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Fall 2020

Movies

Space Shuttle Challenger in space
Spring 2019

WSU Fight Song in space and time

Since the Washington State University Fight Song was composed and adopted in 1919, it has taken flight on a space shuttle, adapted in several musical styles, sung by John Candy in a movie, and taken on great meaning for the Cougar Nation.

Listen to the first known recording of the Fight Song (from 1934), the Fight Song broadcast to the Space Shuttle Challenger to honor astronaut and WSU alum John Fabian ’62, and watch “Tom Tuttle from Tacoma” belt out “Fight, fight, fight for Washington State” in the 1985 movie Volunteers.

Read the history of the fight song in “Fight, fight, fight…” still flying … » More …

Pete's Dragon
Fall 2018

Architect of other worlds

A green furry dragon named Elliot living in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. A twisted and pathetic creature yearning for a ring in Middle Earth. A monstrous ape, an alien jungle, a future dystopian city.

If any of these cinematic creations will capture the imaginations of moviegoers, they need the magic of visual effects created by wizards like Eric Saindon ’96. Saindon’s own imagination was stirred by animated films as a kid, which led to over two decades designing effects and leading teams of visual effects artists on some of the largest blockbusters on screen.

Much of Saindon’s career has been with » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Fall 2016

Briefly noted

 

Conversations: Jury Selection

David L. Crump ’81

A glimpse into the minds of prospective jurors through 50 conversations, this book written for trial lawyers teaches about juror biases and prejudices, and how to connect with potential jurors. Crump is a 1981 political science graduate and successful Pacific Northwest trial lawyer.

 

The Labyrinth House

Mark Rollins ’94

Luthando Coeur: 2014

Rollins’s fantasy novel follows architect Bradley Jensen through a door in a tree and into a mysterious mansion, which he and the other denizens can’t leave.

 

Angel’s Bounty

Directed by Lee Fleming ’07

2015

A dark, gritty comedy shot on the Palouse and … » More …

Fall 2010

Kevin Tomlinson ’75—Back to the garden

On a road trip with a friend in 1988, Kevin Tomlinson stumbled onto what would be the seed of a great story. At the time, he just knew he had to collect it and save it.

“We were out to see the American West,” says the filmmaker, who graduated from the Murrow School in 1975. “It was a Jack Kerouac, Neil Cassady kind of thing.”

Keeping off the main roads and camping from their car, the pair landed in Tonasket where they came across the local food co-op. When Tomlinson perused the bulletin board to get a flavor of the community, he spied a flier … » More …

Summer 2010

Cougs behind the camera

Alan Baker was looking for a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Pullman.

Of course Baker (’94 PhD) knew there were no actual Wright-designed houses in the town, but he needed to find a Modernist, spacious home overlooking the Palouse for an ideal movie location. As a location scout last summer for The Big Bang, an Antonio Banderas thriller in production, and other feature films, Baker wandered through Washington identifying, photographing, and securing places for directors to make movies.

The search for the Wright house in Pullman failed. But as we drove around the area, Baker, a communication professor at South Puget Sound Community … » More …

Fall 2006

The coming of age of teen films

As a teen, Sarah Hentges had Wonder Woman and Princess Leia as her pop culture role models. One flew an invisible plane, and the other lived in another galaxy. Neither offered much of an idea of how a young American woman should be.

As a Washington State University graduate student, Hentges is on the trail of other American teen icons like Natalie Wood’s Deanie, who suffers sexual repression in the 1961 Splendor in the Grass, and Lindsay Lohan’s 2004 Lola, who is  striving to be the center of attention in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. She has dedicated much of her post-graduate education to … » More …

Summer 2006

Busting out

One rainy afternoon this spring filmmaker Francine Strickwerda entered the El Diablo coffee shop in Seattle. She ordered a cubano latte and then sat at a table overlooking Queen Anne Avenue. She looked around the busy room. The scene brought back memories of a time, a few years before, when she was working on her first documentary, a film about breasts. “I wrote a lot of grants for Busting Out sitting in this coffee shop,” she said.

Five years in the making, the hour-long movie is, in her words, “a strange mix of pop, politics, and history, and economics, and health, all these things that … » More …