Student filmmaker does 'Final Cut' of ambitious horror lm

"As a kid, I saw 'E.T.' when I was 7. Then I picked up my dad's 8-millimeter camera, and me and my brother made a four-minute 'Return of E.T.'"

For LSA junior Mike Stern, the rest is history. Stern has spent several years creating his own films.

"I made short films in high school. I'd always be doing a video project and trying to get away with not writing papers," Stern said.

After attending Michigan State University for a year, Stern transferred here "because there was no film community there." He said the situation at the University is quite different.

"It's pretty exciting. It's got some talented people," Stern said. "Between the Michigan Theater and the different student film festivals, it's a pretty good place to be. And the interest in student filmmaking keeps getting larger and larger."

Courtesy of Mike Stern Mike Stern directs and stars in the horror film, "The Final Cut."

Last year, Stern created the film "Thief" and worked as a cameraman on "Scratch," both of which won awards in student film festivals. This year, Stern's major project is an ambitious 30-minute film called "Final Cut."

"We're using film - it's not like you just pick up a video camera and start making a movie," Stern said. "We're using Panavision cameras, which is what the studios use; there's a 30-person crew and about 100 extras."

A project of this size is unusual for a student film, Stern said.

"It's not a Hollywood production, but the breadth of production is definitely Hollywood in scope," Stern said. "We're doing the same amount of work that a studio puts into making a two-hour film."

Production on "Final Cut" will take almost three months, although making a film usually takes much longer. "We've been killing ourselves," Stern said, pointing out that the cast and crew work for 12 hours at a time, on average.

The film's cast and crew are largely composed of students. Stern said he had been "lucky enough to work with really talented people."

"Final Cut," which stars LSA seniors Robbie Simon and Dana Swinehart, Engineering sophomore Stacey Waxtan, and Music sophomore Charlie Jett, is a horror movie involving a group of student filmmakers.

"It's about our film group and how we're making a self-reflexive horror film," Stern said. "The events in the film start to happen in real life, and there's a race to edit the final film." The "final cut," Stern explained, is a Hollywood term for the final editing on a film.

Though Stern conceded that "it's kind of easy to do a blood-and-guts movie," he said he would like to work in other film genres as well. "I'd like to do a romantic comedy next," he said.

As might be expected, Stern had definite opinions on his favorite films. "'Field of Dreams' is my favorite movie of all time," he said. "It makes me weep - it's a touching movie. And 'Back to the Future' - as a comedy, I always go back to that."

Perhaps surprisingly for an independent filmmaker, Stern said the colossal Hollywood epic "Titanic" was his favorite movie of the past year.

"The film department would say it's Hollywood crap, but I like Hollywood crap," Stern said. "And I'm a big James Cameron fan. I just didn't realize how big a geek he was till he got up there and made a fool of himself."

Will Stern someday rise to Cameron's prominence in Hollywood? He said he plans to move to Los Angeles after graduation and "get to work."

"I'll probably end up working in development - the story department, reading screenplays," Stern said.

But it's probably safe to say that Stern will eventually return to his roots in filmmaking.

"I like the collaborative part of filmmaking," Stern said. "I'd call myself a storyteller before I called myself an artist. With film, you can work with actors and create visual movements with the camera and tell your story. If I can share a smile with someone through my films, then I'm a happy man."

04-09-98