CINE: 2009 Educational Advisory Board

Dan Kleinman

Dan Kleinman’s credits as a screenwriter include original screenplays Rage (Warner Brothers), starring George C. Scott, and Welcome to Oblivion (Concorde Films), and the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel The Santaroga Barrier for producer Paul Gurian. The Applicant, a short film that he wrote and directed, was named Best Narrative Short at the Melbourne Film Festival and won the Cine Golden Eagle and the Gold Medal of the Photographic Society of America. An innovator in film education, he taught for twenty years at New York University, where he helped found the Tisch School’s Dramatic Writing Program and served as associate chair of the Graduate Film Program. At Columbia, he was chair of the Film Program (2000-2005) and served twice as acting dean of the School of the Arts (1998-99; 2005-7). He has been a mentor at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and at MAISHA: A Filmmakers Laboratory in East Africa.

At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to be a filmmaker, and why did you?
I was a math major as an undergraduate, and I was as surprised as anyone when I switched from math to filmmaking. The change happened in my senior year of college, when I realized I was spending more time watching movies than going to class. I fell in love especially with two new films, Antonioni's Eclipse and Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (the first Beatles film). The summer before my senior year, I saw the Beatles film a dozen times. Everything about it dazzled me, and still does. It made me think, for the first time, about the creative decisions that go into making a film.

How long have you been making films?
I entered film school in 1965. Film schools were just beginning to play an important role in training feature filmmakers. The studios were no longer offering apprenticeships, there was no home video, and the only way to get your hands on a camera was to enroll in film school. I won a CINE Golden Eagle in 1968 with my thesis film and started my first professional screenplay in 1969.

Who or what are your major influences, stylistically or substantively?
That's hard to answer. The filmmakers I most admire are Buster Keaton and Jean Renoir, but I don't think they've influenced my own work that much.

How long have you been teaching? Why do you like teaching filmmaking? What knowledge and ideals to you try to instill in your students?
In 1968, when I was just out of film school, I taught the first filmmaking course ever offered at my undergraduate alma mater, Princeton. I've been teaching in film schools, NYU and Columbia, since 1974. Why do I like to teach? Mostly because it's exciting to watch students develop new skills. Also, I love breaking a subject down into basic principles, and I enjoy batting around script ideas with anyone, students included.

Has the changing nature of filmmaking - the advent of new media, the changes in distribution, etc. - had an effect on either the way you make films or the way you teach filmmaking?
Not really. I'm working with students who are making short films and writing short or feature-length fiction films -- just as I've done since I began teaching. My own work is still in feature films.

Has it become more important for film students to understand the business component of filmmaking, for example, the need to understand legal concepts such as fair use, rights clearance, etc.?
I don't think it's more important than it used to be, but it's important.

Do you find your students are more interested in new media outlets, television or traditional release, or does this simply vary?
At Columbia, there's a great and growing interest in writing for television. For a writer, there's more work in television than in film, and the quality of television writing, especially drama, is very high now. Our students are beginning to be interested in writing for the web, and we may add a course soon to give them some training.

Full Board

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