workshop veterans/seniors including Stefanee Chevalier, Liz Anderson, Bekah Vega, Shenyse Harris and Danielle Reddick, this year’s performance spans from Lost in the Stars to Sound of Music. Interwoven with the selected songs are separate story lines discussing sexual assault, homesickness and various other meaningful dialogues. As always, an integral part of the workshop are the transitions, which give context to each song despite having been taken from different musicals. Utilizing the spiral staircase, pastel beams and the graphic design seniors’ work as a backdrop, Fogelson provides an adequate space for these pieces, though the talent would work seamlessly on a main stage. Featured pieces include “Rain on my Parade” performed by junior Andi Starr, “Lonely House” performed by freshman Lebraska Washington and “Some Other Time” by senior Stefanee Chevalier to name a few. Chevalier and Washington are no strangers to musicals, either. Chevalier performed an outstanding rendition of “I’m the Greatest Star” from Funny Girl at last spring’s workshop in addition to working on this year’s I love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change on the Garson’s main stage along with Washington. After proving himself in last semester’s run of Hotline, Washington displayed his acting, singing and dancing prowess in this year’s main stage musical and executed the workshop in the same manner. Just a freshman, he’s certainly bound for more roles to come. Reddick performed “Good Morning Star Shine” from Oliver after a mesmerizing story about meeting indigenous elderly women at Four Corners. Reddick manages to not only captivate with her presentation, but mystify with tone and movement. This year’s workshop runs around 45 minutes and will be shown at the Fogelson Library at 7 p.m., Friday, May 8 and 2 p.m., Saturday, May 9. An additonal 7 p.m. show May 9 will take place at Pranzo’s...

Departments come together for the interdisciplinary—and very cool—OVF 2015, on the campus of Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

“There is an image that we want to put out there ‘cause we think that’s a powerful tool,” said Janel Blanco Jean-Bart, lead vocalist for the Maya Spectra. Maya Spectra describes themselves as independent electronic pop, though members were hesitant to brand themselves as a “pop” band. “Our strong structures tend to reflect pop song structures, but we’re not exactly doing the Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift type thing,” said Donald Peña who, along with his brother Julian, makes up the rest of the Maya Spectra. Beginning more than a year and a half ago as the Janel Blanco Trio, the Maya Spectra has gone from being strictly defined with a jazz label to branching out into creating original scores, and thus, finding its own unique image. Its latest EP, “Music Box,” was released in December and caught the attention of various music publications, including Ear Milk and Entertainment Weekly, to name a few. Perhaps more importantly, they became a household name amongst SFUAD students —Amy West, a junior in the Film School, being one of them. West heard the EP and found inspiration to practice fire dancing to the song “Quicksand.” After posting a short video to her Instagram account, she began pondering the possibilities of incorporating Maya Spectra’s music and her own talents behind the camera. West consulted her peers in the Film School to see who might be interested and piqued the interest of junior Jakob Anderson. After garnering the support of Anderson and his crew and ensuring that she could create the project for class credit (Advanced Cinematography) , West began drafting a script. Unsure of how the band would respond to her pitch, West took the dive and sent a lengthy message to Maya Spectra’s Facebook group. “At the beginning of the semester, I’m like, ‘I’m gonna ask them! I’m gonna ask the band,’” said a giddy West as she sat with the Maya Spectra during band members’ interview with Jackalope Magazine. It soon became apparent to West that the Maya Spectra had reservations about what kind of image the band would be putting out. What initially began as a fire-dancing music video soon became a visual representation of the Maya Spectra’s compositional narrative.  “[The fire-dancing] went completely out the window, but I think what we’re going to end up with will be a much more satisfying piece with a stronger narrative,“ said a hopeful West. “I think it worked out,” added J. Peña, who along with the rest of the band seemed unashamedly confident in West and Anderson’s work—with just cause: their work is incredible. West’s style borders on Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson, with a confident attention to detail, and with grit in only the places where the story calls for it. Both West and Anderson have shown their filmmaking prowess in the past years, Anderson having been DP for various productions including Alice Under Skies and West having completed a variety of short films including Ritual, which won best sophomore film at last year’s Juried show. The video for “Music Box” plans to shoot the weekend of April 17 and will have a rough cut by the end of the semester. Maya Spectra will be playing at this year’s OVF as apart of an interactive live-music installation—the first of its kind at OVF and will also be performing at Quad Stock the same weekend. The band is also a contender for Best of Santa Fe. Click here to...

Brissa Piñera has been interested in circuses since she was young. She would go to shows on occasion and engage in performances when she was in high school, but her real inspiration for her upcoming short film “Radost” came from a popular circus in Queretaro, Mexico—where Piñera is originally from.

Sleeptaker’s newest album seeks to bridge the gap between self-described metal-heads and those who are just looking for a new genre to listen to.

Jackalope Magazine sits down with Film School alum Bonnie Burchfield, who landed a job working for acclaimed director Godfrey Reggio.

