“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...

SFUAD’s four film clubs cater to different tastes, but all share a love for people watching movies together.

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!”...