Dodge graduates at SXSW: Exploring the stories behind alumni films

Photo Courtesy of Masha Andreyev and Evan Thicke

At this year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival (SXSW), Dodge College of Film and Media Arts alumni made a splash. Across 15 films in the festival’s program, graduates from the #4 film school in the U.S. worked in both the film and music spheres. With an alumni network taking on roles like producer, production designer and cinematographer, Chapman’s school was well-represented. 

The conference and film and television festival, held yearly in Austin, Texas, started in 1987 as a music festival. Today, SXSW honors its roots by having a music video category. Evan Thicke ‘19, a creative producing alumnus, has worked in the music video space since graduating and appreciates the genre being recognized at the festival.

“I love that there's music video categories. I think that that's awesome,” Thicke told The Panther. “I think it's so rare for me to see my work play on a screen… because so much of what I do lives on YouTube and Instagram for a couple minutes.” 

The music video Thicke produced was for the song “Lost in Space” by Foster the People, and a large element of the project was its choreography. The production team and dancers had multiple rehearsals, with “Lost in Space” being one of the most intensely choreographed music videos Thicke had worked on in a while.

“There was a famous choreographer and filmmaker named Bob Fauci, and our director really wanted to make something that was Fauci-inspired,” Thicke said. “We brought on this choreographer that had studied Fauci for years and had a lot of intention and focus around making sure that his style of dance was respected.”

The most significant struggle for Thicke in making the project successful was its budget; the crew had a limited amount of time and funds to pull the video off. 

“I think we only had, like, a week, maybe a week-and-a-half, to put this whole job together. And then music video budgets are unfortunately shrinking,” said Thicke. “We wanted things to feel really elevated and surreal and artistic. And we wanted the sets to feel expensive.”

Photo Courtesy of Masha Andreyev and Evan Thicke

The team had to get creative in their production design and fabrication to create the vision they were going for, and Thicke feels that the music video art form as a whole is undervalued.

“I've always loved music videos, ever since I was little,” Thicke said. “I think that it's something that a lot of people fall into, or start off in short form content, because people trust younger creatives when it comes to music videos and even commercials.”

Amongst the many more alumni films screened at the festival was a horror-comedy short titled “How Was Your Weekend?” In the film, an employee breaks an unspoken rule and overshares about his weekend, resulting in chaos. Production design on the project was led by Masha Andreyev, a class of 2024 production design graduate alumnus. 

The story of “How Was Your Weekend?” is set in an office, and Andreyev had the responsibility of helping pick a location and then transforming that chosen location — which ended up being an empty warehouse — into a complete workplace. 

“My job was finding and sourcing a bunch of furniture and props and decorating the space, basically from a totally empty couple of rooms to make it look like a functioning office building,” Andreyev told The Panther.

The project had a very quick turnaround time, with less than a month to prepare. Andreyev was brought on as production designer right after graduating.

“I remember having graduation, and then the next day having to meet with this director and talk about what we needed to do, and then it was just like, sourcing everything, reading the script, running everything by him. So it was really quick,” said Andreyev.

Andreyev loved working with the team from start to finish and enjoyed reading the script, but because of the short’s genre, she didn’t know how far the film would go after shooting.

“I loved the script, I liked the team and I knew that they had some big ambitions,” she told The Panther. “It's such a short thing, and it's kind of a comedy, and comedies aren't always taken super seriously.”

This is the first major film festival Andreyev has had the opportunity to have her work screened at. 

“When I found out that it was screening at South by Southwest, I was really, really excited because it's my first film that's screening at a major festival like this,” Andreyev told The Panther.

The experience of working on “How Was Your Weekend?” for Andreyev, was a reminder of the unpredictable nature of filmmaking. From the timelines to the budgets, things rarely go as planned. To her, it’s incredibly important to approach every project with dedication and care.

“This was such a short project, it was only two days. I kind of got brought on really late, and it kind of just happened, and then was over,” she said. “I think my biggest takeaway is to give your all to every single project you do, because you never know where they're going to go.”

The Lost in Space music video can be viewed on YouTube. The How Was Your Weekend short hasn’t yet been released to the public as it continues its fun through the festival circuit.