At the time of their interview with Jackalope Magazine, the group of SFUAD film majors had received roughly $700 in crowd funded donations. By the next morning, that number had jumped to $1,390. While that’s still short of the $5,000 goal, the group spearheading a recently launched IndieGogo campaign for their upcoming project, A Film, were more than giddy about the sudden spike in donations. The brainchild of junior film major Alvie Hurt, who serves as writer-director for the project, A Film is a sort of “meta” comedy. The story follows a young writer attempting to write a screenplay for a film. Along the main character’s journey, his hyperactive thought process throws the viewer into a cinephile’s mindset, breaking the fourth wall any chance it can while paying homage to various styles and genres along the way—a fitting story for a group of film majors to undertake. A Film is comprised of all film majors: Hurt, Austin Ross, Nathan Regier and Amy West with the film’s marketing being handled in part by Shantanu Sagara. “It’s literally getting in the head of a writer,” explained Hurt. “—and that’s where it all came [from].” Hurt previously made this project for one of his production classes at the film school, shooting in two days and editing in one. Displeased with its production value and listening to his friend’s excitement for improving the film, Hurt decided to remake the project and raise enough money to meet his visual expectations. “I find it very personal to Alvie’s experience and I think that that’s really cool,” said West, one of the producers of the project. “It’s very relatable, though,” added Regier, the director of photography for A Film, noting that while the story’s main character is a direct reference to Hurt’s experience, viewers can find its appeal in not only the satirical nature of its writing, but the visual parodying of mainstream film styles. “It’s an inside joke that everyone can be apart of,” added West. The way IndieGogo campaigns work is that, contrary to other crowd funding sites like Kickstarter, the money raised equals money earned for the production even if their projected goal is not met. “This is the most money I’ve ever worked with myself,” said Ross, EPK director for A Film, who was not alone with his statement. Hurt, Regier and West all explained the anxiety working with that amount of money, though their nerves seemed undisturbed with camaraderie at a high. A Film isn’t the only crowd-funded project being headed by film majors. ArcadeTV and Waterless Petunias all launched this semester and are currently underway, though the team of A Film doesn’t think competition is the right word to describe the other projects. They expressed their love for all members of the other crews and the excitement for the amount of budding talent within the department. Hurt’s film is set to begin principle photography March 27, following spring break. In addition to A Film, Sagara will be making a film about the making of A Film, to which Hurt added, “Christopher Nolan has nothing on us!”...

Jackalope Magazine recently sat down with senior film student William Khouri whose latest project is ArcadeTV, a comedy series planned for YouTube.

While discussing the integral role networking has in the film industry—a point he would continue to emphasize throughout the rest of his interview with Jackalope Magazine—Film School Chair Chris Eyre readied his computer to unveil his latest directing gig: a drunk driving PSA for the Wyoming Board of Transportation spearheaded by Wyoming First Lady Carol Mead. Eyre had just returned to Santa Fe from the Sundance Film Festival, where he served as both a Film School liaison to the festival as well as an alumnus, having received the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy Award in 1998 for his film Smoke Signals. “It’s important to maintain the network and then bring it back to the Film School,” Eyre explained, going on to mention a casual run-in he’d had with Peter Farrelly, an old friend. On Jan. 17, Eyre’s crew, consisting of (many) Film School students, shot the 30-second Drunk Driving PSA in a single day. “We had a budget here so we paid everyone for their time.” Eyre chuckled, motioning to his computer screen displaying his portfolio of work. “That’s why we’re all here.” Eyre played two other PSAs he had done in 2008 for the state of New Mexico. Similar to his recent work, the NM spots carried a vignetted style that plays like a 30-second feature film. ‘The way that I shoot, you know, I’m always making a movie out of something,” he said. The PSA hosted various paid positions for faculty, students, local acting talent and area film workers, including 13 students, one Film School alumnus and four faculty contributors. Film School Chair Paula Amanda served as producer, alum Seth Fuller was a camera operator and post-production efforts were handled by sophomore film student and Redford Scholar Alec Brown, with color-correcting and sound-mixing by Mark Sewards and Brad Wolfley—both full-time faculty members. “The grip department definitely knew their stuff,” said senior film student Tyler Sherek, who served as a grip/electric production assistant on the shoot, “the stress level was near non-existent.” “I use all different crews…” Eyre said when asked about his process in formulating a team. “There’s a lot of talented people out there.” He expanded by saying he seeks out team members that are more skilled than he. “It’s not always about your tight network of friends, you know, it’s about who makes the best product.” Eyre spoke about his work with reknowned cinematographers Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi), Elliot Davis (Twilight) and most recently Santa Fe resident Dyanna Taylor (North Country) with whom he collaborated on with this particular PSA.  “I have worked with Chris on a project in LA in the past,” said Taylor of her past experiences with Eyre. “Because of his excellent reputation and the various Native American film projects I’ve DPd, our paths have crossed at various times.” Taylor began her career in San Francisco roughly 30 years ago and has since worked on projects across the world, including Africa, Europe and New York City, creating films for ABC, National Geographic and Discovery Channel. She believes that student jobs like these are essential to advancing in the film industry and shed some tips for budding filmmakers.  “Working professionals remember you if you were attentive, worked well and easily and demonstrated your intentions,” explained Taylor, noting her admiration for the students participation. “The students were attentive and fun to have there. My only regret was that I couldn’t spend more time with...

Jackalope Magazine checks in with SFUAD’s new and interim provost, Debra Tervala, about her plans and thoughts for the school.

SFUAD food provider Bon Appetit reassures students following roach incident.